Grief...Reloading the Bar

 Grief...inconsistently consistent 

August 9th, 2024, CrossFit competitor with worldwide rankings, Lazar Dukic lost his life in the first competition of the 2024 CrossFit games. It shouldn't have happened. It was nothing shy of a tragedy and one no one fathomed, even more so for an athlete of his stamina and strength. 


I won’t pretend to have heavily followed Lazar and I in no way knew him on a personal level. However, as a human for one, and as a passionate member of the CrossFit world, it was a news that hit deep and hard. It shouldn't have happened.


August 9th, 2009 I awake to a phone call that my best friend had been tragically killed in a car accident. About to turn 19, and I had never experienced grief or pain and shock of that kind. It shouldn’t have happened. When she got in her car to go home, she was probably a total of 2 mins from pulling her car in her family garage. It shouldn’t have happened. The days ahead of me were not hard. They were excruciating. I had not been prepared or taught how to deal and go through something like that. Are any of us? I didn’t know how to grieve. I didn’t even know the definition of it. 

There are two motions to grief that I’m familiar with that are typically instinct responses. Full throttle and paralysis.


Full throttle, being that your body is moving in the realm of adrenaline and motion. You can’t stop bc there is a point of focus, yet the force behind your movement is so harsh and so aggressive that what is internal perseverance, in reality feels like out of body chaos. What I mean by this is that there is no pause from the point of grief initially. You keep your mind on what you’re there for, all while your emotions are steering the ship. Emotional adrenaline. This functions temporarily but cannot be long term. 


Then there is paralysis. The moment your processing kicks in so fast you are sinking in the trauma. You can’t move, you can’t progress. You can’t even believe the reality of what you’re living. This also functions temporarily but cannot sustain. 


With both of these options come self-doubt and regret although neither warrant it. Full throttle, brings the internal war of “why am I not stopping” “how am I able to keep going in this reality. “ “do I not care enough” “do people think I’m not in pain?” Where so the paralysis brings the internal feelings of letting others down by not being able to keep going. “I wasn’t there for them like I should” “I couldn’t do the things I needed to and hurt others or disappointed them” “I have failed the life lost and those left to pick up the pieces”…


The reality is grief bears differently for each person. And sometimes we forget that. We define the image of grief usually the way we most naturally deal with it, but it’s like child birth. You can go through the same thing with the same doctors and yet have experiences and feelings through it that are worlds apart. It’s a mysterious thing, that you can relate so closely and lose the same thing, and yet the only person that feels the depth of despair and war raging inside of yourself…is yourself. 


My heart was heavy Friday. For my community and for a family I didn’t even know. My soul was heavy bc the thing about grief is, that years will go by and the seasons will shift, but you can bet your buck that it will come back. Maybe not personally to the degree you experienced, but even being on the outside looking in of the pains of those around you. 


My best friend’s name was Erica. She was beautiful and smart. She was a college student at USC. She taught me to not compromise for the sake of fitting in. She was going to walk with me through every season of life and I her…and then August 9th came and instead, I welcomed without a choice, the reality that tomorrow isn’t promised and this world is hard. 


I still question my state of grief to this day and not grieving “correctly”…but then I am reminded there is no wrong way to hurt and heal. 


On Friday, I watched as a community pressed forward to compete and I watched as some of the community stepped out and did not. I watched as people had opinions and correction to their decisions. And I grieved, bc I felt their full throttle and paralysis. And I know that despite there being no wrong way to process and heal, they will war with their mind for time to come telling them different. Trying to convince them that they failed in their pain and loss. 


Grief is inconsistently consistent. It can not be erased or removed but it can show its face in various forms and unpredictable times. 


My heart misses my friend and remembers the goodness of the season I had with her. 15 years later and i find the weight of grief reloaded on the bar….

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