No one is safe
I got home from camp Sunday night, and noticed lots of cars parked in front of our house and the neighbor’s. I asked E what was going on there, and he said that he didn’t know, but they’d been there all weekend. After unpacking a little, we went out to sit in the hot tub, and heard someone on the neighbor’s back patio talking on the phone about a memorial service, and then we wondered if one of our neighbors had died.
Naturally, my thoughts turned to one of the parents, who seem to be a bit older than we. They have two teenage kids. We haven’t talked to the neighbors much—just "hi" and "bye" and when there’s been a problem to deal with, but it’s been reasonably cordial. In any case, they were too young to be dying.
A little research turned up the horrifying news that it was their 18-year-old daughter who had died unexpectedly. I cried as I read her obituary, which mentioned her surviving family, as well as her true love, a kind and loving mention that I especially appreciated. Imagine being widowed at 17, 18 years old. Not that chances were fantastic that they’d have married and lived happily ever after; but regardless, in the now, they loved each other, and the loss is huge for him and will stay with him through the remainder of his days. An acquaintance of mine who was kind to me when A died told me of the death of his college girlfriend in a car accident, and how it took him more than a decade to even begin to deal with the loss. People who don’t know better tend to dismiss the grief of young and/or unmarried folks, somehow forgetting that love is love, and it knows no boundary of age or paperwork, and the loss thereof cannot be other than devastating.
And I feel for her parents and brother who remain, in a house that must seem too empty and echoing now. This was not at all what was supposed to happen, and I found myself asking "Why?" on their behalf, knowing well enough that I wouldn’t get an answer for them any more than I got one for myself.
I don’t believe in competitive grief, but whenever anyone says that widowhood is the worst possible loss, there’s always a tiny voice in my head that says that losing a child might actually be worse, and if not, certainly equal in pain, though the dynamic is very different. We expect our grandparents and parents to go before us; not so our partners and children.
I determined to pick up a sympathy card and a gift card to a nearby restaurant for some night in the future after the funeral casseroles have run out and the phone has stopped ringing, and the family still needs to eat. They weigh heavily on my mind and heart, because I know their pain must be immense and immeasurable. And though my empathy makes me hurt for them, it is clearly not my own pain; I’m grateful to be free of that. And surprised. Their loss, on the heels of this trip that had already made me pensive, has brought up a lot of stuff for me related to my own, but the distance is clearly evident as I am able to go about my day without being crushed by their sad turn of events. It feels wrong somehow, to be on the outside now and have that option. It took me 2 1/2 years (today, as a matter of fact) to get here, but I marvel at it nonetheless.
I often stop and wonder at how far I’ve come since he died. I still don’t know how I did it, or how I keep doing it. Would that I did; maybe that information could be some use to someone else. I guess I just kept breathing, and hoping better days would find me. I suppose that’s a valid life strategy, bereaved or not.