Loss is a companion through life. In the hopeful scheme of things, the losses of our youth are less significant; the breaking of a favorite toy, a stolen bicycle or a friend moves away. As we grow older the losses can be more significant to us; the loss of a job or home or a relationship, and then worst of all losses, those of the ones we love.
Usually it begins with the generation before us like grandparents; occasionally one or two of our own generation, and hopefully never, one of the generation following us. Gradually, as a result these losses, grief becomes a familiar, though unwelcome, presence.
Now that I am a little ways north of 60, I know what it is like to bury my grandparents, aunts and uncles, and sadly, two siblings in my own family. This past month, just a week apart, my husband's twin passed unexpectedly and then my dear mother-in-law. We were waiting for the end of the painful treatments that my husband's brother was suffering for cancer, and were very hopeful for his recovery. We were upset to hear of his hospitalization for an infection, yet not worried. That this was not the outcome was beyond shocking. No last words, no goodbye, no reassurance of love could be given.
My mother-in-law was 99. When people hear this they say, "Well she had a good, long life" or Aren't you fortunate to have had her for so long". Clearly both these things are true. Yet she was indomitable. She was going to live to be 100. We thought that she would just always be there. It seems though that the death of yet another son was just more than she had stamina for. We watched her disappear before our very eyes. I never imagined that I would be at her side when she took that last breath. We live in Ontario and she has always lived in Quebec. We always dreaded that one day we would get that phone call. Who could imagine that the death of one dear one would place us in Quebec to be present at the death of another dear one and how can one be grateful for such a circumstance.
These feelings, this grief, so overwhelming that sometimes your mind just repels its presence so strongly that you feel absolutely nothing for moments at a time. Then, like the ocean shoreline, you feel the waves pound against you, unending, inexorable. Sometimes like a tsunami, so huge and engulfing that you feel you will never breath again, then sometimes a more gentle lap against the sand, not so destroying but you you still feel its presence. You realize the myriad of ways that you were connected to those who are no longer here because every thing now reminds you in some way of them; a song, a photo, a place, a tiny habit. And each of those things emphasizes painfully the fact that you will no longer be able to share any of those things together ever again.
And sometimes... you wonder if you can survive it.
But you do.
I thought there was more than a touch of irony in the fact that my husband had a checkup with his cardiac specialist just days after we returned home. I said, 'Could the doctor see that your heart was broken?". It's not always something that you can see unless you look really closely.
But just as the relentless ocean waves change the shoreline, so are we are buffeted and changed by loss. Forever. We are no longer that same person. Pieces of us are missing; pieces are rearranged. But slowly, over time and each at our own pace, we find a new way forward. I have not lost my life mate; my mind utterly balks at that thought. My sister-in-law will not easily accept this new life empty of her most precious person. I have now lost another mother and feel orphaned in a profound way. My husband has lost his twin and his mother at once. Grief is a desperately lonely and solitary road even when we walk it with along side others. You have to make your own peace with it.
There is however some comfort in the expression of grief; in the sharing of memories, tears, a hug. Many times there are no words to express how we feel or that can comfort; only the touch of another hand in companionship can do that.
And perhaps that is the only way we can survive.
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