Grief: The gift that keeps on giving.
A little tongue-in-cheek but true in so many ways.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from Julia, my brother’s wife. She wrote in response to the baby announcement I sent her. Baby announcements and annual Christmas letters are the extent of our connecting—Juge and I. But it used to be so different.
On Monday, I was caught off guard by grief-a new and different kind of grief. One I haven’t recognized beneath the layers. I miss my friend. Just her. She was my friend before she was his widow.
It used to be that when I thought of Julia, I thought of Ryan. His loss, missing him, overshadowed anything else. After Ryan died, I wanted her in my life. In retrospect and if I’m honest with myself, I wanted to keep knowing her because it felt as though it linked me to him.
I did not like Julia when Ryan decided she would be his girl. I was 16, she was 14. She was beautiful and fun-loving. I was jealous. And she ‘stole’ my best friend, my brother. But that quickly changed once they were married. She became my sister. And we loved each other, had fun together, and acted ridiculous together.
I am forever grateful to Julia for the way she loved my brother. She was really just a child when they married but she loved him the best she knew how. She loved him selflessly and faithfully. It eases the ache, even just a bit, to know that he knew what it was like to love and be loved like that. She added so much spark to his life. But her life with him was not easy. She, more than anyone else, lived with the daily struggle of his addiction. I don’t know all of the ins and outs of that. I’ve never really asked. Maybe I didn’t want to know. And if I did ask or listen, I listened desperate for links to Ryan, not trying to hear and know the broken heart of my friend.
After the funeral, the drift was immediate. It was too painful to be around each other. Probably more for her than us. She once told me that being with our family was like salt in the wound. It makes sense. She was with us because she was with him. Being with us was a blaring reminder of all she had been through and lost. But there were other things: misunderstandings, normal life, neglect, thousands of miles, hindsight and new perspectives. So 8 years later, I’m caught off guard. Partially reeling from the sad and self-absorbed fact that it took me 8 years to realize I failed my friend.
Monday caught me off guard – I missed her intensely. My old friend, not my brother’s wife. And this is the thing about grief; it comes in the most unexpected ways. But it also presents me with the opportunity to love better. And that is the gift.
I miss you, Juge!
