The hubris of men knows no bounds. A naïve sense that we are masters of our own time and space.
We, the fortunate among us, think that our own life experience is some kind of normalized humanity and we behave as though this is how life has always been and how it always will be. We pay lip service to the suffering of the past and of others but find it difficult to imagine that we, ourselves, could experience such suffering—as though the suffering is some work of fiction wrought by authors of vivid imagination.
And so we go about our business day in and day out, never dwelling on the change that might confront us. We wake up each morning, a job to tend to, a family to care for and nurture, friends to provide comfort for and from whom we receive comfort.
“Life is as it has always been and as it will always be.”
An unarticulated thought, which serves us more as an attitude than a well formed idea. All the while, elsewhere in the world, people, no different than we, suffer from hunger and tyranny, and right here in our own backyard we have the largest incarcerated population on the planet, homelessness, and 50,000 deaths each year due to automobile accidents.
At every turn we not only overlook the suffering of others, we walk through life laboring under the presumption that each of our lives will go on just as we have always known it. The people we know were there yesterday and will, of course, be there tomorrow.
And never are we prepared for that life-changing phone call; the news that turns our world upside down—yet every day such news reaches someone. There isn’t a day that passes without someone receiving the news no one ever wants to hear. The news that someone isn’t coming home.
Yet somehow these two realities coexist side by side, and it is a rare moment when we witness the life altering event. Just occasionally, though, you may have just such a grave misfortune, a burden almost as difficult to bear as that of the person whose life has just been altered.
Just occasionally, you might know the mother of a soldier who comes home in a flag-draped casket, the husband or wife of someone who takes his or her life, the family of someone killed by a drunk driver or an accidental overdose, or the father of someone who died senselessly in a simple accident caused by no one.
As I have contemplated my situation since the news of my son’s accident, what comes to mind is the care and nurturing of so many others, overwhelming in both its volume and attentiveness. The messages and phone calls and private notes of support made the journey so much easier than it might have been in the beginning.
It was as though, the possibility of tragic circumstance no longer seemed distant to each individual who contacted me. For the most common words I heard other than “I love you”, were “I can’t imagine.”
The reality of losses, which are not supposed to be, suddenly appeared in the backyard of each individual who reached out to me and my family, offering words of comfort and support and offers to help.
This state of affairs endures for a time—but such a heightened state of emotional expression is not sustainable. And, eventually, normalcy returns for the rest of the world and you watch as, one by one, people move on without you.
I hate the way that sounds because it sounds ungrateful. As though the withdrawal of the precious gift of extraordinary emotional energy and time to which you are not entitled and which was given graciously and without merit is some sort of transgression.
It is not.
The soft cocoon that surrounds the bereaved must, at some point, be withdrawn. Like a child with an injury, sweet caresses, soft words, and relaxed responsibility and obligation must eventually be recalled and the hard work of recovery must begin.
And recovery is expensive.
You are changed forever, but others move on. They understand that you haven’t, but their lives move forward; they must. No one can stop and wait forever with you as you yourself try to move past the camouflaged void that, for them, disappears into the landscape as they tend to family, friends, and work.
And you try to move on too.
And then, occasionally, there will be a movement in your peripheral vision just out of clear sight—some rustling almost out of earshot that whispers
“I’m still here. I haven’t left you.”
And you reach for the apparition, which dissipates, eluding the touch of your hand.
The occasional friend invites a conversation, and you try to explain that words have become obsolete; they have long since been used up and spent. That you would rather listen—listen carefully for that still, small voice that briefly whispers your name and then abates.
Sit with me in the stillness, dear friend. Sit with me; be quiet and listen with me, and perhaps together we will hear his voice once again.
– In the Still of the Moment
And you sit in the quiet most days, often by yourself, and remember what was.
