Last night I went to sleep begging the Universe for metta and pleading the night gods to throw their arms around me and ward off the dreams I feared would stalk my sleep.
The trigger? A late night email from the last person to have seen and touched my dead husband.
I never for a second regret writing An Obesity of Grief, and I never for a second regret sending it out into the world. What has happened is that people have found out about it, and some of those people are those who experienced my husband’s death in a different way than I did.
Last month, I received an email from a man who lived on a farm not far from where Bruce and I lived. He had been at the grain elevator at the same time as Bruce, about fifteen minutes before he died, making him one of the last people to see him alive. Reading my book, he said he was reminded of that time and all its accompanying feelings.
Many of us have learned about the death of someone we just saw yesterday, last week, a minute ago! And we repeat it, like it’s unimaginable that someone we saw so recently is now dead.
I’ve made peace with that part; that I last saw Bruce at around 8ish in the morning, when he kissed me on the head, wiggled his daughter’s foot and told her to be good for her mama, and said, “I’ll be in at noon.”
Of course, he didn’t show up at noon. At noon, he was in the back of a coroner’s hearse on his way to the morgue.
I never not want to hear how Bruce’s life and death affected people, but when I do, I am often listening from the perspective of 19-year-old me who can’t wrap her head around such a ginormous and traumatic loss, and it takes me a while to gather all the therapy I’ve gone through to sort out the real from the imaginary and the lingering and what I’ve already dealt with.
In the case of the last person to see Bruce, he was, like me, a person who grew up in Jasper. He knew Bruce, and still, he did his job. He embalmed him, dressed him, placed him in the casket, and sealed the lid. He directed the pall bearers at the funeral and drove the hearse to the grave. In the following weeks, I went to the funeral home several times to talk to him. About what, I don’t remember, but I always walked away from our conversations a little lighter, as though my grief had been heard and was held in his kind heart. And even though he played a part in the decision to not allow me to see Bruce dead, I now understand it came from a place of compassion. He and the others who made that choice were reacting from their own trauma and desire to protect me from further pain. How were they to know their decision would haunt my dreams for years?
Sometimes I think that if I’d have just shut up about grief and lived my life as though shit like tractor-train collisions happen all the time, I wouldn’t feel all these feelings. But for every time I think that, I think about one of the thousands of moments I had with Bruce, and I know there’s no way I would want to shut them out of my life and live it as though they never happened. His death is a part of our story, and like any good story, it never ends.
So, the raw bits remain, poised between the wishing and the knowing, the life and the death, the tears and the laughter, the truth and the dream, the hopes and the fears.
May it always be so.
Lynn Haraldson, Author and Writing Mentor 
I can only imagine the feelings that wash through you as you hear from others. I pray they do not awaken the pain, increasing it, but instead, are balm to a wound that is always there, but hopefully the pain is lessening. Janet
Thanks, Janet. It’s hard to describe what it feels like hearing from someone from so long ago. He helped me out a LOT in those first weeks, but having not talked to him in more than forty years, it did feel like “yesterday” when I saw his name. In the end, it’s been worth the shock and pain because it reminded me how cared for I was then and now.
Grief, the gift that keeps on giving…
I hadn’t thought about that aspect of your book being set free in the world, though I am not surprised that it all takes you right back to that time and those feelings. Even knowing all you do about the grieving process, there just isn’t a way to turn it off, is there? Through it is the only way; I’m glad you have the tools to make it a quicker trip, and empathize with the fact it takes a beat or two (or three) to remember where you left the tool box.
Wishing you peace and a good night’s sleep!
e
Thanks, e. I don’t THINK there will be any more “grief bombs”, but I know better than to say never. As I told him in my reply, he was the final piece of that puzzle on my grief journey I took years ago. He had moved shortly after Bruce died and so I had no further contact with him. He’s still a kind, caring man, and I’m glad he reached out. In the end, those awful first feels were worth it to have this closure, or at least to know that I wasn’t crazy, it really was THAT BAD back then.
We so rarely have an opportunity to revisit our past in a way that brings true clarity – what a gift! He sounds like, even though you wish the aftermant had played out differently, he may have been the best person to be in that position in your life at that time. At least you can be assured of his care and compassion – there were plenty of other folks whose motives may not have been so constructive.
Thank you for always shining a light on the neverending presence of grief. This post reminds me to be kind to myself when the waves come out of nowhere.
It took me a long time, as you know, to be kind and not judgy.