We only have our own perceptions

December 2022

We only have our own perceptions. It is through these that we experience the world and understand those we share it with. Our knowledge may be shared, some of our histories are the same, but we are alone in the way we experience life. Through this experience, we translate and give meaning to our lives and the lives others live. We attempt to relate to others based on our unique experience. Without our perception, there is no hope for empathy. There is no shared struggle.

It is a difficult time of the year for many as families gather for the holidays. For all the joys of the season, the memories of those no longer in our lives remains. A dear, sweet, kind friend reminded me of this recently. His grief at losing someone close to him overwhelms his thoughts as he ages in a solitary life. I must rely on my memories, my perceptions to understand and empathize with him. As much as I want to understand and share his pain, it is uniquely his, created and perceived solely by him. It seems a horrible reality but one that is shared by all people. And because we have our own perceptions, our unique memories, we are capable of empathy. And by extension, we can share one another's grief. We find we can relate to it through our experiences with pain and loss and fear. In this way, none of us is alone, despite the way we understand things- only as they are processed through our perceptions.

It has been a difficult few years: my husband's health, my daughter leaving the nest, and my son's illnesses and struggles, compounded by my declining health. When my son became ill at the beginning of the Covid lock down, I watched as he lost 60 pounds. A strained healthcare system, it was a year later he was given a diagnosis, an auto immune disease, one he felt he could live with. Within 6 months, his health further deteriorated. Suffering great pain, he was fortunate to find an empty hospital bed as the Covid Delta strain raged. He was vaccinated when others were not. He was spared that at least. Yet another diagnosis, a life threatening, life shortening disease. To watch his agony, to know that my son would have to go through this became overwhelming for me. I broke down in grief, the spectre of death hanging over him. Always reminded of his illness, I watched him waste away to sinew and skin. Later he would rally. He would recover: his liver healed, the scarring practically non-existent. But the diagnoses remained. His health is now closely monitored. Infusions have been shortened to every six weeks. Daily meds. Another spectre looming, the loss of health insurance has displaced the spectre of death. 

In the worst moments, as my son was suffering, waiting to see if his liver would heal enough, for now, I lost it. Late one night, my Dad came over to console me as my son, his grandchild, slept nearby. My father's consolation was not what I had expected. It was a strange message of comfort based on this shared fate of humanity, death and grieving. A close friend of my Dad's was struggling on a ventilator at that time, dying of Covid, unable to get a timely vaccine in Florida's mismanaged crisis response. This friend had outlived his life partner, his father, his brother, and his mother, all lost within the space of a year. Dad's friend had been lucky enough to find love again late in life, but now it would be his turn to die. Later, after six weeks on an ICU ventilator, he was gone. 

That night my father said very bluntly that death would come to us all and the longer we lived, the more people we would lose. It was, well, life. It was something we all shared. It was an odd message to hear, an obvious statement in its factuality and brevity, but it was his way of saying he understood grief. He understood my grief and he grieved with me at the mere thought of my son's fate.

In the wake of his friend's death, my Dad's youngest child, my sister, became ill from Covid. For 100 days my sister relied on an ICU ventilator, then struggled in rehab hospitals, dying after a brief glimmer of hope after nearly 5 months of illness. It was a cruel and painful and unnecessary death. It was pointless. And it was life, the terminus.

The horror and the pain, the grief I felt was filtered through my own experience dealing with my son's illnesses. All the fears I had, the terror, the spectre of loss, my father was seeing this realized with the death of his youngest child. His sense of helplessness as he begged her to take the vaccine was similar to the despondency I had felt watching my son's decline. But my father's suffering was far worse as he watched the preventable become predictable, another loss on the heels of his friend's likewise preventable and predictable death. I too experienced a sense of loss for her, but nothing like what I felt watching my father's grief. It was and it remains unbearable even as I write this. His grief is heavy, complete, immeasurable, and seldom removed from his thoughts. Covid took away the last few years of visits with his youngest daughter and compounds his loss. This is his first Christmas truly without her. I bear and share his grief as only I can, through my experiences. It is what it is as my sister would say. 

To those dealing with grief I will share what I told my friend:

Know that you are not alone in the grief you bear. It is the witness to our shared humanity, our shared struggle. Others can feel your pain as we remember ours. Your pain is separate and unique, your own, but I and others know grief and we grieve with you. For your loss, I am immensely sorry. For the pain, I am truly sorry. For your solitude now, I am profoundly sorry. Hold onto your memories of those who have died. Try to find some comfort there. And I hope you understand that you are not alone; I grieve with you. 

After The Rain, A Bud. Photograph by Bonnie Ash.