Meeting old friends soon after the death of their older son. |
Open Spaces He is here in the open spaces, the breath between words; the slip of the tongue- including him in the present though his body is now of the past. Still he is here, in conversation, in the center of two women comparing stories of our boys. He is here in the eyes of his eager younger brother, moving to the center of the roles, one now empty, unsure now what role he will fill with all that open space around him. He was here this weekend as old friends got together for the first time…since. What to say, not to say, to a grieving mother just a mere season after loss, a father, a brother? Would there be that elephant in the room, the one the unexperienced dare not to mention as if a mother could forget this fresh new open space. So much in common, two sons, the same years apart, though ours were always behind theirs by a few years, our conversations in the past, often led to the more experienced giving advice of what we had coming. Now I cannot imagine needing the advice we might be welcoming: how to live with the open space where a child once occupied. I need not have been worried. He was there, yes, in two families laughing about antics of our boys. He was there in their questions about our sons, our comparisons, their concerns for their eldest, preparing for colleges no longer relevant, their pride in his accomplishments. These stories didn’t die with him. They are phantom limbs, like him, still there in the early morning, in the careless comment before memory breaks in and reminds them he is no longer there. But yet, he is. As if, where there are two gathered speaking his name, he is there. Why must our society teach us be afraid of the open spaces? So eager we’ve become, we fill the spaces with busy prattle, nervous content bound for offense without meaning to offend. Perhaps instead, we could acknowledge the spaces, allow them to exist without judging, diagnosing denial. Let them sit in their bubble at the table, include the name in conversation and listen, share, be present at the birth of their memory. As long as he is alive in those he loved, in those who knew him, in those who learn of him while listening he will be remembered. And this memory, so unlike flesh and blood, will never die as long as he is part of the conversation, as long as we remain unafraid to live among the open spaces as long as we become unafraid see these space for what they really are… love. |