How do we mourn what we’ve lost?
To the Ancient Greeks, the answer lay in elegy. Derived from the Greek word “elegos,” meaning a song of lament, elegy was a form of poetry to commemorate the loss of a loved one. The lyrical genre began with elegiac couplets (a unique rhyme scheme), but over time it transitioned to encompass a broader range of art defined by its structural arc of lament, praise and consolation.
For a poet to move on from such tragedy, they had to acknowledge their state of grief, celebrate their subject’s life and provide a sense of closure in the consolation. However, a consolation was rarely comforting. Rather, it served as a reflection that recentered the artist as an individual beyond who they mourned. It bridged the worlds of poetry and reality, allowing someone to confront their very real grief in a safer space where their language was free to roam, explore and scream without judgment or consequence.
The concept of elegy was one of the few things that, in my opinion, antiquity got right. Dealing with grief is an undoubtedly complex issue, but it requires a place where people are free to process their emotions in some sort of community – whether it is through speech or writing.
Grief, however, is not limited to the loss of a singular individual. Social scientists observe the phenomenon of social death, where people are disconnected from their fellow citizens or peers and thus lose agency and individuality. Losing the social fabric of one’s community can often come with the process of grief: particularly when suffering alone, we often self-isolate, convinced others will fail to understand and further ostracize us.
Such sadness does not benefit from singular pain. In our increasingly isolated society, adults are failing to turn outwards when they struggle. This problem is only magnified at a place like Stanford, where the grind culture is second to none and we’re pressured to maintain a facade of nonchalance in the face of demanding schoolwork and extracurriculars.
When you add political turmoil, mass deportation and cuts to health research and care, students experience profound loss on an individual, familial and communal level. Curling into themselves in an attempt to hide from the issues threatening their lives, they cannot process their grief in a safe space. They confront it alone, failing to elegize a loss of life, safety or innocence and thus failing to move on.
The first place I spoke about my feelings on the 2024 election was in my friend’s bedroom at 3 a.m. My best friend had biked over in the middle of the night to be with me as we processed the news. I was mourning a world that didn’t yet exist, but one that I had hoped to one day help bring about. In our lament, we confronted the reality of the next four years together.
On the morning of November 6, I called my mom and cried. She was already planning the next protest she’d attend, the noise of outrage coming from my hometown emanating through the phone. In contrast, campus felt overwhelmingly silent. The grief I held was pushed back into me, with no explicit outlet for lament, praise or consolation. I was unable to effectively mourn, and therefore unable to effectively move on. I had to find places for elegy on my own.
Joining a community organizing group on campus, Education & Democracy United (EDU), I found a form of praise. To rally political engagement among students, much of our work has centered positive messaging that encourages rather than dissuades, pushing empowerment over fear. It’s easy to revert to cynical pessimism, but as James Baldwin says, “I can’t afford despair… you can’t tell the children there’s no hope.” Choosing to hope is a political statement against despair. The arc of elegy is well on its way.
I’m not sure if I’ve yet achieved consolation. But I do know that without my support network, my community, I cannot process my emotions in the way they deserve to be confronted. Without the spaces to openly, freely share our good and bad feelings, we cannot move on. We cannot heal from grief, we cannot be consoled.
To effectively build a culture of open communication and acceptance rather than imprisonment by those who inflict harm on us, causing us to lose what we love, we must foster spaces where such vulnerable language is the norm. This means engaging with peer health resources like SHPRC and SHARE, this means connecting with your friends when you or they need support. This means establishing norms that make conversation around mental health, particularly grieving, standard instead of a rare occurrence.
Such initiatives can be facilitated by institutions on campus, but it’s also the responsibility of each student to initiate a culture of compassion. It starts with each of us, providing the audience for each other’s elegies so we can collectively grieve, console and eventually move on.