What is it about death that chokes the natural flow of words between us humans? At some point in time, everyone has lost someone, everyone knows someone who has crossed over, left, died naturally, suddenly, violently or otherwise. It’s always a gong-banging event – when you hear or read or are informed of someone passing – it’s never not shocking. It never doesn’t steal breath, whether it was expected or not.
Almost two years ago now, I spent days and weeks at the bedside of a friend who was dying an unkind death from cervical cancer. We knew it was coming. We waited for it. At some point, we even told her to go, to quit hanging on. And when she did, after the most fierce battle I’ve ever witnessed to stay alive – we no less sobbed. Her absence was no less shocking. You could almost hear the vacancy she left in our world. I’ll never forget hiding a card from her husband that had come in an arrangement the day before she died. She’d not even gone yet, and already – the trite tide rolled in.
When someone expires, even the most loose-lipped folks go all Hallmark Robot-Automation with their expression. The outpouring when someone loses a loved one has become as non-plussing and ineffective as the redundant “Happy Birthday” song, playing like a broken record over and over again. Here are some samples of the same, same, same:
“I am so sorry for your loss." Or, intoning a Billy Graham wanna-be who never made it past directing services in funeral parlors for the disenfranchised: “May you and yours find peace and comfort in these sorrowful times.” And I do beg pardon – but this stand-alone saying just outright irritates me: “You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.” It is unnecessary and should go without saying that if anyone you know is facing such loss, that naturally, their friends and acquaintances will think of them, and pray for them. Or meditate on them, send vibes, burn a candle - whatever their proclivity.
Why not say, “WHAT? Shut the fuck up, he DIED? Jesus Christ! Oh no! Well, congratulations. You can officially mark this off your list of worst possible things that could ever happen to you. I hate this for you. Go drink heavily and ugly cry. Call me if you need a lift.”
Too casual? Feel free to leave out the expletives. Or, try:
“I am shocked that he up and expired without warning. I didn’t know him, but I know and love you and this sucks ass. It ain’t gonna be easy, but I’ll be praying that you get the most kick-ass casseroles and that someone will pass you a flask at the funeral and you’ll be too hung over to actually feel any pain for a while.”
Still too informal?
Then be brave – say something of your own experience with loss. Make mention of what got you through it, give suggestion for what might be comforting – be it love and support from others, drinking heavily while going though pictures and memories, repeating a ritual that was shared with the dearly departed – whatever. But don’t for the love of God, go all unnaturally reverent using the contrived, canned words of the internet certified Reverend Jimmy John from the funeral parlor. Don’t play priest. Don’t copy Hallmark. Speak from your heart of what you know of loss and do it with out the nauseating, impersonal formality. That’s comforting. That’s wisdom. That is genuine sentiment.
I would think that social media and the constant one-up-man-ship in status updates might inspire folks to up their game on birthdays, births, deaths, celebrations. Say something no one else did. If you don’t know what to say – then say that. But don’t make some poor soul who is raw with the exhaustion of unthinkable loss read ten million messages saying the exact same thing, after which they will go read equal amounts of florist cards with the same scrolly-printed regurgitation, then shake lines of hands muttering more of still the same. It dulls death. It inspires nothing. It comforts not.
At some point I’ll pick on the over-used worn out sentiments of “Happy Birthday!” and “Congratulations!” In the mean time, should someone you know suffer the extraordinary shock and pain of loss – come up with something extraordinary to say about it. Your very own sentiment, exactly.
