On Grief and Condolences

 

I'm old. It's expected. People have been dying around me though since I was five when a classmate, cute little Geraldine with her shiny black hair and fringe, died of meningitis.

I lost Eithne,  a sweet friend, when we were nine. She was in the kitchen early in the morning and turned on the electric fire and her nightie caught fire. Pre fireproof clothing days. A terrible, agonizing death. I was devastated. Every Tuesday after school we caught the bus together into the city, she for piano, me for elocution. She was quiet and so was I.

And on through the years, death becomes more of a familiar as we age.

One of my closest friends out here lost her identical twin sister a few weeks ago. Due to my health and The Plague, we hadn't gotten physically together until this evening for dinner.

She is destroyed. She is 8 years younger than me. I had brought her some potted fall flowers, a little custom of mine for any dear one who loses his or her beloved. Flowers are for the living and not for the dead. 

I told her I couldn't understand her loss, not having a twin. I asked her to be real with me after I gave her one long hug. So then she cried and cried and talked all the minuscule details of her dear sister's death. And I listened carefully. Not interrupting. She was executor of the significant estate and her sister's adult children had fallen out. And she was finding it a tough balancing act. 

Her last promise to her sister was that she would look out for her children. So she finally told all concerned to please allow her her grieving time (she's awfully good on boundaries, always has been). She asked me when the grieving would be over. And I just looked at her and said "Never."

And then she smiled at me through her tears and said as she held my hands:

"Thank you for that. Thank you!"

(I can only imagine how sick she is of the holy platitudes).

The barest minimum of words are often the best of condolences. And intense listening to every tiny detail. 

But my heart breaks for her.

Time Out

At times I am so overcome with sorrow and compassion for another that the only relief I feel is in a poem.

We can be unaware of our privilege at times. I am lonely very rarely. Many are lonely all the time. A huge hole inside them with the cold wind blowing through and hope a word they read about but have long abandoned as being applicable to their own lives.

I was quite devastated after this visit from someone who broke down in her despair as her last friend ("in the whole world") was moved to palliative care that day.

Her Grief

She wept on me today
With her broken heart
Leaking from her eyes.

Her grief led a procession
Of other losses, other hurts,
Other days, other cruelties

Pouring like a river
Over the bumps and
Potholes of her life

I do not know her
Well enough to
Hold her tightly

But I listened to
Her lament of loneliness
With my heart and hands

And stuffed my own avalanche
Of sorrow deep down
In my own graveyard.

I am posting this not as a "downer" but as a reminder for all of us to recognize our own privilege in the face of such appalling grief.

Sorrows Come

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions." - Hamlet.

There are so few people to run to when your heart breaks. At least for me.

My first thought, like a homing pigeon, was my sister. And she's out, wherever, whatever, 'tis the season.

Then my best friend.

Crazy that last thought. For my heart breaks for her. I can't run to her anymore. Or she to me.

I haven't written about her in a while. I wanted to live in my fantasy world where all would be well and she would be miraculously cured and we'd be back to the world of our daily emails with our lives laid bare to each other.

I had a long conversation with her husband today.

And it's dreadful news indeed.

The waiting game has started.

A tiny part of me knew this but I'd look at her picture on my wall and say: "Not you. Never you."

"Her life was writ so large!" said her husband a few hours ago.

Yes, it was. Like yesterday, I can still recall her running beside me as I biked home from school. In our over 65 years of friendship I don't recall us once having a fight or disagreement. We traded clothes and boyfriends and would comfort each other in the early losses of our mothers. We acted on stage together. We sang together. And on. Far, far too much.

So here I am blogging.

I don't feel there is anywhere else to turn to at the moment.