Sometimes they come in 3s. The death march, catastrophes or really bad luck.
6 years ago, as of yesterday, I unexpectedly lost my Aunt. The minutes following the phone call were numbed by denial so deep I couldn’t feel anything. Grief was delayed temporarily like a damn holding back an enevitable flood.
11 months ago I recieved another unexpected phone call that a dear friend my age had unexpectedly passed. Shock hit me in waves as my thoughts came crashing together trying to unpack what I was hearing, looking for the loophole that would make life continue in its familiar form instead of a shape-shifter.
Today I had an unexpected text from a family letting me know that a patient of mine had suddenly, yet not unexpectedly, pass away yesterday. I haven’t picked up the pieces of that news just yet, perhaps this is how I’m sorting them…
I’ve had more losses than just those 3, many expected with grandparents dying when I was younger and they were much older, the proper time to die, the end of a full life, the reasonable expectation of narrative we all can accept on paper. We are born, we live, we die. I was okay with that script until death came into my life with an unexpected narrative, that didn’t follow acceptable directions.
The unexpected loss of a 2 year old client rocked my world as a young adult fresh out of grad school. I saw him Friday. We played cars. He made me laugh with his sound effects while crashing them and melted something inside my heart looking at me with a silly mischivous twinkle in his eye. He was special to me; to big for his britches, an old soul some would say… his parents and I did say. His heart stopped on Saturday. No one really knows why, but hours of trying didn’t bring him back. I found out Monday morning when I got to work and checked voice-mails for the office. I was unprepared, nothing was numb, just an uncontrollable flood of sobbing, so much so that I wasn’t able to convey what was wrong. His parents invited me to his viewing, I was the only non-family member there. His mother wouldn’t let go of my hand and we bawled into each other’s hair embracing our collective pain. We loved him. Each as we knew him, differently yet our pain didn’t see the difference.
That loss shook me upsidown, sideways and backwards. It raised questions I never asked and provided no answers, no matter how hard I pressed I couldn’t understand how the script for death was so utterly misread.
Having been raised with a biblical worldview I found that the answers from church friends fell short of reaching my hollowed out insides. “Why did he have to die?” As serious as I meant it, it couldn’t be comforted by pat answers such as “because it’s God will” or “he’s in a better place now”. I wanted to scream back “NO HE ISN’T! HE’S ONLY 2! HE NEEDS HIS PARENTS! HE CAN’T GO TO HEAVEN ALONE!”.
Being in the midst of my own hell in my personal life, his death egnited a struggle that was merely the tip of the iceberg. I railed, yelled and cursed at the God I believed in, throwing questions, hatred, confusion, pain, desperation, ultimatums, threats and petty demands at him for years. Demanding that I be treated with respect by being answered, demanding that I be treated like god and not a mere human trapped by limited comprehension and blinded by pain.
My answers didn’t come. Everything had to fall apart so that all I had left was surrender. To stop pushing the questions, to stop demanding the answers, to just be there living in my hell.
I’ve learned to have a loose acceptance on life, that it really is temporary and will constantly change, mostly abruptly and when I’m not looking. I’ve learned that B doesn’t follow A and that C won’t likely get in line either. I’ve learned that pain isn’t too be avoided but embraced. I’ve learned that judging or storing feelings only burries the living into a hole. I’ve learned that grief takes is own time and will not be pushed, but rather likes to be acknowledged and shared. I’ve learned that none of us learns anything about life until we’ve lived it, tried unsuccessfully to control it and continually release it.
My dad morbidly said to me once when I was a kid “you either live long enough to see all of your friends die, or you go first and die young”. As terrible as that sounds it feels like a truth.
The patient I lost yesterday was only 20…
My friend 42…
My Aunt 58…
None of us chose when we go out, and I can’t help but think about what’s next. I think as humans we’re utterly uncreative at imagining an afterlife. Culturally we balk at the idea of heaven: such perfection sounds dealthy boring and hell sounds like the place to “live forever “. If all the entertaining-creative-non-rule-following people go to hell and only dull-pious-religious-nobodies go to heaven… then is there really a choice?
Individually I think we all have to grapple with our own approaching deaths. Running away from it out of fear, embracing it to find comfort…
Personally, I’ve grappled, questioned and pondered on repeat and I’ve landed somewhere peaceful. My death is enevitable. As I’m living with my thoughts, I feel grief if I die out of order and for those I leave behind, I’m saddened that I’ll be unable to comfort them in their grief. But if I’m dead I won’t have grief missing out on participating in it…what a relief.
I believe there is an afterlife of some kind, I believe this life has purpose and meaning and cannot just stop. I believe that not all things are coincidence and some people are meant to be in my life, and I in theirs. I believe in God as love that’s personal and that I will see loved ones again. I’m not concerned about the science, the rationality of proving a point, making everyone share what I believe, or the truth if I’m wrong.
Death is hardest on the living. I’ve heard deaths come in 3s, but I think they just come in time. Grief takes its own time to ease and has to be shared…or it might be what kills you.
The Fish Eye 