"Grief speaks the truth"

       As 1996 bridged over to 1997, Joanne and I travelled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to visit Lisa. It was Joanne's first trip to Asia so she wanted to see Angkor Wat and other Cambodian sites. Lisa and Joanne headed off to Angkor leaving me behind recovering from food poisoning. Two years earlier I had visited Angor with Lars. 

      Completing our Cambodia visit, a driver from Church World Service where Lisa worked, drove the three of us to the border of Vietnam. We walked across the border and, after clearing customs, we took a cab to Saigon, Vietnam. From Saigon we flew to Hue, and then on to Hanoi. In Hanoi we stayed at a small boutique hotel in the central city.

     As our stay was winding down to the last night we returned to our hotel after dinner and the hotel's proprietor met us. He'd obviously been waiting for us with news that had been relayed from Lisa's colleagues in Phnom Penh. The news was grim...my brother, Richard, had died at his home in South Dakota. He'd gone out to shovel snow and that's how he died, at age 62.

     This memory flooded back as I read an article that Sam, a widower like me who also lives in the land of grief,  sent me from the January 16, 2019, Christian Century. (Thanks, Sam.) The article Grief speaks the truth, by Nicolas Wolterstorff. It opens with his report of a telephone call telling him that his son, Eric, had died mountain climbing in Germany. This article contains his reflections on his son's death and his experience of grief. During the year after his son's death he wrote A Lament For A Son's Death which he frequently references in the article.

      When Joanne was in hospice she often commented that she was glad that she wasn't dying as Richard had. While her death was rapid, 23 days in home hospice, for most of that time she was alert and able to receive the outpouring of support that came. Likely she'd agree that she died a good death. The fact that she didn't suffer much was a blessing to all.

     Wolterstorff writes "In the face of death, we should not talk much." This is so true because death is such a mystery that much of what is said doesn't make sense. Confronted with death, if speaking to the bereaved, talk about the one who has died. Defy the tendency to treat conversation about the dead as taboo. The dead person is mostly who the bereaved is thinking about, so talk about him/her.

     There will be more from Wolterstorff tomorrow,

Takk for alt,

Al