Mourning is a many-faceted state of being. My sweet brother in law Tim passed away this week and this has been a week that can best be described as having a tornado rip through your life. I have felt sadness, fear, loneliness, gratefulness, unbelievable love, and shear exhaustion....sometimes all in the span of 2 minutes. There is no right or wrong to mourning, you just have to go with what is natural for you. It's hard and frightening to trust the process, both in your own life and in the live's of your loved ones. I am amazed as to how different the process is for each person and how that process changes day to day, moment to moment.
As a mother, watching my children mourn has been heartbreaking. I've seen it before only once when my grandfather passed away 4 years ago. It affected them so much that my daughter's still pray for Pop-Pop every night. This situation is so different for so many reasons. This was not an elderly, sick grandfather but a vibrant, young uncle. Someone my children could relate to on a different level than they could with their own parents. Uncle Tim was closer in age to them. He was fun, funny, loving, giving and always made time for his nieces and nephews. Also, he was seemingly healthy and happy. That makes this so much scarier for my kids. "Why did he die?" "Is what he had contagious?" "Are you or Daddy going to die too?" "When are we going to see him again?" Trying to answer these difficult questions often leaves me feeling utterly inadequate and hardly up to the task. Some questions are even more heartbreaking, "Does this mean we'll never get to wake him up again?" "You mean we can't play X-box anymore with him?" "Are grandma and grandpa OK?" I wish that I had the balm for their broken hearts, but I know that I can only offer them prayers, my love and lots of hugs. Time and God will take care of the rest.
This is my first experience watching my spouse go through a devastating loss. I'm not sure what my role is here. Do I give him space? Do I insist on keeping him grounded in some regular activities? How do I allow him his process while still protecting my children and making sure that they are getting what they need from their father? How do I deal with the fear and loneliness I feel as I lose him to this? It is so hard to watch the people you love suffer so deeply and to be utterly powerless to help them. I know full well that he has to go through his grief in his own way and I continue to pray for patience, compassion and understanding as his wife.
As a mother, seeing my mother and father-in-law suffering through this loss is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever had to witness. I can't help but put myself in their places. Just earlier this evening as I was carrying my sleeping 4-year-old to bed I realized that she is my 5th baby as Tim was their 5th baby and I could never imagine burying my sweet baby, no matter how old she was. There must be a hole in their hearts so enormous that must seem to go on forever. Yet their amazing strength, love and just about the best hugs you've ever experience, is their very real legacy.
Then there is my very own loss. This one is especially complicated as I feel as if I don't have the time to feel it. I know how important it is for me to allow myself the time to feel my loss, but I am being pulled away from it so that I can be there for my loved ones. I still have to make sure the beds are made, the meals are cooked, the laundry is washed, the kids are clean....and on and on. When I do have the downtime to really feel my loss I don't welcome the pain, and it is very painful for me.
I met Tim right before his 12th birthday. Bill and I were a very new couple, but already we knew that we were both in it for the long-haul. Bill invited me over for church and Sunday dinner and at that dinner they were going to celebrate Tim's 12th birthday. I remember clearly all of us singing and Tim blowing out the candles on the cake and with that sweet blond head of hair and big blue eyes Tim smiled and said, "Yep, next year I'll be a teenager and I'll hate my parents for no reason." I knew at that moment that I loved this kid! He was adorable and so clever! I remember when he was so young, he was very protective of me and when I was struggling with some difficult things at that time he was always very verbal as to how he was going to protect me. I still have the little black-bear Beanie Baby he bought me for Christmas. I had the honor of watching that baby-faced boy grow into a handsome young man who could play soccer, and play bass and speak French. I got to take him to his first show at the Limelight and introduced him to one of my friends, a guitarist that he truly idolized and had hoped to play with one day. Tim and I often had heart-to-heart conversations. I don't know why, but he seemed to feel as if he could share things with me that he wasn't comfortable sharing with his parents or siblings and I felt honored that this intelligent young man trusted me so much. I remember the compassion he possessed for me too. When Bill and I first got married, I got pregnant almost immediately. I lost that pregnancy at the end of my first trimester and Tim was one of the first people to check on me. He was crying a little bit and he was so young but he really was concerned and wasn't too proud to show it. As the years progressed and as more babies were born Tim was always so anxious to be one of the first people to hold his new nieces or nephews. He'd visit in the hospital and so comfortably hold those newborn babies with a confidence that most young guys his age didn't possess. As the kids grew he made time for them in so many ways. Whether it was playing video games, or giving out bubble gum, or showing up to the father/son soccer game for Jay when Bill couldn't be there, Tim truly loved his nieces and nephews. In the most recent years Tim kind of holed-up in his room more, but would always come out when I stopped by during the days and evenings where I had to use my in-law's house as a "home base" while carting kids to and from activities in Bergen County because my own home was 20 minutes away. I'd make a pot of coffee and we'd sit together shortly and chat. I always tried to get him talking about things as I could tell he was suffering or at least struggling. He often didn't need my prompting and would open up to me.
