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Just got notified about the sudden death of a dear friend's father.
I don't know what to do, aside from letting him know I'm here for him, as I know (from his other blog) at least a dozen people have already said.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
And yet, and yet...
Brings me back to the death of my own father. We knew it was coming, it was not sudden, and yet it was still a shock.
Missing him grew less fierce eventually, the anger and frustration has moderated and matured into something mellower, yet still with a tang to it.
I've been there, it's been 9 years and 2 months since I passed through this door, and I still don't have any idea what to say to my friend.
Isn't the consolation about getting older the conceit that with experience comes wisdom? Shouldn't there be some point at which common experience allows me to comfort and perhaps even help such an old and close friend with his pain?
Words fail me. Words fail most of us at this time in someone else's life. Which was exactly what I found most frustrating, at the time of my own rite of passage. Nobody would talk about my father to me, nobody was willing to share happier memories.
It was like there was a conspiracy of avoidance, of silence. What I desperately needed to know was WHY all these people were at the memorial, why my father was important. In detail. Did he make them laugh, do a favor for them, was he just a great guy, did he ever make them mad?
We define ourselves in part through our parents. We discover too late the parts which are influenced or imprinted by "dad", by "mom", by "grandma" or the "favorite uncle". We define ourselves by our denial or rejection of parts of our parents which we find objectionable, only to discover later that those very traits are often hard-wired, and that we can't deactivate them.
Sometimes this hardwiring is like that of some kind of clock - helpful in maintaining a working, livable rhythm.
Sometimes, it's more like that of a landmine or pipe bomb.
I hope to the gods that K. has found his programming agreeable and that it helps him through this difficult time.
So, I suppose I'm feeling a touch cynical, referring to parenting as programming... Parents out there, please forgive me.
I love my parents, I just find it hard to forgive their mistakes sometimes.
Work in progress...
*sigh*
I don't know what to do, aside from letting him know I'm here for him, as I know (from his other blog) at least a dozen people have already said.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
And yet, and yet...
Brings me back to the death of my own father. We knew it was coming, it was not sudden, and yet it was still a shock.
Missing him grew less fierce eventually, the anger and frustration has moderated and matured into something mellower, yet still with a tang to it.
I've been there, it's been 9 years and 2 months since I passed through this door, and I still don't have any idea what to say to my friend.
Isn't the consolation about getting older the conceit that with experience comes wisdom? Shouldn't there be some point at which common experience allows me to comfort and perhaps even help such an old and close friend with his pain?
Words fail me. Words fail most of us at this time in someone else's life. Which was exactly what I found most frustrating, at the time of my own rite of passage. Nobody would talk about my father to me, nobody was willing to share happier memories.
It was like there was a conspiracy of avoidance, of silence. What I desperately needed to know was WHY all these people were at the memorial, why my father was important. In detail. Did he make them laugh, do a favor for them, was he just a great guy, did he ever make them mad?
We define ourselves in part through our parents. We discover too late the parts which are influenced or imprinted by "dad", by "mom", by "grandma" or the "favorite uncle". We define ourselves by our denial or rejection of parts of our parents which we find objectionable, only to discover later that those very traits are often hard-wired, and that we can't deactivate them.
Sometimes this hardwiring is like that of some kind of clock - helpful in maintaining a working, livable rhythm.
Sometimes, it's more like that of a landmine or pipe bomb.
I hope to the gods that K. has found his programming agreeable and that it helps him through this difficult time.
So, I suppose I'm feeling a touch cynical, referring to parenting as programming... Parents out there, please forgive me.
I love my parents, I just find it hard to forgive their mistakes sometimes.
Work in progress...
*sigh*
