Driving along chatting about nothing in particular and the phone rings. You recognize the number belongs to one of your besties, who you happen to be on the road to visit. ‘Oh, they may want me to stop at the supermarket and pick something up,’ you think to yourself.
“Hello …” you say and then as soon as you hear their voice you know …. Something is wrong, very wrong. So wrong, that from that moment on – everything changes in the world as you know it.
I know this happens to everyone in their lifetime and it has happened recently to people I love and care for, very deeply. We still feel their pain and attempt to support them as they take the time to discover, feel and live their own grieving story.
Sometimes you are peripheral or two or 3 circles of closeness removed from the loss and other times you are amid it. Sometimes you are the professional who knows the right sounds of silence to not speak or utter the right words that are heard for comfort. Still the degrees of closeness are never described accurately in any defined “loved one role description” and we all feel it differently.
So when one of our besties died so suddenly, recently … it exposed all sorts of feelings.
As health professionals we are taught so much and have learnt to respect the teachings of wise educators, philosophical counsellors and other experienced professionals.
But, WTF, when it is one of your besties, one of your family ….There is just raw grief.
There is the pain of others you want to absorb. There is the question “why him, why now?" you want answered. There is the confrontation of a reality, so in your face, you just don’t know what to think.
You can only feel. That sad, angry, disbelieving, lost, overwhelming feeling that you just know is, a piece of your heart that just broke.
DC
“Hello …” you say and then as soon as you hear their voice you know …. Something is wrong, very wrong. So wrong, that from that moment on – everything changes in the world as you know it.
I know this happens to everyone in their lifetime and it has happened recently to people I love and care for, very deeply. We still feel their pain and attempt to support them as they take the time to discover, feel and live their own grieving story.
Sometimes you are peripheral or two or 3 circles of closeness removed from the loss and other times you are amid it. Sometimes you are the professional who knows the right sounds of silence to not speak or utter the right words that are heard for comfort. Still the degrees of closeness are never described accurately in any defined “loved one role description” and we all feel it differently.
So when one of our besties died so suddenly, recently … it exposed all sorts of feelings.
As health professionals we are taught so much and have learnt to respect the teachings of wise educators, philosophical counsellors and other experienced professionals.
But, WTF, when it is one of your besties, one of your family ….There is just raw grief.
There is the pain of others you want to absorb. There is the question “why him, why now?" you want answered. There is the confrontation of a reality, so in your face, you just don’t know what to think.
You can only feel. That sad, angry, disbelieving, lost, overwhelming feeling that you just know is, a piece of your heart that just broke.
DC
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