“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.” C.S. Lewis
Last week, on a day when I paid my bills, went to the dentist, and did exactly 4 loads of laundry, I got a phone call that let me know a close relative had advanced ovarian cancer. I slept fitfully that night, woke to a beautiful day, made some strawberry rhubarb jam, met with clients, did paperwork, ran errands, and somewhere in the flurry of the day and evening a text came through on my phone. One of my daughter’s classmates, an endearing 9 year old with a huge smile–aneurism, stroke, coma. This morning, she was gone.
I am ashamed to say where my mind went first. How can I prove to myself that I am safe from this? How can I keep the evil from crossing my doorstep? Too often, when I watch the news of the abuser or the murderer, I probe for details and breathe a sigh of relief, realizing that they grew up in a home without eating dinner together at night, bedtime stories or homework help. They are not like us. In our home, it wouldn’t happen.
Yet it can.
These events are reminders, hidden among the mundane, of how precarious it all really is. On a beautiful summer day, a beautiful child can breathe her last breath, while her loving, caring, did-everything-right parents look on helplessly. At times, we are all powerless. Good wishes, prayers, love, support of others, expert medical care and technology could not stop what happened. No foresight, equipment or medication could prevent it. I am not in control; the world is not safe or fair.
All I can do is put one clumsy, halting foot in front of another. Explain to my child what has happened to her friend. Cry with her. Hold her. Show her that she can go on, even when there is grief in her stomach instead of hunger. Be honest without giving her more information than she asks for. Allow her to experience her grief in her own way–her loss is different from mine. Learn along with her that fear is not the answer, but gentle acceptance of whatever comes, good and bad. My behavior will teach her far more than any words or age appropriate books on death. And it may teach her about life, and how we can cope with the overwhelming, the unexplained, the unfair, the unchangeable. With courage and faith.
Then, I choose busy-ness–because really, what else is there? What can help when people you care for are numb beyond belief, stricken with pain that periodically erupts from their gut and overwhelms every bit of their beings? A card? Flowers? Having been in that dark place myself, more than a few times, I still have no answer. There is no perfect, sensitive offering that eases this fresh wound. There are no right words.
In the first week or two, the bereaved are in shock. What I do now is more for me, distracting and focusing energy. So, I cook a meal, try to find comforting books, write notes on cards that I then don’t send because they sound so cheap and trite. I do my best to say, “You are not alone,” when really, honestly, they are as alone as a person can ever be. This is life; it is unfair. It stinks.
In the months to come, that will change. Many of the others around them will have tired of the drama and the sadness, and moved back to the concerns of everyday life. Grief has her own agenda. It is usually about the time when the support wanes that the worst of it begins. Unpredictable waves of emotion, triggered by innocuous details of life; and deep, paralyzing sadness make it difficult to make it through some days. Holidays and anniversaries can be unbearable, especially since the rest of the world whirls by, not noticing that this is her birthday, one year since they sat in the hospital and held her hand for the last time, the day she would have graduated from 8th grade. Her existence is fading away, fueling the worst fear of all—losing her forever.
That is when a dinner, an invitation to come over for a cup of tea, taking the children for the afternoon, or a thoughtful book can make all the difference. I will write on my calendar and save the card for 3 months from now, when their mailbox will no longer be packed, and send another on the anniversary of the death. Ditto with flowers. If I am lucky, I will have the opportunity to listen patiently, again and again, to the same stories. Look at the photos, even when it seems morbid to be living in the past and hanging on to the sadness. Include memories of her in conversation, even though it may bring on tears. This is what heals.
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” – Henri Nouwen