I'm sorry your papa got died

I'm never really good at death. Don't get me wrong; I know it happens. I don't fear it. I simply never know what to say when someone close to another has passed away. Having gone through it more times than I can count, one would think I would know what to say by now. But.. I never do. All of the words I can think of just seem woefully inadequate.

And so the last week has gone. My husband called and woke me Tuesday morning with the news that his grandfather had passed. Being the absolutely not morning person that I am, I didn't have a clue what he was trying to tell me and for some reason, equated him telling me we had to go to Tennessee with him telling me we had to go to the store or some other equally trivial thing. I had a ton to do and I got grumpy.

So, the entire sad week got off to a terrible start. By the time I woke up enough to realize what was going on, I'd already made him feel even worse than he did to begin with and as such, made myself feel like a totally insensitive ass. I called him back as soon as I fully realized what he'd told me and assured him that I would begin packing our things.

As I said, he was totally bummed. His grandfather was 97 (so was his grandmother... they were 3 days apart) and Courtney has always been one of his favorites. Courtney adored him; and for good reason. Courtney's grandparents were those rare types of people that you hear about but never really meet... the kind that don't have a malicious bone in their bodies.

They were born and raised in a tiny town in south eastern Tennessee and everything they owed, they'd earned. They built their home, made the kids clothes, never owned a television, and would travel for hours to take others where they needed to go. At one point, his grandfather built a little house on the back of his pickup truck so he could offer comfortable rides to church for those who otherwise had to make the trek down the mountain.

When he started getting sick a few weeks ago, Courtney's grandmother couldn't remember him. Her memory simply doesn't work like it used too; so she took to calling him "that old man." Before he died, she'd get up from her chair and go into the bedroom to check on him. She'd straighten his covers and make sure he was comfortable... and when he began to slip away she sat down in the chair beside him and waited with him even though she no longer had a clue who he was. That's just how his grandparents were. They'd been married for nearly 75 years and even though she didn't remember him, she still cried when he passed on.

Knowing that she didn't remember and eventually would made it even more heartbreaking for the entire family to lose him, even though they'd been expecting it for a few weeks. Courtney and I headed out on Tuesday evening to attend the funeral. 8 hours later we were in town... and I still hadn't figured out what to say to his family. Come time to come home Friday, everything I had said just didn't seem like enough.

I'd never met anyone like his grandfather in my life. Those people just didn't exist where I came from. But, in my quest to find something at least adequate to tell him that I care and that I'm so sorry for his loss, I once again came across the quote I had tucked away when my grandfather died. A friend I hadn't talked too in a long while sent it to me when he died and that was, for me, the most touching thing at the time.

You can shed tears that he is gone,
or you can smile because he has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that he'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all he's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see him,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him only that he is gone,
or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what he'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

I loved that quote when I received it. It was beautiful and it reminded me so much of my grandfather and what he always said he wanted. It was earnest, honest and so very true. But more than that, the way it came to me is what I remembered. Not the words; but the person who said them and the feeling that the person truly cared.

Remembering it now to pass along to my husband just seemed fitting. But even more than that, it just seemed right. It said what sounded so inadequate coming from me but what I knew he still needed to hear, but that isn't really what matters.

When we grieve, we tend to think only of endings. When we remember, it's in that nostalgic way. We never really think it terms of being grateful that the person lived or of smiling over that life instead of crying over the loss of that life. We feel guilty for surviving, even when we know that the person we grieve lived a full life and would have wanted the same for us. And when we feel relief, it's overshadowed by consuming guilt because relief that one is gone seems so horribly selfish and insensitive, even when it's not meant that way at all.

Death is sad because it is an ending. We move forward with our journey without that soothing presence and we never quite fill the hole the lack of that presence has left us. And while we watch our loved ones go through it and we search for the right words to express our sympathy and our love... we forget that sometimes the best thing to say is also the most simple.

Kaia came into the bedroom last night and tugged on Courtney's sleeve. "I'm sorry your papa got died," he told Courtney with a sympathetic little pat and a serious look on his little face.

Courtney's eyes misted and he smiled down at Kaia in thanks.

That one little sentence, said so earnestly, said more than that quote ever could. But, that's okay too. I can't take back being grumpy when Courtney called to deliver the sad news... but I do know that somewhere over the course of the last week, something I said or something I did eased that little hurt and let him know that morning pissiness aside, I am deeply sorry for his loss. It wasn't the quote that said it and I didn't even realize I'd been able to say it, but I had.

And that's what really matters. There are no words that are adequate, no matter how long you search. It's the thought that goes into those words that makes the difference and will, in the end, be remembered. Death is hard no matter how much you prepare for it... and nothing you say will ever seem adequate. That's not what matters though. What matters is that you say it anyway because you want too, because you mean it, and because, no matter how inadequate those words sound, the feeling of inadequacy that comes from never saying them is infinitely worse.