Experts compute it takes an average of three days to three years to recover from the news of someone’s death, depending on one’s relationship to the deceased. Deaths of multiple acquaintances and even those less familiar than that can compound to a significant bout of despondency - sometimes equaling the grief over the death of a member of the nuclear family. Other variables, such as how and when the news was received, the time since the last visit with the deceased, and of course, the cause of death, all contribute to the wide range of recovery time.
I didn’t read the fine print on the study, so I don’t know how they defined “recovery.” To me, it sounds like a scientific euphemism for “get over.” Because, I think, if we’re honest, there is no end date for grief.
Death halts time. It makes everything else meaningless. Our daily tasks make zero sense to those who have gone on.
Once, I was running along the shoulder of the road when a funeral procession passed. Should I have stopped running and acknowledged the mourning drivers? I almost did and felt I needed to hold my hand over my heart, though there was nothing to signify veteran status. To run past felt like I was mocking the dead. Blissfully enjoying the weather and my healthy body, I was tap dancing in front of a paralyzed ballerina.
Going to work reminds you of the pointlessness of it all. So we are given bereavement days. But those three days only rush our grief and though our employer may send a card, our workload is hardly lessened.
Doesn’t it seem like some people were destined to die? Of course, we all are, but right now, I’m thinking that grandparents fall into this category. They are supposed to spoil you, and then when you get too grown and spoiled to spoil, they are ancient and you attend their funeral. They are someone you always know that one day you will have known. Strange.
Even stranger are those acquaintances whom you have heard have passed on and when you hear of it, it feels like you knew you’d survive them, like their death is just something that happened to them in their life. Like “Did you hear Sally got married?” You weren’t invited to the wedding. In fact, you didn’t even know she was dating someone; I’m not talking about celebrities whom you thought were already dead.
Of course, these are people you don’t see daily. Those who regularly saw the grandparent or acquaintance or celebrity suffer greater because the death is not a passing event to them but a time-halting one, just as the death of the loved one you regularly saw is a passing event to them and a time-halter to you. Has anyone else thought this?
Every death is different. There are those you never met: a celebrity, a distant relative, and a baby you expected. There are also people you knew. Cause of death affects the grief response. The self-inflicted lead to sadness; the homicidal - premeditated and involuntary - lead to vengeance. The naturally caused give us contentment in the sadness. That is the right way to go. The diseased deaths compel us to finance scientific research. The war-inflicted and natural disaster fatalities provide a communal comfort and questions of theodicy.
Every death is the same. He was someone’s husband, father, son, nephew, cousin, friend, neighbor, coworker. She was a wife, a mother, daughter, niece, cousin, friend, neighbor, coworker. It is the last event of every person’s life. It is what we all wait for and live for - not expectantly, but as our final transition. We graduated. We got married. We retired. We died.
Now, get out of your mind anyone in particular. I heard from an otherwise inconsistent source (but this news made sense) that when we die we release our bowels. Those muscles we were taught to constrict as toddlers on the toilet and the ones boys control at will for humor’s sake. I had never heard this or thought about it and at first assumed it was wrong. Sitcoms never teased it and that natural bodily function seems like excellent fodder for laugh lines but I suppose death is not. Television doesn’t talk about the viscosity of copulation after all. So, if it is true that in the end we relax our faculties, the process of death is romanticized. What does death look like, medically? I know it is one of tremendous grief and soiling it ruins the gravity of the moment.
So we revere the dead. They are braver than us. They are wiser. They are older. They are better (off?). But death is a transition they resisted as much as we do. They were us and we will be them. We grieve for our sake, not theirs.
We think grievers “shouldn't have to make such decisions at a time like this” but when else do any of us make such decisions? There is no way around it; discussing funeral logistics and cold, hard cash is always in the vicinity of a cold, hard body.
Regina Spektor sang, “No one's laughing at God when they've lost all they got and they don't know what for.” Only the heartless critique a griever’s beliefs regarding the afterlife. Contending with these beliefs is a conversation best verbalized in theory when we are “recovered.” If you want to change someone’s belief about the existence or not of an afterlife, you can’t do it when they’re mourning.
At the same time, grief is the opportune time to discuss these matters. People are too aloof when they’re “recovered” and the theories they conclude on then don’t translate when they return to grief.
There’s a dark joke about the last time your parents held you: they put you down and never picked you up again. Obviously, it’s because you got too big to be held. But if we knew the last time we’d hold our children, how would that change how we held them? Whether we’re comforting them or controlling them. To know our expiration dates would change everything about how we live and move and have our being. I’m glad we don’t know. But it’s sad to not remember the last hug or kiss or conversation. If I knew it was the last one, I would remember it.
The lesson in all of this is one everyone has heard, but nobody actually understands until they’re taking the test: life is short.
What this implies depends on your religion, how the deceased lived, your culture to a great extent, and how deep you get in your grief. But the saying is a universal - one of only a few in this world - and it’s scary and awful and awesome and changes everything.
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