Topic: Grief

What does one do when one has lost everything?

I had a chance recently to visit with some folks who have been through a lot. In late fall 2008, their house had burnt down. To the ground. Total loss.

These are people in their senior years, and had a lifetime of memories in that household. They’ve travelled much with his business and collected beautiful wall hangings, carpets, and artwork from various places around the world. She is a woman who loves history and knowledge…she could tell the story of each piece, and often of the artisan who crafted it, in detail. They love knowledge, learning and history…and had the books of a lifetime in the library of that house. They love family, roots, geneologies…and had objects from previous generations to remember loved ones from times past (and had the story to go along with each item).

And then, one day, while they weren’t home, it went up in flames. Very little could be salvaged. They were homeless…and had lost so much that had so much meaning.

Amongst the conversation of the evening, she told me of an unforgettable experience.  She was standing in the charred remains of what had been their library…sodden, now frozen charred remains of books, some still on the shelves, some knocked over on the ground. Her heart was numb, full and empty at the same time. She was beaten, forlorn, and utterly overwhelmed with a sense of loss.

She looked up to the sky (the ceiling had collapsed and the room was open to the elements) and noticed a maple leaf falling from the neighbor’s overhanging tree. The breeze captured a leaf…perfectly symmetrical, with the bright oranges, reds, and yellows that only a Canadian maple leaf can have. And the leaf gently, gracefully floated back and forth to land in the middle of the charred library, near where she stood.

She was captured by it’s beauty, made starker by the blackness all around. As she was telling the story of this maple leaf in the library, her voice got stronger, more animated. She said something like, “My heart was so full of so much at that moment. So much. I wish I had been a poet. I wish I was an artist, because somehow I wanted to capture that incredibly enormity of all that I was feeling in that moment. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have words for all that was happening.” That moment of the maple leaf falling into the blackness of her destroyed home was something she will never forget.

There is something to that, I think. How, in moments of despair, the small act of kindness of a friend, or a snapshot of beauty stands out in stark contrast to the misery of the situation. How the deepest of pits is suddenly illuminated with light for a brief moment. What was particularly striking in this story, is that the beauty of that maple leaf occurred because it was itself dying and being released by the maple as the days were colder.

It was a difficult year of negotiating with the insurance company, and making millions of choices as the house was rebuilt and restocked. A time of living in strange surroundings for months as rebuilding was taking place, only to move back to a new house that while beautiful, was not the familiar house from before. 

But she hasn’t forgotten the maple leaf. And the unwritten poem of the power of that moment stays with her.

Totensonntag was a part of my childhood. The church of my childhood marked “Totensonntag” (toe-ten-zon-tahg) on the last Sunday of the church calendar year—the first Sunday of the church calendar year being the first Sunday of Advent—four Sundays before Christmas. So Totensonntag (directly translated from the German—“Dead Sunday”) was generally in late November.

Totensonntag was a chance for those in the church community to remember those who had died…funerals that had occurred in the last year were written down in the weekly bulletin, families who wanted to remember loved ones from years past would put a plant at the front of the church in memory, and we would sing a sad slow song in a minor key…I’m assuming it was about death, but I wouldn’t know for sure…the son was in German, a language I didn’t understand. It was a public formal way to remember those who were no longer among us, and a chance to officially acknowledge the ongoing grief of those in the congregation.

It’s been a long time since I attended a Totensonntag service…but I was speaking to someone who was going to be attending “The Longest Night” service at her church yesterday. December 21 is the winter solstice, making it the day when there is the most amount of darkness…a fitting time to acknowledge the darkness in our own lives. Other places have services called “Blue Christmas” or “Good Mourning” services—the holidays are a poignant time when we remember those who are departed and won’t be a part of the Christmas traditions in the way that was familiar and meaningful

It's a struggle for many at this time of year, as one feels the pressure to be happy and cheerful, and enjoying the season. Grandma may not be around…and her special cookies and her tinkling laugh won’t be at the family gathering. A spouse isn’t present to wrap the gifts together in a made hilarious and late rush on Christmas Eve, or at the other end of the table to carve the turkey.

