“Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.” ―
A friend was grieving the anniversary of her son’s death. It was still a harsh time of year for her. Of course it was. It always will be. My sister and I were sitting over our monthly brunch recently and couldn’t help but remember our family members who had passed away to heaven. We smiled, laughed and cried a little. Each memory was piece of joy we treasured away in our souls. Those beloved, quirky, giant, deep, glow-in-the-dark lives keep us alive in so many ways day by day, year after year as we share memory after memory.
“One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.” ―
When our family started our journey of grief, I read a quote that rang very true to the experience we shared seven years ago:
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott
My eight-year-old grandson and I had our annual football game road trip this Saturday. Actually, it was our first one. I’m with him and his sister every week or so. At this event I couldn’t help but remember, as I watched him with different eyes how momentous the day of his birth was. That day was scheduled to be induced, so we knew when he would arrive.
On that morning, my wife and I had a meeting with her oncologist. She was in the middle of a battle with breast cancer. The cancer had traveled to her brain. She had made it through targeted radiation treatments and brain surgery the year before. That morning we got the terrible news that the tumor had returned. Our wonderful doctor, ever the optimist, reminded her that she had successfully fought her way to this momentous day – the day her first grandson would arrive. Live each minute today! Make it count.
And that’s what she did. No one at the hospital, gathered around that little boy wrapped up in his blanket, ever knew what she had learned that morning. She held him tight and her face beamed with joy. Just like it all should have been. She was an example for us all.
As my grandson and I enjoyed our tradition packed day full of fun (and even won the game!) I thought about his grandmother and the fact that his life would always be a tribute for me about her life and example.
Death is a terrible experience that touches all of us. Our dearly departed don’t really leave us. They keep company with us in our thoughts, the ways of life we have internalized, our feelings and all kinds of little remembrances. Like it our not, we each keep swimming in those waters our loved ones waded us into with all their influence, subtle and monumental.
One doesn’t even have to think about it or be consciously aware of all the influence these departed and gone to heaven have permanently left in our lives. Their placeholders are organic and grow as our own lives evolve and reach into the stars. For some reason my grandchildren and I have a “trim their fingernails” ritual. I said to my grandson the other day, “you will one day be trimming your child’s fingernails and will tell him a story of me.” I got a puzzled look.
Grief works best, it matters most, when it is wrapped up and planted in all of the layers of living that made that loved one so precious. I don’t think grief is something to get over or feel bad about. I was listening to Willie Nelson singing about it today, it’s not something you get over, it’s something you get through.
“Give sorrow words, the grief that does not speak knits up the o’er wrought heart and bids it break.” – Shakespeare
My friends and family who are sharing grief these days are also telling stories about lives that keep bringing them joy. I think what matters is how we pass their stories on to the next generation. I think this is a big deal. Why did this person matter so much to me? Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you why he/she is a part of who you are.
- Hot black coffee
- Crispy bacon
- Volunteering late at night
- Never once a discouraging word
- Giving and never getting
- That extra mile, again and again
- An open door and seat at the table for everyone
- Faith is an action, not a slogan
“The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children” ―
