Last night, while catching up on this season of True Blood (oh Tara, shut up already) I received some very sad news. A dear friend from college lost her mother, after a long and brave fight with a form of blood cancer. While I knew she was in hospice, and wasn't expected to live much longer, it still took the air out of my lungs. Knowing that a friend is suffering a tremendous loss is never easy. It's not the first time someone important to me has lost a parent, but the sadness you feel, the heartache and despair, never changes.
Another dear friend lost her husband last fall, a sweet and wonderful guy our whole group of friends adored. I cannot begin to fathom what it means to lose your partner, the person you love, especially so young. She is gracious, courageous and strong, and has been raising money for leukemia research in his name. I know she doesn't always feel like she is, but the fact that she is still here, honoring his memory and living her life in a way that would make him smile, is incredible. She amazes me. I'm not sure what I believe about life after death, but if there is one, my guess is he's looking down on her with a grin and going "Yeah. That's my woman."
Approaching 30, at this point, I'd find it surprising if you haven't lost someone close to you. I have no living grandparents, and haven't since I was 13. This saddens me deeply, as I was weird and awkward as fuck as a child, and wish they could have known me as an adult. Even during high school, friends and peers passed away. One to suicide, one to a car accident, and one (who I knew but not well) to cancer. Family friends died. I attended my fair share of funerals by the time graduation came and went. But I also knew that the passage of loved ones was part of living, and that life must inevitably move forward, albeit burdened with grief. This is some pretty heavy shit for a teenager to know.
Death is a huge part of growing up, and each one's impact takes a different form. I think the way in which it shapes you has much to do with (and this is purely opinion)
1.) how old you are when it happens
2.) who the person was to you
3.) the manner (and speed) in which they passed.
Now I know grief is VERY different for every person (I'd never try to make it cookie cutter, and God knows I've been given enough books on the topic) but here's what I know as I've lived it:
Deaths that are sudden and unexpected (for example, a car accident) leave us in shock. It was so fast. It was not their time. It's like a sucker punch to the sternum that takes all the air out of you. You are lost. Like the rug was pulled out from under you. How could this happen?
Deaths that are longer and drawn out (for example, an extended illness) leave us drained. And by the time they go, it's almost relief. It's over. They're not suffering. And neither are we. Because watching someone you love die, in my opinion, kills a part of you too. Especially if you're caring for them. My mother cared for my grandmother at the end of her life, and did the same for my father for years. The emotional and physical toll it took on her broke my heart. Being a caretaker...I started writing an article about this subject a few years back, and was too overwhelmed by it to finish. At some point, I think I will, but delving into the topic is difficult. The best word I can find it is sacrifice. I can't point right now to all the enormous ways my father's illness changed my family and me, but I can say 100% I am not at all the same person I was four years ago.
My family is a subject I play close to the chest. Because we are few in number and incredibly private, it's something I am cautious to talk about here, BUT at the same time, exploring my approach to 30 wouldn't be complete without some explanation of how I got here. So....we'll take it in small pieces, yeah? My dad is very ill, has been for years, and he lives in an assisted living facility only a few miles from my mom. The decision for him to live there was agonizing and still reduces me to tears sometimes. The "new normal" will never feel as such, but we have no choice in the matter.
Several times, I've lost my father....coding on the operating table under the steady hands of the area's best surgeons...and somehow, those amazing, brilliant people keep finding a way to bring him back. This is both a wonderful and horrible thing, that someone can be dead, and then not. Or that the version of the person you know can be long gone, and what remains is just a shadow. I am glad my Daddy is alive. But every time he comes back, more of him, more of the wonderful man who raised me, is gone. I have been grieving his death since I was 26 years old. And when it eventually happens, I will grieve more.
When I think of my own funeral (everybody has, right? At some point?), I think of a song I'd like played, which is "Exitlude" by The Killers (both title and band are both perfect and wildly inappropriate for the setting). The lyrics are sung softly to a piano accompaniment that feels both melancholy and hopeful. I find it wonderful. The song goes:
Aggressively we all defend the role we play
Regrettably time’s come to send you on your way
We’ve seen it all bonfires of trust flash floods of pain
It doesn’t really matter don’t you worry it’ll all work out
No it doesn’t even matter don’t you worry what it’s all about
We hope you enjoyed your stay
It’s good to have you with us, even if it’s just for the day
We hope you enjoyed your stay
Outside the sun is shining, seems like heaven ain’t far away
