My Friend Helped Me Survive the Death of My Son; Then She Died Too
“After someone dies” doesn’t mean “completely absent from your life.”
There is no manual for how to grieve the loss of a loved one. There are no words; there is no fixing it. We can’t wish it away or explain the loss adequately, no matter how hard we try.
Grief must simply be endured. All we can do is figure out a path through the rubble, picking up pieces as we go, and try to hold on long enough to get our bearings and figure out a route forward.
When the loss is sudden, when there is no warning indicator to set our weight and prepare for the impact that will shatter our world, we are left struggling to breathe. We grasp helplessly for an explanation, for meaning, for anything to ease our pain.
I see my life in two parts: before and after the cataclysmic loss of my son. The entire axis of my world shifted when Ben died. Before, I had a map; I had a general idea of what I wanted from this life and how to achieve it. After, I was curled up at the bottom of a cliff, in the dark, gasping for breath, buried in the rubble.
As After became my new reality, as the shock wore off and the loss settled into my bones, my friend Rachel helped me walk through those early, horrible months. Rachel was…
