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08-26-2019 04:41 PM
My Friend Just Died. I Don’t Know What To Do
by MSO
Grief comes in waves after someone you love passes away but as this author so eloquently says, though the waves never stop coming, you’ll learn to survive them.
Reddit.com is a popular online community where interests are divided into categories or “subreddits” and registered users come together to submit and share content, pose questions and more. In one subreddit a person asked, “My friend just died. I don’t know what to do.” This response by one user, GSnow, wrote this as he says “off the top of my heart” to try to help the young man who pleaded for help. What follows is a beautiful description of the process of grieving after the death of someone you love.
“Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.
I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.
As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.”
08-26-2019 04:52 PM
@ECBG This is poetic as I have tread water for three years now from the loss of my mother, my best friend. The truths depicted are spot on.
08-26-2019 05:00 PM
This is so profound and from a real place. Grief isn't linear I've learned. It is like the waves trying to pull you under but somehow you do float. . I've lost 8 people in six years (my Mom, dad, stepfather, nephew, dog, grandparents, dear friend) this was beautifully written. Thank you for sharing this!
08-26-2019 05:01 PM
I always get the waves after a good memory or seeing a pic of my loved ones that have passed. And although I cry and my heart aches it is from a good thing and that’s what gets me over the wave. I know it will never end and truly sometimes I welcome the tears the memories the ache. I don’t know if this make sense to you reading this but I need to feel it to keep them alive in my heart. ❤️
08-26-2019 05:08 PM - edited 08-26-2019 05:10 PM
I read until I couldn't see the screen through my tears anymore. At one point I had to close my eyes, to blot it all out.
I have tried twice now to begin a thread about Learning to Live Alone. It's been a year for me now, after 47 years together. I began packing his clothes this weekend.
As the very wise and compassionate MSO wrote so beautifully, it's been one wave after the one. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just not get back up. But then, that is not what he'd expect from me.
Thank you, @ECBG for taking the bother to share this. I'm sure I'll read it again. And again. "Apply as needed."
08-26-2019 05:23 PM
@IamMrsG wrote:I read until I couldn't see the screen through my tears anymore. At one point I had to close my eyes, to blot it all out.
I have tried twice now to begin a thread about Learning to Live Alone. It's been a year for me now, after 47 years together. I began packing his clothes this weekend.
As the very wise and compassionate MSO wrote so beautifully, it's been one wave after the one. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just not get back up. But then, that is not what he'd expect from me.
Thank you, @ECBG for taking the bother to share this. I'm sure I'll read it again. And again. "Apply as needed."
@IamMrsG We can hold hands Sweetie. It gave me a tear as well. We lost our beautiful 19 year old son whom was almost twenty in a wreck I intuitively knew of when I was 10 yrs old, although, I had no idea of "who".
He would have been 34 now.
08-26-2019 05:33 PM
ECBG-
Thank you so much for sharing this essay about grief. I feel that is is spot on. As someone who just endured the sixth anniversary of my mother's death on 8/23/19 and still feels great sadness from the loss, it is very helpful to have the perspective of this thoughtful essay. Thanks again.
08-26-2019 06:53 PM
At some point in my 50s there was yet another death and that time I remember sitting there thinking, yep this going to hurt so don’t bother going to bed. Once you have this wisdom, you can ride the waves.
Now I also know that, even if we are left alone, we have responsibilities to others younger than us and need to make the dead proud.
Then the memories are sweeter.
08-26-2019 07:00 PM
There is no healing from grief.
You learn to accept the loss but the shadows always remain inside you and beside you.
08-26-2019 09:05 PM
It’s weird how those waves come. My husband has been gone almost 16 years. He was the cook.
The one meal I regularly cook is Sunday breakfast.
Sunday I walked the dogs and sat down to breakfast, thinking what a nice day it was.
I had left my husbands chair out from the table because my phone was charging in it. I noticed the chair pulled out and he wasn’t in it.
So, a wave came. But it wasn’t large. I smiled at his chair and told him “good morning”!
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