
Yesterday, my husband and I attended a celebration of life ceremony for our friend’s beautiful, spirited daughter who left this plane of existence without warning. And not to compare losses, but there is just something so heartbreaking about abruptly losing a child who is at the brink of their wide, beautiful life. The word almost (she almost arrived home safely, she almost survived) is one of the most difficult words to carry.
Someone asked me if it was difficult to attend a remembrance ceremony for a child; to see all this grief anew, having carried this loss for nearly four years now. And I said, oh yes, but we need people to show up, and we need them to stay even in the face of the worst imaginable loss.
This is the kindest, most powerful thing you can do for a grieving person. Show up. Be willing to leave your comfort zone, your safe haven and draw near the grieving mother, father, sibling, partner...person. Be willing to stay.
This is not easy work. This work of showing up and staying. I’ll be honest with you, as an empath, some things are just too much for me. I’m even inclined to turn away and cover my eyes during the cringe-worthy moments of a TV show. But yesterday, I stood at the front of the gathering, and I looked straight at my friend as she haltingly read her beautiful tribute to her dead daughter. The slip of paper shaking in her hand like a winter leaf, waves of grief rocking her small frame under the gloomy sky. And I felt it all. Her loss, my loss, the collective grief of every person standing in that small courtyard. Our hearts wrenched out, laying broken anew on the altar of grief.
But this is where healing happens - when people are willing to show up; knowing that any words they might say, any gifts they come bearing will fall short of covering this wide span of grief. To be willing to stand alongside the grieving mother, whose hands reach for a child who now only exists in spirit. To imagine the unimaginable, and still refuse to turn your head away, but rather look straight into the eyes of the left-behind to bear witness to the deepest loss that you could ever imagine. There is such power, such comfort in this.
To each person who showed up and stayed for me - thank you. Thank you for holding space for me, and for continuing to bear witness to my loss. For those of you I have yet to meet, I invite you to be willing to show up, be willing to stay at the altar of grief. Molly Senecal, 5/6/2022
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