A recent death in my family – the latest in what seems like a bad season for us – has provoked some musings about this haphazard procession of events we call Life.
Is there any novel thing one can say in response to the death of a loved one (whether parent, spouse, child or friend)?
(image: Indiafolder.com)
Grief, it seems, is a path we must each tread.
Tributes and memorials from the pyramids to the Taj Mahal, from the Book of Psalms to WH Auden and Leonard Cohen have canvassed the territory of grief and remembrance. Yet still, it seems, the experience has to be borne to be truly known.
The wisest words I ever heard about grief were from a poet who’d lost his wife: “The only thing grief can bear is companionship.”
Not counselling, not distraction, not cheering up. No attempted encouragement to ‘snap out of it’ is welcome, he’d learnt (as many have), however disguised and with whatever high motive or good intention.
I know what he means. Shallow platitudes and ‘personal growth’ or ‘time will heal’-type language sounds dissonant and heavy-handed.
Yet, I appreciate a simple word of support or care, a brief expression of sympathy or consciouness of my plight.
Like so many others before me, I have learned that in grief at times I feel shattered, I feel stressed, I feel angry, I feel sludgy and unmotivated. I am not properly connected to the world, I feel wooly, misty and vague. At times I am sad.
So be it.
What’s your experience?
Early this year my Grandfather died at 103. Yes, one hundred and three. Unfortunately, I could not attend. My mother told me later that my cousins bawled like babies during the funeral. I found this amusing. My Grandfather would have found this amusing. Because, let’s face it, at 103 you have pretty much done it all.
A few years back, at my Grandfather’s 100 birthday, I asked him what it felt like to be 100. He told me his skin hurt. It was a surprising comment because I now knew, that being as old as he was, was not fun for him, it was an ordeal. Life must always be cherished but sometimes…
And that doesn’t mean to say that we won’t miss him.
Grief is a strange beast of an emotion. It matters not
how well one may have prepared, or steeled oneself.
To be sincerely hugged, to weep and cry unabashedly,
openly, unashamedly, often jointly or even collectively,
is 100% OK.
Stoic, stiff upper lip stuff seems quite wrong. Letting
it all hang out seems more therapeutic than that. Even
with that, the vacuum follows . . . .
Emotions suppressed may lead to the tyranny of a safety
valve explosion, later.
Thanks for sharing.
Agreed. 100% OK.
Mourning is much ‘better’ expressed than withheld.
That’s my experience too.
Still.
– P
Trying To Deal To The Void
So, back to this vexed topic of companionship and motivation. ‘Free’ motivation in the sense that constraining factors like poor health or awkward-to-escape environmental circumstances do not detract significantly from the potential choices. This is an aspect of my old favourite topic: teleology, being something I do for no other reason than I like/want/desire to do it.
That seems to predicate an underlying need for pleasure, for satisfaction, but I don’t know, for sure. Would someone do something devoid of any sense of self-satisfaction? Does not giving to charity satisfy an innate or developed need of some sort?
What would I do if I had unfettered choice? I asked my spouse that question, many months back and no answer would come. Now I need to ask it of myself. Probably several times. And try to exact a meaningful response!
I’m not sure how long I can cope without a mate. This poses all sorts of problems for me, which ‘someone’ might have some answers to, based on their own life experiences. Are/will my expectations be unattainable, after being with and latterly worshipping one spouse for 44 years?
Will I subliminally be making comparisons and no one will measure up? Will that destroy any chance of potentially the same enjoyment of/with another mate, in the future? And what of the reverse? Would not any would-be target of my affection nurture similar concerns, similar apprehensions?
When one has intimately ‘grown’ with an irreplaceable spouse over 44 years, almost every aspect of each one’s behaviour has been resolved, accepted, condoned, laughed at, or tolerated. Minor things, like speech mannerisms; middle things like belching without awkwardness; major things like farting in bed or picking one’s nose! Maybe even worse.
How can one aspire to relate to another human of the opposite sex, and resolve all those differences, within the space of a few years? And do it in a way as one did with another, surviving children and life’s ups and downs; in a ‘growing’ way that evolved over almost half-a-century? A large part of what I did was influenced – in one way or another – by my now-lost spouse. What do I do, now? At this st/age in life? From whence comes a sense of purpose, beyond simply staying alive and securing the wherewithal to do so?
I’m stirring before sunrise, usually in some semi-dream. I’m propped up on one arm, smiling at a vision lying in bed, beside me. I brush the face with a kiss, to be rewarded with a contented, sleepy smile, in return. The face is soft and indistinct, but I can ‘feel’ the warmth.
