Processing Grief through Games

A few weeks ago, Josh from Intelligame asked the chat about what games had changed their lives, or what games we had changed the ways that we saw things. I sat there for a moment thinking about it and my initial few games were Dandara, Celeste, and Hollow Knight. And then I've had a lot going on in my own life and in the lives of many people who I care about and have been thinking about grief and living with it quite a bit. And I remember a game that has continued to echo in my thoughts ever since I loaded it up. 

Spiritfarer is a game that I will never forget. 

It is a game that will make me cry every time I play it. 

It is a game about grief, helping people through impossible moments, and about moving on. 

Grief is something that I've thought a lot about over the last couple of years. It's got a lot of different forms for me. Grieving the versions of myself that I grew out of, or lost, or am worried that I won't ever get to meet. Grieving loved ones who've died and left behind echoes. Grieving the world and the many ways it has failed the people who live here. 

If I'm honest, grief and grieving, particularly when it's related to people dying, is something that I have always deeply struggled with. It's hard to imagine how to move on in a world that's missing the person I loved. Hard to think about the things I won't get to share with them. As time passes, the grief changes, but it remains. It'll hit in unexpected moments. Remembering the texts I used to receive every holiday from a dear friend. Remembering the ways that the person and I would joke with each other. Passing by something and thinking how much that person would have loved to see it. And every time it feels like a wound opened fresh. There's a part of me that is glad for the grieving. It's a reminder of how much I loved the person who's no longer here. But mostly I'm sad in that moment and unsure all over again. 

And so I have also wanted to learn more ways of dealing with grief. Over the years, I've found an unexpected plethora of resources in video games. It seemed that, in the time that I needed it most, all the video games I was playing were about grief, whether directly or indirectly. Celeste, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, Broken Lens, Dreamscaper, South of Midnight, and, the catalyst for this piece, Spiritfarer. Just to name a few of the games that I've played that have grief as a main theme. 

In Spiritfarer, your goal is to help spirits move on. And as you play, you realize that each character has a personal connection to the main character, Stella. You are helping her loved ones find the courage to take the next steps into the unknown. And man, each character has their own heartbreaking (and occasionally heartwarming), goodbye. I don't want to spoil too much but the game also does something interesting and shows different ways that people leave our lives. Sometimes, it's after a long journey together. Sometimes, they leave us with no warning and no final goodbye. Sometimes, they don't remember us by the time they leave. And each version leaves its own kind of scar and its own echo that lasts for the rest of our lives. 

That's the part that I know I'm never really ready for. We've all heard phrases like "time makes it easier" or "be thankful for the time you had with them." And those things can be true. And we are thankful for the time we had with people. But that does not mean that we need to move quickly on from mourning and grieving them. And it doesn't prepare us for when grief hits like a truck outta nowhere. 

What Spiritfarer helped me do was kinda formulate my own goodbyes, especially for people who I didn't get to say it to. It helped me think about the things that I loved about the person and hold on to those pieces when I remembered them. 

Life and time also taught me to not hold on too tightly to the grief. To know that it would still flare up and that I could ride the wave of mourning what I loved and continue to love. To realize that just living in that grief meant that I wasn't letting myself continue to really live.

To be honest, I don't have a great wrap up for this piece. I suppose it's like grief in that way, there's no tidy ending. I know that I needed to process some of the things that have been happening recently and writing is most often how I process. Like I said, I've been thinking about grief a lot lately and all the ways it shows up in my life. So maybe part of this is also to acknowledge the grief that others are going through as well. I hope that you have people around you who can hold you up as you grieve whatever it is that you have lost. I think there will be more pieces from me about grief in the coming months.

I recommend that everyone play Spiritfarer. However, if you have lost someone recently, I may encourage you to give yourself some space from that before loading it up. The entire game is about saying goodbye to people Stella loves. It can definitely be triggering for people that you may have lost. But it might also give you the chance to see grief in a new way. 

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Thank you to Josh (Intelligame), who's been a huge encouragement and inspiration when it comes to thinking more deeply about games and the world. It's partly due to him that this piece ever actually got written. And to my friends who are also grieving, know that I am grieving with you.