Must condolences, words of consolation, be as sweet and gentle as words of endearment? Do people want to be assured that the pain of grief and loss will go away, some day? I don’t have an answer. When a friend loses a loved one and I buy the inevitable sympathy card, I mouth the usual sentiments and never feel I’ve said quite the right thing. I become inarticulate. Too often, I feel self-centered, writing out of obligation, repeating the same old words, covering my ass so I’m not accused of thoughtlessness or indifference. Walter de la Mare in “Away” (Memory and Other Poems, 1938) suggests another way to look at the dilemma:
“There is no sorrow
Time heals never;
No loss, betrayal,
Beyond repair.
Balm for the soul, then,
Though grave shall sever
Lover from loved
And all they share;
See the sweet sun shines
The shower is over,
Flowers preen their
beauty,
The day how fair!
Brood not too closely
On love, on duty;
Friends long forgotten
May wait you where
Life with death
Brings all to an issue;
None will long mourn for
you,
Pray for you, miss you,
Your place left vacant,
You not there.”
Bleak, comforting words. Think of the passing of grief following your death and mine – a blessing to survivors, easing their pain. My brother would have turned seventy-one today. I remembered “Flowers preen their beauty” while watching hummingbirds collecting nectar in the garden.
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When I got out of the army, I went to work for an auto dealership, and one of my jobs was driving people home in the "courtesy car" after they had left their cars with the service department. One day I was driving a man home, a successful, professional man (I worked at a Cadillac dealership) and when we stopped at an intersection, he said, "This is where my daughter was killed." It was the first thing he had said, apart from giving me directions. He proceeded to tell me how his daughter was killed at that spot by a drunk driver while she was coming home from high school. It was clear that that moment was as fresh with him as it had been years before, when he first picked up the phone and got the news. I was young and stupid, and I remember thinking, "How can he live with that?" I didn't know then - I still don't know whether it's one of the best things or one of the worst things about us - that people can live with anything.
A moving post somehow. Thank you.
It reminds me of Rose Wylie's little verse
"Withouten you
No rose can grow.
No leaf be green
If never seen
Your sweetest face.
No bird hath grace
Or power to sing
Or anything be kind and fair
And you nowhere."
Saul Bellow’s collected letters include the artfully drafted and meaningfully touching condolence notes he wrote to the survivors of old friends and acquaintances. Bellow’s nostalgic tendency also drew him to high school and junior high school (!) reunions.
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