Then I realise what’s happening and that my life’s love is dead. That side of the bed is cold and empty, the pillow case unrumpled. It’s a seeming fantasy and it’s repeating itself. I try going to bed @ 2-00am, hoping I’ll be tired enough not to dream. That’s been only intermittently successful, thus far.
Are these finer feelings or baser instincts asserting themselves in some etheric and esoteric world inside my head? What to do; what to do?
Thank you for sharing this, Perry. It’s a tough situation, no bones about it.
I can only imagine, do imagine, the whirl of grief, awakenings, wonderings and thoughts and tough questions your post refers to. I relate to what you say. Our grief can be a dust-storm.
A new relationship (if that’s what is ahead for you) will be, MUST be different to your just-ended one. (Ouch.) It also will be/must be organic — a growing thing — its own thing, arising and developing as it will do. It won’t be like your marriage of 44 years. It won’t just ‘arrive’ at a fixed status.
I sense your feeling that time available to you for this adventure is limited … and no, almost certainly, you don’t have 44 years of growth and parenting(!) and life’s ups and downs ahead of you … but Perry, this, NOW is as young as you are going to get, my dear boy.
“From whence comes a sense of purpose, beyond simply staying alive and securing the wherewithal to do so?”
Yes. As I said, tough situation, mate. Whatever is ahead for you will be different. Different.
Who you are, Perry, what you bring to any new emergence or enterprise (for want of a better word), will also be different.
You’ll handle it. Keep going. This working through is all part of it, as cloudy as it can feel at times.
Dunno if anything I’ve said helps, but as someone else lost in the fog, I wish you well. – Peter
—
Hello new word (to me):
teleology
noun ( pl. -gies) Philosophy
the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes.
• Theology the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.
The ‘teleology’ concept is attributed to Aristotle.
In lay-person-speak, it might go something like this:
Many things we do, we do to achieve other things;
we study to pass an exam; we want the exam qualification
to get a good job; we want the good job to get more
money; we want more money to get . . .
Aristotle postulated that every person’s life had to
have at least one something sought after that was the
goal, the end in itself. A thing that was not a means
to an end.
But I wonder about that.
What of sitting and enjoying a gorgeous panoramic
view? There is no means to an end in that, surely?
Well, what about the sentient pleasure it must bring?
The sense of awe and wonder and appreciation and . . .
But maybe Aristotle had in mind the material things
which we acquisitive humans gather about as we
tramp across our places in the world? If so, then
a sense of pleasurable satisfaction and joy at some-
thing intangible and beautiful may be exempt from
his teleological concept.
“…a sense of pleasurable satisfaction and joy at something intangible and beautiful may be exempt from his teleological concept.”
Sure. And, so is [could be?]* loving someone else.
Loving relationships can be the source of much ‘sentient pleasure’ as you put it — despite any anthropologists’ theory about it being all about survival.
[It almost goes without saying, sadly, that our ‘attachment’ to how our loving relationships ‘should’ operate/endure, can also be the source of much anguish. Them’s the breaks, unfortunately.]
* Not that I claim any expertise in this new (to me) topic: teleology.
44 years: wonderful, irreplaceable and precious – keep them safe.
Love only dies if you let it — however, dwelling on the past can lead to malaise because of its tendency towards obsession. Perry, you need adventure! And so your future will be a tightrope – a balance between your past and your future. Walk it well!
You may not be ready for it just yet; but soon…
Does love die? Or is it transferable? Your noble choice of descriptors stirs my emotions deeply. Too deeply. How apt they are: “wonderful, irreplaceable and precious.” My screen is blurred by tears afresh, as I type my reply. The fool at the keyboard, whose philosophy lies lifeless and impotent in the grey ashes of horrific times.
I crave the closeness, warmth and intimacy of my lady’s tenderness. I feel like I’m an automaton, lost in a place I don’t know and a place I can’t name.
“lost in a place I don’t know and a place I can’t name.”
Yes, I know that place. In my grief, still, at times I am unable to locate where to ‘file’ the ‘information’ that my loved one is gone — not available to me to ask an opinion, or for a piece of background they would know about something.
When my American friends say ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ … it’s these and a thousand other little losses I have come to recognise as my losses … the ‘big’ loss becomes the *event* located in time and space … but the ongoing ‘oh, not there anymore’ I experience as a thousand cuts — another stinging, blurring, tearful slice can appear unbidden and as a surprise at any time.
