No Time Left for Grieving

The Boston Herald

I call Joan to see how she's doing and she says she's okay, but there is no joy in her voice, only sadness.

Her best friend died a month ago. Joan was with her when she died. She moved from Connecticut to be with Grace and seldom left her side during the long, slow months that cancer ravaged her.

Joan was iron then, with quarterback shoulders. Now she is simply human. She holds back tears as we talk, but you can hear them behind her voice, a river trapped by a dam. She's supposed to be "over it" by now. That's what the world tells her. "You have to get on with your life." That's what people say, well-intentioned people who want to take away her grief, who want to cajole her into happiness, who want her to be who she was before all this began. What can we do for you? they ask.

Healing takes time. We love someone and we put their needs before our own, and we change our lives around for them. They are our rock and our cross. They anchor us, but they weigh us down, too. When they're gone, we may be lighter, but that's because part of us is gone.

You break a leg and you wear a cast and people say, "How did you do that? That must be painful." They're careful not to jar that leg. They help you carry things, and they don't expect you to run and dance.

They understand if it takes you a little longer to do some things. They understand if you mope on the couch. They understand if you're not yourself. After all, who would expect you to be?

But when it's your heart that's broken, when you bury a friend, a sister, a mother, you're given just a few days to weep and mourn and get yourself together.

And then it's business as usual.

In other cultures and in other times, mourners wore black so that strangers as well as family and friends would know at a glance that a person had a broken heart. A black dress, a black arm band, these were visible reminders of something invisible. The world cut you some slack back them. Look, that person has lost someone. He is wounded. Be gentle and patient and kind.

'I don't know what's wrong with me," my cousin says. Her mother died just two months ago. "I shouldn't be feeling this way. I'm supposed to be feeling better now."

Who says?

Every day she talked to her mother. Every day she called or stopped by or her mother called her. "What do you think I should do, Ma? Which dress do you like better? How do you make fudge? Can you babysit Friday?"

We know in our heads that we're just tenants on this earth and that the landlord can come along at any time and give us the boot. But the longer a person stays in a place the more that person and that place permanent. The longer we have people, the longer we love them, the more shocked we are when they're gone.

One day the chair where your mother sat every night of her life is empty. Or you pick up the phone to call your best friend and remember that she's not there. And remembering hurts because her death is a shock, even when you've seen it coming. Even when you were there when the landlord knocked on the door.

"How old was she?" we automatically ask when someone dies, as if the higher the number the less the pain, as if people come with acceptable expirations dates.

It doesn't work that way. People aren't like milk. Nine or 90, they can't be replaced. That's why we grieve. Because on this planet of billions, what death steals is irreplaceable.