My husband has been dead now for almost a year. He had lung cancer, which eventually went to his brain. He had been so ill for so long; five years, in fact. He fought the good fight. A soldier, a warrior of death and dying. But it took him in the end, and along with him, a part of me too.

In the beginning, at the first meeting with the surgeon, I thought it would be a piece of cake for Brian. He was strong. We’ll just remove that little sucker, it’s so small, and that will be that. But five years of clinical trials and chemo and immunotherapy did nothing but steal my husband away from me, from his family and friends. He was no longer the man he used to be. I would find myself sobbing, knowing that recovery was not something that would be a part of our future, that our love for one another was not going to save him. It would not save us. Life would forever change. How naïve we were back then.

With each passing day, with each phase of the moon, we fought on. Days became nights and still my husband crawled, pushed and inched his way into the next day, to the next treatment, to the next appointment. This went on for five years. Can you imagine that? I still can’t believe what we went through. The waiting and waiting to see the oncologist. The waiting for results. It was enough to break anyone. It was enough to crush anyone’s soul. And yet he kept going back, and little by little both of us lost our souls in the fight. My husband, in pain and sick and tired, sleeping for hours on end, the endless side effects crippling him. The drugs, the radiation on his brain, killing cells that would never fire up again. A nightmare is what it was. A very sad and dangerous nightmare. He was living his and I was living mine. How will we live, what will happen to both of us? How can I keep doing this? How can he?

Last March, several events led to his being rushed to the hospital. In emergency, the oncologist on-call informed my son and me that my husband had two weeks to two months to live. His cancer was in the brain. Of course, to me it explained everything – his behavior, his loss of words, his balance, his blank stares into space. His own oncologist kept telling me there was no cancer in his brain. Well Doc, go back to medical school because your colleague disagrees and you were so very wrong. My son broke down that night, having heard the words we all hate to hear, that our loved one has little or no time left. There was shock and panic and despair. I had my friend, my lover, my everything, taken from me. I was alone. Yes, I had my children, sure, and wonderful and sympathetic friends. I’m grateful for them and for my children, but they couldn’t fill the void that was left, the loneliness that engulfs you and swallows you whole. Your soul is left in the dark and is unable to see the light. The tears and the screams of pain, the pain that rips your heart open, that leaves you shattered like broken glass. There is no other pain like the loss of the person you loved forever and ever.

And so, after several months of grief and sorrow, I thought I’d go to a medium. That way I could talk to Bri again and we could connect. I found a woman who was recommended to me by a friend. She was lovely, and told me Brian was happy on the other side, that he was fishing and had no pain. I felt a sense of relief, a sense that he was still with me. He is living his best life on the other side. But in some ways it made me sadder because I wanted him to be with me, to really be with me, by my side, home when I got home from work with a kiss and a hug. I wanted him to dance with me again in the kitchen and hold my hand and make jokes and laugh and for us to just be together. And sure, mediums can say all they want that he’s with me, and it’s a comfort, but is he? No, he’s not. He’s dead. I hope his soul lives on. I know he lives on in my heart. I whispered in his ear on his deathbed, a line from It’s a Wonderful Life: “I’ll love you ’til the day I die!” I just wish he could be here with me right now, beside me.

So I cling to what the medium said to me, that my loved one is happy and is with his relatives that have gone before him. I pray that his soul is happy, that his energy is free-floating in the universe and giving positive energy to me and to his kids and to those he loved. Mediums and tarot card readers tell me he’s doing all that. The mystics would say he lives on, and of course he does in my memories and in the memories of my children. He lives on in their dreams.

Perhaps one day I’ll find a medium that will really blow my mind and make me feel like Brian is in the room again. Until then, I have my memories, and that’s enough right now for me to keep him alive in my heart.

Photo Credit

Photo by Martha Farley – all rights reserved

Your death has been the worst thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life. Not that I’ve had the most disturbing life on earth but I’ve had some ups and downs. But nothing compares to this, this emptiness inside me. For so many years we were one, one unit it seemed. And we worked well together, my ying to your yang. We fought, sure, like most couples. But our love and respect for one another was always paramount.