It’s a tough road. – P
PS Perry, you say your “philosophy lies lifeless and impotent” at times — well, maybe so. for now.
For everything there is a season.
Is grief (and its hoped-for amelioration) proportional to the length, depth and strength of the loving relationship lost to death? From my stricken perspective, it seems so. I listen to the haunting lyrics of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To You and my monitor disappears again, like the rain-swept road ahead, obscured behind a windscreen with suddenly-broken wipers.
Some days I’d rather not recall; other days I’m a mess that I store in an urn, behind the false façade of my facial physiognomy. Is that my voice I can hear? How can it be that; saying that? How can it seem so, so normal? “Doesn’t it know,” I yell to myself? I stand bereft, on the tempest-torn battlements in a realm that’s void, because there is no queen in my castle.
For a poignant, yet fatuous remark – no matter how well felt or intentioned – “better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.” Really? Wanna try it? Verily, Peter, the experience has to be borne to be truly known. The limitations of words are never so profoundly felt, as now.
How numbstruck, how dumbed can we be at the death of a life-long spouse? Even the slow dying release due to a wasting disease like cancer. Does that make the end any easier for those left behind? Those who might be ever-hoping against all odds for a remission, for another chance, despite all the gloomy medical prognostications?
Will they be any the less rent and wretched by the loss for those measured and grave portents? My guess is not. Emotions are strange beasts. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/perrynz/Funnies/109FeelingsAreRestless.gif
Do you suppose that’s all it is? After all, only those still living ‘feel’ anything, experience the emotion, the sense of loss. Does that render the grief of a thousand cuts nothing more than a self-centred obsession by the living with an irrevocable separation, a dispossession by a monstrous and grievous loss?
Is writing about this cathartic or therapeutic? So far, I have to say that it’s not, even allowing for some delay in the on-set of any potential or consequential rehabilitation. It just seems to refresh what should be left to fade away. What am I doing? Is it that I am benighted, unable to help myself?
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the
heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the
day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open
your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the
sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your
silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your
heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to
forever.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the
shepherd when he stands before the king whose
hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling,
that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind
and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the
breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and
expand and seek Life unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall
you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then
you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then
shall you truly dance.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let
these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its
melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give
thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in
your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
– Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet
Bah! Humbug!
Is writing about this cathartic or therapeutic?”
I can’t make up my mind.
In my own experience, considerable Introspection is (almost) forced on us in grief. My personality-type reflects by writing. Maybe yours does too? No right or wrong answer.
Let me gently suggest it goes without saying that the deeper the attachment, the more painful the wrench.
The power, the magnitude of the grief a ‘surviving spouse’ experiences is, they say — as you say — to be borne to be truly known’.
What I do know is that it’s a tough road you find yourself on — it brings turmoil and confusion, guilt and every manner of hurt and lament. It is truly gut-wrenching.
At times the waves of grief that afflicted and battered me seemed un-swimable, all-encompassing and insurmountable: ‘How will this ever pass?’ Wave after wave. I didn’t know how much time there was in a day and a night to feel that way, to dwell on the hurt feelings.
This is a platitude-free zone, to the best of my best endeavours Perry, as I know you will already appreciate/understand …
It’s just a bugger, mate, but loss hurts.
My Hari Krishna friend Colin told me once that most of humanity is always in one of two states:
hankering or lamenting. He’s got a point.
Thanks for being willing to talk about your experience. – P
Bah! Humbug?
Wow, Perry you must have been fun to be around this Christmas!
I believe that you have a very pretty granddaughter and so, therefore, you must have pretty children. How are they doing? How are they coping?
Here is something that I hope will make you smile. It must be the truest line ever laid down. This is from “That Hideous Strength” by C.S. Lewis. When I read this I laughed out loud,
“…Husbands were made to be talked to. It helps them to concentrate their minds on what they’re reading…”
Ha! I like it!
Bah! Humbug?
Wow, Perry you must have been fun to be around this Christmas!
This Xmas was never going to be anything other than a mindless procession, without any help from me.
I believe that you have a very pretty granddaughter and so, therefore, you must have pretty children. How are they doing? How are they coping?
You are well informed. Yes, I do have a drop-dead-gorgeous grand daughter, who fairly lays claim to a lovely mother. Just as Eleanor Rigby wore a face-that-she-kept-in-a-jar-behind-the-door when she went out, so do all people. My children are no exception. Nor am I.
They grieve their lost mother in their own ways, as befits their relationship.
