Sudden Death: Wayfinding through Grief

Into every life a little rain must fall, but some of us get hit by a thunderbolt from the clear blue sky.  No warning, no preparation, sudden death with a traumatic twist strikes with a clap of searing light and sound. You’ve become a conduit for terrible, life-altering news.   

One — Your head lifts off your shoulders with the force of impact, there is no room inside to hold the news.  All senses dilate then constrict to numb, your heart is in the hands of an icy cold compression, breaking. Shock arrives to hold you still, hold you writhing, a grip, a force, a penetration of heightened sensation and no sensation at all. Shock is your friend, it wraps around you in heavy layers, a shawl woven for protection, a thick, supple insulating layer that holds you tight in its embrace. It is here to build up the boundary walls that comprehension will slowly, slowly sink through. This is the wise pacing of shock, it allows a measured integration of news that cannot be held. 

Two — Collapse, crumple, fall, the body cannot hold against the force of gravity and brings you closer to the ground.  Go there, stay there.   Stay flat, let the horizontal plane carry you, hold on to the spinning earth with all four limbs wrapped and burrowed.  Outside if you can stand the light, inside if you crave the dark, piles of laundry, mounds of blankets, crawl into them and hold on. Stay warm. You are entering a state called torpor, a metabolic hibernation, a deep stillness and withdrawal essential for survival.  

Three — Food is not welcome, the systems are busy, a new internal engine has taken over your inner spaces, one that will modulate the swells and vibrations.  The system cannot be bothered with the mundane act of digestion, it is assimilating much larger realms and needs peace and serenity and should be respected.  Three crackers, a bite of banana, a small yogurt. And lots of water sipped very slowly.  You will eat again when you are ready, allow the body its wisdom. 

Four — There is no right way to grieve.  Maybe you didn’t fall to the ground, maybe you stayed upright and manic through the dissonance. Maybe you devoured the banquet of consoling casseroles and strange urgencies sent you on a spending spree. Shock manifests in many ways, and all of it makes the people around you nervous. They will suggest you are doing this too fast, too slow, not enough, too much.   This is when we want them to know: “There is no right or wrong way to grieve.  Shock is my friend, it is protecting me. Every cell in my body is recapitulating and reconstructing and renegotiating, this process will take years, years, and I will never be ready, I will never be the same.”

Five — Your friendships change, all of your relationships change. There’s a charge and current pulsing through you and rolling out in waves, the reverberations are being absorbed throughout the community.  Some will say hurtful words without intention, a few will say words just right, most will say nothing at all and stay far away.  Give them all grace. “There are no words” is a phrase on a constant loop of condolences, as it should be. Words, they don’t stand a chance in this maelstrom. 

We don’t know how to do this, but we used to, not so long ago.  We had black clothing and veils and armbands, black crepe to hang on the front door, a wordless communication of deep mourning and bereavement. The recently widowed were served first at the bakery, no matter how long the line. It was understood she didn’t need to be in casual conversation with the curious and confused. She was allowed to gather her things and slide out the door in a silent slip lane of respect and reverence. Now we only have bumbling, obtuse reflexes without governance and wise council, just fellow quaking souls trying to offer a sliver of connection through the shock waves. 

Six — Brief good moments and many bad days.  Wisps of peace may breeze through you, you may be able to brush your hair without weeping, gaze out the window and see through the blindness, cycle through half a day without the weight crushing your chest. But it’s not here to stay, the heavy swirl will return and the sucking center will pull you in again.  You will wake up with terror and realize, it’s another bad day, I’m having another bad day. This is the slow unwinding and rewinding of shock, thread by thread, layer by layer, as the news bounces against and settles into your being. 

Seven — Grief is hard, hard work. It is exhausting.  Stone pounding on stone,  grinding, like a pestle into a mortar.  It is carving out a hollow for the news to fit within.  That’s why tears are essential, lubricating with a chemical alchemy to speed the work.  Be the leaky faucet, in the car, in the grocery aisle, at every turn let them flow.  Know that with each passing moon, the space inside is wider, and the news settles just a little deeper. The tears show up with purpose, they have a job to do, they are carving tools, stand aside and let them flow.

Eight — If it’s been a while since you’ve reached out to one who listens deeply, one who knows, or to a support group, now is the time. They will hold steady through the swirl, they know how to step wide and gird, they’ve seen the towering twenty-foot wave climb higher and block the light from the sun, they aren’t scared of the power you hold, let them see it. It is sacred.

Nine — Take it to a graveyard, the older the better.  Where the stones are carved with willows and urns and angels by an artist’s steady hand, the town witness. See the headstones of babies and mothers, sons killed in war, so many children, leaning into the moss and tumbling down into the dissolving earth. Here grief is known, understood, welcomed. Step through the swinging gate and the ground thrums with recognition. The graveyard knows you are doing this just right, not too fast or too slow, and nods as you course through the images and names, seeking and sensing through recrystallized layers. 

Ten — The first year is a cycle of feelings and sensations that will recede, soften, and quiet, then rush in and run you over with the clanging bells of memory.  The middle of the first year is a pause and then a harrowing ride back up to the day it happened.  The angle of light, the smell of the earth, your body remembers the moment of the first concussive wave and the calendar clicks closer every day.  Prepare for this, make way, give space, do not deny the invitation to plunge to those depths again.  After this first anniversary, life will slowly re-enter and re-center.  The peak intensity is now, allow it to be honored. 

Eleven — The first year is the worst, there is no path, only stumbles and lurches and long rests between moments of stability.  The first three years will find you stretching with longer strides and making your way while clinging to the edge and gasping for breath. Sucker waves rear up during the holidays, birthdays, weddings, graduations, school plays. Any tender moment where family is gathered and celebration is the occasion can summon the upwelling.  Now you know how to step wide and gird, open your palms and let the salt stream through.  No shame, let the sadness be seen, it is a gift for those who are able to lift the layer and open. 

Twelve  — Light a candle and say a prayer for the first three years, you made it. Blow a kiss to your friend shock for rushing in to wrap you up snug, safe in a leaden shawl of protection. You found a way through the unwinding, blinded, numb, and wretched at first, now standing with a face in the sun and a breath that rises and falls without a catch.  The ten-year anniversary may offer a rise in the landscape like a watershed, where all things now roll away from the grief and towards something new.  The shift is a revelation, a birthday without pangs, a happy occasion where only the slightest riffle is sensed in the distance.  You can see farther, the view is wider, the horizon holds you in the circle of mystery.  

Now you know.  And when the shock of sudden death lands for one in your circle, you’ll give a wide berth when it’s needed, sense the opening, then step quietly up to the side and say, I know.  Hold my hand, breathe, here is a sip of water, no words, breathe.