An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination – A Memoir
by Elizabeth McCracken
Meeting people I knew in those first few weeks, I felt like the most terrifying object on earth.
... [I]t surprised me, every time I saw someone who didn’t mention it. ... I am trying to remember what I have thought when I’ve done the same thing, all those times I didn’t mention some great sadness upon seeing someone for the first time. Did I really think that by not saying words of consolation aloud, I was doing people a favor? As though to mention sadness I was “reminding” them of the terrible thing?
As though the grieving have forgotten their grief?
... I could feel how uncomfortable my mere presence made people feel, and I couldn’t bear it.
I’ve never gotten over my discomfort at other people’s discomfort. When people say, What have you been up to, I hesitate. ... If I say anything, people mostly change the subject anyway, and I can’t say that I blame them.
I’ve done it myself, when meeting the grief-struck. It’s as though the sad news is Rumpelstiltskin in reverse. To mention it by name is to conjure it up, not the grief but the experience itself: the mother’s suicide, the brother’s overdose, the multiple miscarriages. The sadder the news, the less likely people are to mention it. The moment I lost my innocence about such things, I saw how careless I’d been myself.
I don’t even know what I would have wanted someone to say. Not: it will be better. Not: You don’t think you’ll live through this, but you will. Maybe: Tomorrow you will spontaneously combust. ... That might have comforted me.
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“Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.” It is inevitable that grief would last longer than sympathy but other than the obvious reasons, I do wonder why that is so. There are few people who have been wholly protected from the kind of loss that is followed by grief but still there is seems to be a general befuddlement when engaging with those who mourn.
In her most remarkable memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Elizabeth McCracken reflects on her experience as she mourned the death of her infant child who was stillborn. The book begins with an account of all the things her loved ones said and did in the immediate aftermath of what she calls “the calamity.” There were different responses. McCracken says, “Somehow every one of these things happened at exactly the right time for me. This is why you need everyone you know after a disaster, because there is not one right response. It’s what paralyzes people around the grief-stricken, of course, the idea that there are right things to say and wrong things and it’s better to say nothing than something clumsy. I needed all of it, direct comfort, hearsay grief.”
After a certain amount of time, the impact of the death naturally fades for all save those who were closest to the dearly departed. That is a particularly lonely time of transition because many people do not realize or understand that acute grief continues past a certain point – the certain point that is deemed to be enough time for the ever elusive closure. Some are simply frightened of the big emotions that come with grief. Some are afraid of the unknown. For example, who will the dearly beloved become as a result of such grief? The shift is the equivalent of an interior make over. Perhaps the changes are not perceptible as those depicted in photographs that show the before and after. But were it possible to somehow capture proof of the transformation, it would materialize as dramatically as the redesigned living room.
To illustrate this kind of transformation I will share my own experience in witnessing another’s acute grief. As my friend Joe was dying, I knew that Billy, his partner, my best friend, was in for the most utterly devastating experience of his life. But there is no way to prepare for the inevitable. When Joe died I knew that I’d not only lost Joe – a huge loss in itself – I also had lost the person I knew Billy to be. I waited on the edges to see how this period of mourning would play out.
Over the course of that first year, his grief was raw and unpredictable. One day he would embark on what we came to call “grief home improvements” and for the next three days he wouldn’t get out of bed. I was scared for him but selfishly, also for myself. Would we ever again share the kind of uproarious laughing that I treasured? Would there be the bickering that only then had I realized had been reassuring somehow? He had once been the steadiest person I knew. What is true is that from Joseph’s death until Billy’s own, he was never again the person he had once been.
However, what is also true is that he did become someone even more remarkable, accomplishing great things, making profound contributions to HIV prevention efforts. I witnessed his transformation – his life - with no small amount of awe. Joe himself wouldn’t have recognized Billy, in fact. I was naïve, innocent, really, to think that things would have ever been the same. How could we ever be the person we had once been once we sustain this kind of blow? What I learned is that through pain and grief, frequently we become even better. Stronger. More compassionate. Not taking life for granted. But that transformation was still a good way off for Billy.
During that first year, he was, like McCracken had been to her friends & acquaintances: the most terrifying object on earth. He didn’t try to make his grief pretty or acceptable or easier for others to witness. He knew he was freaking out his friends but he just wouldn’t just suck it up and play nice. I did the only thing I thought possible. I came in from the edge, climbed onto the raft with him and we hung on for dear life.
