A Grief Observed 6/26/2022

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I will go ahead and apologize now.  The subject matter today might be somber, but it will certainly be relatable.  I suppose the more difficult aspects of life are.  I am currently in the middle of some of those more difficult yet unavoidable moments in time.  I have decided that these may be some of the most miserable of them all. I speak of watching someone you love dearly suffer. It could be from physical pain or emotional. It could be fear or anxiety.  It could be grief, sorrow or just struggle.  To have to watch, especially when there is really nothing that you do can do to intervene is probably one of the most agonizing experiences that I have ever had.  Yet, we will all, at one time or another, be in that boat.  I would love to tell you that I am going to offer you some wisdom that will tell you how to better cope with such hardships, but I am afraid that I am at a loss. I can only offer commiseration.

The event that I face currently is watching one of the people that I love most in the world suffer loss and grief.  My mother has just lost her second younger brother in as many years.  The anguish of watching this dismantles me to my core.  I most assuredly do not wish to imply that my pain is even remotely close to hers as I am quite certain that it is not even in the same galaxy. But sadly, I am just as helpless as she is to find anything that dulls the ache.  What can I do?  There aren’t words that can make things better. There is no gift I could give or sentiment I could write that would bring solace.  So, I am tormented by watching her features drawn taut across her face.  I grimace as I talk to her on the phone, and I hear her voice crack.  I fear that I am making you think that I am attempting to make her loss all about me.  I simply want to relate to you the helplessness I feel at being completely unable to fix anything at all.  I daresay you have seen it too. You have watched tears stream down a loved one’s face and are plagued by the inability to offer much more beyond a fervent embrace. I suppose simply making the offer that, if there is anything that one can do is about the extent of anything worthwhile.  If only it were like the knee scrapes of childhood where a loving kiss on the affliction made all the unpleasantness disappear.  But alas, such simplicities will not cut it this time.

I remember when my mama’s mama died.  I am not entirely certain that I have ever felt quite so much like a gutted animal. Of course, I was distraught at the loss of my grandmother. Even more so at the fact that this was my last grandparent that had just left us.  But none of that even came close to how I felt when I saw the impact on my precious mama. When my daddy and I arrived at the funeral home and she came out to meet us and said, “Y’all come see my pretty Mama.”  Oh, I was, and still am, absolutely destroyed. I am typing now with tears streaming down my face. Her face was tear streaked and her eyes were swollen.  It was strange, she was almost giddy with how much she loved her mama, and that was somehow making it so she could actually function without completely breaking down.  I had not seen her like this.  I had seen her sad.  But this was not sad. This was something so far beyond sad.  This was something akin to devastation.  Now, she was not hopeless, but the heartache was so deep, and the loss was so vast that you could tell she was changed even to a molecular level.  And I could do nothing. I could not soothe the ache. I could not lessen the damage of the blow.  I watched her during this time, and it was like all my insides were being pulled from inside me and I daresay that my horrible state of impotency to contribute anything of value only sharpened the blow.

Perhaps you have watched someone you love suffer. Maybe you have had the grave misfortune of watching a parent or a child be faced with an illness. We have all had the unpleasantness of seeing a child with standard moments of sickness. We loathe watching a toddler whimper with fever or a child cry with some random pain. But if you have had to witness a close family member truly wrestle with a serious ailment then I imagine you grasp the woe of being forced to sit idly by.  To not be able to help when the one thing in the world that you and the sufferer both want you to be able to do is help. It is an anguish that is hard to describe.  I haven’t faced that particular trial and pray I don’t but those that have understand that gnawing in my stomach that I get when I look into my Mama’s eyes the past few days and see a hollowness that I have no prospect of filling.

We have all faced it in one way or another. If you have not yet, you will.  To watch your beloved have to climb a mountain and know it is their peak to reach and theirs alone. I suppose I have simply shared all this with you today in hopes that you know that I can relate when you have faced this misery.  I ask you remember me as I watch it myself now. If you are the praying type, I ask you remember me in your prayers that I am there for my mother however it may be best.  Here we sit at one of those moments where there is not much we can do but just be.  I want to be there for her. I want everything I say to be meaningful.  Thankfully we do not mourn as those who have no hope. But as for what I myself can do right now, all I can hope is that my love for her is so fervent and strong that I am some form of anesthetic. Her pain may not be gone but I hope I can make it slightly more tolerable. That is the best we can all hope for; to ever so slightly soften the landing of those far too frequent very high falls.