Our children miss you every day. I sometimes feel their pain when they’re with me. Sometimes it’s hard to know if that pain is for me or for the fact that you’ve passed on. They do worry about me, I know that. They do their best to lift me up and help me deal with such a huge loss, with you leaving this earth.

So, we’re coming up to Christmas, your favorite time of year. How you loved getting the best tree and hanging the lights on that tree as though you were a designer dressing your favorite model. You always took your time to make the most of those lights. And then you’d spend hours in the dark with them on, just relaxing and admiring your handiwork. That was such a precious moment. That and Christmas morning. How I loved our Christmases together, getting up before the children on Christmas day and sitting by the tree, having our coffee, anticipating our children’s glee as they discovered the pile of toys and gifts left by Santa. I loved the smell of you cooking up a feast in the kitchen – bacon, sausages, hash browns, eggs and toast and pots of coffee – while they played quietly with their new toys. Even as teenagers we would wake them up and gather around the tree to share in the joys. I wish I could go back and soak it all in again.

And then as adults, to have had our infant grandson with us was the icing on the cake. How that little boy took in all of the glory of Christmas morning. And as he grew it became more and more about tradition. Each Christmas would follow the other. To be honest, there wasn’t anything too special about them, not to someone maybe looking in. But to us, Christmas was the most wonderful and glorious day we shared together. You’ll no longer be stringing the lights or making the coffee or playing with your grandson. This year we’ll think of you, think of all the love you gave us, how you loved your family with all your heart and soul. This year you’ll be the angel on top of the tree.

Not long after you died I took it upon myself to plan a Christmas that wouldn’t be in our home. I knew for me it would be too hard, too many memories that would pop up again and again and I’d be brought to my knees with grief. So I rented two rooms at a hotel downtown so the children and I could feel like we were away somewhere. Anywhere but home, where those memories are so sharp and clear. We’ll walk around the city looking for Christmas, we’ll make new traditions and of course integrate our old ones too. But you’ll be gone, and it’ll be tough. I pray I’ll be able to get through it without feeling too sad or too angry or too alone.

I never imagined I’d be in this position, this place where I’m the maker of my own life, where I don’t rely on anyone to discuss what I’m going to do or be. I’m just here, still ever so slightly attached to you but also learning how to be on my own. So far it’s been difficult but I only hope you’ll guide me to new beginnings, like this special Christmas in the city. We’ll hope for some snow and lots of laughter. And you, the angel on the tree, will be in our hearts.

Your love will see us through.

Photo Credits
Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

It’s been over two months now, over two months that you’ve been gone, your ashes buried beneath the earth. I haven’t been back to the cemetery. It’s too hard. One day I will. But not today.

Today I’m somewhat in denial. Somewhat lost, still, in a world that’s not mine because you’re not here with me. And you’re always with me. Or you used to always be with me. I’m in that space that has room for one. I want you to join me. Where are you? I’m in this void, this empty space. There’s no laughter here. You took that with you too. Oh, one day I may laugh again, I mean really laugh and feel it. But not today.

You were sick for so long. Five long years of chemo, radiation and immunotherapy. So many promises. Oh, the doctor said the cancer is gone. No cancer, yay. We all shout out with joy, only to find months later the cancer is back. The cancer touches you and it never lets you go. It’s my enemy, my nemesis. It, that shitty cancer, kept me from you. It took your spirit, your strength and your desire to do anything but sleep. Some of those days were good, when you didn’t feel too sick or too tired or too depressed. Right up until the end you fought that cancer, even though you were so far gone I’m sure you didn’t even know what was going on with your mind or your body. But you never let go of life, of those small things that turn into big things. Those smiles when your children and grandson would arrive. Those spontaneous dances in the kitchen. The kisses you gave me and the hugs that felt like you’d never let go. You fought like hell to hold on to the life you had and the people you loved. You didn’t back down, ever. One day at a time. I, on the other hand, worried. That was my job. I worried about you, I worried about our future, I worried about my own health. I worried you would fall or have a stroke, or that you’d die without anyone by your side, without someone to hold your hand and help you to be calm. I spent several hours a day, I’m sure, in a constant state of worry. A lot of good it did us. The worrying, I mean. All that energy spent. It filled my days.

