Getting Lost.

Dedicated to John, a mentor and dear friend.

Someone I care for a great deal lost someone they care for a great deal recently. I will not tell that story. I will tell another story. And, I want to start in a rather strange place. That phrase I just wrote. Just typed. Lost. I’ve heard people express frustration when faced with this descriptor. Lost? They aren’t lost. They’re gone. To be fair, they have the same squabble with passing away. I have explored this objection, to understand. And sure, I get it. I do. But also, there is so much fear when it comes to death. So much uncertainty. So much of everything that makes us simultaneously feel everything and nothing at all.

The fear causes some to ground themselves in the finality of it all. They are so aggrieved that it feels safer to draw a line in the sand, to have this place to point to where they can say: “See, this is it, the end. It’s brutal, but I can press my nose up against that place and feel everything I ought to feel and then, I can slowly move away from it and heal.”

I haven’t found that it works that way, but I understand why this is attempted. Even if the grief process involves this sort of intellectualization, there is some part of it that is something else altogether. And sometimes this occurs in the very moment and then sometimes, it comes later. Days later. Months later. Sometimes you walk into a coffee shop and the smell brings tears to your eyes. Sometimes you see a face and a lump forms in your throat. Sometimes you cross that finish line and find yourself looking around, purposefully but pointlessly.

And still, the mind and body and soul find their coping strategy, together, or entirely separately.

But lost? This makes sense to me. The way we can no longer hear the timbre of a voice or smell the whisper of a fragrance or feel ribbons of silky hair between our fingers. The way we wake up and think it all a dream and then suddenly remember. The way we sort out all the ways they infiltrated our routine and day and life. The way they are lost to us, but mostly, the way in which we find ourselves lost.

Perhaps it’s the empath in me, but it’s hard for me not to feel that ache. Not the pangs of first-hand grief, but the kind of gnawing pain that fills my guts whenever someone I love is hurting. The way I want to make it better and easier. The way in which I wish I had a time machine, to move backwards where a different reality existed or forward, where the throbbing agony has subsided.

It’s the way I feel when I know with everything within me that I want to avoid saying all the things that most people say, and say all the things they don’t. I don’t want to say their loved one is at peace and I’m glad there was not prolonged suffering. I don’t want to say that things happen for a reason or that the universe has a plan. I don’t want to say that things will feel better eventually and it’s best to take one day at a time.

I want to say things like, you must be gutted. Your heart must have a gaping hole that you don’t know how to fill. It must feel brutal to open your eyes in the morning and a relief to close them at night. You must be angry and devastated and confused. You must want everyone around and no one around at all. You must want to lay in a fetal position in the dark and also, feel the sun warm the tear drenched lines on your face. You must want to gather every bit of knowledge you have about your loved one from the furthest corners of your psyche and place them someone safe inside of you so that you never forget. Tea bags soiling napkins and tabletops and saucers. Dog eared books and a bottle of lotion turned upside down to get the very last drop. A hair brush with a few strands of golden hair, dyed out of habit more than vanity. Off key singing to the radio and expressed pride over the accomplishments of friends and family and co-workers. A raised voice discouraging conflict and a tinkling laugh in the quiet of the night. You will, of course, want to gather these bits and pieces, and hold them tight to you, careful not to drop one or misplace it. You will hold them tight and imagine them shifting like the sides of a Rubiks Cube, to form the shape of a being. A person. Love.

You must want to move through this in a way that suits you and also, you must be terrified to sort out what’s next.

I want to say things like I love you and I’m here. Not here in a way where I can fix anything, but here in the way that says, we can be quiet together if you desire it. We can talk about them if you need, or we can exchange words that cover everything else. We can ponder politics and religion and books and television shows. We can share that story that we’ve been waiting to share. Waiting because it didn’t feel right. Not really. Or we can, talk about them. You can tell me how strange you feel, how lost you are, and how little you expected this, now, in this way.

I want to say that we don’t exist in a culture that is comfortable around death. Death is something to be feared and that is at once understandable and tragic. We don’t talk about how much work it is, and how that work keeps you busy and also, overwhelms. We don’t talk about how we spend too much time thinking about how everyone else is, and so, we often leave little room for our own grief. I want to say that I can be a repository for that grief because I can handle it, and also, because it has to go somewhere.

But mostly, I want to say: “I know you feel lost, right now. I know you will feel lost, for some time. But know, that the people who love you and who are here- we see you. You aren’t lost to us. So, take your time, and feel your feels and get lost. And know, when you are ready, we’ll find you. And, when you are ready, you’ll find who you lost, again.”

X

L.