The cold of spring--on the death of a friend

 A dear friend died last week. Her death didn’t shock anyone; we’d been watching and waiting for several months. Hospice joined the team a few weeks ago and we knew our time with her was precious.

Harriet was 104 years old when she died. For most of the last seven years since we became friends, she was mobile (if a bit slow), alert, curious, and possessing a great gift of friendship. I benefitted from that gift.

We first met seven years ago in the retirement community’s health center. We were both there to get our flu shots. We introduced ourselves and began talking. Shots finished, the nurse suggested I accompany Harriet back to her room as she was visually impaired. I was certainly willing to slowly guide this dear blind lady, but I soon discovered how mistaken my perspective was. Without a cane or walker, and with vision that was blurry at best, this lady knew how to maneuver the halls and elevators of this building. She had all the routes memorized. And she did it briskly. So, instead of “helping” Harriet I walked alongside and enjoyed extending our conversation.

When we got to her door, she invited me to come back another time so we could continue getting to know each other. I took her up on it and thus began a rich and delightful friendship. We decided we were “kindred spirits” (shades of Anne of Green Gables). It was true.

Mostly we talked. We shared life-stories. I loved hearing about her growing-up years as a missionary kid in the Philippines, her adjustment challenges moving back to the US, and her adventures in marriage, child-rearing, and as a kindergarten teacher.

Harriet was a good listener as well as a good story teller. She wanted to know all about my life and my family, of course. We both loved sharing about our kids, grandkids, and, in her case, great grandkids. We learned a lot of names!

We read books together—or, rather, I read aloud and she listened and responded. Our favorites were Spring Wind by Gladis DePree, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alice, the last book we read, was so clever and  funny that many times I had to lay the book in my lap so we could laugh out loud together.

The grief I’m feeling now isn’t the same as the grief experienced at the death of a beloved spouse or child, or the untimely death of a loving parent. Several of my friends are walking this grief path where the life changes and emotional hurdles are profound. This is a grief that takes time to live through.

But grief at the death of a friend is real, and I’m letting myself live into the sense of loss, knowing that my friend is home safe, with perfect vision, reunited with family and friends of years past. I still miss her here where I live.

A poem that helps me understand and walk this sadness is one C. S. Lewis wrote at the death of his dear friend, Charles Williams:  

Your death blows a strange bugle call, friend, and all is hard
To see plainly or record truly. The new light imposes change,
Re-adjusts all a life-landscape as it thrusts down its probe from the sky,
To create shadows, to reveal waters, to erect hills and deepen glens.
The slant alters. I can’t see the old contours. It’s a larger world
Then I once through it. I wince, caught in the bleak air that blows on the ridge.
Is it the first sting of the great winter, the world waning? Or the cold of spring?

A hard question and worth talking a whole night on. But with whom?
Of whom can I now ask guidance? With what friend concerning your death
Is it worth while to exchange thoughts unless—oh unless it were you?

I’ll finish with a short liturgical poem from the book of liturgies by Douglas McKelvey, Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2, Death, Grief, and Hope:

I would rest my sorrows in you, O Christ.
In time let the long bearing of them
make me more empathetic and available
to those around me, who in their lives
will also greatly suffer and greatly grieve
the loss of those they love.

I will acknowledge my sadness and be open to the good work God is doing in me as a result of my friendship with this marvelous person.