Time

Time. It seems inevitable that any discussion of grief and grieving comes back to time. “How long am I gonna feel like I want to run away?” “When do I start to feel better?” “Don’t you think you’ve grieved long enough?” “Time heals all wounds.” “It gets better.” “How long until I see them again?”

       The truth of the matter is that time is irrelevant to the human heart. Feelings are an independent force of nature. Time marches forward, always the same, inescapable. It flows relentlessly downstream. Feelings are more analogous to a deep pond. Most of the time is spent in the shallows where it is warm and inviting, but occasionally something lands in the calm waters and pulls you down deep. One has nothing to do with the other.

       In a week or two it will be 5 years since my son David, 10, died during a routine football practice. That’s half of the years he got to live. My daughter, who was only 7 when he died, has lived almost half of her life without him. The idea that it has been five years since I held his hand, felt his laugh, and wrestled for the PlayStation remote is impossible for me to comprehend. It still hurts, every day, every hour. It’s not the same sharp pain it was in the immediate period after his death, but the same amount of hurt is there. It is a familiar pain now. I know it. It knows me. It reminds me constantly that he is dead.

       I know that some of you reading this may be thinking, “5 years? Oh come on, stop wallowing in it!” I get angry when I hear people who talk like that. But I’m working on that. I am working on letting the anger go for two different reasons. The first, which Alan Pederson of The Compassionate Friends shared with me, “Don’t be mad at them for not understanding, be thankful for them that they have not been through what you have been through, so they can’t understand.” Alan is a bit farther along on his journey than I am, and I understand what he’s saying, but it’s hard to come to a place where that is your first reaction instead of anger. The second reason I’m learning to let that anger go is that they are wrong. I share what I have been through, and I admit to still hurting and being wounded, so people assume I must be paralyzed emotionally, locking myself away and not living life. But that assumption is wrong. Because I share my heartache with others, and we commiserate over the horrible journeys we have been forced to travel, I have been able to use time as so many say it can be used; to heal.

Now let’s be clear “healing” and “healed” are two totally different things. The first is an ongoing struggle to fix pain from the past and move forward in spite of it. The latter is a phrase that suggests that “healing” can be completed, which it can’t. You are never the same. The loss cannot be forgotten, nor should it. Every event that happens to us in our lives changes us. Most of these changes are tiny and imperceptible. It only makes sense that something as traumatic as the sudden loss of a loved one is going to also change you, and in direct proportion to the size of the heartache. The scar from when I fell out of the family car on my way to kindergarten is still there on my knee, why would anyone think the emotional scar of losing my son would not stay with me as well.

But it has been five years now. And I imagine when people meet me they have no idea of the tragedy that happened. To the casual acquaintance my emotional scars are as hard to locate as the scar on my knee. I am an improv comic who feels laughter is a great way to aid healing. People who don’t know my story see a guy who seems to laugh and enjoy life and pizza a bit too much. If it comes up in conversation, I will share our story of losing David, and occasionally I discover a fellow traveler, another of the heartbroken and changed, moving forward in their journey. At 5 years I am working hard at living my life, and also giving back to help others who have suffered. I reach out to help because I believe that though time has been true to its role in my healing, time alone does not heal.

As with all things in life that are worth having, you have to put in the hard work. There will be setbacks, and hurdles that you had not imagined that will need to be endured and navigated. Many who grieve hear the words “Time Heals” and they sit and wait for the healing to come. Time and healing don’t work like that. You need to make a choice to move forward.

There is no timetable for healing; we all do it in our own ways, in our own time, with our own techniques. No one grieves the same, and no one heals the same. The only thing that is the same for everyone is that the desire to move forward, and time, both play a part in healthy healing, each feeding the other.

When I was young people use to tell me how “time speeds up as you get older.” And they are correct; the fact David has been gone for 5 years is astounding. It seems like yesterday he was here. And yet, it feels like an eternity since I held him.  Time is irrelevant in grieving. The hurt is forever. But never forget, there is lots of time waiting to be lived, and those you loved would want you to live it to the fullest! Time, it’s quite a conundrum.