Friends and Strangers
“Grief makes friends into strangers and strangers into friends.”
Someone told me this a few days ago, and I momentarily dismissed it as just one of those clever turns-of-phrase. You know, bumpersticker wisdom. And then, boom. Oh yesyesyes. That’s what’s been happening these past four months.
A friend–well, not just “a” friend, but a person I had long considered the closest of confidants, a sister from another mother–vanished from my life. Another friend, someone who had long depended on me for emotional support, disappeared. A woman I reached out to who had been part of my life for more than twenty years, never returned my call. Tom’s best buddy, a person I knew well and had spent considerable time with over more than a decade, never reached out.
But at the same time, a casual friend, more an associate than friend, dropped what she was doing and drove an hour and half to sit and have coffee with me. Three times in two weeks. A woman I spent two days with six years ago found one of my photographs on Facebook, made a painting of it, and sent it to me. A woman with whom I had a deeply fractured friendship reappeared. A high school acquaintance whom I had seen once in a godzillion years five years ago, sent me the loveliest of books. One of Tom’s friends, a man I had met only once, has been calling me every week just to check in.
I related these experiences to the friends-into-strangers-strangers-into-friends woman. She is a hospice worker and has seen a lot of grief. Some people just know, she said. They know what to say or not say, what to do. They are not afraid to get close to grief. They just lean in because that’s who they are.
And some people don’t know what to do, she said, or what to say. Or it is just too scary or painful for them to reach out. They have their own issues. (Who doesn’t?) They don’t want to have a conversation about death because, well, we don’t know how to have conversations about death. Talking about it makes it too real. Talking about it slams us upside the head with our own mortality. When friends disappear, don’t take it personally, she told me. (Of course I do.)
In fact, listen up, friends and strangers and everyone in between: I don’t know what to do either. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I need until it appears. I’m just making it up as I go along.
11 comments
Lauren — So well said. And so sorry for your loss! We all feel things differently, but in times of grief and hardship friends are who you need the most. Time heals and I hope you reconnect with those you need the most. The rest are left to their own regrets. Peace and love to you and your family in this trying and difficult time. ~Steve
True. It’s that people you didn’t think of as good friends, step up in big ways. And then others you thought you could count on vanish.
Well said. You’re not alone. We’re all just making it up as we go along. Grief is so basic and brutal it blows treasured illusions away. We’re simple pilgrims walking the same dusty trail, not always sure of a destination.
Ah, I DO know the destination: a place where memories are sweet not painful.
This is an apt description of what happens when someone close to you dies. This happened when my mother died. As I age, I find myself finding it easier to reach out to people who need a comforting word or hug. Maybe it’s age or maybe it’s having gone through loss. I don’t know.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s not age, or experience in the trenches. Maybe it’s just who we are. The most deeply empathetic, intuitively knowing person through all this is barely in his 30s.
My son Jered died at the age of 30. At that time, I was teaching at the UO and was shocked, surprised not to mention hurt at the number of colleagues who ignored or never made eye contact. Three of these women I had shared an office with for years. The one person who really sought me out was a officemate/colleague, 30 years old who was not afraid of grief. She was there for me, encouraged me to talk about Jered and always checked in with me. I have vowed since then to always reach out to people dealing with the death of a loved one.
I wish I’d heard that phrase when grief came to live in me. It is a true yet unexpected phenomenon. My husband’s best friend also disappeared even after he told me he’d come over regularly to help around the property. Couple friends in particular stepped back. I guess they didn’t know what to do with someone who would be number three or five or seven at the table. But some couples stepped up in a way that was especially meaningful and always made a point of including me. Not out of pity but out of honor and true friendship. C.S. Lewis in A Grief Examined wrote that couples saw him as a death head, as a walking reminder of what could, and eventually would, happen to them. All hail the friends and acquaintances who don’t shy away from loss and grief!
Right. I wear a sign on my forehead: THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. Not “could.” Will.
I have truly been blessed with my close friends who remained close friends. I think that you don’t know how devastating the death of a loved one can be until you’ve had to live with such a loss. I will say that I never knew what to say or what to do without intruding. Now, having lived this loss, I am more comfortable being there for my friends: talking, listening and the hell with whether I am intruding. I truly regret that I wasn’t a better friend in the past.
I think what I’ve learned is that you don’t ask “what can I do?” you just do.
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