Four years passed. By then, Billy was himself very sick. At this time I attended a wedding with friends I hadn’t seen in nearly10 years. I was standing on the receiving line when one of them approached me. It was someone with whom I’d once been close. “How are you?” I was 34 years old. Two of my beloved friends were dead, Billy was hanging by a thread and there had been other significant losses that had stomped on my heart – losses I had been working hard to integrate for years. Why did I seem to realize the depth of my grief only at that exact moment? “How are you?” I felt as though there was a vast ocean separating us that was utterly unbridgeable. “Fine. And you?” I was aware of the physical strength that light response required of me. Had I not been able to tap into said strength, this old friend would have run, terrified.
Elizabeth McCracken gave birth to a stillborn baby. Her memoir was fittingly heart wrenching but also very satisfying as she did not seem to censor herself. It was she who said, “Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.”
What do we say to those we love and care about when they have crossed the precipice into grief? It is best that we express our sympathies simply and truthfully. As McCracken says, nearly any thing will do – anything, that is, that does not attempt to minimize the grief itself. “Not: it will be better. Not: You don’t think you’ll live through this, but you will. Maybe: Tomorrow you will spontaneously combust. ... That might have comforted me.” You may not be able to imagine saying such a thing. I certainly could not have imagined. I was going to be a minister. Ministers don’t say such things – so blunt & hard edged. Right?
In1998 I was doing the unit of clinical pastoral education that is required of Unitarian Universalist seminarians. I worked at a community hospital in a suburb of Berkeley. Early one morning, the chaplains were summoned by the radiation department. One of the staff had died suddenly. Later it was learned that she had been prescribed with two medications that had a negative interaction. But that morning, the cause of death was unknown. I volunteered to respond to the call. I figured that I would be ministering to the entire department. I arrived on the floor and was confused by the quiet and desolation. Instead, I found three people in one of the offices. Two of them wildly beckoned to me. Between them was a young woman collapsed in a chair. She was sobbing. I wasn’t sure what was happening. The two women with this poor crying soul were so relieved to see me, the chaplain, arrive. They couldn’t get out of the room fast enough.
What happened?
The story emerged slowly. The woman who had died had been this woman’s best friend. They’d grown up together, lived down the street from each other and had worked at the hospital in the same department together. So although the entire department was shocked in the wake of their friend’s death, this woman was absolutely leveled. She was inconsolable – not that I would have dreamt of trying to console her in that moment. She was doing exactly what she needed to do. It was a storm of shock and devastation. Basically, I sat there. Basically, I sat there knowing full well what lay ahead of this poor woman. Finally, after enough time had passed I pulled her chair up to mine. We were knee to knee. I put my hands on her shoulders and much to my surprise I heard my voice say out loud to her, “My best friend died two years ago. I’m here to tell you that it sucks and it never gets better.”
Who said that? I couldn’t believe that I had. In a flash I saw my future as a minister pass before my eyes. I thought my supervisor would make sure I’d never see ordination.
But this woman and I held each other’s gaze. And in that moment, we both knew that what had passed between us was the truth. It was a truth that she was able to use to steady herself. I too, felt steadied by it. We prayed together and I left. I’ve never forgotten that woman or the look on her face. She taught me something about acute grief. That is better to speak the truth than rely on empty platitudes. And in most cases, “I’m sorry” is enough.
Grief does outlast sympathy. Let this be a reminder to all of us in this beloved congregation. The grieving do not forget their grief. It is okay to ask after those who mourn. To speak the name of their dearly departed. To acknowledge their grief. Even a year after the death has occurred. Even two or three years. Even – and especially – long after that. It is why on this fourth Sunday of October – Near All Souls Day - we speak the names of those we have loved and lost. To remember and honor them but also to acknowledge the eternal flame that is our grief.
“Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted.” They shall be comforted and they shall be transformed. The job of those who stand on the edges is to stand with. The fact is each of us will eventually be the sorrowful recipient of this comfort and after we have received this comfort we become better comforters in return.
McCracken ends her book with these words, “It’s a happy life but someone is missing. It’s a happy life and someone is missing. It’s a happy life.” Indeed. Blessed are those who mourn and are transformed. Blessed are those who comfort. And through the course of a happy life, we will each be both. May we grieve deeply and well and through our sorrow be a compassionate source of comfort to others. Amen.
