Gifts: words

Words have been some of the best gifts I've received through these months.  They come to me in different ways: in print, in songs, spoken aloud, written in a letter, popping into my head.

Sometimes the words are descriptions of thoughts and feelings that other people have had in their own experience with loss, which cause my heart to say, "Yes!  That's it, that's what it's like for me." It might be only at that moment that I realize what has been going on in the back of my mind, a cloudy, unformed thought that distracts or unsettles.  Being able to name it is such a relief.  Or I might read or hear a description of a state of mind that I am not in yet, but it helps me to feel prepared and not ambushed when that experience suddenly appears.  Then that experience is maybe only a landmark instead of a monster, something to expect and recognize as part of the journey but not a frightening thing.

These words can show up in surprising settings, like at a play I attended a few weeks ago.  The actor came out on stage after the performance to do a Q-and-A with the audience and very graciously answered what I considered to be some impertinent questions about the recent sudden death of her husband.  And in her answers, I saw myself, some of the same things that I am feeling: great sadness in missing a remarkable person; a longing to express what she feels through the written word; a sense of being at a crossroads in her life, uncertain which path she will now take; and awe at finding the good things that still grow in the muck.

Recently I found a poem that describes the mystery of how simply sharing in similar suffering connects people on a deep level.  It's called "Bees" and is by Jean Valentine.  Stunning imagery.

Words have also come to me, in letters or out of friends' mouths, which have directly answered questions I had: things I wondered about Ramsy, things I had asked God about, things I wondered about myself.  This has happened repeatedly, without these people knowing that I had been asking these questions, usually with them using the exact phrasing which I had used in my prayers and silent thoughts.

The truth is, I sometimes feel like I have lost my sense of self.   I don't mean that I  "don't know who I am" without him, or that I have lost my identity.  I mean that none of us can be very objective about ourselves; we only see ourselves through the filter of our own thought life, and not as others see us.  Ramsy was my mirror. He reflected what he saw in me- telling me what he loved about me, saying what my personality looked like to him, letting me know that something I said may not have come across the way I meant it, helping me see where I had grown and where there is still growth to come.  To have this mirror suddenly vanish is hugely unsettling.  It leaves me craning my neck to try to see the back of myself, wondering if what looks like a giant flaw to me is as visible to other people, being overly critical of my emotional "neck wrinkles", trying to remember what it was that he said he liked about me.  So God shows up and says to me through other people's words, "This is how Ramsy felt about you.  This is how you helped  him.  This is what I see in you.  This is who I intended you to be."  Just like that.

And you know what?  Receiving these gifts in the last while has made me realize more than ever that other people need them, too.  It's important to tell people what I appreciate about them, the gifts I see in them, the things they have done that have impacted me.  One of my family members said, after hearing some of the lovely things people said about Ramsy, "Why do we wait until people die to say these things?"  So I'm working on that.

And finally, sometimes the words just say, "I see you.  I understand how you feel."  A friend telling me, "You don't have to go away to a different room- you can just be sad right here."  A school staff member looking at me with kindness as I picked up my injured daughter to take her to emergency and saying, "The first big crisis on your own."  A woman who lost her own husband to cancer saying, "It doesn't matter how long you had him; it's still never long enough."  Yes.  And thank you.