It takes so much courage to face the inevitability of death; our own and that of those we love.
This morning, my friend Jonathon Aslay posted on social media about the deep and profound feelings around the death of his 19-year-old son Connor who passed unexpectedly last year. I can only imagine the raw ride he is on as he attempts to wrap his mind around the reality of it all. No parent anticipates the heart-rending death of a child. It is one of those unimaginable losses. His son’s nickname was Salty and the reference pops up regularly in his life. It gives him comfort and likely stings at times, just like the salt water that pours from his eyes.
When I read his pronouncement about how much he missed his kid, I was moved to share this. “Grief is like water. Sometimes a calm lake, sometimes rough seas and then a tidal wave will knock us on our butts with a ferocity that shocks us beyond belief. You have many who are willing to help you ride the waves.”
As someone who is immersed in the experience of grief in my therapy practice, I work with people who express that loss sometimes feels like a hole in the heart, that nothing can completely fill. As a widow and adult orphan, who has also bid farewell to dear friends over the years, I splash about in those waters. On occasion, I have floundered about, gasping for air. I barely recover from one wave when another comes along and tosses me to shore. Once in awhile the waters seem stagnant and putrid and I am choking as I swim away, with seaweed clinging to my arms and legs. Blessedly, I have found also myself floating downstream, trusting that I will be safely carried along to a sunny reprieve.
Numbness is often part of putting death into perspective. There are days when I have matter-of-fact thoughts, like, “Oh, Ondreah (my sister-friend who died on 12/9/18) isn’t here for me to have a conversation with in person,” when I want to vent, talk about a new revelation I have had or share something celebratory. And then there is the poignancy of what my sister and I recognize as an “I miss mommy and daddy day.” We are both seasoned women (she is in her 50s and I just turned 60), whose father died in 2008 and mother joined him in 2010. It still sometimes feels like yesterday that they each took their final breath. It has been 20 years since my husband passed in the ICU as life support machinery counted out his heartbeat rhythm. It feels surrealistic as I consider what that then 40-year-old had endured as a witness to the process of him shedding his skin and taking flight above the churning waters.
“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”-Kahlil Gibran
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