Yet in the end, it played out as it should have. Or sort of. You fell and I couldn’t get you up. With all my heart and soul I wanted you to get up and get back into bed. I wanted you to stand up and feel your strength, but you couldn’t. You were too sick, too far gone for a miracle. I only had to make the call and I knew it would be the end. I didn’t want you to go to a nursing home. The doctor said you had no cancer so it must be dementia. Oh, how little these doctors know or how little they want to share with their patients. Dementia, my ass. I knew all along. Even though it was told to me a hundred times the cancer was gone, I didn’t believe it. I wanted to, and I was happy you believed it. Why wouldn’t you? You’re young, were young, we still had so many years of life together that we could’ve embraced and enjoyed. But it was brain cancer, and it wasn’t long before we had to say goodbye to you, the children and I. Thankfully you weren’t in a hospital but in a beautiful palliative care centre near our home. It made such a difference for you, and for us. You were so well looked after and so peaceful. No more falling, no more pain, no more running to hospitals anymore. Just like that, it was over.

Just a little over two months now you’ve been gone. But I saw you in my dream. You looked so handsome and healthy. We hugged, you asked how the children were. My beautiful blue-eyed boy. I miss you every day, every hour, every minute.

I went to see a medium, a spiritual guide. I had to know if you were okay, if you weren’t too shocked to find yourself on the other side. You weren’t really aware of how sick you were and I worried you would be afraid. I had to know if you were safe and happy. She said you were aware of what was going on but on another level. She said you were thankful and grateful for all I did for you. Those were our vows. In sickness and in health. She said you were fishing (I smiled when she told me that) and she said you felt bad we didn’t get one more trip on the books. You also said you felt like your duties as a Dad hadn’t been finished. You were the best Dad ever, my love. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.

I just wish you could’ve held off on the whole dying thing until maybe we were in our eighties. I was told by the medium that our fate is pre-destined, that we choose it. All that talk about dying young. I guess on some level you always knew, didn’t you. Sixty-four isn’t young but it’s young when you’re sixty-four.

I watched a video today of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party. That was such a magical night. Shannon and George sang “We’ve Only Just Begun” as you and I danced in our back yard surrounded by our children and our family and friends. I cried. I do a lot of that. And then there were videos of the cottage, of you pushing our son Ryan off the dock and into the lake. It was funny and made me laugh. So many memories, so many wonderful times together. I’m grateful for those memories every day. 

I’m still in a void, but one day, just not today, I hope I can close up the hole that has ravaged my heart and really laugh again.

I hope we meet again, my love. When we do, I’ll know it’s you from the way the butterflies in my tummy will flutter. Your smile and your touch will fill that void, and we will begin anew.

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

He used to bring me coffee in bed
we would lie there and talk
starting our weekend mornings with a cup of java
was always the best
he used to squeeze my hand so tight
as we would take our walks here and there
holding hands like teenagers
he used to surprise me with special gifts on special days
flowers and jewelry and fabulous trips
he used to love me so tenderly
full of passion and joy, our love always so strong
he used to make me laugh
so much laughter, his humor infectious
the things he came up with would make me roar
he used to share his secrets with me and I with him
my best friend, my confidant
I always knew he was there
he used to look after me
when I was sick or tired or both
he would pick up and carry on
ever so quietly, things got done
he used to say things that I was thinking
we could say the same thing at the same time
our minds working together
he used to smile at me from across a room
that gave me shivers, and made me smile too
he used to spend so much time with our babies
tending to them, loving them
helping them grow, nurturing
he used to make my lunches, he would cut off the crust
and cut the sandwich in triangles
he used to watch sentimental movies with me and we’d cry
and then we would make fun of each other for crying
he used to lose sleep while going to our children’s events
hockey and plays, graduations and birthday parties
he used to work nights and so our car was always clean in the winter
driveways were shovelled before we all left
he used to always love dogs
from Kimmy to Trinity, our barking dog
whom he loved like one of his kids
he used to love to scare me
popping out of dark corners and yelling
was one of the things that had him in stitches
he used to laugh and joke
and find the humor in most things
he loved to laugh
he used to be
my husband
my friend
my lover
he is gone now
I miss him terribly
already 
he used to be…

