we fail
It was years ago now, that I was given a piece of paper by someone, somewhere. It was a photocopy of a photocopy, crooked on the page, with directions on how to be there for someone “living through loss”. I remember looking at it and being surprised by some of the things that were written. Stuff like, “talk about the passing of their loved one”. “Ask them if they would like to speak about it”. “Listen more than you talk.” That sort of thing. I didn’t know any of that stuff. I had never even thought about it.
Years on and here I am thinking about that piece of paper, thinking about all of the books I’ve read on grief and grieving. Each as different as the personalities of the author’s that wrote them. In truth, there is no single book that can speak to grief in the way we will uniquely live it. I’ve read books written by mothers who have lost their children, whole groups of them, that left me flat and cold. I’ve read books on grief that left me wondering why the author every felt she was up to writing it - every sentence so tight and controlled, protective of their pain. “You weren’t ready for this,” I whisper to the pages. Where was the gnashing and gnawing? I’ve read books that offered too much wallowing, others that sounded like they were written by a cheerleader in full flight. From each of those books, I got something. Sometimes it was just one little nugget of thought. Sometimes it was a sentence I memorised to keep in my heart. At other times it was a way of being in grief that I vowed to never emulate. Something, there was always something.
Recently I read a book about grief that was written by parents whose children had died. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turned out that it was meant for the family and friends that were “supporting” people who were living through a traumatic loss. The whole book was a directive on how everyone should behave, on what they should say or do to lessen the load on those that are grieving.
We fail. As humans, we fail a lot. We don’t say what should be said and we say what should have never left our lips. Nothing in your life will prepare you for the way people will fail you when the worst of all things happens in your world. We, that being my husband and I, have lived through that - continue to live through that. It was three years this May that our eighteen year old daughter, Mila, died. Three years… it still feels surreal. What’s changed since that life-changing day in some ways feels insignificant. In other ways, it feels profound.
The one thing we never banked on in those early days after our daughter’s death, was navigating the extra layers of pain that came from the people around us. They tried. Well, some tried. Some ran for the hills. Mostly, I think, many of them were relieved by the passing of time so things could return to “normal”. That burden of facing anguish relieved. It’s an isolating feeling. Perhaps the loneliest of all feelings is to