The loss of a person is so hard to comprehend. It’s hard to define an absence.
As a neuro-ophthalmologist I see patients with visual field defects. These come in many shapes and patterns, but some of the hardest are the homonymous hemianopias. This is when the patient loses half of the vision out of each eye; for example the right half of the right eye and the right half of the left eye. For this person all of the peripheral vision to the right is gone. Some of these patients don’t realize how extensive their visual field loss is until I point it out to them. After all it’s not like they see a big black cloud where they used to have vision, they just don’t see something on the right until they’ve already bumped into it. This is why they can’t drive. It can be hard to notice the absence of vision until someone points it out to you, as strange as that seems.
I grew up with a girl who was born hard of hearing. I was fascinated by sign language and we became good friends for a time. I was initially surprised when I asked her if she missed hearing and she said no. Then I realized you can’t miss what you’ve never had. For her sound wasn’t an absence, it just wasn’t anything.
Life would be easier if I had never had a brother; then I wouldn’t be feeling all of this pain. But I don’t wish that. I’m glad we got to grow up together, to play and fight together. I’m glad he got to know my husband and my children and that they got to know him.
It’s still sometimes hard for me to realize that he is really and truly gone. After all he wasn’t in my life in person often. We communicated mostly over the phone and through email. The absence of his physical presence was almost a norm already.
The absence of phone messages and emails can sometimes be swallowed by the busy work day or the demanding children or the need to make dinner.
Sometimes his absence is just too huge to deal with. I’m afraid if I lose it, I’ll never get it back.
The pupil is the structure in the eye, that isn’t really a structure. It’s a hole that lets light in to the eye. If this hole were covered with tissue, you wouldn’t be able to see.
Eric is the part of me that no one else can see. That’s all I have left of him. But if you take that away, I wouldn’t be me.
And the great thing, Liz, is that it can never be taken away. I like to think that in some essential way the people I've loved and lost are not really absent because of that. Not present in the sense of Heaven but present because I have some ongoing dialogue/cascade of memories thing going on. the physical presence of someone sometimes can seem just one small part of their greater Presence, you know? That being said, some days I'm sure you'd do anything for an email or a hug.
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing this blog, Liz. Grieving is so often hidden in our culture and it is so healthy and helpful to see others go through it. Though I wish you didn't have to....
Sam