Performative Condolence
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
That’s what people post on your FB page when you announce that your animal companion of five or fifteen years has died. It is a sad event. I do not mean to trivialize it.
But it is also what people will post when they discover your brother has died, or your father, or the person with whom you’ve spent the last thirty years, father of your children, co-adventurer, co-conspirator, the one who still thought you were funny, the one who (literally) whistled while he worked, the one who got excited about compost, the one who made the best tofu in hot meat sauce, the one who bicycled with you on the shores of the Baltic even though he hated bicycling, the one who loved that chicken chop place in Chania even more than you did, he who played the monster in many a Z-grade middle school movie shot in the woods behind the house, he who calmed the waters, he who saw the vulnerability you effectively hid from all others. And never outed you.
Not your “best friend.” Something else: Your one and only.
I don’t have words to express the sorrow I feel now that he is gone, the longing I feel for this shared future that seemed to stretch out forever and now will never be. I don’t have the words that will comfort, and neither do you.
This is not a criticism.
We don’t know how to express or extend solace to others. That’s the truth of it. We don’t talk about death until it’s at our doorstep, until it knocks. And we don’t want to hear the knock, and we don’t want to open the door. And when we do, we are speechless.
What I’d like to suggest is skipping what I have come to see as “performative condolence,” the so sorry for your loss response. As a person who has made her life in words, I would like to suggest forgetting words.
The true solace I have gotten this past rollercoaster of a month has some from the friend who didn’t ask what I needed but rather drove an hour and a half to sit with me over a cup of coffee; the friend who didn’t ask what she could do but rather sent chicken soup and snickerdoodles across the continent; the neighbor who took a walk in the woods with me; the man who has known more hardship than I can imagine who embraced me in one of those full-body hugs that fills you with warmth and deep, deep kindness.
I am a student of solace now. What I am learning I will pay forward. What I will try to practice—and by “practice,” I mean do— for others will honor Tom, will use the energy he released into the world. It is what he wanted. It consoles me.
11 comments
Lauren, you are correct, there are no words, but Lauren, the gift that you gave all of us is words, Tom will be immortal in the stories that you will share.
I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.
You have eloquently and gingerly expressed something that has disturbed me deeply for many years. I am even more disturbed to learn that you are having to write this out of your own personal and heartbreaking experience. I am so sorry, Lauren.
Thanks for sharing, Lauren. Thinking of you.
Love and life are bigger and better shared mungst words well spoken. Our days enriched once or twice by eloquent truths. My heart embracing your grief a step at a time💜
Your words have given us an insiders peek at the “Tom” that distance kept us from knowing at a high level. Sadly, it’s our loss. It sounds like every day you spent together was a precious gift that enhanced your life and the lives of your family. Thank you for sharing,
I learned a phrase two days ago – toxic positivity – that struck me in the gut when I thought of the things we say when we lose someone dear. I looked Tom up on google last month to see of he’d written anymore science pieces I wanted to read. His absence was odd, something felt deeply but nothing I could express to anyone – because who am I to have these feelings about Tom? All I have to say is that I don’t know what to say. Grief is personal, except it’s not. Heartache shared is meaningful. I’m so sorry to read this, Lauren. I shall reread the books of his that are part of my library and know him that way as well as your departed lover.
Oh, Lauren. Sending LOVE, HUGS and WARRIOR PRAYERS to you and your family. And kisses. Tons of those. xoxo
Oh my God. My heart aches for you. Love always Maija
Dear Lauren, thinking of you with love and affection. Katherine
And I, you, Katherine.
No words then, Lauren. Certainly no emojis. Holding you in my thoughts — and sending love.
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