Once you’ve spent a Christmas Eve calling mortuaries for your child, subsequent Decembers are very long and very tricky—more like minefields instead of Christmas tree lots.
Yes, it’s me again talking about grief. Why? Because people are everywhere, grief is everywhere. They just might be quieter than I am about it.
Here’s a link to Anderson Cooper’s “All There Is” podcast with Nick Cave. I’ve listened twice now today, and to say it resonates is an understatement.
I, too, was sitting at a kitchen table when the phone rang. I, too, have collapsed on the stairs. I, too, have been “squeezed”—the way Nick Cave describes the random, “deeply articulate” hand squeeze. And, conversely, I’ve been squeezed by parallel betrayals and cruelties I could not have anticipated. In this eloquent and wise podcast, I lose track of my me-toos. Weirdly, that’s a beautiful thing.
Nick said that in grief, you “draw closer to the veil that separates this world from the next. You see God in grief.”
I agree. I also agree that I, too, contend with the idea of cosmic betrayal.
Nick’s son fell from a cliff; Anderson’s brother fell from a balcony. Both mentioned how crazy it is that these scenarios—falling from a cliff or jumping from a balcony—are depicted so often in movies. They said it happens all the time. John and I say the same thing about the scene of a pedestrian getting hit by a car. It happens all the time. It’s crazy. Instead of “Netflix and chill,” it’s “Netflix with one eye closed.”
I’d never noticed it before December 22, 2022.
These are some of the countless jagged edges in grief.
If someone is driving too slowly in front of you, or the person at the register is taking too long, or the customer service representative on the phone isn’t very helpful, or your friend cancels your lunch date at the last minute, remember that their December might be different from yours. Their worst nightmare could be their reality now. Send them a little squeeze, the kind that comes with a warm human touch. Be a beautiful thing.