My Friend Lost Her Son

I read a passage many years ago that stuck with me. I don't remember it exactly but I remember the gist of it. It was about a woman who's husband was off fighting a war. Her priest knocked at the door and she knew why he was there. She invited him in and served him tea. He asked how she could be so calm and gracious in the face of such devastating news. She explained that her mother had told her that when faced with tragedy, do what you would do if the tragedy had not happened.

A very dear friend lost her son unexpectedly. There are many years and thousands of miles between us but they feel non-existent right now. The pain she is feeling is zapping my heart like an electric shock from a foot away. My day has been a fog and she has been in every thought and breath I have taken. I can't imagine any words that would be adequate. Any action that I could take seems useless. I feel helpless.

I cried a lot today and other times, I fought back tears. I told myself that I had to do what I would do if my friend wasn't in the deepest pain of her life. I did a load of laundry. I went to work. I greeted people with a smile. When asked, I said I was doing great. I made my body do these things but I wasn't there. It was all so separate. I felt guilt. My friend's world has been devastated and irreversibly changed but the rest of the world goes on. How can this happen and the world still spins on it's axis and I still do laundry and the people I greet in the hall don't even know her son lived? That doesn't make sense to me right now.

To die is the agreement each and every one of us have made to live. There are no exceptions to that rule. No take backs on the agreement. But we make that agreement with the unwritten demand that we don't outlive our children. We aren't built to lose our children.

She is experiencing the most profound grief of her life. Her world is surreal. It's unfamiliar. She feels shattered. I think she gets to feel that with no platitudes from me or promises of healing. Not yet.