It's the last day of Spring Break, 2011. As I was enjoying the peaceful promise of early Spring in Northern Michigan last week, two of my dear friends were facing life-changing losses. As I read books, snuggled with my children, and navigated road trips up and down M-22 and US-31, one of my friends had to say good-bye to her beloved grandmother, and another watched and waited as her father's battle against cancer came to its heartbreaking end. A grandmother, a father, two people my friends have known for as long as they can remember. These are two of the people who have helped to shape my friends' lives and to guide them into the beautiful, compassionate, intelligent women they are today. My heart is heavy for my friends.
As I waited for updates on my friend's dad, a little tornado of panic rumbled in my chest. It became clear that he might die, but I hoped along with her for some kind of miracle that would spare her and her family the pain of losing him, and keep him alive. I hated the thought of watching another friend lose a parent. This is an inevitable developmental milestone, but one that I think I could do without. Once I received the news of her father's death, I began to relate what my friend was going through to my own experience. Her dad had been fighting cancer and mine died suddenly, so the circumstances were very different, but the outcome was the same. In the end, we both lost our dads.
As my sense of panic gave way to sadness for my friend and elements of my own grief began to surface, I again began to think about death and how we relate to it. If you believe in a human spirit, you might also believe that the Spirit doesn't die. And even if you believe that everything dies when a body dies, there are parts of a person, anyone who is close to you, that stay. Like memories, I still have memories of my dad. I also have some of his personality traits. Some of his likenesses and traits have been passed on to my children. So, really, as long as we have our memories and each other, our loved ones stay alive in some way. It's just not in the way we came to know them. This is why, even though we may believe that they are still with us, we still miss them. We come to know everyone we meet as a physical being so we can't help but to miss that being when it no longer walks among us. And I think we miss them even more in every instant that we realize the finality of it all - that we will never see the being we loved again on Earth.
This all brings me right back to the issue of how to deal with losing someone you love and how to address grief that is triggered by another's loss. And, of course, I know there isn't a prescription for grief or guidelines to follow. I completely understand that. So the answer, as always, is just to let it be. To feel it, to express it, to let it flow through you. That sounds logical to me. I would tell anyone to do the same. But in my case, over the course of the week, I needed more guidance. I began to question what I knew to be true. I lost faith in the inner wisdom that told me to do nothing, to let it be. I needed more, like a flow-chart or something, mapping out how to proceed when I stumble on my path.
And then my five year-old son, Alexander, started screaming at his brother. His screams are ear-piercing and they usually scare the crap out of me. Beyond the screaming though, is an example of how to let it be. He is angry so he screams. And then he moves on. He doesn't hang on to his anger. He doesn't feel guilty about it later. He doesn't question whether it is okay to be angry. He screams and POOF! he is fine. Then my three year-old daughter walks right into a table and starts to cry. She is hurt so she cries. I pick her up, I give her a kiss and a squeeze, and she is fine. She gets back on her feet. She doesn't even try to avoid the table on the next run-around. Then my eight year-old son is told that it's time to stop playing Wii and he is not happy with that news because he wants to finish all 200 laps (uh, what?!?) so he throws the Wii remote thing. He is frustrated so he throws things. He may pout for a little longer, but within 20 minutes he is laughing with his dad. He is fine. No looking back.
I am left with two lessons: 1) Kids are geniuses at expressing their emotions. They serve as examples of how to let it be. I want to be more like my kids. I may even start screaming along with Alexander instead of wishing him out of his screaming phase. Heck, if it helps him to cope with whatever life throws his way, I hope he always screams. 2) I am beginning to imagine that the people I love are more like wind. In the same way that I don't need to see the wind to know that it is there, I will try to trust that I don't need to see my dad to know that he is with me. In quiet moments, I feel my dad, like wind. I do have one caveat though, and that is that when the knowledge I have that he is with me just doesn't seem like enough, I will go to lesson #1 and let whatever I am feeling flow through me. And looky there, I have my flow chart.
