The Gap
by Michael Crelinsten
TCF Victoria British Columbia
Our daughter, Alexis, died six
months ago, at the age of nine. A rare medical anomaly, in a heart-rendering
wrench of our innermost spirit, stole her from us in barely more than
a moment. Recently, I was at the beach near our home with what remains
of my soul-my son, Ethan. Our new puppy romped with us. Beautiful weather,
fresh salt air, gentle clear water and sea lions barking in the distance.
Perfect. Walking back, I saw a sharp, rusted metal rod and thought to
get it out of the way. As I tossed it aside, it caught my thumb and
cut me. Perfect. Every moment of peace we have, cuts. Everything that
is, hones what is not.
The gap between those who have
lost children and those who have not is profoundly difficult to bridge.
No one, whose children are well and intact can be expected to understand
what parents who have lost children have absorbed, what they bear. Our
daughter now comes to us through every blade of grass, every crack in
the sidewalk, every bowl of breakfast cereal, every kid on a scooter.
We seek contact with her atoms-her hairbrush, her toothbrush, her clothing.
We reach for what was integrally woven into the fabric of our lives,
now torn and shredded. What we had wanted, when she so suddenly took
ill, was for her to be treated. We wanted her to be annoyed that her
head had been shaved for surgery. We would have shaved ours an then
watched her smile as we recovered together, whatever the nature of that
recovery. "Recover" is no longer a part of our vocabulary.
Now we simply walk through the noise and debris of our personal ground
zero.
A black hole has been blown through
our souls and indeed, it often does not allow the light to escape. It
is a difficult place. For us to enter there is to be cut deeply, and
torn anew, each time we go there, by the jagged edges of our loss. Yet
we return again and again, for that is where she now resides.
This will be so for years to come
and it will change us, profoundly. At some point in the distant future,
the edges of that hole will have tempered and softened but the empty
space will remain-a life sentence. It is not unlike a dog who, suddenly
hit by a car, survives. The impact is devastating and leaves the animal
in shock, confusion, and despair. In time the animal recovers adequately
to spend the remainder of its life on three legs. It is not that he
is unable, eventually, to function or even to laugh and play. The reality,
however, is that on three legs from here on, every step he takes, every
action, virtually every breath reminds him of what he has lost. We are
that animal.
Our community of friend will change
through this. There is no avoiding it. We grieve for our daughter, in
part, through talking about her and our feelings for having lost her.
Some go there with us, others cannot and, through their denial add a
further measure, however unwittingly, to an already heavy burden. This
was not a sprained ankle or major surgery that we suffered. Assuming
that we may be feeling "better" six months later is simply
"to not get it." The excruciating and isolating reality that
bereaved parents feel is hermetically sealed from the nature of any
other human experience. Thus it is a trap-those whose compassion and
insight we most
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need are those for whom we abhor
the experience that would allow them that sensitivity and capacity.
And, yet, somehow, there are those, each in their own fashion,
who have found a way to reach us and stay, to our immeasurable comfort.
They have understood, again each in their own way, that Alexis remains
our daughter through our memory of her. Her memory is sustained through
speaking about her and our feelings about her death. Deny this and you
deny her life. Deny her life and you have no place in ours. That's the
equation. How different people have responded to our loss, or not, transcends
a range of attitudes and personal histories. It is teaching us much
about human capacity and experience, albeit at a searing price. Parents'
memories of a lost child sustain that life. It should be the other way
around.
We recognize that we have removed
to an emotional place where it is often very difficult to reach us.
Our attempts to be normal are painful and the day to day carries a silent,
screaming anguish that accompanies us, sometimes from moment to moment.
Were we to give it its own voice we fear we would become truly unreachable,
and so we remain "strong" for a host of reasons even as the
strength saps our energy and drains our will. Were we to act out our
true feelings we would be impossible to be with. We resent having to
act normal, yet we dare not do otherwise. People who understand this
dynamic are our gold standard. Working our way through this over the
years will change us as does every experience-and extreme experience
changes one extremely. We know we will have recovered when, as we have
read, it is no longer so painful to be normal. We do not know who we
will be at that point or who will still be with us.
There will come a time, quite
some number of years down the road, when the balance between the desperate
awareness of what we have lost when our daughter died will be somewhat
balanced by the warm and joyful memories of what we had with her when
she lived. I neither long for nor cringe from that time. It will simply
come. We will recognize it-though now it is beyond us.
So, yes, our beloved daughter
is gone-a light in our lives gone out leaving blackness for us, left
behind, to stumble through. And, while we understand and deeply feel
the meaning of our phrase "Now we are it by her only from within,"
we hope, desperately, that she is wherever the light is. We are trying
to understand what this means, as we seek our own way, for the remainder
of our lives, to some kind of light. We love our son and are trying
to breathe.
We have read that the gap is so
difficult that, often, bereaved parents must attempt to reach out to
friends and relatives or risk losing them. This is our attempt. For
those untarnished by such events, who wish to know in some way what
they, thankfully, do not know, read this. It may provide a window that
is helpful for both sides of the gap.
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This Newsletter produced
and distributed in loving memory of Rona Thompson by her parents,
Jerry and Beth Reynolds
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---Stacey
A. Halbleib
