On Grief

To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven

It’s been almost 20 years since my dad died.  He was a life-time smoker, diabetic, almost 60.  The typical profile of someone with pancreatic cancer.  Given two to four months, he made four.  We started grieving the moment we heard the diagnosis.  My older brother relied on humor and verbosity.  My younger brother, a continent away, brooded.  He came home for a visit, his last visit, and was cheerful and helpful, pensively watching my dad.  My Mom was pragmatic.  She dealt with the immediacy of each day.  Dad’s personal care, finding things for him to eat, keeping him comfortable.  She kept busy with the busy-ness of his daily life.  I was angry.

Grief hits everyone in its own way, in its own time. Shock. Desolation. Fear. Anger.  It rolls over us in waves, tossing us breathless.  We try to right ourselves but get upended again and again.  We trudge through a fog unable to focus on the minutiae of everyday life.  I’ve found that work is a refuge, a distraction from our thoughts, from the weight of loss and sorrow.  Babies are another refuge.  Nothing heals the soul like a baby.  Fresh, plump, wide-eyed softness, a reminder that life goes on.   Pets are another comfort.  My cat  always knew when I was sad or sick.  My Hodie kitty would sit on my crossed legs, gentle companion, still and quiet. 

Grief is a strange monster.  Friends and family don’t know how to approach, what to say.  Often, you will see a pulling away.  Not abandonment so much as fear of being touched by the grief itself.  We’re afraid of “catching” it, running from the discomfort of grief.  Funny thing, no one is immune.  No matter how far we run it will find us. 

The best we can offer is companionship.  After my best friend Helen died I was desolate, in a cloud.  When I returned to work my co-worker, Becky, kept coming into my office and taking work from my in box, “Who put this in here, this isn’t yours,” she’d say.  Not a word about Helen, not asking if I was ok.  Just, let me lessen your load.   Let me share your burden.  A male co-worker was at a loss.  He offered me money to buy a soda (I’m addicted to Diet Coke).  He practically threw the dollar on my desk!  Desperate to help.  It actually made me laugh. Now I look back with gratitude.  His desire to reach out, in spite of his own discomfort, was touching, a gesture as tender as a hug.

Grief is sly.  You will feel good, feel positive.  Yet, stealthily another wave of grieve will knock you down.  You will live and relive the loss, the pain and fear.  Begrudgingly, that will pass.  Though another lurks in the darkest night, waiting to engulf you.  In time, you will find good day.  Good weeks even.

One day I realized it had been one, two, three days since I had thought of Dad.  I felt guilty for “forgetting” to think of him, forgetting to grieve.  And then one day the guilt was gone.  It was ok.  I think of my Dad often, daily even.  Sometimes with regret, sadness, anger.  But I have learned to swim through those waves. 

It's a myth that you get over a loss.  It is something you get through.  I remember days when I was enraged to see people going about their lives. Didn’t they know an amazing man had died.  Can’t they see the depth of our loss.  Time ticks on.  We come and we go.  This loss touched me.  Tomorrow someone else will be swept away.  And someone else after that.  Because that is life.  Like a river, it ebbs along never stopping.  Some pools eddy, swirl around and around, stuck.  Then one day it finds its way back.  And so do we.