I haven't written on this blog in some time. And I am resisting the very strong urge to start a new one, nice and fresh and shiny. I like starting new things. New books, new projects, new ideas. There is something in it that is soothing and exciting all at the same time. But this time I won't. This time I will plod on with my thoughts. They are still my thoughts, although three years down the track seems like too long to be thinking the same way. So I guess it's ok that I'm not. Three years on from my last post, three years older, three years wiser? Maybe. I'm not sure about that.
This week we had news that rocked us to the core. News so shocking and unexpected that all we could do was weep. One of our sons friends took his own life. This young man would have been 22 next week. He was one of the smartest children I've ever known. We knew him from the day he was born, a tiny scrap, and I loved that little boy. He spent a lot of time in our house, until the day his mother decided that I couldn't be her friend anymore, with the knock on effect of ruining the boys friendship. The email declaring our Not Friends status was out of the blue for me. It probably shouldn't have been the shock it was. I knew the way she spoke about other people we knew, I don't know why I thought I was immune. I clearly wasn't, and the ugly lies that filtered back to me confirmed that walking away at that point was a blessing in disguise. But this story isn't about her. Not really. It's just for context.
On Monday I got a text from my daughter, after our son who had just landed in England that morning rang home shattered on finding out about his friend, rang home incoherent with grief, and I wept. I felt like someone had sucked all the air and the sound out of the room. I was at work, and managed to get to a colleagues office and ask her to take care of my students, while the room swam around me.
There is a complicated layer to the grief, one of guilt. Almost shame, that I was sad, because I'd missed so much of his growing up after the family friendship was ripped apart. He had been in my home, but the anger and bitterness I felt, meant I was barely able to speak to him. I would see him at his job in the supermarket, and turn my face away. Still hurt. Still coldly angry. And there is a voice inside me asking, what if I was one of his last things? What if my disdain was just one more thing in a crushing wall of things that he was dealing with. What if I was a contributor to the pain. Pain so big and so wide he felt his only option, the only solution was to be found in death, in not being? And then I remind myself, it's not all about me. It's not. But.
We are a community of people. The loss of one will affect many. If I feel this loss so deeply, this loss that is removed from me, how much more are the people closest to him feeling? How wide are the ripples? How wide are all our ripples?
I never want to feel this guilt again. And I pray that I can be kind. Always. Even in the face of unkindness and dislike and disdain, that I might not understand, let me only be kind. I don't want to wonder if I am someones last straw, the last thing that saw them hurtle off the edge of their sadness.
Rest quietly, rest in peace.
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