Why do we grieve? Who does it benefit?
Does it matter, after the fact, how somebody died? I have struggled with this question a lot in the past few months. I think this is also why I haven’t written much lately. I have been trying to process this.
On October 13, I received a phone call from my uncle that my cousin had committed suicide. He was 36.
In late October 2017, I received a call from my mom that a former youth leader had stopped to help somebody who had spun out on an icy road when he was hit and killed by another driver who spun out at the same spot. He was 37.
In each case, a person is gone. Somebody who was loved by many.
But it feels so different for those of us who remain, doesn’t it? But why?
Steve’s funeral was a celebration – of a life that, while it ended seemingly too early, could not have gone any other way. Steve was not the kind of person who could drive past somebody who needed his help. Steve was a hero, and he was a hero to many people.
Michael’s funeral was one of the most tragic things I have ever attended. It was a whole lot of people asking, “Why?!?” or saying, “If you had only told me…”
There was so much pain.
There was pain at Steve’s funeral, too. A wife had lost her husband, children had lost their father. But there was celebration of the life Steve had lived. We all may have wondered, “Why?” but we all knew. That was just who he was.
Like in so many situations, I go back to the stoics. Marcus Aurelius tells us that, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think” (Meditations 2.11). At any moment, our lives could end. So could the lives of those whom we love.
When we were in Alabama for Michael’s funeral, I was in the middle of reading Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic. I was going through, reading one letter each day, taking my time going through it. During the trip, I happened to read Letter 63, which was very fitting, as it was regarding the unexpected loss of a loved one.
Seneca wrote, “Now I bear it in mind not only that all things are liable to death but that that liability is governed by no set rules. Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.”
There are stories all over the place of people who died too young. Just this past weekend, I watched the documentary Senna, arguably one of the greatest drivers in F1 history. At 34 years old, he crashed. He did not have a bruise nor any broken bones, but a piece of the car broke off and struck him in the head, killing him.
There are countless other stories. It could happen at any time.
Seneca understood after the fact that not realizing that reality can make our sorrow that much worse, and that he had not even followed his own advice:
I realize now that my sorrowing in the way I did was mainly due to the fact that I had never considered the possibility of his dying before me. That he was younger than I was, a good deal younger too, was all that ever occurred to me – as if fate paid any regard to seniority! So let us bear it in mind that those we are fond of are just as liable to death as we are ourselves.
I think that gets to what hits us so hard about death. When my uncle called me, Abbie and I were watching a movie. I didn’t even answer the phone at the time. He left me a voicemail. When I listened to it, I could tell something was wrong. I had never even considered the possibility of what happened before the words were out of his mouth.
I don’t necessarily know how to connect these next few thoughts, but I found them so insightful for dealing with loss:
Our time is limited, and life could end at any moment, for us or for those whom we love. Seneca wrote, “Let us therefore go all out to make the most of friends, since no one can tell how long we shall have the opportunity.”
This too, shall pass. “Even a person who has not deliberately put an end to his grief finds an end to it in the passing of time. I should prefer to see you abandoning your grief than it abandoning you.”
He also wrote about how his loved ones remain with him in his memories of them. “Let us see to it that the recollection of those we have lost becomes a pleasure to us. Nobody really cares to cast his mind back to something which he is never going to think of without pain.”
He also has some seemingly harsh comments regarding the proper length of time for grief, but I won’t share those here. You can look them up for yourselves. While harsh, though, they do ring true.
So, does it matter how somebody died? In the moment, it is easy to say, “Absolutely!” But once we are removed by a little time, the fact remains that both Michael and Steve are gone, regardless of how. They were both too young and left behind many who love and miss them.
Since we will carry our memories far longer than we will carry our grief, let’s strive to make our memories a pleasure to us, so we want to keep revisiting them. The grief will eventually be gone, and it is better to leave our grief behind than to let it leave us.
I am no expert, but it seems natural to ask “Why?” in a lot of these situations. But I don’t know if it matters after the fact. We are left with the reality of what is. Not what we wanted, not what should be, but what is. How we respond to that reality is up to us, regardless of what put that reality in front of us. Allow your memories to be good, even in tragic times. The loss of a loved one is bad enough. At least they can be with us through our memories. So, let’s try to allow those memories to be good – to bring us pleasure.
Again, make the most of the time that you have. It could be gone in an instant. Let that knowledge determine what you do, say, and think. Cherish your time with friends and family when they are here, not just when they are gone.
I do not write any of this to make light of suicide. Michael’s funeral was one of the worst things I have ever attended. The amount of pain in that room is indescribable. I can’t imagine the pain Michael was feeling that led to his final decision, but I can only imagine that it paled in comparison to the pain that I witnessed that day and over that weekend. Pain that seems completely unnecessary. If you or a loved one are ever feeling that way, know that you are loved and please seek the help that you need.