I want to share with you a beautiful poem.
DIRGE WITHOUT MUSIC
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, — but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned. ~~~
I love this poem because it describes what many of us feel, but cannot share after loss. That we are forced to accept it and “move on” is difficult for so many. And now there is a mental health diagnosis for people who grieve longer than a year and that is a source of contention. How can we stop grieving a loss so profound on a time frame that cannot be linear?
I know many who live lives of quiet desperation. They put on a brave face, but crumple alone in a darkened room at night. They look fine on the outside, it’s the inside that is brim with sadness and sometimes fear.
Why should we be so alone in our grief? It seems the more we have moved toward a digital, social media world, the more isolated we have become.
No more do we wear black for a year to show we are in mourning. Could you imagine that now? You would be labeled depressed. Or worse. But people mourned openly back then. And it was not only accepted, but expected. The shared grief was a part of society. Expected. When did we decide closing the door on that would be a good thing?
Loss is as individual to us as our own fingerprints. Our definition of loss is different for each of us. We feel it the way we feel it. There is no construct or instruction manual for how to cope.
I have read many books on loss and grief. Some are very helpful in that they do not make you feel so alone. But once you close the book, there you are. Alone once again.
I remember once a patient died unexpectedly. Well, I have seen this many times, and so has anyone else in healthcare. But this was a family who wailed. They flung themselves on the bed. They cried and yelled, clinging to their departed loved one. I remember the staff members not knowing what to do. I was a young, inexperienced nurse, so I just watched, having nothing to offer. The staff shut the door. Then they called for a psych consult.
Another remembered time was when I was a hospice nurse in Boston. A young man with a lot of promise was diagnosed with a terminal cancer. His dad was having none of it. They did treatment after treatment until it became cruel. And finally the young man was placed on hospice. The day he died is etched in my soul. We were called and told that he was dying. To hurry over. I was training a new nurse, so she and I sped over to the home quickly. When we got there, the dad was performing CPR on his son. He was wailing and crying. His stoic wife was standing in a corner. His daughter was cowering in the kitchen.
I was stunned when I walked in. I didn’t really know what to do. This display of private grief and anguish was raw. I didn’t want to intrude on it. But I had to do something. So I just walked over to the dad and placed my hand on his shoulder. He kept doing CPR. He didn’t call for 911 or yell for me to do something. He knew. He just wanted more time. He wanted his son back. He didn’t want to lose him.
He finally stopped, but left his hands on his son’s chest. His head dropped. We just stood there like that, a man defeated and me just helplessly watching. He then just stepped back and looked down at his son.
And we just all stood with him and respected his loss.
I remember those families so clearly, even decades later. Because I think they expressed vocally what many of us feel, but hold inside. It was a powerful lesson to me.
We don’t have to be resigned. We can mourn loss. It does hurt. And it doesn’t always end.
“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”
~~Edna St. Vincent Millay