Here is something that I hope will make you smile. It must be the truest line ever laid down. This is from “That Hideous Strength” by C.S. Lewis. When I read this I laughed out loud,
“…Husbands were made to be talked to. It helps them to concentrate their minds on what they’re reading…”
Ha! I like it!
A humorous bent, to be sure. But one rooted perhaps in the chauvinism of yesteryear? In real marriages made well, there is no such thing. There is an awareness of a partnership, despite a captain-and-crew ethos, where the burdens of leading and following are more profoundly recognised and regarded.
In a proper pairing of opposites, the weaknesses of one are covered off by the other. Conversely, the same may be said of strengths. It probably took me over half of those 44 years to recognise, value and appreciate those things, and manage them as was apposite.
But when a balanced pair are de-coupled, what remains except a free radical? And a potentially misguided-missile-like-one, at that?
Well, Perry it’s official! There is just no cheering you up!
But you are right about Kahlil Gibran – a good poet – but way overrated! And, Sinead O’Connor – yes – I think I would start crying if I had to listen to her music ever again!
My point is, about your family, is that not everything is about you. You have responsibilities to others – don’t let them down.
Um, Chowbok, remember this from my original post, above?
You sort of prove my point — well-intentioned as you may be.
Perry is in the ‘process’ of grief. (I still find myself there after my own chain of family losses these last few years and especially 2009.) That’s not quite the right phraseology. At this level grief is something I’ve come to think of at times as a rolling fog. One develops a familiarity with it, but the sense of brokenness is never welcome.
‘Snap out of it, think of your responsibilities to others’ is just too damn close to ‘Keep a stiff upper lip, there’s a good chap’. Sorry, no thanks.
Far better, I think, to fully experience the grief, the journey, and ‘deal with’ it (or whatever).
Stuffing strong feelings down causes problems down the path, in my observation.
– P
Peter,
You’re right of course. I didn’t mean to sound uncompassionate or bossy. As a Catholic we see death as a transition, and nothing more – it is not the end. For a Catholic, the time together is our celebration – when one passes on – life must move on. All the poorer for the loss but all the better for the time we had.
Perry, I’m sorry – I’m not trying to be a jerk – I just have a very different view point on life and death.
No apology needed, Chowbok, but nonetheless, I appreciate the sentiments behind it. Differing viewpoints generate differing perspectives. (I’m presuming you actually mean Roman Catholicism, rather than catholic in any eclectic or cosmopolitan sense.)
I am irreligious, eschewing it in favour of the many principles that organised religion has sought to espouse, and, regrettably, often bastardised, along the way, to this very day.
For whenever humans seek to quantify the undefinable, anthropomorphism always rears its ugly head and nasty human frailties get attributed to their chosen deity construct. So it has ever been and ever shall be, it seems.
Yes, Roman Catholic. It is the Principal source of all things Christian.
Hhhmmm, my view is different. Roman Catholicism is the principal perverter of all things Xtian. But I have a jaundiced view of all organised religion, so others are equally complicit and guilty. I doubt that mankind will ever see an end to wars until it sees an end to religion. (among one or two other things)
In my meanderings, I’ve come across this:
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yearmagical/summary.html
Plot Overview
The Year of Magical Thinking is Joan Didion’s account of the year following the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, and her attempts to make sense of her grief while tending to the severe illness of her adopted daughter, Quintana.
On December 30, 2003, John and Didion go to the hospital to visit their daughter, who is in a coma in the intensive care unit. Later that evening, John has a massive heart attack while sitting down to dinner in their New York apartment. He is pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital, but Didion finds herself unable to accept this fact even as she arranges for an autopsy and plans for his funeral.
As she tries to make sense of John’s death and her own changed identity, Didion discovers that grief is not what she expected it to be. Consumed by memories of the years they lived in Los Angeles, shortly after they married and adopted Quintana, Didion feels that she has entered a state of temporary insanity. Though cool and collected on the surface, she begins to believe that her wishes might have the power to bring John back. To this end, she refuses to give away his clothes and shoes, believing that her husband will need them when he returns to her. She calls this childlike belief that her thoughts and wishes can alter reality “magical thinking.” She finds numerous examples of this behavior in the literature she studies on grief and mourning, which ranges from poems, novels, psychological texts, and even etiquette books.
A number of review and analysis pages with much useful information.
So the grief-stricken, un-named poet said: “The only thing grief can bear is companionship.”
