In the year since I found out a dear friend passed away, I have written probably a dozen blog posts about her. In that year, I feel that I have gained a lot of insights into life and death, grieving and loss, and the love and gratitude that continues after someone passes on. To mark the year, here is one more post, with even more of the seemingly endless revelations that we have when we seek the Truth, when we ask for guidance and comfort, and when we are so full of love for someone that we realize that our grief is just unexpressed love, desperate to make that connection with those we've lost.
A year ago I called a friend overseas, and found out that she had unexpectedly passed away. What happened over the next few months was somewhat normal in our society but very strange to me as I had never experienced anything like it before. I began having physical, visceral reactions to the loss, time after time after time, long after I thought the initial shock and intensity of the grief should have worn off. I would be walking home, or cooking dinner, or in the middle of church, and would suddenly start crying. Many times I had to sit down because my legs felt weak and apt to collapse under me. Over these few months since the news, I talked with a friend who was with me at the time I found out. And each time I talked with her, I said, "I feel like I should be healed of this grief by now, but I'm not. I am having such a hard time." She always responded so lovingly, patiently, and reminded me that we never really stopped missing that person. The grief would become easier to manage, it wouldn't physically knock us down forever, but that we would always miss those who went on before us. Because of course we would always miss them; our love for them didn't stop just because they passed away, and, as mentioned above, the grief is just the inability to express love, or to receive love, in the way that we did when they were still here on Earth with us.
Another dear friend said to me, "Your good is not all wrapped up in that person." This was so helpful for me to hear, as I realized that I felt something essential to my identity was lost when they passed away. They saw my good, they validated my worthiness, they listened as I shared my pain. Because they were one of only a very small number of people who saw the most vulnerable sides of me, when they passed away, I suddenly didn't feel validated anymore. The inner circle, my village, shrank by 1 person. I felt debilitated. But when I came to realize that I was still the same person, still worthy, and that my goodness didn't die, I felt a bit more like I was standing on my own 2 feet.
Just because, I am going to use an analogy here. Let's say I am given a beautiful painting, or even that I painted it myself. The painting is full of vibrant colors, textures, tones... There is a richness, a beauty that is indescribable. And then let's say the painting is destroyed in a fire. I remember what the painting looked like, I can talk about the painting to friends and family, but the painting is not there anymore. The physical proof of its existence, the actual manifestation of everything involved in the painting, is gone. It's maddening to want to see the painting again, to want to show someone how amazingly beautiful the depth of it is, and to not be able to. And no amount of wanting or grieving is going to bring the painting back.
I know that the grief lessens, either through time, or through moments of healing, or a little bit of both. Sometimes it lessens because we realize that even after the person is physically gone, we can still feel their love or their presence in our lives. Last year, the night before I found out my friend had passed, I was having a hard time sleeping. I was feeling panicky for some reason, not able to relax. Suddenly, I remembered a conversation that she and I had had a few months earlier when I was again feeling anxious. During the earlier conversation, she talked me through some breathing exercises, keeping a firm but kind tone of voice. As I was remembering this past conversation, I started breathing more evenly, I remembered all of the love that was in that conversation, and I felt her presence right then. Of course, at the time of my remembering, she had passed on, but I didn't know that yet. A wonderful example of feeling someone's love whether they are still here with us or not.
One thing that has been amazingly helpful has been the opportunity to talk with my friends about her. It allows me to share a part of that relationship, that connection that I feel I have lost in some way. When we share our feelings or stories with another person, it keeps that love that was present in the relationship still so present in our lives, and somehow seems to expand the love beyond the original relationship.
But still, there are so many moments where I think, "Is this grief ever going to lessen? Will I ever be able to hear "King and Lionheart" again without feeling like someone is ripping my heart out? More importantly, will I ever be able to speak Persian again?"
No comments:
Post a Comment