I read a lot of posts and blogs about grief, and one of my staple sites is www.stillstandingmag.com. The blog is filled with posts from grieving families across the globe who know what it is like to love, lose, and still live. I encourage others who grieve to visit their site for support, and simply to see their thoughts put eloquently into words. One post recently, Abandoned. But I’m Here With Or Without You. touched my heart. I still feel I need to expand on this though.
When a family enters into a catastrophic life event such as cancer, terminal illness, or even medical frailty, everything changes. It happens on the initial day of diagnosis and continues for eternity, it seems. The whirlwind that surrounds that immediate transition is overwhelming for everyone involved. The parents are struggling to keep up and process the information and lose sight of anything happening around them. Friends and family are lost and try to find ways to help, often feeling inadequate. Some will immediately step back while others will move quickly to the forefront.
I think of an accident in a crowded mall. Someone collapses and is unresponsive. The family will begin to panic, calling for help. Many will stand in awe and confusion, some will react quickly, and others will simply flee out of fear, grief, or inability to process the scene. They often don’t want to be in the way of those who can truly help. It isn’t that they don’t want to help, but sometimes the best they can do is to get out of the way.
A difficult diagnosis will create the same response. Some that move away are trying to get out of the way of those who can help more, but we often see it as abandonment. When we look up and want the familiar faces reassuring us we are going to be okay, we often find ourselves alone or in the midst of strangers.
In the time of loss, the scenario is quite familiar. The new people have become trusted allies, the distance often grows between friends and family, and life events get overlooked and missed in the difficult days leading up to and following loss. With the loss of a child, no matter their age, the grief is compounded by the life events occurring among peers, making it difficult to attend or support them. As a parent, it is heartbreaking to pour over prom pictures your child can’t attend, yet it is just as difficult to not be excited for their friends and loved ones celebrating the milestone.
Friends come and go with our loss. Our oldest would be 19, nearing 20 now. She passed when she was 9, just before becoming a fifth grader. Over the years, we have watched our child’s friends go to middle school, get their driver’s licenses, attend prom, graduate high school, and now they are entering their final years of college, soon to be marrying and growing their own families. We have tearfully watched them grow. We sadly couldn’t attend their graduations, it just hurt too much. We received just a few announcements as many felt it would be a slap in our faces. The delicate line is navigated gently, and sometimes not at all. We don’t blame anyone for fading out of our lives, but it is an adjustment.
For us, we have had to do this more than once, and developing new relationships is difficult and exhausting. As we have raised two small children who did not know their oldest sister, and they too have lost the only big sister they did know, we have found ourselves seeking our third set of friends. Young adults often a decade or more younger than us who don’t know our story. Some have come into our lives since our second child passed. They don’t know why it is hard for us to attend parties, participate in events, or even visit certain parks and facilities in town. They don’t know that our girls loved these things. Making the decision to share our story is always difficult. Some WILL leave because it is more than they anticipated, some will back away slowly because we cannot give to the relationship as much as they need, and some will embrace us with tenderness and compassion that we desperately need.
Friends will come and go because so do we. Sometimes I can connect and engage completely and with utter joy. Sometimes I completely come apart at the seams when a season arrives, a holiday passes, or I see my youngest smile and look like her sister. Pools are scary, because kids drown daily. Large crowds are overwhelming because germs are dangerous for an immunosuppressed patient. Outings are exhausting and energy waxes and wanes with grief like the tides on the shoreline.
To my friends and family who have come and gone, it’s okay you aren’t here, because neither am I. I am not who I as before. You don’t know me. I am not who you grew to love, my laugh is different, my smile is crooked and sometimes forced. My mind wanders and often drifts to uncomfortable or too serious topics. I know you miss me, so do I. Thank you when you stepped aside to give me space. It allowed the right people to take action and step in to help me in my hours of need. Thank you to the friends who stepped in when I needed you most. You maybe have stepped away now, but know you were exactly where I needed you at the time.
Ecclesiastes 3 says to everything there is a season. I have said it before, this includes our relationships. Some will come, some will go. Some will help, some will hurt. We will learn from each of them. Some have come in during the best of my days, some the worst of my days. To those who have come and gone, I still love you, even if we have been moved apart. To those who are here now, know that I am not the same person from a year ago, five years ago, or ten years ago. After this year, I will be someone new, and you will too.