As I waited for updates on my friend's dad, a little tornado of panic rumbled in my chest. It became clear that he might die, but I hoped along with her for some kind of miracle that would spare her and her family the pain of losing him, and keep him alive. I hated the thought of watching another friend lose a parent. This is an inevitable developmental milestone, but one that I think I could do without. Once I received the news of her father's death, I began to relate what my friend was going through to my own experience. Her dad had been fighting cancer and mine died suddenly, so the circumstances were very different, but the outcome was the same. In the end, we both lost our dads.
As my sense of panic gave way to sadness for my friend and elements of my own grief began to surface, I again began to think about death and how we relate to it. If you believe in a human spirit, you might also believe that the Spirit doesn't die. And even if you believe that everything dies when a body dies, there are parts of a person, anyone who is close to you, that stay. Like memories, I still have memories of my dad. I also have some of his personality traits. Some of his likenesses and traits have been passed on to my children. So, really, as long as we have our memories and each other, our loved ones stay alive in some way. It's just not in the way we came to know them. This is why, even though we may believe that they are still with us, we still miss them. We come to know everyone we meet as a physical being so we can't help but to miss that being when it no longer walks among us. And I think we miss them even more in every instant that we realize the finality of it all - that we will never see the being we loved again on Earth.
This all brings me right back to the issue of how to deal with losing someone you love and how to address grief that is triggered by another's loss. And, of course, I know there isn't a prescription for grief or guidelines to follow. I completely understand that. So the answer, as always, is just to let it be. To feel it, to express it, to let it flow through you. That sounds logical to me. I would tell anyone to do the same. But in my case, over the course of the week, I needed more guidance. I began to question what I knew to be true. I lost faith in the inner wisdom that told me to do nothing, to let it be. I needed more, like a flow-chart or something, mapping out how to proceed when I stumble on my path.
And then my five year-old son, Alexander, started screaming at his brother. His screams are ear-piercing and they usually scare the crap out of me. Beyond the screaming though, is an example of how to let it be. He is angry so he screams. And then he moves on. He doesn't hang on to his anger. He doesn't feel guilty about it later. He doesn't question whether it is okay to be angry. He screams and POOF! he is fine. Then my three year-old daughter walks right into a table and starts to cry. She is hurt so she cries. I pick her up, I give her a kiss and a squeeze, and she is fine. She gets back on her feet. She doesn't even try to avoid the table on the next run-around. Then my eight year-old son is told that it's time to stop playing Wii and he is not happy with that news because he wants to finish all 200 laps (uh, what?!?) so he throws the Wii remote thing. He is frustrated so he throws things. He may pout for a little longer, but within 20 minutes he is laughing with his dad. He is fine. No looking back.
I am left with two lessons: 1) Kids are geniuses at expressing their emotions. They serve as examples of how to let it be. I want to be more like my kids. I may even start screaming along with Alexander instead of wishing him out of his screaming phase. Heck, if it helps him to cope with whatever life throws his way, I hope he always screams. 2) I am beginning to imagine that the people I love are more like wind. In the same way that I don't need to see the wind to know that it is there, I will try to trust that I don't need to see my dad to know that he is with me. In quiet moments, I feel my dad, like wind. I do have one caveat though, and that is that when the knowledge I have that he is with me just doesn't seem like enough, I will go to lesson #1 and let whatever I am feeling flow through me. And looky there, I have my flow chart.
Yes, you have your flow chart....flow with it, Anna....flow beautifully, peacefully, angrily, happily, joyfully, painfully WITH IT, and withIN it....om shanti, om peace!
ReplyDeleteI like your flow chart.
ReplyDeleteStep 1. Breathe In
Step 1a. Relax
Step 2. Breathe Out (REALLY LOUD!)
-repeat-
Ah Robert, that would have been much simpler! :)
ReplyDelete