Brian Alexander Page 
July 15th, 1958 – April 1st, 2023

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

Grief is the most all-encompassing, overwhelming and complex emotion in the human experience. It wasn’t until I became one of the broken moms, ripped apart at the seams by the loss of my daughter to substance use. I thought the 10 years of trauma, from her disappearance at the hands of a serial predator, to her returning to us as a fully addicted victim, to the months of therapy and treatment centres, were the worst experiences through which we would ever have to live. But the death, the loss, the loneliness….the utter agony…..trumped the trauma by far. I would eagerly offer up my agreement to live those 10 years of trauma again if I could have my daughter back. Because I’d be much smarter now, wouldn’t I? I would know what to do and I wouldn’t have to face the rest of my life living with regrets. You know: the woulda, shoulda, couldas. We all do it.

Grief is a regular visitor to our household and I don’t think it ever really leaves the perimeter of our home. But I had been getting to a point where I was able to function almost normally, albeit as a different, softer and sadder version of my former self. I was getting to know the new me. And then I’d flip the calendar and see another anniversary date looming. The date of her death, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, her birthday, my birthday – even Halloween because we loved getting dressed up in outrageous costumes. I would see one of these dates coming and like a bronc rider getting ready to mount the back of the horse, I’d bear down, grit my teeth, dig in and prepare to be thrown and pounded into the dirt. And then the actual day would come and go and I’d survive.

So when I heard the term re-grieving at one of our Healing Hearts meetings, I pounced on that and it has been my life preserver. This is my wording, my dialogue and my explanation when someone close to me says (not to my face of course), “Oh, she’s still grieving, she’s not over it yet”. That term makes us all cringe as we know there is no “getting over it” – not in this lifetime. We learn to live with it as a part of what makes us this new person, trying to muddle our way through while dragging an anvil of pain. But I can let my friends and family know that a challenging time is coming for me. “I’ll be re-grieving so please give me some space”.

Re-grieving works for me. Every anniversary date that looms I allow myself the space to bring in that raw grief from the early days and know it will take me back. And I’m okay with that because that is how I remember this beautiful human being I grew inside me. It reminds me of what we had and I work toward not regretting what we didn’t get to have. I can look at the calendar and see an important date coming but with a more balanced set of emotions, knowing the re-grieving will be a process of some anxiety mixed with deep sadness leading up to the day, and then it will begin to recede after. It’s like an ocean wave, cresting to the beach, crashing and then pulling back into the depths. As time goes by, the storms that cause the water to crash on the shore tend to move farther out into the vastness of the ocean and the incoming and outgoing waves begin to slow into a rhythm that will never stop but at least they are no longer a sure sign of drowning.

So re-grieve when you need to. Cry, give in, feel it to the depths of your soul. It keeps our loved ones’ memories alive and it gives us a boundary, a line in the sand we can draw for others who just wish we would be our old selves again. We need never make excuses to stuff it down and put on this ridiculous happy face that only causes us more pain because we are putting on a false act. It’s true that this day too shall pass and we’ll be better tomorrow. At least until the next time, as we stand at the shore being kind to ourselves while we wait patiently, watching the waves begin to slow and the storm to pass again.

