Looking at New Grief

 

I looked new grief in the face today. I hurt. I saw the pain, the hopelessness, the deep sorrow of grieving a child. His eyes were tired, and then he laid his head down on the mailbox that stood between us, my neighbor and me. The fatigue of grieving covered his face and his body was bent with the heaviness of it all. This is his second loss, the twin to the son he lost thirty years ago. This one comes with trapping and thoughts unlike the first. It’s hit him hard. There are no more children, his wife is dead. He’s alone. He’s lonely. He’s sad. I ache for him. I want to make it all better for him, but I know I can’t, this is his journey.

He says I’m strong. He sees me breathing, walking, he believes me to be strong. I share that my times of wailing and crying are done in private, and it hurts so badly to open your heart and allow the sorrow to be, to know the absence, to acknowledge the death, to understand all that was lost and to have it seared into the soul and vanquish hope. It’s darkness. The grief beats on me until I sleep. Then I wake. Then I walk. It’s cathartic. It’s wicked. It has to be done. We must walk through grief, no tip-toeing around this bastard. Time makes the pain a little softer and I’ve learned to tuck it in its hiding place a bit more, but then, there are times it sits ever so boldly on my chest and radiates sadness through my entire soul, shuttering the door to hope.  Grief and I have a very intimate relationship, sometimes I submit, and sometimes I conquer. Sometimes we dance.

Some people believe that if you are an elderly parent or your child was an adult that the loss is not so profound.  But that is a falsehood; all deaths bring unique challenges to those who must incorporate the death into their living. A child, stillborn, newborn, infant, toddler to teenager to old age… we should not sing to the dead body of our child. We should not bury our children.

I know the pain in this man’s eyes and I want so much to lessen his sorrow and open the window to a gentler tomorrow. I know I can’t. I hate that he knows this place.

I sat in the pew at church and watched an old man shuffle out the pew for communion, his hand shaking with some neurological dysfunction. His daughter reached over and gently took his hand, guiding him into the aisle. It was such a simple act of compassion, so very simple, yet it seared through me like hot iron. That compassionate hand of a child or grandchild I will never know. The loneliness of an empty home booming with silence, the barrenness of being old and alone, it scares me. It scares my neighbor. I know of no balm for that pain.

I was happy with my life, he said, I was happy with what I had.

I was too, my friend. I was too.