Remembering Grief

I've been away from my journal for the past few days, unable to make entries, mostly busy with the school day, and too tired when I came home each evening to journal. I haven't even visited many journals to read new entries. My email box was filled with AOL journals new entry alerts... way too many! That's when I realized I had more alerts than I could manage on a regular school day. So if you've wondered why I haven't been leaving comments, it's because I've been preoccupied with the days' events this week.

As mentioned in the previous entry, Sunday my neighbor suffered a massive heart attack and died so fast, he probably never knew what happened. His wife is now dealing with living without the man who has taken care of her during the recent years of her surgeries and illnesses. They were very close, devoted to each other. He did everything for his wife... she was his queen, as his brother puts it. His funeral was Wednesday. I was able to leave school early to attend it, and I'm so glad I did.

One other person from our neighborhood also attended, and we took comfort knowing that we were neither related to the man, nor could we say we knew him well, but could only say, "He was our neighbor," and we come to honor and remember him for that.

Several people who knew him better than we stood up and spoke of him. His daughter, his brother, his like-a-son friend, a minister. I heard things about my neighbor that I never knew because we never crossed paths in our areas of interest. He loved yard sales, and he was an e-Bay seller/buyer/trader. He was a former mailman, and once delivered newspapers. I heard of his manner in dealing with his children and grandchildren, and how much everyone who knew him loved him, and recognized his gruff ways to be what endeared him to them. There was much respect and honor shown at his funeral.

How could I not know these wonderful things about him when he lived only mere shouting distance from my back door? Because I never took the time to walk over and visit him, and he never took the time to walk over and visit with us. Just like I don't take the time to walk over and visit any of my neighbors, just to visit. I don't even know how to start that. I know some folks are good at that, but there are a hundred and more reasons why I don't just walk over and visit my neighbors than reasons why I should.

I cried during the service because as I heard the well-spoken, and often humorous, words of high praise and love for this man, and as I gazed upon the beautiful portrait that stood at the front of the crowded chapel that sunny afternoon, I felt something inside, and I wasn't sure of the feeling. I shouldn't be too sad, I thought to myself, because I didn't know him well, and the fact that neither of us had gotten to know each other well left me little to miss. How could I miss someone I had never really known? He wasn't like a friend. He was simply my neighbor. But, even that word carries much weight by Biblical standards.

I realized, as his wife followed the simple casket out of the chapel, walking with him one last time, why I felt like I had lost something... I had lost the opportunity to get to know him. It would never be possible now. Instead of being one of those who would and could stand up and speak on his behalf at his funeral, I had been one of those who sat and recognized that those who had lost him were the winners. They had known him enough to love him. I had not known him enough.

After the funeral service at the graveside, I drove home, but did not stop at my neighbor's house to visit with the family. I thought they needed their own time of grief... you see the excuses already beginning? That afternoon and into the evening, there were so many cars parked in front of their house that I could not go over there.

The next day, Thursday, as I drove home from school, I saw that there were no cars in front of the home, so I pulled in directly without going home first. I decided I would stop in and pay my neighbor, now a widow, a visit. She was amazingly strong, and able to talk about it, and bared her heart, telling me how hard it is to sleep at night, how worried her daughter is for her, and how glad she is to have some time alone so she can smoke a cigarette and cry if she feels like it without someone there to witness it all.

I remembered my own deep grief for a year following my sister's and niece's death nearly nine years ago... I can't even believe that much time has passed, but I remember the shock, the numbness, and the anguish.

I remember crying prostrate on the floor when no one was home because that was the only place that felt stable enough to hold me. I remember stifling sudden sobs whenever I saw a girl between 10 and 12 years old with long brown hair, or a young mother holding her baby. I remember feelings of panic whenever I'd pass a car accident. The day I walked onto the college campus for my Education class, and came upon a mock car accident scene on the campus lawn demonstrating something for the ambulance and rescue services left me trembling by the time I got to class, and I wouldn't take off my sunglasses because I couldn't stop the tears.

It's best not to stop the crying whenever possible. This woman, my neighbor, had lost her husband of twenty something years. I can't even imagine her grief. They were in their retirement years... it seems so unfair. I told her I understood her need to cry, and that it was okay to cry for as long as she felt the need. Any time of day... there are no rules for grief. Are there?

I haven't read Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's book "On Grief and Grieving"  (as mentioned in Nat's journal ) yet, having only just ordered it today, but I'm thinking each person has their own time to grieve, and shouldn't base it on another person's schedule or expectations. I know from personal experience that over time, the grief softened. It didn't go away, but it became gentler, and more forgiving. It became less intense, less up front, even less personal.

I can't even say for sure that grieving over the loss of a child is any harder than the loss of a husband... I could never speak to that since I have not experienced it. Or that losing someone to a disease is less painful than losing someone to a car accident, or to war, or to murder. I would never attempt to compare one woman's grief with another's. I imagine that losing one's child goes deeper with the anguish that one so young could never live as long a life as the adults who gave birth to him. 

Still, losing one's mate after sharing so much life and so many years together is an inevitable sadness, promised on the day of one's marriage when we speak the vows... "til death do us part." Just as our lives begin, the end is upon us.

And now that I've said all this, this is the paradox: This time of grief is also a time of great joy. One's death should be a time of joy. I believe in the afterlife of eternity. I don't understand it as much as I believe it. Which means that on the one hand, I may grieve for the loss of a loved one, yet on the other hand, I believe that person has moved on into the next phase of a new life. And this is exactly where my neighbor is now: grieving for the half of her that is missing, and believing that he has joined, or will soon join, with his Maker, the great I Am for that sweet eternal life we long for.

I will be a better neighbor from now on. I'd rather grieve because I lost someone I loved than grieve because I had not loved.