Earlier this year, a good friend of mine lost his father.
I’d never been to a Jewish funeral before. And I hadn’t been to many funerals as an adult. Most were when I was a child, when I lost my grandparents.
My memories of the events are vague, murky, just snippets of images rather than recollections of feelings and emotions. But in the years and decades since, what I’ve seen of grief has set the stage for what I’ve come to expect of the grieving process. The funeral for my friend’s father changed this limited understanding.
The grief I know is Catholic grief, or Catholic-adjacent. It’s restrained, hidden, tucked away for fear of making a scene or for drawing attention to one’s self. It’s something people tip-toe around, worried they might offend or misstep. It’s a silent grief. Of avoided words or rehearsed ones. It’s a shameful grief, an embarrassment of feeling.
The funeral for my friend’s father was the antithesis of this grief. It was one of the most profound emotional experiences I’ve ever had. What I saw and was touched by was the family’s capacity to openly express the overwhelming, all-encompassing pain of their loss. Nothing was held back. The perfect words weren’t chosen. What was felt was said. There was an honesty in their words that was comforting in its foreignness to me. The family was actively trying to understand their loss and what they were going through in real time, and in their speeches they shared the anger, hurt, and disassociation that came with it. It was about giving a voice to their grief and having the humility to reveal how it had devastated them.
I was in awe of their strength and their ability to share their pain with the crowd of mourners as if each and every one of us were close friends. What they said helped me understand the man they lost, and how his absence deeply affected them. That trust, that openness to expose their raw and recent pain continues to move me to this day. How his friend, siblings, parents, wife and sons found the courage to speak - and to do so in such a vulnerable, eloquent, articulate way - despite losing their loved one so soon, is something I’ll never forget.
As I get older, I realize so many of my experiences with people feel surface level. That the things I talk about and share barely scratch the surface of what I’m really thinking and feeling. Of course, these kinds of conversations can’t happen with everyone, but I’d like to get better at being open with the people who are important to me. And what’s the harm in sharing even with those I might never see again? I’d like to know that I shared the things I needed to share, even if it comes with a momentary sense of embarrassment, even if it’s a little messy and the words don’t come out just right. I’d like to know, when there isn’t much time left, that I had the conversations I needed to have. I want to know I shared and that I was there for the people who needed to share, too.
There’s days I fear there’s a weakness in this, that it’ll expose something that can be leveraged or used against me. I worry what people will think when they see me at my lowest or at my saddest. But I think nothing ill of the people who I’ve seen in the same position. In fact, it endears me to them. It makes me love them more. Because they’ve let me see them as they are. They’ve trusted me with their fragility.
I don’t want to hide my grief, or my joy, my fears or my doubts. I’d like to share it all, as it is and as I am in the moment. I’d like to have the bravery to expose my sensitivity, to be okay with crying, to toss aside the fear of embarrassment or of sounding stupid. I’d like to free my shame and thank it for trying to protect me, to let it know it’s done its job but that I’ve grown beyond it purpose. And I hope I can be there for the people who are trying or would like to try much of the same.
How little time we get to spend here. And how terrible it would be to know we never lived and loved once we’ve realized their isn’t much living left.
See you next week,
Keith