I had coffee with an old friend on Saturday, a friend I thought had vanished from my life for good. Nine years ago, Lisa’s son Morgan was murdered while trying to stop a fight near his college campus. He was twenty-one years old, three months shy of graduating with honors, engaged to be married to the girl of his dreams.
I first met Lisa when we brought our son Henry to her kindergarten classroom and tentatively showed her a thick file of test results confirming physical and cognitive delays that the doctors said could keep him from succeeding in a “normal” class. It was she who, upon meeting Henry, set the file aside, looked into the soul of our sweet, painfully shy, small-for-his-age five-year-old, and saw what was already perfect. Instead of comparing him to his more rugged peers, she met him exactly where he was. “I think he will be fine,” she said to us, and then she began to help us see all the ways that he truly was. When Jack came along, too rambunctious to sit quietly in circle time, she moved her class outdoors, and began to re-envision kindergarten mornings as adventures for the body and the heart, as well as an education for the mind.
By then, she and I were already soul mates. No, it was more than that; we were friends the way two little kids are friends, always eagerly planning and looking forward to our next play date, be it a long run on the bike path after school or skinny-dipping on an overnight canoe trip to a deserted island. The friendship expanded early on to include my husband Steve and her longtime fiancé Kerby; there were couples weekends away on the coast of Maine, birthday dinners and New Years Eve celebrations, movies and readings and camp-outs at the lake with our boys. A long, slow accumulation of good times and cherished memories and late-night fireside stories. Ours was a conversation that, once started, felt as if it would go on forever. There was so much to talk about — love, children, marriage, Mary Oliver’s poetry, reincarnation, the meaning of life. . .
The death of a child is also the death of a small civilization; the intact family shatters, its old form vanished forever. Lives are broken open by loss, hearts transformed by despair. Friends and loved ones may gather round, willing to share the journey or to bear part of the load. But grief etches its own road map. And sometimes the path leads away from love and connection into uncharted territory.
Lisa and I have lived in the same town for a few years now. Every once in a while, we run into each other at the gym. Occasionally, Steve and I have dinner with her and her husband. And yet, the bond of our old friendship, once so strong, has been thinned and stretched over time by sadness and busyness. I have mourned the loss of Lisa’s son, and also the loss of my own beloved friend, as she turned away and disappeared from my life almost completely over these last difficult years. I’ve felt the helplessness of knowing that nothing I could do or say would change things, or make them better.
And somewhere along the way, as my attempts to get together failed, and as the phone calls got fewer and farther between and then dried up altogether, I started to realize that sometimes even our well-intentioned attempts at comfort don’t bring much comfort at all, because there is just no way to bridge the gap between two realities, between someone who has suffered great loss and someone who has not. Hard as that was to accept (and hurt as my own feelings have been at times), I kept trying to remind myself : I cannot know what it feels like to be her. I have not lost a child, not had to bear that pain and then learn how to keep on living. My hope for myself was that I could somehow figure out how to be a true friend to Lisa anyway, even from a distance. That I could somehow continue to be present for her — if not face-to-face, than at least in spirit.
Lisa told me that there came a day last summer when she finally just stopped in her tracks and asked God where he was. The answer was not too long in coming, a new spiritual path literally opening at her feet. Eight months later, she is still on it, doing the hard work of prayer and practice and rebuilding life from the ground floor up. And so it was that we two met at last, and began the joyful, tearful task of reunion. We ordered lattes, and then there was so much to say all at once that we forgot to drink them. Once we both got started crying, we couldn’t stop — till we started laughing at ourselves. And in that moment it hit me hard — how much I’ve missed her, and how deeply, profoundly grateful I am to have her back.
It felt amazing, after all this time, to finally get to say everything that we each had been waiting for such a long time to say. She wanted to apologize. I wanted her to know that she didn’t need to. For the truth is, my friend has taught me how to hold a place for someone in my heart, even when that person’s own heart is otherwise engaged. So often this is our real challenge: to grow in compassion, to keep on loving, to somehow be there for another, even from a distance, a distance that may feel at times like a very long arm’s length indeed.
The next day, Lisa was going to attend Morgan’s fiancee’s baby shower. Susie got married last summer; she is expecting a boy. And so, just like old times, the two of us finished our cold coffee and went shopping. Together, we picked out a music box for the unborn child who will not be Lisa’s grandson, but who will arrive with her blessing and be the recipient of all the love she has to offer him. She knows, for sure, that’s what Morgan would have wanted.
As we stood there at the counter, watching the store owner wrap this special gift for a very special baby, we could only marvel at life, all these unexpected twists and turns. The inevitability of both death and birth, and the profound lessons to be learned from a loved one’s suffering. No doubt I will need to be reminded again and again, but today I can say this with conviction: Being present to pain and sadness, in whatever way we can, teaches us the true meaning of patience, compassion, and faith.
I read this with tears rolling down my face. I have a few – very few – friendships whose strength and endurance I trust enough not to panic when I sense an ebb … sturdy enough that I can believe they will endure even when things take us apart for weeks, months, or, I hope, years.
