Heirarchy of Pain/Loss, True Friends versus So-Called Friends...etc...

Falling Apart

By Eloise Cole

I seem to be falling apart.
My attention span can be measured in seconds.
My patience in minutes.
I cry at the drop of a hat.
I forget things constantly.
The morning toast burns daily.
I forget to sign the checks.
Half of everything in the house is misplaced.
Feelings of anxiety and restlessness are my constant companion.
Rainy days seem extra dreary.
Sunny days seem an outrage.
Other people's pain and frustration seem insignificant.
Laughing, happy people seem out of place in my world.
It has become routine to feel half-crazy.
I am normal I am told.
I am a newly grieving person.

I try to be strong but there are good days and there are bad days. Some times I’m feeling confused and wondering where my mind has gone to. I try to keep a strong façade, and try to live my life as an example to my children on how to behave in a time of grief, but the memories that I have of my life with my father are the hardest to come to grips with but, ironically, are also the most comforting.

I have a network of good friends; the ones who have comforted me in my time of loss. A lot of those friends have been ones that I haven’t known well during my time in school or in life (some of these friends have come into my life just recently (on the internet)) and yet, there are people who have “bailed” in an attempt to avoid talking about the subject of loss. Some people, who have professed to be my “close” friends, have bailed out because maybe they’re uncomfortable with the topic or whatever; I have no idea. The topic of friends is a touchy one, because sometimes you find out who your true friends really are and sometimes they aren’t the friends you’ve hung out in high-school with. Some of them are the friends in high-school whom you only had a passing acquaintance with. I’ve had two of them that have become really “true friends” who were always there to comfort me with a well-placed condolence or just a hug. I may not have appreciated them in high-school, but I certainly do love and appreciate them now.

It is important to know that you have a strong support group in a time of loss. Certainly, I’m trying to be understanding to my long-time friends who have bailed on me in my grief, but sometimes there is a layer of hurt and anger that they haven’t had the courtesy to return my call or e-mails. Certainly, everyone has loss and no one person’s loss can be “greater” than someone else’s. It’s all a matter of perception. But there is always the desire to make things “personal” because losing someone close to you is personal. And that’s where things get blown all out of proportion. Maybe my friend is “uncomfortable with the topic of loss and death” and chooses to run away and avoid it by avoiding me. But it does hurt that someone that you consider a close friend decides to bail on you. And those who are uncomfortable with the idea of talking about death and comforting someone who has lost someone close to them, should really put aside their comfort level and do what they can to comfort their friend. It could really mean the salvaging of a friendship instead of the person realizing that their “close” friend really wasn’t that close to begin with.

The other thing that really ticks me off is the perceived “hierarchy of pain/loss” – the perception of “my loss is greater than your loss” no matter what the loss is. Someone in my extended family – my wife’s distant relations (even our distant relations are close – that’s just the way my family is…) have lost a daughter to a spousal murder which was splashed all over the news. Even though we didn’t know we were related at the time, it was a kick in the teeth to find out that we lost a relative we didn’t even knew we had in such a tragic incident. My wife uncovering her relations has brought us in touch with that side of the family and we’ve reached out to them and they’ve embraced us in return. So their loss will always be with us…in our grieving with them. Does that loss rate more than the loss of my father? No. The relations who so tragically lost their daughter/cousin were one of the first to grieve along side with us when I lost my father. Did they know my father…NO. Why did they grieve if they didn’t know my father? Because they consider us family and any loss that impacts their extended family is a mutual loss. Yet strangers think that just because those relations(who lost their daughter by murder) are distant relations, they aren’t entitled to grieve such my loss of my father. Is it just because we’re too distant on the family tree? Love and family relations don’t take into account the “so-called propriety” of the distance between two branches of a family tree; they take into account the feelings and the perceived closeness between individuals. My cousin (my wife’s second cousin, once removed), a 1st cousin once removed of the murder victim and a cousin of the victim’s mother calls me his “brother…from a different mother”. He was in the courtroom at the trial of the accused (the murder victim’s husband). I won’t divulge the name of the victim, as this may open up a whole mudslinging match of whose loss is greater and whether we have a right to grieve the loss of that victim. My cousins (both the murder victim’s mother and her cousin) say I have the right to do so…and that’s good enough. No one’s personal loss is greater than anyone else’s personal loss.

I guess I’m going through a difficult stage where I’m angry at the social mores that govern the so-called behavior of “grief”. There is NO proper way to grieve. There is no rhyme or reason to the dance of emotional pain. When you lose someone close to you, you lose all perspective and the verse in Eloise Cole’s poem sums it all up succinctly.

Rainy days seem extra dreary.
Sunny days seem an outrage.
Other people's pain and frustration seem insignificant.

Other people whining about “how tough their life is” because they missed out on something or whining about “insignificant crap” like whether they can pay their bills on time or about how their work sucks… just grates on my nerves at this time. I feel like growling “Grow a pair and quit belly-aching. Shut up and get moving…life’s not going to stop till you get back on the treadmill.” The only people whom I can relate to are the people who have lost someone…and are still openly grieving whether privately or on forum. They are the people I have sympathy for…and they are the ones who I will give a sympathetic shoulder to. What I have found is that everything else pales in comparison to a “personal loss of someone you love”. Life’s problems don’t mean a hill of beans to me now.

Most people have lost time to personal losses like mine. My dad, it seems, gave me his personal strength or the key to unlock my own personal strength. He never gave up and that’s what I intend to do with my life…is to keep fighting…to keep striving for more…and that’s the way I can honor his legacy.

Maybe one of these days, I can look back on my time with my father without tearing up. Maybe one of these days I’ll look at a rainy day or snowy day without thinking of how cold my dad is underground (even though his spirit is gone…and all that’s left is a cold cadaver). Maybe one of these days I’ll look at a sunny day and smile because my dad loved sunny days. Maybe one of these days, I’ll stop crying inside. But right now…I’ll miss my dad. I’ll miss him every single day of the rest of my life.