Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love.
~Terri Guillemets
Grief is something I have been dealing with since I was 14. The last eight years I have grieved over the deaths of family, friends, friends of friends, and a few strangers that I had yet to make a friend. Some deaths have been harder to deal with then others but they have all taught me a lot about myself and they have all advanced me further in my journey in one way or another. I was recently asked why I choose to blog about death, and do I not find it depressing. It is not the first time I have been questioned about the blogs I write, and the answer I give has been the same each time, until now. My normal response is that I choose to blog about death in hopes that no one grieving feels they are alone in their grief. That others realize what they are feeling is real, and normal. That the truth of the matter when it comes to grief is that the pain you feel but cannot see is real. That grief comes from your heart, not your head.
The last person to ask me why I blog about death was Cedric's brother Avery. Cedric was my friend that took his own life when he felt he had nothing left to live for. Avery is his brother who was 14 last year when he experienced his first heartache over the loss of a loved one. With-in a month of losing his brother he also lost his mother who could not handle the pain in her heart known as grief. Leaving behind Avery, his younger brother Adrian and their dad George to handle their grief, their broken hearts left me standing with them through their troubled times.
I took on the role of big brother to both of Cedric's brothers. I spend time with Adrain on Saturdays, attending scout meetings and helping him with his projects. I spend Sundays with Avery, camera's in tow as we shoot pictures in city parks and cemetery's. It started out with Avery tagging along with me while I shot pictures for a college course. It ended up with Avery enjoying photography and snapping his own pictures which he would sit with his dad and go through, talking about his new found hobby. It also opened up time for Avery and I to talk about the death of his brother who he misses very much. Watching him go through the grief of Cedric being gone also brought back memories of me when my brother Joey first died. I decided to not hold back when it comes to Avery asking questions about death. "It won't get any easier. The pain in your heart will always be there. Your questions on why he is gone will never be answered. The grieving process will never end."
Avery asked me why I blog about death? Is it because it makes it easier to deal with the death? Does it get easier with each death that happens in your life? We were sitting in a cemetery, on a memorial bench that we had to clear the snow off of to sit on. Our butts were cold, our feet were cold, our ears and noses red from being cold. I was thinking about my answer when Avery said "you don't have to explain it to me, I just wondered if everyone feels the same way when their hearts are hurting."
I looked up in the winter sky which was blue with snowy looking clouds rolling through it. Still unsure how to answer his questions, not because any answer would be wrong, but because I wasn't really sure how to relay to him my reasoning in visiting cemetery's to do my photography assignments. I asked Avery "why do we take pictures Av, why do we snap shot after shot?" He thought a minute, "to capture the moments so we can have them forever." I said "exactly!"
I told Avery that our hearts are also like a camera and just like when he and I snap hundreds of pictures we have to sort through them, keepers, fixer uppers, and trash. That our hearts hold all kinds of memories, the good and the bad, and that while his perception is that I blog about death what I am really blogging about is the Circle of Life. That life and death lives in our hearts and when the memories we have of death haunt us, we should pull out the memories of life, celebrate the lives lived when our loved ones were here on earth with us.
You see, I visit cemetery's for several reasons. I see many things as I walk headstone to headstone. I learn not only about death, I learn about the lives that now rest in peace in a park specifically built for those in eternity. I learn about the loved ones left behind to grieve. I see years of grief as I read the date of death on those headstones. I look at the tributes left behind after their loved ones have visited them to honor them in old memories and new. A recent visit to the cemetery that holds the history of my friend Connor is a great example of how we will always grieve. As I knelt down over Connor's grave and place a couple toy soldiers on the ground above him, through the trees came a bright ray of sunshine. As I looked up at the ray of light, off in the distance, I noticed up on the hill that a freshly covered grave had an abundance of hearts by the headstone. After a brief prayer over Connors resting place I hiked up that hill to the sight that intrigued me. The difference in the date of birth and the date of death was 21 years and a couple of months. "loving daughter, sister, friend" was etched into her headstone. This loved one was buried with-in the last month and the array of heart decorations more then likely were celebrating her life on Valentines Day.
While I didn't know how she died, or exactly when she died, what I knew was that she was loved and someone, or someone's, were grieving deeply for their loss. All those wooden, hand carved, hand painted and decorated hearts were someone's way of expressing their grief through the eyes of this dead young women. Over my left shoulder I noticed another headstone, a heart shaped headstone, with little cars lined up along the headstone. Walking closer I could see the dates. Born in 2004 died in 2010. Standing in front of this little boys resting place I saw all kinds of grief in the hearts of those that lost him. The toy cars, the stuffed animals, the superman cape hanging on a short flag pole.
Each time I visit a cemetery I take note of the grief left on the graves. My loved ones lost have no graves. I have no place to go to visit and leave my grief, my love, on their markers. I have no way to show anyone what grief looks like at the foot of the headstones that should contain the life story of my mom and my siblings. I choose to do that through the blogs I write. It allows me to tell their story of life and the grief in my heart of their death.
Cemetery's hold the lifes and the deaths of those in heaven. They tell me I am not alone in my grief, in my loss of a loved one. They hold the Circle of Life, the key to eternity. Cemetery's are where we go to leave a bit of grief behind in the flowers, the statue's, the hobbies, the toys, the flags. They are where we leave drops of tears to nurture the souls buried deep so the legacy's live on. Cemetery's allow us to grieve openly, poor out our hearts, relieve the pain of the voids in our lives. Cemetery's are God's parks on earth where we can go and sit and pray and mourn and grieve for years to come. Cemetery's are the roots of our family trees, they hold the past, the present and the future of our lives on earth, and those lives that are now beyond a breath of life.
"I miss my brother and the pain in my heart seems bigger than the love I have for him" , Avery offered.
"That big pain in your heart IS the love you have for Cedric", I told him.
"Do you think that Cedric's heart burst from the love he had for Alana when she died and that is why he had to leave us?" Avery asked.
I answered, "I don't know Av, I suppose so. Your mom couldn't find relief in her heart when he left, so she went with him."
I looked at Avery, with tears rolling down his cheeks. Looking in his eyes I saw a reflection of the pain I felt the day Joey left. The pain I still hold in my heart from missing him eight years later.
"Jett, it's going to hurt forever isn't it?", Avery asked me.
"Yeah Av, grief is an eternal emotional. When we get to heaven we will grieve for those
left behind."
Until you have lost someone so close to you that when they left a piece of you went with them, you will never know the pain that accompanies a beating heart. It is a pain unmatched by any other tragic moment of your life. When it hurts so bad I don't think I can stand another moment of it, I lay back and put my hand on my chest, near my heart. When I feel my heart beat I think about the amount of love left inside of it by the people who are gone from my world. I let the beat of my heart ease the pain in it as I reflex on the good memories my heart captured before that pain settled in. The Circle Of Life, it spins my world in the right direction in spite of me wanting to push it back and get back those I love. The Circle Of Life is not a tragedy, it is not a comedy. The Circle of Life is the plan, the path, the road, the journey and there is no avoiding the direction it goes. Embrace your loved ones while they are with you, and celebrate the life they lived, not the manner in which they died.
