November Again

It is November. The brisk morning air and falling leaves remind me that summer is long past, and all around me I see evidence that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I saw, in fact, as I drove home from work tonight, the years’ first stupidly early Christmas tree behind a neighborhood picture window. It is now just two weeks shy of the anniversary of my mother’s death.

On Sunday, I was gladdened to hear a friend tell me how wonderful it has been to have her mom nearby for the last few years. She expressed her disappointment that her mom had just left to visit her sister in another state through the holidays. A few minutes later she asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving, and I hesitated briefly before telling her that I’ll be taking my mom’s brother to her grave that weekend, that it’s been a year since her death and he hasn’t been back since the funeral. My friend commiserated a bit, then said how happy she is that her mom lives nearby now, and how lovely it is to have her here to be a grandmother to her children. She paused, then began, “I don’t know what I’ll do when Mom…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, of course; who can? My heart broke anew when she looked at me as her eyes filled. Finally she said, “I can’t imagine how horrible it must be.”

This month has been and will continue to be, I expect, the most difficult period in weeks. Every reminder of Thanksgiving fills me with regret and anguish. It is not surprising; I was expecting this month to be difficult. How can it not be? One nightmarish, empty year has nearly passed, and nothing fills the void. I continue to be shocked occasionally by the sudden realization that she is gone, to disbelieve it briefly, to think of things I want to tell her. There is nothing I can do except remember her with love, offer profound gratitude to God for giving us the years we had, and remind anyone who will listen, as I did my friend on Sunday, that they must leave nothing unsaid or undone, and that they must take advantage of every fleeting opportunity for sweet communion. 

Generous Empathy

A few nights ago, my phone rang and I didn’t answer it, as I was occupied with something else. Several minutes later, I listened in anguish to my voicemail, as a friend tearfully told of his mother’s death the day before. I called him back and wept with him as he told of his all-too-familiar disbelief and overwhelming grief, her relative vigor in spite of being in a nursing home, and his recent hopeful thoughts that she might actually outlive him. In spite of everything I’ve gone through in the past months, I didn’t have anything to say to him except that I am so sorry.

He is the second of my friends who have lost their moms in the past few weeks. In both cases, the ladies were quite elderly, had lived long and relatively healthy lives almost right up to the end, and their adult children and grandchildren knew they had only a little more time with them. Nevertheless…death came as a hateful shock and left behind people feeling like orphans. I wanted to help my friends somehow, to say something that would assuage their sorrowful hearts. My pastor recently spoke about how God’s dealings with us are not for us only, that they are meant to teach us and lead us to a place of generous empathy for the pain of others, and I’ve lived that truth out in the past. I’ve experienced the joyful awe of being an agent of comfort for someone because of what I’ve gone through. This time, though, when my friend called, I had nothing of value to say.

As I drove home this evening, I realized I was, and am, a little depressed. My friend’s phone call is on my mind, making me remember. I can still hear my uncle’s voice on the phone telling me, “Your mama’s dead.” He didn’t mean to sound insensitive, and I suppose he was hurting so much he wasn’t thinking clearly, but those words call out in my head over and over, and each time they tear my emotions apart. I think of my friends hearing those words from someone, and it breaks my heart all over again.

Losing my mom has made me more sensitive, and I am particularly empathetic toward those who are suffering loss. I’m glad to have this heightened empathy, but the ache in my own soul intensifies when someone, even someone with whom I’m not close, loses someone they love. Perhaps my own grief is too recent, too fresh and raw for me to draw on that empathy in a way that will help them. Maybe time will do its work and I will eventually be able to minister to others. For now, I just don’t think anything I might say will help them or me. Their grief, like mine, must be allowed to take its course, as long as it must, and generous empathy will have to wait.