Photo Credit

Photo is Wikimedia creative commons

First published at Healing Hearts

I realized recently that I have forgotten how your voice sounds. How wonderful it would be to have a recording of it. I remember Mom always reminding you to answer the phone properly. You never bothered with a time-honored “hello”, it was always just “yeah”. This was one of Mom’s pet peeves, but it still makes me giggle. I remember thinking how cool it was, that you did the opposite of what everyone else did.

I think of you often, but especially around this time – August, 30th 1985, the anniversary of your death. There are so many moments that I have grown to cherish throughout the thirty-five years we have been apart. I think about Mom’s dismay when you would take me on your “boy sprees”. You taught me how to ride my bike at five years old and drive a four-wheeler at nine. I can see you smiling at me with that genuine grin you flashed when I would follow you up the sand dunes on my four-wheeler or when I hit a golf ball with ease. I remember us wrestling in the living room until I would shout the magic password (“Acapulco!”) for relief.

I never told you this, but it made me feel miserable that your yearly “prize deer” was killed for sport. I still enjoyed the time we spent together. I remember the meat locker that made me shiver – with cold and excitement – knowing I got to join you and the butcher while you skinned and slaughtered the animal in the stockroom at the grocery store you managed. And I did enjoy the taste of fresh venison jerky and that spontaneous snap when you bite into it.

I appreciate how patiently you allowed me to play beautician, placing countless clips in your curly hair and beard while you watched television or read the paper. How quickly things changed for us after that routine visit to the doctor. You were complaining about headaches and neck pain. How could we have known it was cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma to be exact, and that we only had two more years together.

How did you cope? At twenty-eight years old you were still trying to understand who you were or what you wanted to do in this world. What was your first thought? Were you scared? Did you think you could beat it? Did you cry? The only time I remember you ever having a negative attitude about your disease was our last Christmas morning together. Mom bought you a traditional camouflage hunting outfit with pants and jacket. I remember so clearly the image of you standing in it after Mom snapped your picture. You sank back into your tattered, tan recliner and said clearly, “I will not need this.”

Sometimes I try to replicate the situation for myself, consider how I would deal with a toxic cloud of cancer hovering over me. Your pain had to be unbearable with the radiation and chemotherapy – let alone the pain from the tumor itself. I respect your strength and all you did to shield us from the turmoil you must have been experiencing in every part of your being.

Sometimes life’s small problems can seem so big. I often think of you to put them into perspective, reminding myself and others that you would willingly be forty and have wrinkles, fifty and need cholesterol medication, sixty and require a colonoscopy, or seventy and deal with memory loss. All of these things would be preferable to dying from cancer at the early age of thirty.

I feel sad for you. And for me. For thirty-five years I have missed your presence in my life. There have been innumerable times I wanted to share my highs and lows with you. I used to imagine you coming to my grade school basketball games at Trinity Lutheran, spotting me on the court in my baby blue uniform and my white Nike high-tops running fast the way you taught me. All those free throws we practiced in the parking lot of the Catholic church paid off. My high school coach told me my form was pure.

High school bored me, but playing sports kept me out of trouble. It was my coach who helped me recover after I tore my ACL in my junior year and learned I would not be able to play in college. After that I didn’t know what path to follow. I wish I could have talked to you. I wonder if you would have been a good listener. You always seemed to be when I was young.

I always followed my instinct – even if, at times, it appeared to be leading me nowhere. I made some poor choices, but when I honed in on my gut feeling I could rectify them. One time this was true was when I almost married the wrong person. We were not a good fit, complete opposites. But I liked the attention he gave me and his affectionate family was something I longed for. But I stayed true to me. That was something you modeled for me.

I’ve never stopped wanting to make you proud. That desire has been the fuel that carried me forward. I had to be more tenacious, more driven, and motivated to flourish. I fought on, knowing that you would want me to be strong like you were to the very end. You believed in me and wanted me to believe in me – which is the best gift a parent can give their child.

