So let's talk about sympathy cards.
Um, they're kind of rotton? They all say things like, may the memories of happy times see you through the rough days ahead. Nice sentiment... I guess. But really, I mean, I'm not exactly an expert in this area because no one close to me has died, but it just seems like... like that pain never really goes away. I mean yeah, people mourn and grieve and then somehow go on with their lives but I don't believe for a second that the hurt goes away or that you just stop missing that person. And I like to hope that after a while the memories do become reassuring and you can think of them in a happy way, but at first?
At first doesn't it seem like all they'd be are little knives stabbing your heart? Or something less graphic, I think I watched too much House today.
But back to the subject at hand. Even though I've never lost someone close to me in death, I imagine that this quote from Becca's essay ("Big Shoes") must sum it up pretty well....
I measure my grief over her in bad days and not-so-bad days.
That must be right. It sounds right too me. Death leaves everyone in its wake reeling, so affected by it even if they didn't know they would be. It stuns us. It's the ultimate shock... so difficult for us to comprehend that someone who was there just a day, week, month earlier is no longer with us. It doesn't seem right, does it? It doesn't seem natural. And I have to believe that this isn't how it was supposed to be; I have to believe that death was not god's purpose for us, that there's a reason it leaves us so dumbfounded, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. It's because it wasn't supposed to happen and it's sad, too too sad, too too ultimate, and we don't know how to deal with it.