I have a neighbour who lost her 30 year old son to cancer. I went up to her apartment after a day or so ; she was praying so I met her daughter and other relatives, said I would come back later to meet her and came home. I never went back to meet her again.
And when I meet her in the lift or in the car park now, I can only muster an embarrassed Hi.
Because I am so terribly ashamed of myself. Why did I not have the courage to go back to meet her? If something traumatic happened to me would I not appreciate my neighbours’ presence? How crass and ill-mannered I must come across as!
The truth is - I did not know what to do and still don’t know how to handle a situation like this. Anything I could have said would have sounded so insignificant. A ‘I am so sorry’ sounds so trite. It would not have been appropriate to ask her details of his final collapse. I did not know him at all, so I could not have shared any experiences and memories of him.
How does one console a mother who has lost her young son to death? She would have been questioning the justice of it all, reliving his last moments and would be haunted by his presence all around her. Nothing must have made sense to her broken heart. As a mother, I can’t even begin to understand the emptiness in her heart.
Would my words have helped? Or my presence would have been an impediment?
As we grow older,our own mortality and the mortality of the ones we love begins to loom large on the horizon. I wish I would go before my parents, my kids, Praneet, my siblings and their spouses and kids, my close pals and everyone else who makes my life so special.
I don’t want to be mature and worldly. I don’t want to learn the skill of offering condolences to those who lose a loved one - I can’t handle the horror of it all. Anything you can say to the bereaved person is so shallow. Death is final.
1 comment:
I tend to think the same way, but sometimes it just helps to know someone is there, genuinely there, and is willing to help. People cope with grief, of course, we all learn to in our own ways, but its amazing how one can find unexpected sources of kindness in our darkest moments. Sorry, just sharing something I've learnt.
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