As I sat alone and tried to enjoy my evening meal in heavy solitude, this evening, I pondered that. What came first? Companionship or intimacy?
Given 44 “wonderful, irreplaceable and precious” years, my reflections on our situation suggest companionship was borne of intimacy. Awkward as it may be for some to accept or grasp, we were still lovers. The fire of passion had yet to diminish to a smoulder.
It was not many months ago when an odd thing happened, when I was shopping for some hardware items. The store has it’s own charming café: one where we used to stop frequently for lunch or a snack.
“Hhhmmm,” I mused to myself, “I think I’ll have a coffee and one of those delightful friands, while I’m here.” For reasons I couldn’t comprehend at that moment, the coffee and the almond friand weren’t quite the same. Something wasn’t right. But there seemed nothing wrong with my victuals. More a matter of deadened appreciation; dulled taste buds?
As I drove home, it dawned on me that the problem was that I had been alone in a place I always frequented with my life’s love. What the . . . . ?
Later, I recounted the strange experience to my lady. A Cheshire-cat-like smile tugged at her lips as said she that was sorry I hadn’t obtained full enjoyment from my comestible call-by. (It was obvious her mini-lament was sincere.)
There have been many times when I’ve sat at board and eaten solo. But there was, somewhere subliminal, the validating sentience that this was transient; that there was a reason for my one-ness. A reason that would pass. If not that night, then in some measurable days hence.
This seems to be what’s killing me by degrees. The absoluteness of being bereft. I stand on the tempest-torn battlements, a benighted King, besieged by occasionally grinding grief in a realm that’s now void, because there’s no longer a Queen in my castle.
I’ve yet to see how companionship will aid the dilemma.
Hi Perry,
Thanks for sharing more of your experience. It’s a time of exploration and memory, isn’t it my friend? We have the opportunity to turn over and examine the many facets of our love and attachment for the one we’ve lost. So much time to do this.
It’s a tough road, as I have said. Even the good memories can sometimes really cut us.
Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in identifying the poet. The comment was part of a radio programme broadcast while I was driving to or from our beach house one summer several years ago (pre-podcasts). Reception faded in and out … and I wasn’t able to find out who he was. I tried years ago and again in recent months but was unsuccessful.
But that doesn’t, for me, degrade the usefulness of his insight. He said much more than that about his own grief too. He was being ‘interviewed’ by a lifelong close friend and the two of them gave me a gift that day.
With respect, I don’t see the statement “The only thing grief can bear is companionship” as pointing to ‘aid’ … or any promised assuagement of grief. To me, what it says is that grief makes the griever intolerant of all else — especially, ‘cheer up’ or ‘get over it’ in any form. That’s all.
I’ve found it useful, at times when giving myself permission to ‘be’ in a state of grief, staring down the barrel of ‘this loss is permanent’ — ‘bereft’, as you say.
And when interacting with others in grief, I use that consciousness as a kind of handbrake.
If you don’t find it so useful at present, or less so than me, no worries, of course. – P
Thus far, I’ve been able to disguise any intolerance of kind, well-intentioned people, who are doing the best they know how to. I do suspect that most people are indeed dumbfounded when confronted with such an event, as they seek to offer some something, some solace to the bereaved. Perhaps the ineptness of words becomes vast and unfathomable, at such times?
Perry,
The way we Catholics do it is for all the family to gather and tell all the quirky and unique stories about the departed, and talk about his or her life – especially the things that made us laugh. We drink and eat and commune with one another;this is the easiest path for grief to take – in each other. In fact, the fourth date, with the woman who was to become my wife, was her Grandfathers funeral! I got to meet the whole family and, strangely, it was a lot of fun.
Perhaps it might help if you tell us about her; surely after 44 years you have some funny and quirky stories that are hers and hers alone?
Been there, done that. My lady was part Maori;
two days and nights at the Marae, doing mostly
what you describe, largely free from religious
claptrap. But, thanks for the thought. As you
opine, it is indeed a better way to handle the
grief and woe, with stories, tales and recoll-
ections from all, from a rich and varied past;
one that touched even more than I’d guessed at.
Among the more fatuous remarks made in times like these is: Huh? How the hell can anyone really know that? Human beings are far-from-rational and even the most predictable people can make seemingly odd decisions, depending on circumstances.
One of my late wife’s colleagues called, today, to collect more succulents-in-pots that were hers, but which I now give to him. I know he’ll appreciate and care for them, unlike me. We stood in the carport as a heavy shower prompted a car-loading hiatus.
