Pain From Loss

My first experience of loss occurred when I was in grade school. We had just moved from Davenport to East Moline. My school in East Moline was Hillcrest School. Moving was both exciting and scary. I had enjoyed my school time at Jefferson School in Davenport, but now I was going to be going to a new school where I was an unknown, where the social groups were already set. I think I took that move harder than I admitted to myself at the time.

The first person I encountered at my new school was the secretary. Time has cost me the memory of her name - was it Shirley? -  and that saddens me greatly. She offered a warm welcome and the boost that I needed to start finding some excitement again.

Within a year she was dead.

I remember the visitation that children in our school went to, at a church in downtown Rock Island. I remember the day as being ,cloudy,  threatening. Maybe that was just my mood. One of the brighter lights to that point in my life was gone.

Some years later I lost an aunt to heart disease. She was too young.

When I was 31 we lost our dad. He had two heart attacks within a month. When I am asked by a doctor if there's a history of heart disease in my family I answer, "Do you have a while?" When I was 43 we lost our mom. When Cindy was almost 31 she lost her dad. Just within the last couple of years Cindy's mom passed away.

We have lost more than one nephew under horrible circumstances.

Every one of these people were Mom - Dad - Grandma - Grandpa - Aunt - Son - Brother - Cousin - family - loved. The loss of every one of them caused unspeakable pain, a pain that seems like it will go on forever. Some time ago, a dear friend from work and I found ourselves experiencing family losses. The timing was eerie. I would lose someone, then within a month or so she would lose someone. Then she would lose someone else and, within a month, I'd lose someone else. It wasn't just the timing that was weird. It was that the relatives we lost were the same relatives: she lost a nephew, then I lost a nephew. She lost a mother-in-law, then I lost a mother-in-law. . .We went through about three exchanges like that. She and I agreed that we were funeralled out. No more! We promised each other!

It didn't work. My thinking about the subject of loss was triggered by the death of a sister-in-law, my wife's second-oldest sister, early Tuesday morning. She was only 62. It was sudden and unexpected, a complete shock. I can't say I knew her well. By the time Cindy and I married she was already married and had been living in Washington state for some years, but Cindy and the younger sisters looked up to her. In a family of 13 kids, she was the (rare!) quiet one, but she had her way of making her presence known. She was a mom to ten, one of whom has passed away. The other nine are all solid, responsible citizens. This loss hurts my wife far more than it hurts me. But it does hurt as the loss of any good person should hurt. Great wife to Bob, great mom to all her kids, great human being, a person who lived by her faith and found meaning in it. You can't ask more than that.

So, again, we experience the pain of loss. I've been through this enough times to know how this works. At first, the numbness, the shock. Then, the pain that becomes nearly unbearable, and seems endless. Someone, trying to be helpful, will say, "I know how you feel." No, no you don't. "God must have wanted another angel, so God took. . ." What kind of God do you believe in? I want no part of such a God! But then there's the true friend, the one that knows that what's really needed is for them to be there. Not to say anything - just be there. The touch of that hand means more than volumes of words.

Over time the pain does ease, and eventually you stop thinking about this person constantly. But, the agony never completely goes away. Some occasion will come up - a holiday will trigger a memory, a birthday will remind you, an anniversary brings back THAT day - and the pain is as bad as ever. It's hard to know this when you're in the middle of it, but over time the recurrences of the pain will become less frequent, the incidents will be milder. You may find your faith and your belief in the next life is renewed and more real than ever before. And, you can get to the point that, while there is pain, you can celebrate this person. The joy of having had the privilege of knowing them overrides the pain of losing them. And, hope refreshes. But, you never, ever forget, and that's good. We're human. We have memory.

As always, I'd love your thoughts. Thanks for hanging out for a few.