Death is a terrible thing. Yes, it eventually comes for us all, but even when expected, it is still hits us like a freight train careening off the tracks. And when the Reaper finally arrives and carries one of our brethren off into the sunset, no matter what else we feel, we are also overcome with grief. A profound sense of loss.
I’ve been thinking about grief a lot since Kobe Bryant’s death on Sunday. My relationship with Bryant is honestly not even that of a fan; I am just a casual observer who by virtue of living in the United States and paying attention to sports culture is aware of his impact. I know he was one of the greats. I know he had many amazing qualities. I know he made mistakes. And yet, even with this very intellectual and detached view of this man, I personally felt a sense of loss at the deaths of the people in that helicopter.
Why is that? Why do we feel that aching emptiness when someone passes to the next world? I don’t know. I am no expert on grief, though in my brief time on Earth, I have experienced quite a bit of loss. I think for some of us, it reminds us of our own mortality and of that of our loved ones. We are reminded of other people who have already left us. We mourn the loss of a future, of our expectations, of someone to inspire us. We are saddened not necessarily by missing out on things that we need or previously had, but by lost possibilities.
I lost my grandmother last year. She had been ill and bedridden with dementia for several years. She was living with my aunt and uncle in India in a small flat in New Delhi and her constant care requirements and deterioration in her health were hard on our whole family. When she died, it was as if God had freed her from a prison on Earth, from her endless suffering. Intellectually, it was a good thing. It had been difficult to have a meaningful relationship with her for a long time, and by the time of her death, she was experiencing significant pain and debility. And yet, her death was also immensely sad.
I sound like a crazy person writing that because it seems obvious. But I think more than missing my grandmother as she was in her 80’s, her death signaled to me that my parents were getting older and that soon my relationship with them could be in jeopardy. With her gone, I also had one less connection to the country, not of my birth, but of my heritage. My dreams of my husband and future children getting to experience what I loved about spending time with my family in India were slowly being crushed, as my older family members slowly died. And less selfishly, I watched my father through this whole process, helpless as his mother deteriorated, until he was able to ceremonially honor the woman who raised him by cremating her and scattering her ashes in the holy river. We grieve our loss of control.
And we can feel loss even if no one has died. In our family, we started grieving the woman my grandmother was long before she took her last breath. And it is not only in response to illness or death. We can grieve the end of a relationship or a friendship. The loss of a job. These past few weeks, I have had the privilege and honor to visit with homeless youth and those struggling with drug addiction and poverty in Columbus. As a pediatrician, but more importantly, as a human being, I grieve the loss of their childhoods. Of their dignity. Or their sense of hope. I will work as hard as I can to have any sort of impact on their circumstances, and I hope and I pray that they are able to achieve their goals. But I still feel that ache in my heart.
The prompt for this week is this:
“Write about grief.”
You have seven minutes. See you next week.
More unedited writing of mine. Seven minutes on daffodils.
When I suggested a prompt on daffodils, I was in a much better headspace than I am in now. Honestly, writing about them almost makes me angry. In the context of Wordsworth, daffodils seem like a diversion, a beautiful distraction from his pensive moods. I’ve also been feeling very pensive lately, about injustice, about homelessness, about our poor service as a country to those most in need. It is to the point where I feel that I don’t deserve diversions. I am planning a one-day ski trip with my husband and it occurred to me how expensive of an endeavor it is to hurtle down a snow-covered mountain for even a few hours. I feel guilty spending so much money. Why do I deserve to have this experience and someone else doesn’t even have a safe place to stay or enough food to eat?
On the other hand, daffodils are a spring flower, one that blooms from the frozen (or recently thawed) earth. They, with their best friends, the tulips, are one of the first signs that life is returning. It is a sign of hope. And it is impossible to do anything good without hope, hope that it is even possible for things to get better. Maybe all of the strife and injustice in the world is the winter, freezing the world over and causing moral injury to healthcare workers, social workers, case managers, volunteers, and anyone who tries to make things better. The daffodils that we dream about, they remind us of a Promise Land and help us to get there one day.
Writing for Wellness 