So much has changed that I wish I could share with you. I married a man who delights in treating me like a queen. You both share a similar zest for life and a witty sense of humor. He has been my rock, Dad. He has given me a peaceful place to find myself and the freedom to be me. We have two remarkable boys who make me feel emotions I have never experienced before. So many of their characteristics remind me of you – their charming prankster ways especially! I think you would enjoy watching me be a parent. And recently, I found my inner girl. I always felt like your princess, but now I enjoy dressing up and playing the part too. I wonder what you would think of your fashionable, feminine tomboy.

I miss our shenanigans. Raising my boys, I instinctively mimicked the fun times we had together. I incorporated some tough love, like you did, but always much more affection. There have been many moments when I knew you were still with me in spirit. One particular time comes to mind. I was feeling overwhelmed with parenting my four and five-year-old and on the way to their preschool a regal looking buck appeared by the roadside. I stopped. He stopped. And we both stared each other directly in the eyes. At that instant, I felt you telling me what I needed to hear: “Never give up Buttercup!”

See you in the funny papers, Dad.

Love,
Shannon

Photo Credit

Photo is courtesy of the author

First published at Prolific Preambles

Guest Author Bio
Shannon Hogan Cohen

There has always been a special place in my heart for storytelling. I write because there is so much to say and my two teenage boys’ tire of listening to me. I write for insight, the more written the more I learn about myself. My passion for life and learning drives my appetite for adventure. Interests include travelling and learning about different cultures. I am married to a man who joins me on this journey and encourages me to grow.

To read more of my writing, please visit my website Prolific Preambles.

Connect with me: LinkedIn

Note: Shannon has recently published a book entitled, “S.H.E. Share Heal Empower” … Collected Journeys – which unveils stories of women across all ages and cultures, who courageously reached within to overcome extraordinary obstacles – each chapter includes art by female artists worldwide.
Website: www.sharehealempower.com

There is no preparing
for the facts
admittedly cold
and so very, very hard

The mind argues
we just had yesterday
sobered by the irony
of knowing
the one thing
that is, by its very existence
the most real
has us floating in the numbness
of disbelief and denial

We will survive the ache
we will learn to fill the space
we will remember
and tell stories with laughter
that will end
with soft, distant looks
we will find happiness
through the doubt
and we will do this
for Mike

But first we will feel
and make room
for grief
knowing
that in love’s time
we will go forward
greater than we were
better
for having known
another

Photo Credit

Photo by Carol Good – all rights reserved

Their Wedding Day

He is sitting on the couch in the living room he once shared with his wife, who is now in a facility … an institution … a nursing home. Any way you say it, it still has a depersonalized, antiseptic, horrific feel about it. And this is my father. He is dying of lung cancer. The doctor has given him six months.

I am sitting in the big blue chair, a chair that arrived at our house decades before with my very elderly Aunt. My Aunt sat in this same chair day in and day out for years, reciting the rosary. I have yet to say a rosary in the chair. It’s a chair that is as ancient as my Aunt was, going back to the days when the women all wore long dresses and crinolines.

My father is blind; I could list his other ailments here but I won’t. He has motored on, stoic as ever, with a joke or a sarcastic comment always hidden up his sleeve to make those unbearable and emotional moments as light as he could. I am grateful now for that blindness as I sit in the big corduroy blue chair while my father tells me in no uncertain terms that he is content, ready to die and has no regrets. “And I don’t want any bloody tears at my funeral either,” he quips.

That was four years ago and yet it feels as if that day happened a moment ago. Death, it seems, comes for us more than once. It has a way of hanging around before it finally takes the one you love.

My father as a very young man.

“When I’m dead I want you to make sure you look after your mother,” my father instructed me.

“Dad, mom is the last person you need to worry about right now. You need to think about yourself, about getting healthy,” I said.

My mother was my father’s only concern, really. Apart from getting his affairs in order, such as his funeral, his task before he left this earth was to ensure that all of his children would continue to support their mother who was suffering with Alzheimer’s.

Back in his living room on that cold rainy April, my father and I discussed many topics. Unable to see how distraught I was, he talked about his wife, his life and his last wishes.