He was always there to stand in when I needed an on the spot babysitter. Just 5 days before he passed, he helped watch Maddie on the morning that she had an asthma attack and I had to go to work. Sometimes he'd help me out just by sitting in the van while one of my kids napped and I had to run into a store.
The funny thing is what I'm going to miss about him most is the little things. The way that his hands were always playing some bass line while he was standing there talking with you. Sitting across from him every Sunday meal watching him make a lake with his mashed potatoes and gravy. Enduring his constant ribbing over my dislike of greenbeans...."What's the matter Sara? Aren't my mother's green beans good?" "I'll eat the green beans Tim if you eat the asparagus." The conversations over the latest movies we saw. That scruffy face and touseled hair as he stumbled up the stairs at 3:30pm to grab a smoke, say hi to the kids and get ready for bass lessons. Just his dry and yet so insightful, if not sarcastic, sense of humor that was so intelligent and could get me laughing like nothing else will so be missed.
I really wanted to see Tim live out his dreams of being a musician. Maybe see him play with Maddie. I had dreams for Tim that he didn't share. I wanted to see him married and I wanted to love the nieces and nephews that he was going to give me. I wanted to pay him back with supplying them with too much gum and baggies of quarters. I wanted to be able to make jokes at his expense and love them on a level that only an aunt or uncle could.
With him gone, those dreams are gone. I will say that every cloud truly has a silver lining though. As much as I loathe cliches, I have seen that silver lining even in the midst of this horrible tragedy. I have seen the hearts of my husband and in laws like I have never experienced in the 12 years I've been in this family. Usually quiet and holding their emotions close to the cuff, I've experienced the true depth of love that exists in the hearts of my mother-in-law, father-in-law and brothers and sisters-in-law. This has been a real gift that I don't think would have ever been realized without this tragedy. I've been allowed to take care of my mother-in-law who had barely allowed me to make so much as a meal for her all of the years that we've been family. I've been loved by so many people that my heart bursts and tears come down every time I consider the acts of loving kindness that have been shown to me and my family. I was able to see a strength and eloquence in my husband that I had never witnessed before. I have felt free to express my true love and gratitude in a way that I normally would be too shy or embarrassed to express. I've also witness the miracle of the gift of grace that the Holy Spirit brings.
I've had the honor of reading his journal and it struck so close to home for me as a lot of my journal entries at his age were similar. The darkness he often felt, coupled with the gift of writing that he possesed and the amazing insight of a special man truly resonated with me. The real relationship he allowed himself to have with his journal was one that I could relate to.
I just wish that he could have felt the love that others had for him. I wish that he knew just how much he was not alone. I wish that he knew that his nieces and nephews would forever be changed with his passing and that his entire family would forever have a dark cloud lingering in their hearts. I know that it never pays to dwell on the should've, could've, would'ves so I won't dwell on that. I will, however, hold onto the strength that God has been gracing me with, the amazing gift of the love that I experience from my friends, and the immeasurable blessing that my family is. I choose to remember Tim often and fondly. To celebrate his short life every moment I get and to honor it by encourgaing my children to be who they are and to love who they are and to know that they are never alone and worthy of love because God loved them first.
