Two observations on grief and loss, on the thirteenth anniversary of my Dad’s death:
Grief
Everyone grieves differently. We tend to see the experiences others endure through the lens of our own memories of similar events. There is value in our ability to empathize with their situation, but there can be danger as well. When someone responds to loss in a way that we did not, it is easy to think, “They’re doing it wrong.” One may even make a well-meaning but misguided effort to “correct” them.
However, everyone processes personal loss differently. In cases where a close loved one is lost, the shock is profound. The feelings that flow from it are difficult to process, and they are expressed in unusual and often uncomfortable ways.
When Dad died, this even happened within my own family. He died in the late afternoon on a Saturday in Florida, on the tail end of what was intended to be a vacation for him and Mom. My sisters and I had flown in the previous evening, along with my Mom’s sister Rose. We said our goodbyes that night, and held vigil over him through the next day.
I responded by getting back into familiar places with familiar people, and I only cried once that week, the moment he died. That night, I asked to fly back home before everyone else, early Sunday morning. I wanted to return to the familiar; I wanted to see friends, and I wanted to see my girlfriend (now wife) Tracy. We made arrangements for me to catch the dawn flight back to Detroit Metro, and I settled onto my assigned couch to attempt to sleep.
It was night, and the stress of the day had taken its toll. For perhaps an hour, my mother and her sister… were giddy. They had the giggles. They were boisterous. They laughed, often and uproariously, at insignificantly funny things. I believe, though cannot confirm, that my sisters joined in this. It was surreal.
And it wasn’t wrong. It was just the emotional pop-off valve letting off steam. There would be time to deal with the grief later, time to deal with the arrangements and logistics, all of that. The emotional stress simply expressed itself in a very strange way.
And many people react in different ways. Some strive to do “something” to establish or preserve the legacy of the family member they have lost. Some just get busy with memorial arrangements, wanting everything to be perfect. Some dissolve in tears, or want to be left alone. I’ve seen many different reactions. “Different” is not at all the same as “unhealthy.”
The Bible gives us a precedent for this: David’s loss of his unnamed son in 2 Samuel 12. He grieved and fasted over his own sin and pleaded with God for his son’s life, but when he perceived that his son had died, he shocked his staff by taking food and returning to his normal life. His process was unusual, but it was not wrong.
Memories
Memories balance themselves out over time. Many have considered whether they would prefer a loved one to die suddenly or to experience a long enough illness that there was time to prepare. I’ve been through it, and I am very grateful that I had time to prepare for Dad’s death. There was one significant downside.
When Dad left, the memories were fresh. For nearly two and a half years, his advanced cancer had been the dominant theme of our lives. There were doctor appointments, treatments, medical emergencies, prescriptions, personality changes, medical equipment transfers, you name it. He was frail, and short, (he lost perhaps four inches of height due to the degradation of his spine) and always in poor health. He usually needed an oxygen cannula to assist his breathing, and he had lost all but the most grizzled of hair, and radiation burns from various treatments were visible on his body.
Those were the fresh memories. Yes, there were the sweet times we got to enjoy each other’s company, and the family trips, and the treasured holidays that we knew we would get few of. But there were also the times he couldn’t eat without getting sick, and the surgeries, and the ambulance calls, and the distinctive sounds of an ICU that I had to return to each day at my job at a hospital.
But memories fade with time. When Dad died, my memories were most prominently those of his illness. But as the years have passed, balance has returned. I still remember those difficult days, but those fond memories from earlier in life have re-asserted themselves: His full beard and (slightly more) hair, his relentless work ethic, his self-taught handyman skills, his jogging; family dinners, his love for my Mom, lunch “dates” that he took me on, and watching football together in the den.
The hard memories and the pleasant ones are balanced together now. The loss doesn’t change, but it does fade, and the memories will balance.
I’m glad I had as much time as I did.
Notes from the North 