And Never Stop Dancing by Gordon Livingston

Author:Gordon Livingston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press

16

Attachment is the source of all suffering.

It is impossible to comprehend the experience of grief with mere words. And yet what else do we have to help each other understand it? There are no “tricks” or pat solutions or foolproof techniques that enable one to comfort a grieving person. This is because, like our faces and our personalities, our individual responses to terrible loss are various. While there are things you should not say, there are no words that are guaranteed to soothe. It is our presence with the grieving person that provides the best hope of comfort, our willingness to be with them, to listen to their pain, to share their sense of helplessness.

It is not good to go through grief alone. And often those close to us who seem the logical candidates to be with us are so wounded and caught up in their own experience of loss that they can think only of themselves. This is why children who have lost a sibling often feel abandoned by their grieving parents. And it is at least part of the reason why parents who have lost a child divorce with such frequency.

Death is our great enemy because it mocks our illusions of control as it routinely renders us powerless. Even when it is expected—in hospice, in nursing homes—it still frightens us. How much worse when it comes unexpectedly in birthing rooms and delivery suites, places designed for joy. Here is where our courage is really tested.

Our best hopes for the future repose in our children-to-be. They are the ones who will love us as only a child can, who will carry our genes into the next generation, who will blossom into happy adults, who will care for us when we are old. Even before we know them, they are a part of us. They have already, while still unborn, changed our view of ourselves and of our place in the world. Whether or not we have other children, these new babies occupy a huge space in our lives. Already we take it as our most pleasurable obligation to protect them from harm. We imagine them slowly, with our help, becoming their own people.

While the dreams we have for our own lives have undergone the shrinkage and alteration imposed on us by our experience of the world, the dreams that we dream for our unborn children are limitless and pure. Untested by reality, they exist in the realm of endless possibility, where youth and beauty reign, where hearts are not broken, where age brings only wisdom, and where time is not our enemy.

These children will be brilliant in ways that we are not. They will do well in school. They will live under our protection until they are ready to bear their own children, our grandchildren, who will also be in their own ways flawless. These children have the perfection of an untested promise and we love them already. The day we finally get to meet them is meant to contain all the joy and fulfillment of which human beings are capable.

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