Response to “Reshaping Life After Loss”
For some reason, none of my browsers will allow me to ‘respond’ to this excellent piece directly. So here it is:
I am super enthused to read about this magnanimous effort on the part of the founders and participants. I only wish I knew about it shortly after my young wife passed in the late winter of 2014. My warmest, highest praise for the effort being made.
As I have written elsewhere on Medium, after intimate loss, the feelings of disconnectedness to the world at large, to one’s core persona and of course to the happiness and fulfillment one brought to a spouse/lover/relative’s life and vice versa is not to be believed. The pain is deep, unrelenting and acute for a very long time. One likens it to looking all around and seeing ugly, smoldering wreckage that once was all one knew and held dear. The fires and embers don’t want to go out.
There is a tremendous, I would say even critical need for peer group gatherings like this. The rest of the world doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand one’s plight. Most folks are very comfortable in their ignorance and I say that respectfully. Similar to the smoker who says “ I won’t get cancer. ” I had many well meaning friends who within months after the memorial service preferred to disappear. I suspect I was an ongoing reminder of the absence of my wife, our tragedy and how bad life can get. And I tapped in to new found ways of seeing what really mattered — unvarnished truth and expressions of feelings which shouldn’t be restrained. When you love someone, say it. When you admire someone, say it. When you adore someone, say it. There were things “I wasn’t supposed to say.” Perhaps people were uncomfortable because they didn’t know what to say in return to a widowed person. It is a normal human trait to deny or avoid but this pain is universal and inevitable for us all someday. Better to engage it and learn invaluable lessons on the preciousness of every moment and that love and appreciation for all those around is the only thing that matters. To bear witness to the active dying phase of a loved one and then the moment of the last breath, brings to light a universal truth; we must cherish those in our lives for the miracles they are while living! I am not a religious person; I am spiritual and try to follow the practices of Buddhism. But caregiving for three years until my wife’s last moments cemented for me the beauty, uniqueness and vulnerability for EVERY person I have known or will ever know.
Having just moved to Shanghai from the midwest US seeking adventure and new talents within, I will miss being able to attend these dinner parties. I would implore any widowed person on the fence re: participating in them to do so. You are not alone. Your pain is shared by many others. Your grief, while with you every day for the rest of your days, will become manageable as you forge ahead in to the great unknown that is your new life. Your new perspective on the world and people around you as fragile, flawed and perfect in their imperfections is something to be relished and expressed even if those who haven’t faced significant tragedy can’t understand. There is so much joy, a new kind of joy you will find, to be discovered and so much love left to be shared.
Too many are good at what I call the great lie; active, always on fakery or pretending that life isn’t hard for them. In reality, everyone is winging it. Don’t let the zombies try to pull you back into a world of cold, mechanical, non-empathetic, detached thoughts or actions. Having experienced fathomless loss and pain, in turn, you have been given incredible wisdom on life’s richest rewards. Enjoy and be well.
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Image by Stefanus Martanto Setyo Husodo
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(Read by 16 people) - “Empty Boats (Redux)”
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(Read by 165 people) - “Damn It.”
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(Read by 117 people) - “Through My Eyes…”
(Read by 73 people) - “Walk Away…”
(Read by 117 people) - “Whenever I See You…”
(Read by 117 people) - “Open Questions for a Heart Which Can’t Be…”
(Read by 124 people)
