Grieve Leave Community Blog: Grief Came to the Wedding Too

Compassion on the Rocks

“Grief is like the ocean,” they say.

I remember coming across that famous quote at a time when I felt like I was drowning in my own grief.

If you don’t know it, here it is:

Grief is like the ocean.
It comes in waves, ebbing and flowing.
Sometimes the water is calm,
And sometimes it’s overwhelming.
All we can do is learn to swim.
— Vicki Harrison

That’s the advice: learn to swim.
Oh. Okay. Thanks for that.

The scary part about grief, is that it feels like it will never leave. That it won’t soften or shrink with time. It won’t become more sympathetic. It will come back with the same stormy ferocity. Waves pounding the shore again and again. Just when you think you’re in calm waters… no. Just when you think you’ve learned to swim… the weather turns, and the sea heaves. You’re tossed and drawn under again.

Grief doesn’t ask permission. It crashes in.

Two weeks into my sobriety, I attended my first sober wedding. Or rather, I was sober. The wedding most certainly wasn’t.

I was a little nervous about how to go about it. Attending a wedding without getting drunk? Erm… right… how? This was an entirely foreign concept to me. But I was committed to my newfound sobriety and, as they say in recovery circles, “never question the decision.”

It was at this wedding, amid sequins and champagne toasts, that I witnessed grief in its rawest form.

I showed up with my husband by my side, ready to wing-it the best I could. It actually felt fine. Easy in fact. I made nice with other guests, admiring all the beautiful garms that come with cross cultural Indian weddings. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my hands though during the cocktail hour, but I muddled through. Soon enough, we were guided to take our seats for the start of the official wedding reception.

There were fun family introductions, an amazingly choreographed dance with the bride and her besties to some banging Bollywood tunes. It was a great start to the party.

Soon came the speeches.

Champagne was poured and my friend, the most beautiful bride, gracious and glowing, gave a heartfelt speech, thanking everyone for being there. She paused to honour those who couldn’t be. Her voice trembled as she shed a tear naming a few beloved friends and family who had passed away.

Across the room, at my 12 o’clock, a young man began to unravel.

He was gently rocking in his chair, fists clasped tightly as if in desperate prayer, his breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat. He looked like he couldn’t breathe. The pain on his face was unmistakable. I had no background, but I just knew in my gut… the bride had said his wife’s name.

That man had been hit by a wave. He was drowning.

Later in the evening, as the night gave way to music, dancing and making brand-new wedding pals, I found myself in a friendly little circle with the bride’s sister and, fatefully, the same man from that table.

Someone asked what I was drinking. I held up my plastic cup of ‘sweet tea’, which had become my anchor for the night, and decided to be honest.

“I’m actually taking a break from drinking,” I said, smiling. “I’m sort of rethinking my relationship with alcohol at the moment, and today is Day 14. And… this is my first sober wedding!”

They were warm, curious, encouraging. We laughed and chatted about our relationships with booze, weddings, and the tangled social and cultural expectations that come with both.

The bride’s sister was pulled away to take a photo and I was left standing alone with the man I’d seen struggling earlier.

Without warning, he said:

“I’d been 54 days sober until about two hours ago.” He took a sip of his beer.
“I didn’t expect to hear my dead wife’s name tonight.”

It was one of those moments where there’s nothing to say except the truest thing.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said gently, trying to meet his eyes, though he couldn’t quite meet mine.

He nodded and then began to talk.

He told me about his sober journey, how he’d been enjoying it and how it had also been quite hard at times. He made a lot of jokes. The laughter he wrapped around his words felt thin, like a veil that couldn’t quite cover the truth in his eyes.

I know that kind of humour well.

I just stood there, listening.

We were, after all, at a wedding. A man grieving his wife. Me, finding my way through early sobriety. Neither of us entirely sure how to be in that moment, except human. Faltering, messy, humans.

There’s a strange intimacy in meeting someone at their emotional edge. I found myself wondering: was he telling me this because he felt he needed to explain himself? Because I was sober and he had relapsed? Maybe he was reaching for understanding, validation, or just someone to witness what was happening for him.

There was a pause. I took a breath and without giving it too much thought, I reached out my glass, clinked my sweet tea to his beer and said:

“You know what, mate? I admire that you’re even here. It’s really nice to meet you. Cheers.”

I wanted to reach out and comfort this stranger holding tightly to his beer, knowing that anything I said or did would be wholly inadequate in the depths of his sorrow.

He smiled, laughed, and took another sip. Soon, others joined us, and we were swept back into wedding party shenanigans.

There are no rule books for grief. No rafts. No life jackets. So who are we to say how someone tries to stay afloat?

There was a time I used to pour wine onto my grieving heart like it was medicine. But all it did was numb me. Disconnect me. That promise of relief? Apparently buried somewhere near the bottom of the bottle, if it exists at all.

Because that’s the illusion, isn’t it? That alcohol can feel like a balm. A lifeline of sorts. When in truth, it’s more like a heavy stone, disguised as a lifebuoy. It pulls you deeper into your despair.

Who is anyone to say how hard it must be to cope with that kind of loss, though? And then to attend a wedding after that sort of loss? I mean, seriously. Hats off to anyone who’s ever had to do that.

I like to think that I could navigate loss without drinking now. But the truth is, we don’t know what we don’t know.

My first sober wedding taught me that I didn’t need alcohol to have fun at weddings (or in life, as it turns out). I didn’t feel left out or like I was missing anything. The experience gave me a little more confidence in my ability to navigate the unknown.

What I do know is this: at that wedding, surrounded by booze, banter, and bhangra, a stranger was drowning in his grief.

He needed compassion. And he got it.
With all my heart.

Perhaps we’re all just doing our best to swim. Or simply stay afloat when we’re lost at sea while the ocean is, well… the ocean.