By Malkie Gordon Hirsch
I think that I’m still surprised at how bad news still shocks even me when I initially hear something I didn’t expect to.
One would think that since I’ve been through tragic and sudden loss, that I’d somehow be immune to the feelings of others, to the conjuring of emotion that came so easily to me before.
Truth be told, the way I sometimes feel complete numbness vs. feeling way too much vacillates randomly and even I can’t pinpoint why or how.
In some ways, the fact that things still surprise me in a way it does for others that haven’t gone through my type of loss is something I’m proud of.
I hold onto it like a badge of honor.
It means that I still own that innate hopefulness, that concept that things can work out in the best way possible. I still believe in happiness and things working out in life. Despite it all, they have and continue to do so.
But at times when they don’t, and when unfortunate things do occur, those feelings revisit me and remind me of where I once was.
Last week, when a friend of mine lost her husband after a short illness, I found myself having those flashbacks.
I keep these memories folded up neatly in the recesses of my psyche and seldom do they make an appearance.
I’m mostly able to control when and how I allow myself to feel the way I constantly used to, and it was the little subtle cues that caused those memories to come flooding back.
It was the crying of family members at the levayah, begging for this to not be their reality, and the repetitive plea that I’ve heard from so many mothers who openly beg and pray that their kids emerge from this experience emotionally unscathed.
It was the inconsequential hand gesture of her friend opening a snack table so that the avel could eat something while receiving condolences from an accumulation of people they’ve come into contact with at various times in their lives.
As the snack table unfolded, suddenly four years hadn’t passed, and I was sitting in front of more iced coffees than I could ever physically consume.
I would watch the ice dilute the drinks and know they’d sit there until someone with nervous energy would clear them from the table eventually and ask for the tenth time if I was hungry.
At that time, I was a zombie from the shock but also hyper aware of what was happening.
And despite my firsthand experience, I found nothing valuable to say as I sat there yesterday, across from her.
Only those who know what loss feels like actually understand the oft-expressed phrase “there are no words.”
I’ve never known something more in the small unspoken movements than the shaking of her head as she sees her non-Jewish coworkers walk in to her house, something that never would’ve happen under any normal circumstance.
She then closes her eyes and puts her head in her hands, and I know the realization hits her over and over as she sees the people coming and going from her home.
That they’re here because of what happened, and then she remembers again that this isn’t some nightmare she can wake up from.
A loss takes time to digest. It takes time for the mind to understand what has happened and only when life starts to change, and when the friends take on that new caretaking role, or when Shabbos looks different than it used to, do we understand, resent, and ultimately accept this new unwelcome stage that’s been forced upon us.
Loss, like life, is more of a marathon than a sprint, regardless of how uncomfortable that may feel.
The things we’ve always known will no longer be familiar as they once were. As life changes, we need to change with it, instead of resisting or refusing to. We rely on the gift of time to contribute to what I would say is the most imperative part of healing.
We approach these new normals as anyone would—with a measure of dread, a healthy dose of annoyance, and a little dark humor to lighten the load. We surround ourselves with the ones who love us and are there for us unconditionally. The ones who wake up in the middle of the night to take your phone calls, the ones who listen to you cry for too many hours to count.
Until one day, you find yourself sitting in a living room at someone’s house after years have passed. You see the reminders and flashbacks wherever you look but know that although your personal storm has passed, that life’s end is a constant. And that one day, this friend will be past her storm, and paying her knowledge of what helped her forward for the people that she’s determined to help.
Malkie Gordon Hirsch is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of 5, a writer, and a social media influencer.
