Out of the blue today something hit me, last couple of days I’d been troubled by a friend’s problem, we’d been swapping mails but I could feel something missing in my replies. I realised I was best at comforting a friend face to face, not through telephones or emails. Somehow I’m unable to express myself the way I normally do. I was brooding at this issue and of course the other place where I feel totally inept is in dealing with death. Almost all my friends know this that I don’t handle death very well, nor do I share personal grief easily, I can chatter away about a zillion confusions but grief I don’t share with everyone.
Anyway getting back to the topic, as I was pondering over the abandonment of my skills when it came to death or impersonal comforting I stink. I’m no help at all, as I was pondering over it; I thought maybe there are more people who are otherwise very self-expressive but stumped in some areas like me. So I took a post on it, never in a million years was I prepared for what it opened. As I was commenting on the responses I figured some other people too struggled to express themselves when dealing with highly emotional issues. As I went through the replies one of my friend’s replies stuck a chord. He was talking about his father’s death and the wake and as I read through it a sudden moment of clarity came. I realised, why I had such a tough time with death.
I was a kid when Grandpa passed away, I knew he’d gone away when I went to wake him that day, he didn’t move and I just knew he’d passed away. I was sad but I also knew he was someplace good, with God. The nightmare began with Dad handling everything calling the relatives and making arrangements as people poured in the whole house turned into a mortuary, there was this horrible feel of death which wasn’t there when I found Grandpa. I don’t have many memories of it but I can still feel that time, the sensation of death. Life didn’t leave when Grandpa left, life left when everyone came. Everyone was battling with their own grief, saying stuff which made little sense to me but the whole aura of death was so strong suddenly I was mad at Grandpa for going, for taking everything with him, I missed him, it hurt but what hurt more was Papa grief. He was so different, what people said made no difference to him, he heard the platitudes as platitudes only, there was nothing anyone could say to make his grief go, nothing that could console him and Nothing could mean what Grandpa was. A part of me was bewildered at the change in him, it wasn’t my papa, once the rituals were done, he looked so different. It really wasn’t him. His grief was so powerful that we didn’t exist in front of it.
Over the days that followed dad found solace in faith, unwavering faith which he didn’t have all those years. Ironic as it may seem dad found God and I lost faith. The whole house reeked of death for days. The aura of gloom and darkness was stifling, it choked every good thing. I sucked out life. As people came and went saying the same thing it didn’t make sense be it people talking about how good he was, or trying to tell dad it was going to be OK, Everyone virtually mouthed the same stuff like parrots and dad didn’t heal, I didn’t see him heal, maybe he was comforted by the presence of the people who chose to honour Grandpa’s life, but I didn’t see him heal.
So when I try to offer my condolences it feels false. Because in the deepest part of me I Know These Words Don’t Heal, these words are a lie, a social lie but a lie nonetheless. Is there any word that can comfort a bereaved family? They are such pitiable clichés how can they comfort, what good is anyone’s telling they are in a better place when you want them with you? I’ve seen these words fail, deceive and lie if they had comforted dad he wouldn’t have been so distraught. He wouldn’t have found living so difficult and he’d have never felt like life was driving him mad, because his pain didn’t ease and he wouldn’t have changed so much.
I now know why I hate funerals, why I’ll never go to one, because death doesn’t come when life slips away, death comes with the mourners.
Anyway getting back to the topic, as I was pondering over the abandonment of my skills when it came to death or impersonal comforting I stink. I’m no help at all, as I was pondering over it; I thought maybe there are more people who are otherwise very self-expressive but stumped in some areas like me. So I took a post on it, never in a million years was I prepared for what it opened. As I was commenting on the responses I figured some other people too struggled to express themselves when dealing with highly emotional issues. As I went through the replies one of my friend’s replies stuck a chord. He was talking about his father’s death and the wake and as I read through it a sudden moment of clarity came. I realised, why I had such a tough time with death.
I was a kid when Grandpa passed away, I knew he’d gone away when I went to wake him that day, he didn’t move and I just knew he’d passed away. I was sad but I also knew he was someplace good, with God. The nightmare began with Dad handling everything calling the relatives and making arrangements as people poured in the whole house turned into a mortuary, there was this horrible feel of death which wasn’t there when I found Grandpa. I don’t have many memories of it but I can still feel that time, the sensation of death. Life didn’t leave when Grandpa left, life left when everyone came. Everyone was battling with their own grief, saying stuff which made little sense to me but the whole aura of death was so strong suddenly I was mad at Grandpa for going, for taking everything with him, I missed him, it hurt but what hurt more was Papa grief. He was so different, what people said made no difference to him, he heard the platitudes as platitudes only, there was nothing anyone could say to make his grief go, nothing that could console him and Nothing could mean what Grandpa was. A part of me was bewildered at the change in him, it wasn’t my papa, once the rituals were done, he looked so different. It really wasn’t him. His grief was so powerful that we didn’t exist in front of it.
Over the days that followed dad found solace in faith, unwavering faith which he didn’t have all those years. Ironic as it may seem dad found God and I lost faith. The whole house reeked of death for days. The aura of gloom and darkness was stifling, it choked every good thing. I sucked out life. As people came and went saying the same thing it didn’t make sense be it people talking about how good he was, or trying to tell dad it was going to be OK, Everyone virtually mouthed the same stuff like parrots and dad didn’t heal, I didn’t see him heal, maybe he was comforted by the presence of the people who chose to honour Grandpa’s life, but I didn’t see him heal.
So when I try to offer my condolences it feels false. Because in the deepest part of me I Know These Words Don’t Heal, these words are a lie, a social lie but a lie nonetheless. Is there any word that can comfort a bereaved family? They are such pitiable clichés how can they comfort, what good is anyone’s telling they are in a better place when you want them with you? I’ve seen these words fail, deceive and lie if they had comforted dad he wouldn’t have been so distraught. He wouldn’t have found living so difficult and he’d have never felt like life was driving him mad, because his pain didn’t ease and he wouldn’t have changed so much.
I now know why I hate funerals, why I’ll never go to one, because death doesn’t come when life slips away, death comes with the mourners.
