“I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” the stranger said as she handed me back whatever papers I had just shown her. She had a name tag but I couldn’t read it because I was too busy trying not to cry.
If I had a dollar every time I have heard that phrase in the month since my oldest son died, I could have paid for his funeral and still had money left over for a wake.
NO! I am not okay.
My son, my kind, loyal, compassionate, super smart, funny, talented son is dead. I am not okay nor will I ever be. I have a friend who lost her daughter 45 years ago. She is still not okay with it so I am pretty sure I won’t ever be either.
Hopefully, the waves of stomach churning nausea and the stabbing chest pains that occur with every reminder of our loss will lessen over time. I am a well-read, educated person. I have read all of the works of Shakespeare and other writers of note from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. I can find no words in any of their work that comes close to describing what my wife, son, and I are experiencing. In the span of four months, I have experienced the worst physical (back) and emotional pain of my life. There is a hole in my heart too big to ever fill. My own eventual death beckons with a promise of relief.
And yet . . . somehow we have to figure out ways to move on. We slog through the day even though the possibility of joy seems forever out of reach. We try to find purpose where there seems to be none. Kim and I also have the difficult task of not letting our grief blind us to the fact that we have another son who is just as wonderful as the one we lost.
We surround ourselves with things that conjure up memories of Christopher even though unexpected reminders throw us into panic, denial, and even physical illness. We try to ignore or forgive those who either don’t know, don’t care, or are indifferent to our pain. Fortunately, those who do care and demonstrate compassion and understanding overwhelm our ability to thank them. And somehow their simple acts of kindness allow us to keep going.
Hannah Rose from the Baltimore Sun wrote an excellent article on how to help people like us who are overcome with grief. Simple demonstrations of sympathy and acknowledgement are what we need. Just listening and hanging out is good. People not being paralyzed by the fear of saying the wrong thing is probably what we need the most.
Not that there aren’t wrong things to say. Telling us stories of your own losses doesn’t help. We are very selfish and incapable of empathy right now. Our pain is too much to bear without adding yours. Silence is sometimes good. What works best is if someone knew Christopher and tells a story about him; that is very helpful even though we may cry as a result. It is not death itself that bothers us. Even though we know our son is not “dancing at the feet of Jesus.” He’s also not on the wrong end of a pitchfork. And even if he were, he’d be in good company. He, Christopher Hitchens, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, and Socrates would all be having a good laugh by the fire if a real hell existed.
It is the loss itself. It is the potential that he had remaining that crushes our spirit. Yes, we will learn to live in a world without him. For the last month, we have had the distractions created by the business of death. Legal paperwork, possessions, and other practical matters consumed much of our time and energy. That relief is coming to an end and now we focus totally on our loss. The largest black hole in the universe doesn’t suck as much as this. And yes, I understand the scientific inaccuracy of that statement. I just want Christopher here to correct me.
