no words

[gilana]

My mom called me right before shabbos to tell me that my cousin Joy had died Thursday night. She's not a first cousin -- I'm not actually sure what the relationship is, other than that she's on my dad's side. I was just starting to really get to know her and she was a really amazing person -- positive in the fact of incredible difficulty, funny, sweet, thoughtful, interested in everyone around her. She had been fighting cancer for the second time, after surviving breast cancer many years ago, while also caring for her husband Danny, who just died of a brain tumor in June. I've been connecting some with her son, Barry, in the past year or two -- he's about my age and also a geek, and we email occasionally. So my issue now is, I feel like I should write to him, but what on earth can I possibly say to someone whose parents have both died in less than a year? How can any words possibly be adequate?

No hugs for me, please, but if anyone has any useful thoughts on what I can say, I'd love to hear it. I never wrote when his dad died because I couldn't think of anything to say, and I don't want to make that mistake a second time.

Comments

[billmarrs.livejournal.com]

Be honest. Tell him that you're thinking about him, that you care, and you're there for him if he wants to talk about it. Be careful not to make it about yourself, just be supportive.


Here is a letter that Ram Dass wrote to the parents (long time friends of his) of a young girl (Rachel) would was murdered that I found amazing. It was part of a documentary (Ram Dass, Fierce Grace) that I saw in the last few year.

---

Dear Steve and Anita,

Rachel finished her work on earth, and left the stage in a manner that leaves those of us left behind with a cry of agony in our hearts, as the fragile thread of our faith is dealt with so violently. Is anyone strong enough to stay conscious through such teaching as you are receiving? Probably very few. And even they would only have a whisper of equanimity and peace amidst the screaming trumpets of their rage, grief, horror and desolation.

I can't assuage your pain with any words, nor should I. For your pain is Rachel's legacy to you. Not that she or I would inflict such pain by choice, but there it is. And it must burn its purifying way to completion. For something in you dies when you bear the unbearable, and it is only in that dark night of the soul that you are prepared to see as God sees, and to love as God loves.

Now is the time to let your grief find expression. No false strength. Now is the time to sit quietly and speak to Rachel, and thank her for being with you these few years, and encourage her to go on with whatever her work is, knowing that you will grow in compassion and wisdom from this experience. In my heart, I know that you and she will meet again and again, and recognize the many ways in which you have known each other. And when you meet you will know, in a flash, what now it is not given to you to know: Why this had to be the way it was.

Our rational minds can never understand what has happened, but our hearts – if we can keep them open to God – will find their own intuitive way. Rachel came through you to do her work on earth, which includes her manner of death. Now her soul is free, and the love that you can share with her is invulnerable to the winds of changing time and space. In that deep love, include me.

In love,

Ram Dass