3612 What to say

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Folks who rejoice that "The system works!"

are usually referring to another's parking ticket, not their own.

----------------------------------------------------

I have a friend whose mother has been declining steadily for the past five years.  His older sister died about two years ago after months in a coma, and they never told the mother that her daughter was even ill because they didn't think she could handle it.  Although she doesn't have Alzheimer's, she's far enough into dementia that they figured she wouldn't notice.

He called me the other day to say he's headed for Florida, because they figure there's not more than a few days left.  She's on morphine, and that has a habit of easing people out.

He'll call me when she's gone.

Of course I've been thinking about what to say when he calls.  That's always so awkward.  When his sister died it wasn't difficult because her death was a relief.  She was basically vegetative after multiple strokes.  The doctors recommended taking her off life support, and everyone agreed except her son, who started legal action to prevent it.  So she lingered for almost a year, until someone "found" her living will and health proxy among her files.  (It was my idea, by the way, that if they looked for it, maybe they'd find it, or "find" it if necessary.  I don't know the details, how they managed it.)  So when he called to say he had pulled the plug, I said good, I'm sure she appreciated it, and that was the right thing to say, and it wasn't difficult because that was his attitude.

This is going to be much harder for him.  He's the only son (several sisters) and was/is very much an Irish Catholic momma's boy. 

I never know what to say to friends and coworkers.  "Sorry for your loss" seems so trite.  Mostly, I'm afraid, I don't say much of anything.  In most cases, I didn't know the deceased person, so it's hard to "share memories" like all the columns suggest.

There are a few times when I went further than the simple sympathetic nod, and I don't know whether it was good or bad.  I have a tendency to miss, or ignore, that sometimes people know things, but are avoiding or hiding it.  Then I go and point it out.  I draw attention to the elephant in the room.  I do that a lot.  It's seldom appreciated.

The Hairless Hunk's wife had a miscarriage.  H.H. told me that she was having a lot of difficulty with it, and he didn't know what to do about it.  I told him that I understood, that I'd had three miscarriages and a stillbirth, and it's a very private anguish because no one else understands.

Now, at the time, I didn't know her at all.  The only time I'd ever seen her was on the road.  She walked a lot.  One day shortly after my talk with H.H., she was turning at the end of the road as I was pulling into the driveway, and she waved for me to stop.  I rolled down the window, and she said that H.H. had said I'd had some miscarriages, and that she should talk to me.  She said she was having a lot of trouble getting past it, and that everyone says she should just get pregnant again as soon as possible, and how that just makes her feel worse, like the baby didn't matter, and she doesn't want another pregnancy.  She asked how I'd got past it. 

I told her that the problem is that to everyone else, the baby was just an idea.  She's the only person who actually knew the baby.  To her, and only to her, the baby was a real person, with preferences, likes and dislikes.  She knew when he was asleep and when he was awake.  She knew his nap/exercise cycle.  She felt his arms and legs moving.  She knew whether he was a runner or a kicker.  She even knew what kind of music he liked, and how he liked to be rocked, and when he had hiccups.  Nobody else knows that.  To them, the baby was just potential, just an idea. To them, starting another baby is just getting on with the idea.

She burst into tears.  "Yes!  Yes!  Exactly!"  She cried so hard it scared me.

I advised her to write up everything she knew about the baby's personality, and then either tell H.H. and her parents, or let them read what she'd written.  Make the baby real, as real to them as he was to her.

H.H. wondered what I'd said to her.  I guess she was a mess after that conversation, cried constantly for days.  I don't know whether she "made the baby real" to others or not, but she was pregnant with twins within a year.

For a long time after, I wonder if I'd helped or just made it worse.  Maybe the elephant would have wandered off on its own.  I can argue either side.

Another time involved a classmate in a law class.  She was an IBM Director in her late 40s, I think, single, no children.  Her mother died unexpectedly.  She and I were sitting on a bench outside during a lunch break one day about a week or two later.  She seemed to be handling it well, so I was surprised when she brought up that she couldn't sleep, felt very depressed, like why bother with anything, nothing matters.  She just didn't want to do anything any more.

I asked if she had any other family, and she said no, that she was an only child, and that her father had died several years ago.  Her father's death hadn't bothered her so much and she couldn't understand why, because she was actually closer to him.

I said maybe it's because now you feel like an orphan?

Her eyes got huge, and she turned slowly to me.  Yes!  Exactly! Orphan!  I'm an orphan!  And the elephant sat on her and she cried.

I don't think consolation, condolences, are supposed to make people cry.  They're supposed to smile wanly and say thank you.

Sympathy.  I'm doing it wrong.
.