Was that my Adam’s apple I was choking on?
Is there any way to distinguish grief from self-pity?
Yes, Perry, there’s an evolving, self-learning aspect to this journey of grief.
The train stops at a number of stations. Do we ever reach the “end”? I don’t see how. But the landscape changes.
A friend who lost his parents when he was young said to me once that his memory of them was like a fine wine that matured with age. Nice.
All projection of what she would have “wanted” aside (as you say, who can tell?) — your question “Is there any way to distinguish grief from self-pity?” is a good one.
Dunno.
For me, grief is often a lament of my/our loss.
It can be a quiet moan, or it can be a wail expressing “But I loved/I’d grown accustomed to [fill in the space] … and now it’s gone!
Is that self-centred? Yes. So what?
Can self-pity, in certain circumstances (um, hello Perry?) be OK?
Sure, so long as it’s not the prime, always dominant state of mind (and even that’s OK, I think for episodes).
Remember much earlier we discussed the ‘healthy’ response of feel the feeling, rather than crushing it down?
(Permission to fall apart,sah! Permission granted.)
You’ll find your way out of the haze, mate. And revisit it now and then.
Take your time … and don’t deny or despise any of your feelings.
That’s my 2 cents worth, anyway. – P
I feel like a multiple schizophrenic. A bit like the triple personalities I teach to public speaking students:
* one speaking (you!);
* one listening ( the audience);
* one watching it all (adjudicating).
Revolve around all three (while giving your speech) to keep up with the dynamic of the situation.
So what’s going on? “The only thing grief can bear is companionship.” What exactly did the poet mean? Something platonic? Something more intimate and emotionally satiating or satisfying?
The lyrics of a lovelorn song writer drift in and out of my mind (paraphrased):
Why does the sun goes on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
Cause my love isn’t here anymore
Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
It ended when I lost my love
I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything’s the same as it was
I can’t understand, no I can’t understand
How life goes on the way it does
Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
It ended when you went away.
Of course the world didn’t end in any physical cataclysm. So what did actually happen? I suspect there’s no valid answer. Certainly not a one-size-fits all answer, anyway.
Oh, Perry, my friend. Yes, this grief and mourning you feel can be all-consuming.
Our heart, our mind and particularly our memory are so context-driven, triggered by location and by a cascade of thoughts following each other. These things bring echoes and waves of what is important to us, what we think about so much.
There’s nothing wrong with you. You always were schizophrenic — we all are!
You are in ‘loss’. It hurts and it continues to hurt and when it does, it’s a tough day.
As I have said before, my own words sound hollow in my own ears when I say this:
Please allow yourself this time of sorrow, of anguish of loss. Feel them. Fully. (I think you are.)
Like pulling a scab off a wound before it’s ready, if you try to ‘medicate’ this pain too soon, you risk making the wound worse, perhaps inhibiting healing. Now, that might not be ‘clinically proven’ but it’s my intuition.
These painful, tear soaked days are not forever — they just feel like they are.
As for the poet: I think that part of his message was about the futility of people trying to encourage the grief-struck to snap out of it.
When the time is right for you to re-enter the meaningful relationship stakes, I reckon that will happen. You have a lot to offer, and we weren’t meant to be alone.
You know the abyss you feel you’re in? (The gap, I call it.)
It’s not a death sentence. You will climb out/stumble out/be pulled out.
This too shall pass.
Best wishes this Sunday morning. – Peter
PS One of my profound soul influences, singer/songwriter James Taylor, released this song ‘Another Grey Morning’ which haunts me at times. It’s sad but it’s good.
Listen here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAhgz1ackh8
if you’re curious, or here are the lyrics:
When I feel as though my love is sinking down
The sun doesn’t want to shine
When it feels like she won’t face another day
Life is unkind
She’s frozen in time
And here comes another grey morning
A not so good morning after all
She says “well, what am I to do today
With too much time and so much sorrow”
She hears the baby waking up downstairs
She hears the foghorn calling out across the sound
Repetition in the morning air
Is just too much to bear
And no one seems to care
If another day goes creeping by
Empty and ashamed
Like an old unwanted memory
That no one will claim
The clouds with their heads on the ground
She’s gonna have to come down
She said “move me, move me
I’m locked up inside”
Well, I didn’t understand her
Though God knows I tried
She said “make me angry
But just make me cry
But no more grey morning
I think I’d rather die”
I suspect somewhat clearer thinking reasserts itself, intermittently, with the passing of time. I also guess that grief is a factor of the one aggrieved and the cause. If I correctly understand Peter’s reference to ‘the poet,’ he lamented a lost love – a spouse.
