I will tell you what I am learning about grief --- it is so
closely entwined with love that sometimes I cannot tell them apart. I cannot
tell whether my heart is broken by love, or by loss; sometimes I think it must
have been smashed to pieces because its former familiar shape was too small to
hold the love that fills it now.
When the unthinkable happens--- when I am changed in that
horrible moment from who I was into who I now must be, when by circumstance I
am remade into the Angel of Death and I must then destroy over and over again,
with each phone call, the carefully constructed normal lives of those I hold
most dear. It is as if the one I love lived in a million different hearts and
with call after call I end him all over again. I try to imagine ways to not
tell my awful truth—I imagine there are some hearts that I can perhaps NOT
tell, that he will live in those worlds intact and all will be safe and “the
same as it was, Before.” But I know this is not true and so I make another call
and the world ends, all over again. And it is now After for them too. I am the
Angel of Death and it is a terrible thing to be.
Grief is a terrible thing, when it cracks me open and I am
full of broken places and sharp edges and I am made suddenly immune to heat or
cold, or hunger or sleep. And yet in that awful place of finality, in that
place of no second chances, no do-overs, no one more I love you, no last good
bye---in that dark place there is still a light.
It comes to me in the tears of others; when I am passed,
literally from one hug to another, each one gathering up some of what is broken
and piecing me back together again. When I read the words that others have
written, when their hearts spill over with stories and memories and we laugh,
oh God somehow we laugh and it is a true thing, it is a life raft in this flood
of tears...and somehow, in this manner the hours pass, the days pass and the
impossible thing to do is somehow made possible by love.
There have been calls and cards and casseroles, cookies and
baskets of candy; texts and photos and memories shared. There are the acts of
love, the gifts of service, the dear ones who come and find a million ways to
take care of us and I am overwhelmed and humbled by the sheer goodness of people.
On that first of Most Terrible Days there was a time late in
the evening when our home was full of people, when the sofas were full of boys
and friends, and there was football on the television, and there was food --so
much food! In that most terrible of terrible days, there was love and I thought
in that moment how much Shane would have loved –did love—DOES love-- this. That
this was exactly what was supposed to happen, now. That is how light is brought
into a dark place, by people who have come to love on us—people who walk
willingly into the dark place with us, who hold our hand, and begin to lead us
out again.
I know that grief is not simple—that it is not only ONE BIG
THING that overwhelms, I know that it will be a million little things that will
cracks us wide open all over again, time after time. I know that we have a long
journey ahead and there is probably a lot left to learn about this process. But
in the dark, there is light, and I can see it.
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Shane Sume
June 29, 196Something--January 4, 2015
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