This is about the practice of, as you say, "to hold a place for someone in my heart, even when that person’s own heart is otherwise engaged."
Lovely. As usual. Thank you.
Thank you so very much for sharing this wise and wonderful lesson with all of us ~ priceless!
Me too…tears from the first paragraph. I am so thrilled that you were able to find this friend again and welcome her back into your life. Grief is a slippery thing. So many things can invite it in and every person has to wade through it in their own way. The blessing is having friends and family who are patient and content to wait it out. You are a good friend indeed and because of it, are blessed with deep relationships.
So happy for you today. It must be nice to celebrate spring with this new happy part of your heart re-opened. 🙂
Judy
justonefoot.blogspot.com
I think I might know a little bit about where Lisa was. Getting detached from yourself in grief is sort of like being lost. The fact that she asked God to help is familiar too. I remember finding my way back to my life by locating God’s love. And then the world appeared again and I was awake. I’m so happy to hear that your friend is back and she is awake to her own life.
Thanks Katrina for sharing. You reminded me of such a bittersweet time for me and my family in dear Lisa’s Kindergarten. I do continue to get updates from friends of how she is doing.
I am so glad you have reconnected. It gives me hope that it’s possible, as I think about a friendship of my own with a dear friend who I also continue to hold a place in my heart for.
No small task to be present for this journey of life.
Warmly,
Heather
Thanks very much for this, Katrina. Like Heather and others, I have missed my dear friend for many years after the death of her husband. It is wonderful to know that you have reconnected now, but also to realize that the wonderings and warm places we hold in our hearts can sustain us and our friendships over time. Blessings to both of you.
I don’t know when the time will come that I will fully be able to rejoin life. This past Christmas was the first Christmas in three years that I felt like I really smiled. I smiled with my heart as well as my face. I am truly glad for you and for your friend that you have reconnected. She sounds like a really special person. I’ll be praying for you and your friend. I imagine the pattern of years of not being connected might be hard to change. Just remember… special friends… we have so few really special friends in this life… They are as special as our ordinary days. Hugs And May God Bless You And Yours Elissa Cara’s Mom For Always
This post is liturgy: invocation, invitation, confession, communion, commitment, benediction.
Pain and Faith are, indeed, intimately bound. Your expression of such demonstrates that in such beautiful, real, gritty, heartfelt ways. We do all we can to resist the pain – or at least keep from having to acknowledge it. And yet, when done with this level of kindness, awareness, and heart? We cannot NOT be invited to the same – both in our own lives and in the stories of one another.
Stunningly beautiful Katrina. Thank you.
I found comfort, pathos and encouragement in this—your respectful heart certainly inspires others. There are limits to what words can do, and you are able to write right up to that limit and even move it a bit. Sometimes I think that not only are we all in this together, but that the living and the dead are in it together as well. Love, God, Doubt, Compassion… the soul-stuff of an Anam Cara friendship whose love ripples out into the ether—and makes one want to send love to your friend for a wound that can only heal on some transcendent plane, and merely scar at best on this plane.
So beautifully written, Katrina. I just finished reading today your book, "The Gift of an Ordinary Day," and it touched me deeply. Thank you for inspiring us all with your superbly crafted words and stories.
My best friend had a baby who died suddenly, when we were in our early 20s. We, too, drifted apart for many years, for many of the same reasons you express so eloquently here. It took a lot of years for us to finally reconnect and rebuild our friendship, slowly but surely, but it’s been worth the journey. Those are the true soul friends: the ones who you can still pick up with after tragedy and the long passage of time.
I was inspired by your writing years ago when my children were small and I read," Mitten Strings for God". What you had shared then resonated so well with that beautiful time in life when our children are so close to our sides. As my children got older," Mitten Strings for God" become a favorite that held a treasured spot on my bookshelf. There were times I would offer it as a gift to younger Moms that I would become acquainted with and to whom I grew close. I also keep it so that one day I will give it to my own children when they begin to have families. But, now my children too are leaving the nest and once again, all that you expressed in "The Gift of an Ordinary Day" has touched me beyond words. As my children face a new journey without me by their side, you have given me inspiration to allow this "lettin go" process take its course. Thank you for sharing your gift of gratitude for the gifts that are to be found in an ordinary day. .
Thank you for sharing this special time in your life of reconnecting with your dear friend
It gives me hope that one day my front door will frame the face of my dearest friend of 65 years,
She left us for the beaches and sunny skies in CA. It has been 5 years, Thank you for giving me hope
that she too, will find her way back into my life, I miss her so terribly.
Lovely post. Two of my friends have lost children in the last few years — under very different circumstances. I’m trying to be there for both of them yet always feel so inadequate as a friend. ‘Being present to pain’ is a profound statement. That’s really all one can offer to someone going through such a difficult loss; that’s the place where healing can begin. Thanks for your words of inspiration and happy to know you have been able to reconnect and repair your friendship.