Heal
I felt very old today. Ancient. A friend and I exchanged notes on healing. Both of us have lost a sibling, she only a few years ago, me an eternity now. We spoke of carrying a weight, of grief and pain. We mused about the healing – when and if. She signed off with the wonderful thought – we didn’t come into the world bearing this pain, we might still be able to put it behind us and move on.
My friend and I are dealing with loss in our own ways. Though we have experienced it at different stages in our lives, it is still all encompassing and overwhelming in its intensity. She is so much more emotionally intelligent than I am though. She realises the pain is something to be dealt with, and one day she will leave it behind. I wish for you, my friend, a healing that leaves you whole, changed but unbroken.
I know many people in my life quietly feel that this grieving has gone on long enough. I think so too. The years have passed. I have a happy life. I am lucky in my friends, my family and increasingly grateful for the choices that have brought me to this point. In some ways, I am the person I know today because of my loss. It changed everything for me. I don’t feel grateful for it but there’s no escaping its reality. A person I loved died. That reshaped me in the most visceral ways.
Every now and then, the grief returns. Once, I used to drown in it. Now, I keep my head above water. Surely, there is a point in my future when I will swim against the tide and into calmer waters. This, my friend has taught me to hope for with her example. We smile for each other though neither of us allows the mask to drop completely. I know she hurts for me just as my heart aches for her. We listen to each other’s words, offer tough love, try to stay positive and bolster each other. What else can friends do?
The loss of a loved one is not a rare occurrence. Death is not in the business of bargaining or negotiating. It is the aftermath of death that is still an isolating existence. No one’s grief can compare to your own. It is truly something that is yours alone. And yet, invisible lines stretch between each of us who have lost someone, either when we were very young or if we lost a young person gone too soon. My closest friends are a group of people who unconsciously closed ranks after facing the loss of a father or a brother or a friend or a mother. We were young, life was ahead of us when a loss sent each of us down a lonely road. Maybe this is why we found each other and held on. We have never spoken of this connection but it binds us together for life.
There are no words to describe the loss of a young friend to an overdose or a bright beautiful sister to cancer or a child to heart disease. Language literally has no word for a parent who has lost a child or for people like my friend and I, who lost a sibling we hoped to tease and irritate into old age. I can tell you about the horrible aftermath of that particular loss. We the living siblings constantly underplay our loss because really, how can you stand up against the loss your parents are dealing with? The rest of our lives could easily be about making up for that loss, giving them the comfort and support they need or that we imagine they need. Our own sorrow continues to be subsumed by theirs. And it’s strangely time consuming. Three decades in my case and counting. Always playing catch up and making up.
A wonderful lady I loved taught me another lesson about loss and grief. She was the warmest, most elegant older friend I had. She had lost her two children, one as a child, the other a troubled teenager. In the face of this, and here i find any word inadequate, (tragedy, loss – pale imitations of the reality), her lined beautiful face was never glum, her serene smile always lit up the world. Her immense dignity was like a guiding light. She chose silence but not coldness, a smiling face and a gentle heart without outward anger. Her grieving was private and personal and I had the greatest respect for her choices.
My grief, in comparison, still feels messy and noisy. Young and raw, while hers was, at least in my eyes, a grief grown venerable because of her dignity in dealing with it. I admire her but I’m not her. Like I said, there is nothing more personal than grief. It’s my grief and this is how I have recently begun to deal with it. By writing about it. Sharing it. Not locking it in any longer to fester at my core.
This healing is a soul wrenching experience and a life changing one. Painful and in its own way, as overwhelming as any other experience we have known. But it comes to each of us, through unlikely agencies and in surprising forms. So, for my dear friend, and for my other friends dealing with loss, I wish for the healing of the gaping wound. I wish for love and hope and the unshakeable faith that this healing is possible. To some, it comes early. Others wait for a lifetime. It’s a matter of recognising it. Letting it in. Letting go of the addiction that grief can become.