How would it differ for a parent, child, pet, sibling, uncle, auntie, in-law, work colleague, boss, class-mate . . . . etc? If indeed it differed, at all?
Tis said that the cure for fearful, immobilising paranoia, after falling off one’s horse / bicycle is to get straight back on and ride bravely away. Buying another pet is reasonably achievable. Replacing a relation, impossible. A substitute spouse? Well . . . .
Certainly one cannot replace a parent. But the parturition of another child can be possible. The new-born will never be the same, nor ever replace its torn-away forbear, of course. But a new husband or wife? That’s a quite different proposition.
A transfer of affections to a new pet or a new child or a new spouse. What an enigma! My lost lady-love’s dog was killed in a hit-and-run, Some days back. I’m beginning to apprehensively wonder what else awaits me. Those lines echo – mockingly – in my ear:
If you want to hear Fate laughing
Speak of your plans for the future.
I’m truly very sorry to hear about the dog. Horrible.
On the clearer thinking…
I know in my own case I had to make friends with feeling a bit jaded, almost half-cut in my mourning.
My own grief was accompanied by a terrible, inattentiveness-to-the-‘important’ and inefficiency.
Things slid, and were let to slide. Not good, but just a by-product of the ‘whack’ of the chain of losses we endured over that time — that ‘bad season’ I spoke about in the original post.
As for the ‘replacement’/rebound idea, what you call the transfer of affections…
Let that unfold as it does.
I say to you what I said to another friend who also lost his lady-love in 2009 (and I say it without any hint of condemnation):
You are ‘damaged’ at present. You are in grief, and by definition not ‘whole’.
It’s not the best place to ‘be’ for the kindling of a new romantic relationship (but it’s not the worst, either.)
Take it slowly, see what emerges. Start with friendship, affiliation, common interests… let it take a meandering course, rather than directly seeking a ‘substitute’.
Don’t force anything.
Best wishes, P
Inattentiveness, ineffectiveness, memory ‘black holes,’ diminution of priorities, even when a list is made and ordered: all seem to be a by-product of the void.
This ‘space’ is neither the best, nor the worst. Fair comment. Just call me Mr. In Between.
For me, there are very (unique) personal aspects. I’ve mentioned ‘opposites’ earlier, in this thread. I’m an unabashed male chauvinist, in that I want no part of feminism. I adored my wife and she reciprocated. I treated her with the love, courtesy, respect and thoughtfulness due to a lady whose charm, grace and poise were exemplary. In her turn, she treated me with love, tenderness, care and devotion. We were still lovers. It had become my focus in recent years to spoil her mercilessly.
She furnished some attributes that I lack; we balanced one another. She was soft, forgiving, tolerant in the extreme, sensitive and intuitive. Characteristics I value highly and which I’m woefully short on. I’m more matter-of-fact, practical, pragmatic and ‘DIY handy,’ making up for what she may have lacked in those areas. (Maybe she didn’t, but wanted to let me feel like I was helping!?)
I find the absence of a feminine opposite in my life makes it almost like a chasm-like nullity. It may seem trite, but the feeling I have is that without her, I am almost nothing.
I have pondered at length, the potential problem of trying to ‘replace’ my wife, as in replicate; of making comparisons (or rather avoiding those things); of trying for an unattainable ideal. I have reflected on adjustments, compromises and the difficulty of finding a suitable mate / spouse.
Yes, feeling like something’s been broken off, or ‘damaged’ seems like a good expression. If you listen carefully, you can hear the gods laughing. Any panel beater recommendations for the ka?
This is a hard, dry, wasting path, this way of mourning.
My heart goes out to you.
Of course you feel like “almost nothing”. The Dream Team is no more, the ‘ideal’ is gone.
Who can compete with a ghost? ‘Nothing compares to you’ as you lamented earlier.
But you are still here, Perry.
You have things to give, arms to reach out, humour/insight/caring/judgement — whatever your gift is — to give. Give it.
Compromise? Pah!
You should be so lucky, Perry — and I ardently hope you will be.
Because that, my dear boy, is every bit as important in a ‘loving relationship’ as any other bit.
It’s like DNA to a relationship. Romance? Check. Acceptance? Check…
I spoke at my friend’s lady’s funeral and told their kids that their mum did NOT want a boyfriend when she met their dad: “You three are only here because your mum was willing to compromise.”
You have a lot to offer.