For many, there is mourning, though not over a death…children are alienated, and won’t come for Christmas; a spouse has been unfaithful, and while the events on the surface appear unchanged, there is terror hidden in his eyes, as he wonders if this is the last Christmas; mom scrambles to keep some of the traditions the same even though dad now lives in another house, and there isn’t enough time, money or help to do things the usual way.

The challenge for those who mourn a loss this season is to hold the complexities of life, to feel the tear of loss even as there is opportunities to embrace something new; to laugh at a child’s antics and allow that laugh to dissolve into tears with remembering; to be melancholy and still find a way to get to the party, even if one doesn’t stay as long; to thoroughly enjoy an evening without feeling guilty or disloyal to the loss; to find a way to negotiate through a painful family gathering, being thoughtful in one’s own conduct to protect oneself from the worst of the pain.

I was at a friend’s house last night, where a history buff showed me a video. It is hauntingly beautiful, as the mournful tone of the music, the incredible artistry creating beautiful images appear before our eyes, transforming moments of joy into brutal pain and then back into a peaceful scene, and back into times of horror. The story told is that of Ukraine during the World War II, some of it celebratory and victorious, much of it agonizingly painful. It seemed fitting that he showed it to me yesterday, the day of darkness…I was struck by the tears of the observers as the images touched their soul.

 

 

It is interesting to me that we are so captivated by what is essentially a capitalistic discourse of grieving.  Listen to the terms we use.  We should finish unfinished business. We need to seek closure.  We ought to withdraw emotional energy from the one who has died in order to invest it into other relationships.  What I would say in response to all of this is that business may be finished but relationships rarely are.  And we usually don't seek closure.  Closure is for bank accounts, not for love accounts. Those remain open.
Love is not like money.  It is not available in limited supply.  It is potentially boundless, so the more open we remain to continuing loving relationships with those who are not physcially present, the more love we have available to give to contemporary relationships with those who are living.  The notion of withdrawing energy as if it were just so much emotional capital that can be reallocated to another higher-interest-bearing account strikes me as bizarre.

Neimeyer as quoted in Their Finest Hour by Kottler and Carlson

Today looked for many like an ordinary day.  I too, looked like I was having an ordinary day…saw clients, made phone calls, dealt with issues, looked after administrative chores at work, and household chores at home.

But it only looked ordinary.  It didn’t feel ordinary.  For weeks, there was an impending sense of waiting for the day, knowing it was coming.

It was the anniversary.

The anniversary of the death of dear and loved family members who died suddenly and tragically on this day years ago.

Amazing how things can look normal, and so much can seem like a regular day, even when today is not at all like other days—for me.  Many days now, the fullness of life covers over the gaping hole and I, after all these years, don’t even think about the loss.  There were months years ago where I couldn’t imagine grief being a daily and ever present mantle of heaviness.  Life has gone on, I can smile and laugh without feeling guilty. I can remember the times before with fondness, and talk about those days without bursting into tears.

But today is a day when the hollow ache is ripped open fresh again and it seems like yesterday that I heard the dreaded news.  I am reminded of the emptiness in a "get hit by a Mac truck" sort of way.  Leaning over the grave and hugging the ground seems like a pathetic way to connect with the love that was lost on that day—pathetic, but I wouldn’t miss being there today for anything.  It is a day I dread, but a day I wouldn’t miss, can’t miss, won’t stop acknowledging.

As I sit by the grave and weep, I sit in the silence and remember.  I go through the "what ifs", and spend time wishing things were different.  A time of restless contemplation.  I notice the ants crawling over my feet and pant legs and I idly am reminded that there is life.  The nearby roar of the train tells me that life keeps moving forward, and as much as life stops at the grave, it goes on too.

Tomorrow is a new day, and the burden of the anniversary will be lifted.  But the memory of my loved ones is not forgotten:  there are the wind chimes in my kitchen, statues in my living room, the beach glass in another room—all of which serve as symbols of the lives that were lived, and they comfort me.  Gone but not forgotten. And life goes on.