by Shelly Crane
As I sit here starting to write this post, it’s almost 2 weeks since the death of my brother-in-law, Dan, who died tragically in a car accident. Dan would have been 40 years old this June. Time during these last few weeks has been hard to grasp. My husband left to be with his sister, Emma, within hours of the accident and has been with her since. I followed him out several days later and now have come back home to return to work. I have been moving as though through a fog. To and from work, booking plane tickets within hours of the flight, changing tickets, rearranging schedules, getting to and from the airport, and asking for help in so many different ways from colleagues and family and friends and neighbors.
In the first week, there truly were no words. There was just presence and holding and tears. That, and struggling to do all of the ruthlessly time-bound things that need to be done in the aftermath of a death. If it wasn’t so heartless, it would be laughable. Calls, so many phone calls, to the medical examiner, the police, the funeral home, employers, HR, friends, family, and forms, and emails, and finding passwords and pins and usernames.
The undulating waves of grief rolling over and through all of us, as we try to hold Emma, close enough so that she is not swept away beneath them. All I can think about is how we are born to do this. The way that everything else gets so quiet, it falls away in layers - it just doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters is staying close, holding, breathing, attending to our grief.
As Jeanne has said many times, a good death is a community making event. And I can feel that now. From the terrifying moment Emma found out something had happened to Dan, she has been enveloped in love and support from her community. They have extended their love to her family and to Dan’s. They are holding space for her tears and her laughter, the memories they shared, and for the paralyzing grief about the long lives together that they will no longer share. They are holding each other in their grief. They are helping with all of the relentless needs that do not go away just because the world has turned inside out – cooking, laundry, groceries, and so much more.
What I have been reflecting on now is my deep gratitude for my experiences in SoULL in learning how to support a person in active distress. To know that I don't need to hold my own tears back (and that allowing myself to be touched by her grief is the healing for both of us), to make eye contact and not shy away from seeing the grief, the comfort I feel with just sitting and BEING and knowing in my body that THAT is the medicine. The understanding of behavioral patterns and defenses and the deep compassion I feel for the defenses that are going to arise in a tragedy like this. The trust that I now feel that not only will we survive, but that this tragedy is bringing all of us into a deeper understanding of each other and ourselves and how our lives are intricately interwoven into each others’. And not feeling guilty or surprised by the oscillating love and joy and grief that at times can feel ecstatic in the midst of such a confusing situation.
There is much grieving yet to do, and so much support that Emma will need as she begins to build a life without her person. And there has been so much love and gratitude that is flowing. So much to give and to receive. And I am so grateful to SoULL for the ways in which I have been learning to be open to it all, to move in and out the grief and the love and the frustration and the exhaustion with some degree of fluidity.
