“Take a slow sweet sip and console your sorrow. What‘s planted this morning will wither tomorrow.”
It is a strange slow November day. It was in the fifties last week, but today the temperature is back in the eighties. The sky is clustered with clouds but they fail to temper this warm winter day. The heat drains me into laziness, but the cloudy skies make me overly contemplative. It is hard to raise my spirits and can’t help feeling a nagging downcast air. I can’t get a story out of my mind that Paul shared with me last week.
A co-worker of his had recently missed work to attend a funeral. A funeral wasn’t too surprising for me because it seems a like a long year of funerals, one after another. I know that’s an illusion though, because funerals are happening all over the world everyday, not just this year. I am just more sensitive and awake to them. This particular funeral bothered me, even though I had no connection to the deceased. I was mourning over a stranger.
Six months ago this lady was in her fifties living a life along side her husband in the semblance of your everyday happy life. Six months ago life was normal and routine until her husband passed away unexpectedly. I can’t fill in the blanks of what occurred during then and now, but what I do know is this. Last week her body was buried. She died from stopping to eat, nothing had passed her lips but alcohol and cigarettes in the months since. She died from a broken heart.
It has really been hanging in my spirit lately and it seems surprising to me that such a thing is even possible. I confided in some friends who pointed out that it was a very simple equation. Husbands death + Alcohol - Food +Cigarettes = Death. I guess I can mentally wrap my head around the fact that physically the equation is possible. I just don’t want to believe that spiritually such a story is possible.
Of all of the people I have known who have experienced loss and great loss, I have always seen such a strength and determination. I witnessed people grow through grief and assumed that this was the natural process of grieving. Love and life always conquers all. I didn’t take into account that not every story involves a happy ending. Sometimes life ends before a proper ending can be written.
In a movie or book, it always seems so poetic and proper when a spouse dies shortly after their lover. In real life it’s jarring and disturbing. I am searching for a possible ending of joy that can come from this woman’s life and final six months. I can sense it's a futile search though, and insulting to try. Only on a cloudy warm winter’s day like this, is it possible to believe that one can die from a broken heart.
Best one of late. I miss you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a child, my stepmother read us a book called "Where The Redfern Grows". It was about a boy and his two hunting dogs. At the end, when one died, the other lost all will to live and died as well. I cried all night. I guess because of that book I just assumed it was a real possibility. Well written.
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