The sovereign doctor of our grief

 I never know what to say about grief. I can tell you what Montaigne said about grief. He said two things that might be helpful.

First, Montaigne said grief is like a runaway horse. The best thing you can do is let it run. It’ll will tire and run out of steam. The worst thing you can do is to try to rein it in. It just makes the runaway beast more explosive.

Second, Montaigne says you can’t fight grief by consoling people. But you can sometimes distract them.

When he was touched by grief, Montaigne made himself fall in love, which took him away from his loss.

The same applies everywhere: some painful idea gets hold of me: I find it quicker to change it than subdue it. …

That is Nature’s way when it grants us inconstancy; for Time, which she gives us as the sovereign doctor of our griefs, above all achieves its ends by furnishing our powers of thought with ever more different concerns.

• Source: The quotation comes from “On Diversion” in Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, translated by M.A. Screech; London: Penguin Books, 1993, p. 941.