We often get so lost in our own pain and grief when our loved one dies that we forget that other people are hurting, too. Our pain places us in a vacuum of sorts where all we know is what we are feeling ourselves. It’s like having tunnel vision where we can’t see anything going on in the peripheral. Our own pain is front and center and the only thing we can see. But, we have to step away from that tunnel vision and recognize that others are experiencing their own levels of pain and grief. Sure, it’s not the same kind of pain and grief I’m experiencing from losing my husband, but their pain and grief is still a very real thing and hurts them just as much as mine hurts me.
I do step outside of my own pain to see the pain my adult children are still suffering from losing their dad way before the time they should have. I see the sadness and frustration of my 4 1/2 year old grandson who still doesn’t quite grasp why his Papa who “lives in the clouds up in Heaven” can’t come down here with us. I think that’s the thing that breaks my heart the most. Emory will only remember his Papa through pictures and videos. No child should lose their beloved grandparent that young. It just isn’t fair.
I was able to step completely away from my tunnel vision a few days ago and really see and understand how others outside of myself, my children, and grandson are hurting from Kenny’s unexpected death. My oldest friend in the world, who knew Kenny just as long as I did, broke down and cried over his death. She told me that he was the only male friend she’d had for that long and now he was gone. Kenny didn’t care for a few of the friends I had in the past but he did like this friend a lot. He would have done anything for her because he loved her and really valued her friendship. The three of us had a lot of good times together over the years and I hate like hell that there won’t be anymore memories made from us being together.
Kenny did a lot of carpentry work at her house over the years and she completely trusted him. There’s a stereotype about contractors that you can’t trust any of them and he ran into that with customers many times over the years. He never fought that battle with my friend because she knew Kenny wouldn’t try and take advantage of her. She called him many times to ask how much this or that would be and she always knew he would be truthful with her. She said that her go-to person was gone and what was she going to do now? I told her I completely understand that. There were several “Damn it Kenny! Why did you have to go and die and leave us?!” spoken between the two of us on the phone that night. I’ve said that very same thing myself so many times since he died that I’ve lost count.
My friend was at the hospital with us and saw everything that happened to Kenny with her own eyes. She stood next to his bedside and saw him lying unconscious there in the ICU, hooked up to a mass of beeping machines. She saw him slipping away from us and she pleaded with him not to, just like the rest of us all did. I do remember seeing her cry when she saw him but in the moment it didn’t all register with me. I thought at the time she was crying for him, for me, our children and grandson. I didn’t realize until we had our long phone conversation a few days ago that the tears she cried then and now were also for her losing her longtime friend who she loved like a brother. She lost someone she loved…..just like we did.
I cried on the phone with my friend because she was hurting and I didn’t want her to hurt. We cried together because there will never be another Kenny in our lives like the one we had in him. I cried because I felt her pain instead of mine and it was so terribly awful. I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to break any more than it already had, but it did that night on the phone with her.
That phone conversation was very important. It allowed me to separate myself completely from the ever present pain and grief that has lived inside me for five months, if only for a few hours. The tunnel vision faded away briefly and I was able to see all that was happening outside of it, which was other people besides myself trying to crawl through their own pain and grief of losing their loved one.
My dad told me this one thing about a year before he died and it is so very true……just because what that person over there is going through isn’t as bad as what you’re going through, it doesn’t mean that their thing doesn’t bother them just as much as yours bothers you. It means that the mountains in front of us we’re trying to climb are all the same size to each of us. The other people who lost Kenny are hurting just as much as I am and I need to remember that. Their mountains are just as hard for them to climb as the one I’m trying to conquer myself.