Losses

I went to the service to support my friend, but also to say goodbye on my own account. You see, over the five short years I’ve been friends with their family, I had come to like, admire and respect my friend’s husband. I like to think we’d even begun to become friends on our own account. We’d sat and cheered on our children’s soccer games, chatting about literature, politics or history in between plays. We’d noted the special bond between his youngest son and my youngest daughter, “aaahhing” over their cute antics. We’d shared family meals, glasses of wine and conversation.

Having been through this terrible cancer journey with my mother only recently, I could relate in some way to the emotions his family were experiencing on Wednesday. My friend; strong for her children’s sake, thanking all the guests, still in a state of dazed unreality. You go through the motions, you do what you need to do, but you can’t quite reconcile exactly why you’re doing it. It just doesn’t seem possible that you’re formally mourning the loss of someone who was such an integral part of your life…if you stop to think about it, you feel like reality has shifted and that you’ve somehow become out of step with the rest of the universe. I know that feeling. 

And of course I was keenly reminded of my own loss during the service. I thought often of my mother, and what a profound effect her illness and death have had on my life. The death of a loved one sends ripples of loss through not only the family, but outwards to friends, colleagues and community. On Wednesday evening I witnessed that loss ripple outwards with my own eyes. During a moving slideshow of photographs, my friend’s young son leaned into his mother’s arms and began to sob. His sorrow was so palpable, you could see it move through the room, as table after table of guests gave into their own grief with flowing tears, shaking shoulders and shuddering breaths.