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Yes, I am still struggling with the loss of my beautiful sweet wife. Within the grief I feel every day, I have been blessed by many who have read my column and have sent me their considerate words of comfort. I share some them with you below in the hopes that others who have lost loved ones will find some solace and peace with these words. It hasn't taken the hurt away, but it eases things a bit. To ensure privacy, I have not included any names.
This one came from JWR from one of my readers:
I lost both my wife in March 2022 from breast cancer. My second son died of pancreatic cancer that same year on Thanksgiving eve. I am 78 y/o , was married for 52 yrs; my son was 43 y/o with 3 young sons.
The path is my path; nobody can take it for me or describe it fully or assure me that they have some sort of answer or guidance that is universal.
The best "guidance" that I stumbled across was, of all things, a quote from a movie. I provide it below.
The words can be brutal, in a sense. But, they are also more than a little accurate.
Jeremy Renner movie character in Wind River to father of dead daughter.
There is good news and bad news.
The bad news is that you will never be the same. You will never be whole again. Your loss can never be replaced.
The good news is as soon as you accept that, and you let yourself suffer, you will allow yourself to visit them in your mind, and you will remember all the love they gave and all the joy they knew.
There simply are no answers for questions that can't be answered.
It doesn't get easier. The only comfort is getting used to the pain. You just want the bad to go away.
You can't run from the pain. If you do, you rob yourself of every memory of them. Every last one from their first step to their last smile.
Just take the pain. It is the only way you will keep them with you.
This didn't come to me personally, I read it today in The Wall Street Journal letters column: I found Rabbi Kushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" which tells of his journey to process his young son's death. What has stayed with me in the decades since reading it has seen me through many of life's trials. The book reminded me that G od's gift of free will means that praying to Him has the purpose of giving us the strength to endure.
And this from a very wise publisher;
When my mom passed, when I WAS BUT A TEEN, a godly sage who was consoling me, taught me a passage from the Midrash (Jewish Biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, and compilations of homilies) that lessened my grief.
According to this teaching, when G od was assigning duties to the angels, He had no blowback until He empowered the Angel of Death.
Demanded that Angel: "I want a different task!" For the rest of time, he said, "every person who encounters death will blame me for his loved one's or friend's death." That will not be the case for other angels, he continued.
At that moment, according to the Midrash, the Lord promised the future Angel of Death that man's initial response to encountering death will be to blame himself or doctors or the like. It will NOT be to blame G od — and His stand-in, the Angel of death. The true deciders of life and death.
And so it has been, teaches the Midrash, from time immemorial this has been the human condition.
If one truly believes in G od, one CANNOT blame oneself. Rather, constructively, one should celebrate life and perform acts of kindness in the deceased's merit.
May you know no more sorrow!
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