The Unbearable Sadness

Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005-10:57 pm
Louis

There are some facts of life that take my breath away with their cruelty. My friend Louis' death at 43 is one of those events that slaps me in the face and tears my heart out.

I met him for the first time three and a half years ago on a gorgeous cool sunny September day. We stood in the school yard as both our first born daughters were about to walk into pre-kindergarten for the very first time.

It was a moment filled with joy. It was a moment that a parent never forgets. I was serene, happy and excited. My eyes were welled up with tears to think of my baby girl going to school.

She and another little girl discovered that they had the same first name, Nicole. They had already become friends from that first moment, and would become inseparable as time went on.

How was I to know at that time how those two paths converging would be the start of an unbreakable bond , indelibly etched , that would be a life raft for one of those two little girls.

As the days went by , after many drop -offs and pick-ups, and play dates, I got to know Louis. He had a flexible work schedule and was the one who picked up their daughter. It wasn't long before we were good friends.

I first began to notice his gaunt appearance and noticeable weight loss last summer. I asked his wife JoAnn one day if he was alright. The shocking words were hard to comprehend.

Malignant Incurable Untreatable Terminal

The well-intentioned platitudes came out of my mouth. The questions that she did not want to hear were asked.

Those words of futility rang in my head for days. Not just for Louis, but for JoAnn and the 3 children he was going to leave behind, a 6 year old, a 3 year old and a 2 month old infant.

If we were to be very honest, we also feel the shock for selfish reasons. We can barley accept the ever-increasing intimations of mortality that come slowly , in the form of an aging body. We fight the wrinkles and grey hair. How in the world could we ever be ready for the concept of ceasing to exist?

There are some things in life we can't control, such as the passage of time and lost opportunity. The sad thing is , we feel no regret about wasting small blocks of time spent being stressed and discontent, that if were viewed collectively, would be appalling at their enormity.

What people's lives have turned into and what society says is important, is inconsistent with a finite time on this earth. Real happiness has to come from something else besides unhealthy relationships with people, economic competition, acquisition, and years devoted to making high salaries to further consumption of merchandise.

Louis seemed to enjoy his short life. His face lit up when his daughter would emerge from the door after school. He was the only dad who always brought his daughter to and from school. He was the one that she was closest to . All that time together in the car day after day was a gift that neither of them had any way of knowing the importance of at the time. They fostered that mutual dependency.

It is nice they had that. Now she will need to learn how to take those memories with her and be willing to leave some of the pain behind and go forward . Her life will go on, but a part of her will pay the price of doing so with inevitable feelings of guilt and sadness and she will be forever looking back, missing him, longing for his presence, and wondering "what if".

Some children don't make it past the horrible nightmare that haunts them. Other lucky ones, with a very good support system, emerge from the trauma and are O.K.

I couldn't be more proud of my daughter as she kept a quiet emotional vigil, and accompanied her friend and held her hand and hugged her at night as they slept in my bed with me, staying with us while her dad was at home deteriorating. When it came time to face that he was quickly dying, the two girls spent many hours at my house, while Louis was at home , with hospice trying to make him comfortable.

I coached my daughter, and she took on a supportive role that was far beyond her years.

Most of us "don't know what to say" , and so we avoid the confrontation and tell ourselves that grieving people need to be left alone. That idea is really about us and our fear of death, and our inability to cope with the emotional burden of someones else's pain.

Our ability to turn away without a deeply moving reaction is in an inverse ratio to our compassion and humanity.

I taught my kids that we don't turn away. I taught them that Without compassion, we are not very different than a well-trained chimpanzee in a little jacket, riding a bicycle and playing bongo drums at the circus..

Louis died December 4th, 2004, just a few weeks before Nicole's 7th birthday. The two best friend clung to each other like a life raft. Wordlessly saying "we will always have each other to lean on".

We decided that the children would attend the wake.

My daughter sat with the immediate family, beside her friend. They knelt at the coffin together and saw the body up close for the first time as I stood nearby. The little girl who's entire world had just been shattered, placed a tiny pin that said "Dad" on his lapel.

It fell off and disappeared under the body.

Until then , I stood near by,and did not intervene when the children touched his face , his hands, his arm. They made comments about how cold he was, and how different he looks. They drew pictures of him and placed them in the coffin. ( My son blurted out "What ever happened to his feet?", but that comic relief was O.K. too.)

The pin she had wanted to place on her father's body for eternity had fallen and she was upset. I had to make the decision to go in there and fish around under the corpse for that damned pin. I found it and replaced it securely. I noticed the frowns and looks of disapproval of all the suburbanites watching in the funeral home.

The girl was comforted by the pin on her dad's lapel. Her face seemed to register a look of acceptance, and some of the fear seemed to fade , even if it was just for a moment. Young or old, there are times in life when we are called upon to bear fear and sadness. We try to find moments of peace. We try to hold onto them and string them together, and form a strength and an internal light, despite evidence to the contrary. You should not have to do that at 7.

My children and I were able to give this poor child a little help along the way. That in turn, made her mother a little feel more relieved. That is nice to have been in that role,and to have been able to be helpful, however, the greatest gift of all was what we got from this:

At an early age, my 6 and 7 year old kids got an invaluable lesson. They know what is to be there for someone in unbearable sadness. They will never fear a funeral parlor, or not know what to say to a grieving person, or be unable to cope when I die.

What I know is, that when we get upset by death, it is normal, yet we should to try to keep as many of the good thoughts about the person as we can. Think of the scope and entirety of his life , not just that one moment at the very end. (I think that the mind's tendency is to replay the thoughts of "the phone call" and "the death" or "the funeral", to the exclusion of the good memories.) I think that is what he would want for everyone , eventual acceptance and happy memories.

After the funeral, the 3 children were at my house , and we decorated the Christmas tree, and talked about Louis and speculated about how he must be watching right now from heaven. My daughter said "smile ,don't cry, he would want it that way."

Nicole's birthday party was a week later. It ended with her sobbing under a chair, at the roller skating rink. Her mom was helpless and in despair.

I climbed under the chair with Nicole. She was clinging to me, and all I could say was "I know. It's normal to feel so sad. He was a great dad, and one day you will think of him and smile, not cry. And you know what? I miss him too".

(After I got home and got my kids busy with a T.V. show, I cried my eyes out.)

I went to the grave 2 days after Christmas, on his birthday. Nicole was to visit her dad's grave for the first time that day. I placed a cake with candles on the grave before they arrived in some futile attempt to make that experience one of connection with her dad, rather than a emotional trauma. ( I cried my eyes out that day too.)

To this day my daughter and son kept the secret of who really brought that cake. And her friend Nicole is going to be O.K., over time.

Death is part of the continuum of life. Every one's parents will die, as their parents died , and theirs before them...and The wonder of the human species is it's resiliance and that if we want to, we are always able to find joy in life, even if some one we loved is not here anymore.

That is what they would have wanted for us.

go to the prior entry * +