When I say ‘damaged’ I don’t mean ‘faulty’. I mean hurt, wounded, incomplete, spaced out = HUMAN.
-P
[…] in my reply to a comment from Perry in our discussion on grief, I described James Taylor as a profound soul […]
[…] just spent a weekend in the shadow of Mt Taranaki, on family matters to do with our season of grief, and throughout that time I found myself ‘checking in’ with the mountain from various […]
The late Joseph Campbell, oft acknowledged as the world’s foremost scholar on mythology, said that artists of every genre lifted the veil from the mundane, to allow others to see what they could perceive – of the wherever.
Did the poet lamenting his loss leave a double entendre, wittingly or otherwise?
I may have got exceptionally lucky and found out just what he might’ve meant. I have found another love and it’s right to say that things are serious.
We met via the Internet. We talked for just two weeks before we drove half way to meet one another, for a picnic at Lake Taupo.
It was one magical experience.
Since then, we have been in almost constant touch. Given our st/age in life, we’re both acutely aware of the “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is” syndrome. But we also agreed that we should not let our skepticism blind us to a potential opportunity, thereby losing it. Quite a balancing act, I can tell you!
The lady is also aggrieved – a widow: we’ve done much of the friends & family approvals thing, and there has been no demur, so far. Underneath, I know they’re all thinking it’s too soon for me, though.
I confess to grappling with all sorts of feelings that I’d forgotten, since many years ago. Does fickle fortune only favour others? Perhaps not. Someone beautiful has sifted through the ashes of what my life had become, found an ember and gently, ever-so-softly, blew it into a flame.
As always, Perry, I wish you well. Go for it. “Serious” can make you giddy with joy. I hope so.
Yes, it may seem a trifle ‘hasty’ to outside observers (even kindly or solicitous folk) and those who care for you deeply and with good motives … but so what?
As you say, at your st/age in life, you’ve learned to know your own mind … to a certain extent, anyway.
Perhaps we should start a new thread: “Reflections on finding romance …” or similar? – P
PS This: “Someone beautiful has sifted through the ashes of what my life had become, found an ember and gently, ever-so-softly, blew it into a flame” is poetry. 🙂
The anniversary is nigh.
More strange feelings.
“This too will pass.”
Is that Fate I hear,
softly laughing?
Or weeping with us, Perry?
I know I was heavily winded on the anniversary of my Father’s death, and have felt a dark cloud overcast on anniversaries of other beloved losses.
That’s also been the experience of family and friends. Grief sometimes expresses itself as stress.
The serpentine path of grief does, it seems, need to be trod to be ‘understood’.
Best wishes Perry. -P
Another tricky piece of grief memory management is what to do with ‘things.’ The things – the knick-knacks – that were dear or sentimental to a deceased loved one. A special memento from childhood. A picture of a place or person that no one left in the house, now remembers the significance of. An ornament – nothing remarkable – but which refreshed a memory of a certain place, person or event, but only to a mind now gone. It brought back another memory . . .
One far distant day, at the Napier dump, I looked down to see a 10 x 8 sepia picture of a handsome and composed Maori man proudly posed in a NZ Army uniform, complete with lemon squeezer hat. A once treasured aide memoire of a son, father, brother or grandfather, now just rent and obliterated under the tracks of the tip’s bull dozer.
A relic of a by-gone era. Someone no one recalls any more. I suppose that’s the way it must be: the cycle of life and death. Whether reputation or memorabilia, they too do pass; nay, must pass. Some memories fade sooner. And when I die, the ones that seemed less ephemeral will also be sought and carried away by oblivion.
I find that pretty sad about the photo in the dump.
Seeing the meaning in objects as a link to departed loved ones is, I think, universal.
And not just objects. A friend of mine who died last year has missed two of her beautiful childrens’ wedding days. They were spectacular.
I was at them both, missing her, knowing she would have been so very proud of her whole family.
We gasped when her daughter appeared in the aisle, so beautiful, so redolent of her mother. Painful. – P
This, That Father Lost by Dave Lucas touches me…
http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/That-Father-Lost
There is a lasting grief, too. It matters not that one turns the
page in one’s personal book of life, there is a character missing,
despite newer introductions to the plot. Of special poignancy is
projects started before the fateful day. The labour of love needed
to bring it to a conclusion is sometimes especially trying and oft
tinged with the mournful thought that the person for whom it was
started, who eagerly anticipated the final result, will, sadly,
never see its completion.
Yes, well said Perry. A character missing …