Just push ‘play'

My “grief” button is apparently stuck in the “on” position.

Another family funeral this week. Dear Uncle Joe. My cousins mourning the loss of their father, and another ritual of family, tears, ceremony, and remembering.

Grief, please, give me a break. Isn’t it enough that I am drowning in the literature of death, sorting through philosophies about how human beings deal with this part of life? My intentional study of this topic is being supplemented by the real life experience of it -- and it feels like every time I turn around, someone else is enduring a loss and I am the filter through which it runs.

We are all “filters” in this sense. The grief of others touches us and we are transformed, even if it is in the tiniest way.

But this time I am having a selfish grief experience. Or maybe internalizing it in a way that is bringing up “old stuff.” Whatever it is, it is familiar to me. As I think about my cousins losing their father at the robust age of 90, I am instantly compelled to thoughts of my own father’s mortality.

This is not a new one for me, folks. I have always dreaded the death of my parents, knowing that it would happen one day and knowing that I am never going to be ready for it.

For the record, neither of my parents is going anywhere anytime soon. I am thinking about this because I am empathising with my cousins in their sadness, and relating to their experience because I know it will one day be my own.

There is a term for this, though it escapes me now. I think it is called “anticipatory grief.” For people who have experienced the loss of someone very dear and close to them, this syndrome is the dread that you carry knowing that this life is fragile and temporary.

It means that somone you love will one day not be there when you stop by for a visit, or won’t be on the other end of the phone when it rings. The laughs, the struggles, the comforting hugs, or the playful teasing will only remain in your memory, which is where you will return to frequently to soothe the pain of separation. It will require a tremendous adjustment in your mindset to move from the opportunity for direct contact and human exchange to a strictly spiritual connection.

The feeling that you live with when you begin to slip into this anticipatory grief can be painful all by itself, even though it is self-inflicted and largely within your control to dismiss.

The feeling is fear.

For me, it can reach not-quite panic proportions and I think it explains a lot about my personality and the way that I need to document every event and important person in my life. Photographs, video, jotting things down -- these are the things I resort to, no, the things that I run to, so that I can capture the tidbits of my loved ones before they disappear. I need to collect all that I can, so that I can wrap myself in those tangibles and memories when they are all that I have left.

Now before you dig out your contact list to recommend a good psychiatrist, let me just say that I am not dwelling on that which I have no control over. I simply have a keen awareness of the “life is short” concept, and have a distinct philosophy that compels me to keep my life in the “Play” position, instead of putting things on hold for a more convenient time.

Author C.S. Lewis wrote An Observed Loss about the death of his wife, and in sorting through his grief, suggested that the experience of grief is forever. Not what I want to hear at the moment, but it may be why I am feeling “stuck” in the grief mud. Lewis said, “In grief, nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?’ (Lewis, 1961: 46)

Not a happy thought, but evidence that to grieve means to hurt in our experience of love. That really is not a bad thing. If you really think about it, it is a wonderful outward expression of a deep sentiment that means we have shared life with someone, we have melded spirits with them in some way, and we have been blessed with the precious gift of love.

The fear that anticipatory grief renders is manageable. Fear suggests the absence of faith, and if I step back from the anxiety, I know that the meaningful relationships in my life will last forever. They will just move from one realm to another. Faith has shown me that.

I believe that the only way to overcome fear is to face it squarely. So the thought for today is this: In the song of life, just push play. Then dance your way through it fearlessly.