“I don’t want any blubbering at the funeral. I don’t want you spending any money on flowers either. It’s a waste of money,” he said to me.

“Make sure you visit your mother often after I’m gone.”

Still filled with a love for life.

“I think everything is in order, no regrets,” my dad said to me.

“I love you Dad “I said

“I love you too, but I don’t want any of that hugging and kissy crap,” he said.

My mother, who is in failing health after eighty nine years on this earth and has died more than once at several different times during her lifetime, has to have decisions made for her now. Unlike with my father I have no idea what she is thinking due to her very serious decline as a result of Alzheimer’s.

From an early age she battled death and death never won. My mom is feisty, opinionated, and, some might say, obnoxious, but one thing my mom isn’t, and that’s a quitter.

My mother as a young woman.

Yet, the Alzheimer’s laid its claim when she was in her eighties, killing bits of her as slowly and surely as the seasons melded one into another. This disease takes no prisoners; once it has you by the throat it slowly strangles you, every moment, every memory every last part of your true self, till all that is left is what you manage to hide deep in the recess of your mind.

So now we are left with a difficult decision once again concerning my mother’s care. After her third trip to the ER the doctor suggested to my sister that we change her level of care from a stage 2 to a stage 3. Dear God in heaven, did you even know there were stages of care? I certainly had no idea.

The technology of today, our medicine, have left us struggling with decisions that years ago we would not even have to think about. Our elderly parents would have died in their sleep in their own beds — no fanfare, no ambulances, no needles, no poking or prodding. Just old-fashioned death at your door and he would only come for you once.

My father’s voice lingers: “Look after your mom,” he said to us so often before he died. Now we have to make the best decisions for her our mother that we can. Not an easy task but one I have faith we will perform with love, sincerity and compassion.

***

It has been many years now since both of my parents have died, my father in 2007 and my mother in 2011. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about them. That I don’t feel thankful for those precious moments before death took them, moments of clarity and truth. When the rawness of life opens itself up and makes one known, when there is real connection. To me this is what death does: it reveals us to us. And I am grateful to have had those moments with both of my parents as they aged, as death rallied around each corner, at each crisis, and finally at the end holding their hands as they moved onto the great beyond.

Image Credit

Photos by Martha Farley. All rights reserved.

How do we not feel?
how do we not mourn?
our heart aches – not from regret
but from the memory of what was
of the young lives
that once loved and cried together
that created life together
but could not be

Our tears honor the human being
who touched our lives
who would forever touch our lives
despite divergent paths

It’s an ending
and here you are
left to remember

Your heart, that has seen much
is left with no choice 
but to expand once more
making you softer, wiser
more present and aware
of the gifts that exist now
in your life

Your heart aches – not from regret
but from the love
that exists within you
that has always existed
within you

Photo Credit

Photo by Carol Good – all rights reserved

I hate it when people say “I know how you feel.”

For some reason, the words hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the first two words that I ‘felt’ first, and it didn’t feel good. I find hate to be a very strong word. I then thought about the sentence in its entirety and the message it was conveying, and it saddened me.

I had the urge to sit down with the author of the sentence and ask them all the things that were suddenly racing through my mind. I wanted to talk about it, to delve in and really look at what it was they were saying. I couldn’t help but wonder if they might write that sentence differently after considering different perspectives or allowing themselves to open up to other possibilities. To me, the word hate seemed completely out of place. Do you really feel hate or do you think, after a moment of honesty, you would choose another word? And why do you hate it when people say that? Why don’t you love it? Does it offend you that someone would go so far as to suggest that they know how you’re feeling? Do you feel you need to exclude others, for a time, to process your situation in your own unique way? Do you simply need time, without someone trying to change the moment or lessen it?

It’s funny how a simple sentence could cause me to react so dramatically and how it could conjure up so many questions. It’s also funny how I was asking myself those very same questions just a few days later.

