A Grief Observed

“Losing a beloved is an amputation.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I once listened to a podcast in which a psychiatrist was talking about why it feels like we lose a part of ourselves when we lose a loved one.

He said that, unwittingly, we store information, memories and experiences in the brains of other people we are close to; like an external hard drive. Our own minds have limited capacity to keep all the data we need, so we share mental and emotional data resources with others.

We see this phenomenon to be particularly true when someone loses a spouse and has no idea what the bank password is, or what type of oil the car takes, or where the Tupperware is located in the cupboard… Those pieces of information were stored in the other person for easy access. Just as we store information for them as well.

We never expect to need to know those things ourselves because we expect the other person to always be there.

There was a specific piece, or version, of me that was reserved just for when my brother and I were together. We had a special bond our whole lives.

In his data bank I stored all our inside jokes, movie quotes, random road trips, family history, all the techie/internet answers I needed, car maintenance advice, and much more. He was a fixer, a finder, ever-resourceful. I knew certain things were only one text away if I needed them.

When I got the call that his body was found at the bottom of the canyon, it felt like a very tangible part was cut out of me. Like there’s an empty/missing place inside now.

Pictures and memories and stories will soften the sting I know, but that void will always be there, this side of Heaven.

And that’s just the way it is when we live in close relationship with others. When we love. It’s hard and it hurts, but it’s the cost of this benefit of the human existence.

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In the weeks following my brother’s death, I listened to C.S. Lewis’ book, A Grief Observed. It was the first book of Lewis’ I ever read, actually. So different than what I imagined from the famed theologian, the book is a collection of his journals following the death of his beloved wife, Joy, opened wide for the world to see.

His pain is visceral. The deepest, rawest places of his soul on display. There are times he questions his faith and shouts at God. C.S. Lewis! It was the most relatable thing I’ve ever read.

By that point, I already had a running notepad in my phone, to which I added bits and pieces every day about all I was thinking and feeling. My own version of a grief journal. It was the only thing I could do at the time, while being physically attached to a newborn breastfeeding for eight hours a day.

The only thing that kept me from going lit-rally insane in that season was the fact I could get words and sentences out of my own soul and onto “paper”. In his book, Lewis stated, “What we work out in our journals, we don’t take out on our loved ones.” I think I was doing both, but I imagine it could have been a lot worse if I’d kept everything inside!

The excerpt at the beginning of this post is from this journal of mine on March 10th, 2021.

Some things I wrote and shared in real time on social media, but most of it, I kept tucked away. Some of it will only ever be for my own eyes, but some of it, I just wasn’t ready to share yet. I have been waiting for the right time and place – and headspace – to bring these words to light.

Mostly I think I had to wait to tell the story without being angry. Well, only angry. Which I was, for the longest time.

White-hot rage was the prominent emotion I could pinpoint after my brother decided to ride his motorcycle off the Grand Canyon. It took me a solid 12 months – and therapy – before I ever got to sad.

I was:
Angry that he made another selfish decision, in a long list of them.
Enraged by the timing – three weeks after I gave birth to my first son, when I needed my parents the most, when I needed it to be all about me.
Incensed he tainted this time that is supposed to be sweet and pure and full of joy.
Irate he would put my parents through that.
Livid he stole years of cognition with my father from me, from us, from my son. I knew the mental toll it would take on both of my parents – particularly my father, who was already diagnosed with Alzheimers, but whose symptoms were mild.
Furious about the fact that I would never get to be the same again – I would be forever altered by his choice.
Seething over the mess he left behind I had to clean up. That he made me an only child. That he abandoned me to struggle with aging parents and Dad’s diagnosis alone.
And on and on.

Even when I did experience moments or days of sadness, it would be overshadowed by my anger that his choice was the reason I had to feel that way.

The rage became its own entity within me. I finally made space for therapy when I was afraid of that rage, of who I was with it churning inside me.

People thought they knew my brother, thought they knew the story. They did not. The “public” didn’t even know it was suicide. My family and I told people we knew, who we’re close with, in one-on-one conversations, but that was it. And I wanted to tell the whole, stark-naked truth of what he had done to us over a loudspeaker.

But about 18 months after John’s death, God whispered a Truth to my heart. It was after I had told one more person the whole story. The one that I’m beginning to unfold here. Her reaction was exactly what I wanted: shock, solidarity, anger alongside me. But the bitterness and burning rage in me didn’t regress for even a minute. If anything, it was prodded and stoked hotter.

And God gently said to me, “You can tell as many people as you want, but it’s not going to make you feel better. Or more free. Relieved from the pain or frustration. It’s not going to make you feel justified.” It was like a veil was removed in my mind and my emotions.

My therapist once asked me what it would take for me to stop being angry at my brother. I listed: “An apology, reconciliation, changed behavior…” She pointed out that even if my brother was alive, I may never have gotten those things. But, since he’s dead, I sure as shit wasn’t getting them now. So I had to figure something else out.

God reminded me of this prior conversation while He was speaking to me then.

That very same weekend in the Fall of 2022, I was sitting in a conference when the speaker stopped the event to pray over a person/persons in the crowd who needed to “let go of something”. Her prayer was vivid, visual: She said [once you decided to let go], it would feel like fresh Spring air. Like when you open the windows of your house on the first warm, Spring day and let the fresh air blow the stale scent of Winter away.

I had been sitting in my stale house of rage for 18 months, but that day I opened the windows and let God breathe something new inside me. I felt a shift. The anger didn’t magically get better or go away overnight, but I felt lighter. Freer. More hopeful. That I could and would feel different moving forward.

It’s been another 18 months. The anger still comes in waves at times. But the waves are few and far between, they aren’t as high or as violent, and they pass back out to sea quickly. Mostly, I just feel an aching longing when I think of my brother now. I wish he weren’t gone. And at last, I feel a release in being able to tell his story. Our story.

It’s true, I don’t ever get to be the same person I was before he chose to end his life, but the person I am now has a depth of knowledge, experience, compassion, and empathy that I can use for myself and others.

I have found immeasurable comfort in being able to write all of this down over the last three years, but my prayer is that I can share it without triggering any of that old bitterness and rage. And that I can tell it in a way that is helpful to others who are also walking through an earth-shattering encounter with grief, and not just as a continued therapeutic exercise for myself.

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I hope you stick with me on this journey. But I understand if this content isn’t for you right now. You are loved, and I will still be here sharing all of the #RealTalk if you need me in the future.

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This post is part 4 in a series that starts with: https://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/