A friend, whose wife, a young and dynamic woman, died a couple of years ago, wrote in response to what I've been writing here:
"During my first few months of mourning, I noticed something odd and unexpected: from time to time my sense of humor would kick in and something would strike me as funny, or I would make a joke about something. I suppose I could have condemned myself for indulging in humor at such an awful time. But I never did, because it was clear to me that there was no frivolity or light-headedness in it. I was not making light of the tragedy; I am incapable of making light of it. No, it was some autonomous part of me that had produced humor in the past and was going to continue producing humor in the future. I recognized it as a healthy trend, almost as a friend that had come to help me find a way of coping when I could not find a way alone."
I have been very touched by some of my friends' responses to my writing here, and they have both encouraged me and helped me, sometimes by correcting errors, more often by bringing a useful perspective to the task of coping with this loss. What my friend wrote just now, about an autonomous part of his psyche that kept on producing humor, even while his soul was afflicted by bitter grief, is useful to all of us, a reminder that we are not of a piece, and we shouldn't expect ourselves to be.
True, when something very moving happens to us - good or bad - it sweeps almost everything along with it, but pieces of our selves go on with their own business: a month after Asher's funeral I resumed my musical activities. Obviously sadness colored my playing, but the playing also colored my sadness.
My grieving self wanted to scold my musical self: how can you enjoy making music as part of a big band when your wonderful son has died? You're betraying him! But if our task, ultimately, is to continue living a full and active life, even though we have lost someone very precious to us, we shouldn't scold the parts of our selves that manage to carry on. We should let them help us.
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At age 12, I returned home from my father's funeral and looked out the living room window, facing New York City's busy West End Avenue. As I watched the traffic lights changing, the traffic halting and bolting forward, repeatedly, I was offended. This dance of lights and wheels — what was going on? Hadn't the world stopped, at least changed in every way with my father's death and burial?
And, I was angry that it hadn't, leaving me feeling disconnected, apart, out of touch, invisible. And then, I started to feel relief that the world was continuing its routine ways. I felt assured and safe that not everything had ended, changed.
Your post about parts of us going on and parts changed reminded me of this post-funeral experience and the awareness that first stunned, and then gradually comforted me. Thank you for your post.
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