Thinking About Grief

A moment of levity following a funeral:

My brother-in-law: "Man, my face hurts from crying."
Me: "Oh, see, that's the good thing about being someone who cries all the time.  My face feels fine right now."

Everyone laughed.  It's not quite gallows humor, but it's nice to let the spirit smile and laugh for a few seconds in the middle of an otherwise somber day.

I mentioned the other day that one of the times in the past year that the hubby wasn't wearing a t-shirt was for his grandmother's funeral.  That funeral was actually recent, the week before Christmas (when I was finding no free time to write blog posts).  His grandmother had been sick for a few weeks and was in her late 80s, so the grief around her funeral wasn't the sort of desperate grief you see when people aren't ready to let go of their loved one.

That grief was saved for the grave of the hubby's Aunt Judie.

I've heard about Aunt Judie since I met the hubby but it wasn't until this bitter cold December day in western New Jersey that I was finally able to put together all of the pieces and see why her death has left an ongoing hole in his family.

Aunt Judie was my father-in-law's baby sister.  She was my mother-in-law's best friend.  She was thirty-five years old when she died of breast cancer, fifteen years ago.

Thirty-five.  My age.

Aunt Judie is buried at the same cemetery that the hubby's grandmother was to be buried at, so I wasn't surprised when I overheard family members making plans to go visit her in the mausoleum.

What I was surprised to hear was people say it might not be a good idea for my father-in-law to go.  I couldn't fathom why.  If you're already there, why wouldn't you go?  Wouldn't you feel bad about not going?

And then I was told - my father-in-law had never visited his sister's grave before.  Not once.  And all of a sudden, I understood why he didn't know how to get to the cemetery earlier that day.  I had thought it was odd that he got lost because, I figured, didn't he come here once in a while to see his sister's grave?

No.  He didn't.  Never.  Not once.  He couldn't bring himself to.  But we were there.

So upstairs we all walked, through this large mausoleum building.  We wound through some hallways until we found the rest of the family down a corridor, all looking up at the same marker.

My father-in-law walked in, crumpled with grief, and walked out saying, "I can't.  I can't."

It was quite possibly the most palpable display of grief I have ever witnessed, unlike any grief I have seen or felt before.

And I began to think about how unfair this all was.  And how I think I would crumple like that on a daily basis if I lost either of my siblings, especially so young.  And how it's so unfair that just because I didn't meet the hubby so long ago, I never got to meet Aunt Judie.  Everyone told me how she was the best person in the family and how I would have liked her so much.

And I started to get angry.  This was unfair.  It was unfair to my father-in-law to lose his baby sister.  It was unfair that my mother-in-law lost her best friend (who she really could use these days, for sure).  It's unfair that the hubby's cousin lost his mother when he was a small child and almost eerie that he looks so much like her. And yet, of everyone there, he was crying the least - I think because he probably dealt with this loss so much more directly than the rest of the family.  He had more peace than the others.

I stood in the mausoleum corridor next to my sister-in-law.  We both have a younger sister who's a mother and we stood there in tears, barely able to imagine, "What if... what would we do..."

We don't know how our own deaths will affect the people we know.  Sure, we can imagine.  When I was a terribly unhappy high school student, I would often wonder what life would be like if I wasn't around anymore.  I wasn't actually suicidal, but there were many days I simply wished I stopped existing.  What stopped me long before ever actually thinking about it was thinking about how sad my parents would be.

What I never considered before was the people I don't know who might miss me.  I never thought to ponder that the hubby was out there somewhere and if I didn't exist, he'd be someone else's hubby and there'd be no Nate.  I'm sure Aunt Judie thought about her son and his eventual wife and children.  But did she ever think about her then 15 year old nephew getting married and having a wife and son who wouldn't get to know her but would miss her anyway, somehow?  I wonder if that kind of thinking is simply too overwhelmingly sad to even approach in thought.

I've always been one to cry fairly easily and not shy away from the sadder parts of life (hence the earlier joke), but since Nate was born, it's not like I newly wear my heart on my sleeve.  No, it's like I hold my beating heart outstretched in my hands daily, leaving it open to stings and barbs and terrible worries.  It's one part of motherhood that has truly surprised me.  You read about the depth of emotion that being a parent opens, but for me it was indescribable and unknowable until it happened.

For some reason, over the past few days I've had some serious moments of sadness wash over me.  It's not a post-holiday letdown.  It's not related to some new event.  There are a number of stressful situations going on right now (money is always one) but there's just been something hitting me when I hear a song from high school or read a blog post about someone who lost a child.  It's hitting me harder than it usually does, but I'm rolling with it.  Sometimes I have days where I'm happier for no apparent reason.  There has to be a flip side to that.

While walking Buster one recent morning, I randomly thought, "Wow, when Buster dies, I'm going to have to explain death to Nate."

And then I realized Buster's only a year old.  Nate will probably be in high school by the time we're saying goodbye to Buster.

And then I really wanted to cry.

(Okay, not really, I love Buster . . . most of the time.  He's just . . . challenging.)

The day of the funeral, I felt like more a part of the hubby's family than I had before.  There's something about being together, sharing the most raw of emotions, that unites people.  I realized at some point in the day that this is the first family death either the hubby or I have experienced since we got married.  It certainly won't be the last or the most difficult, but it was different to go through this with a spouse.  It sounds cliche, but it made death feel less lonely.

It's probably one of the greatest benefits of marriage or partnership, but also one of the more terrifying because, of course, that partnership and support will end one day.  But until then, it is quite a gift.

Comments

[Stacey]

This was a beautiful post. Grief is an odd thing in my opinion, you never now how or when it will it. I'm so sorry for your losses, even of those you never really got to have.

[Stacey]

Also I've been crying a lot for no reason too, but I've got hormones to blame :)

[Kyra]

Grief is so big, so different for everyone. Beautiful post. D and I haven't dealt with grief like that yet, but I'm sure it is a totally different experience as a couple and I would hope it might lighten the blow a bit, so to speak.

As for motherhood heart in the hand, I am with you on the easily crying and feeling emotional very easily since giving birth. It's a weird thing about motherhood that I didn't expect either. For some reason I think of death more than I ever have in my life too. Last night, for instance, as I was trying to fall asleep, this thought popped into my mind: getting pregnant again, having another baby and dying during childbirth! What is that?! And I thought of how my daughter would probably always have a problem with her brother or sister since, to her, they killed her mom. Is this normal?