Perfect Words

In the wee hours of Saturday we'll pile in our car and head off on an adventure. All of us except our oldest. Today my phone rang and I see a familiar number, the first one I had called that Saturday. It is always a cheery greeting back and forth ... She wants to catch me before our great adventure. I tell her I am expecting great things and we chuckle about the long, long drive with a car filled with kids(shh!, some of them teenagers). She knows my kids really well and so we both know the highs and lows likely to be experienced in the car ride alone ...and we laugh. Her kids once called me her "laughing friend" because every time she was on the phone with me ...she laughed. I liked that title. But I'm caught quick as she tells me she knows this isn't easy for me, this planning and doing and living and striving for life. She tells me she knows the backdrop must pull me and my fight must be so strong and so intent to break loose. And I hear those words and think of what I had just read a few hours before ...and how much it spoke for me. It was as if she heard me ...and she did, without the words. And she echoed what I live ...and she knows.
Today I read two things. First in Healing After Loss, Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief, something that captures my friend:
There is a story of a little girl who got home from visiting her friend later than expected. when her mother asked the reason for the delay, the child said, 'I was helping Jane. Her doll broke.' The mother asked "Did you help her fix it.?"
"No. I helped her cry."
My friend helped me cry today ...and she has all along ...knowing she can fix nothing for me and that this will always be my life.  Perfect words.

And from another book First You Die, by Marie Levine

No Greater Pain
I know you mean well
But you don't understand
There are no words to explain
Although on the surface, I may appear fine,
Remember I buried a child of mine
And there is no greater pain


Grief is a taboo in our civilized world,
I despise the hideous game,
I must smile while going insane
For God's sake, a part of me died,
You can't imagine how often I've cried,
And there is no greater pain


If I look well
Or laugh when you joke,
You think I'm my old self again,
I'm raw inside, a shell of me,
The woman you knew can no longer be,
And there is no greater pain.


Look deep in my eyes
Acknowledge my loss,
As my heart beats its hollow refrain
I'm caught in a web of infinite whys
I'll mourn for my son 'till the rest of me dies,
And there is no greater pain.

by Madelaine Perri Kasden in memory of her son.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.