Not long after reading that sentence, I travelled to my old home town for the weekend. One of the things I had planned to do was visit a friend’s grave, something I hadn’t done since he died in 1987 in a diving accident. He was 20 years old that year, the same age as I was. We had developed a friendship through working together. As I drove to buy a red rose to place on his gravestone, I thought back to the day I heard the news. I had just recently moved away, but had returned for a few days. Upon arriving, a friend of mine informed me of what had happened, but I could not – would not – believe it. I had to find out if it was true, and immediately walked in to the place my friend and I used to work to find someone I knew, an old co-worker, someone whose facial expression would tell all. But the first person I saw was not a person that knew my friend and I well, it was someone who had been newly hired at the time I left. When she saw me, she looked sad and started to say how sorry she was and that she knew how I felt. All I could think of at the time was you have no idea how I feel. I resented her.

As my past and present collided, I realized what I did that day. I brushed that girl off; hated her for inferring she knew how I felt. I didn’t allow her to comfort me in any way whatsoever and, as I held tight to my pain, I prevented any exchange that may have happened between us. There we were, two people who were both saddened by the news that day, and yet I was so blinded by my own pain to even notice hers.

As I turned the tables and asked myself the questions that came up that day at work, I realized I did feel intense emotion when someone tried to tell me they knew how I felt. Would I choose another word than hate if I truly thought about it? Yes, but just like the ‘f’ word, sometimes there’s only one word to accurately describe what we’re feeling. For me that particular day, it was probably more like anger. Why didn’t I love that girl’s attempt to console? I don’t think I’d experienced enough at that point; I didn’t know any other way. I think I was too young to understand that letting people in and opening up to love instead of closing off completely would’ve helped me feel less alone in my grief. And yes, her suggestion that she knew what I was going through was somehow offensive to me. Again, I just didn’t have the capacity to understand that other people can and do understand another person’s suffering in their own way. Did I need time, and did I feel the need to exclude others while I processed the situation? Absolutely. I think that was the biggest thing for me as I look back at it all. It was all happening too fast for me to fathom what had happened; too soon to be able to let people in.

What’s interesting to me is how the current-day chain of events unfolded and how they guided me to an important memory. Why did that particular sentence catch my eye that day? And why did I decide, after almost 30 years, to visit an old friend’s grave? I have thought of him often over the years, but have never gone. This time, I felt compelled. And how is it my mind wandered to the events of that day just far enough for me to ‘get it’? My trip down memory lane ended when I saw the newly hired girl; it was all I needed. For this life lesson, ‘things happen for a reason’ could not ring more true.

In reading that sentence before work a few days ago, it saddened me that the person’s pain was perhaps blinding them and preventing them from accepting a version of love that was being offered. I felt that as long as the word hate remained, it would forever be a barrier to love, learning and personal growth. But now I understand, after life chose to tap me on the shoulder and remind me of a time that pain had blinded me, where that person was coming from. A young girl cared that I was hurting 30 years ago. She was trying to let me know that, in her own way, she understood a glimmer of what I was going through. A glimmer. And I couldn’t give her that? Had I been receptive, our pain could’ve brought us together. Instead, I alienated her, and to this day, I’m sorry for that.

Thankfully, my view on all of this has changed over time. I can see beyond another person’s choice of words and simply feel their love and comfort. Because we’re human. We may not always get it right, especially when it comes to other people’s grief. We can’t possibly know the true depth of someone else’s pain but at the very least, we share a knowledge of what loss feels like. As humans, we go through similar experiences in a lifetime – the loss of loved ones, pets, all the highs and lows that become part of our journey. Each of us will experience these things in our own way, but we’re all traveling a similar road. It’s called life.

It took almost 30 years, a random sentence and an impromptu visit to an old friend’s grave to make me realize what I did that day and to show me how far I’ve come. Would I react differently today? YES. And I’m grateful for the experiences that have made it possible for me to say that. I can only hope the person who wrote the sentence that I read that day will eventually be able to say the same, and perhaps even re-write it:

I love it when people say “I know how you feel.”

Now that feels good.

Photo Credit

Photo from Flickr – some rights reserved