Gratitude and togetherness are grief’s silver lining
For the most part, the majority of us kind of glide through many parts of our lives.
There are ups and downs, the ebbs and flows of the human experience, splattered with those moments that take your breath away – good or bad – that leave a lasting effect.
You know those days; the ones you’ll always remember where you were when.
This past week something happened that stopped me in my tracks and reminded me just how much no day is guaranteed to any of us.
The tragedy didn’t happen to me but a fellow Kiwi mum, around my age, with two kids the same age as mine, and who lost her husband en route to their overseas holiday.
When I first found out, the tears welled and I felt physically ill about her circumstances.
I barely knew this family and yet I ached for their loss.
Buoyed on by her fellow online friends, I began trying to work out a way to offer help to this family.
To say I felt helpless is an understatement but I really couldn’t settle until I had exhausted every avenue of overseas assistance I could think of.
I messaged friends overseas who messaged their friends and within minutes a network of ex-pat Kiwi and Australian mums had swung into action with offers of pretty much everything you could think of. Mums helping mums; it was so humbling.
Even though many of them had absolutely no reference points they could use as a starting point when attempting to understand what this family was going through, they knew what was important in a foreign land – food, communication, transport, supplies, babysitting, accommodation. A hug.
All basic things but the hardest to deal with when in shock after having your life flipped upside down.
It was unimaginable and they were – and still are – living it; the unfairness almost felt palpable.
Within 24 hours, my inbox was overrun with offers from strangers who had heard of this family’s plight and couldn’t shake it and wanted to do something.
All this blew me away and I know it was very much appreciated by the family.
I felt like I carried this family’s grief around with me that week like a stone rolling around in my shoe; even though I didn’t know them personally, every time I caught myself losing my cool at my kids or getting snarky with my husband, I reality-checked myself.
It’s quite something when you feel such profound effects from others’ experiences that it moves you and how you see things.
Maybe it’s because I was already feeling so sensitive that when I came across a video of Christchurch cancer survivor Jake Bailey online, it hit me in the feels all over again.
In 41⁄2 minutes he managed to describe his experiences with an aggressive cancer and the effect it had on those around him.
Jake spoke about living a life filled with gratitude and how people shouldn’t feel bad about people who have had bad things happen to them.
Instead, he says, we should use it to make differences in our own lives. It’s not rocket science, of course, but it does make incredible sense.
When people are going through hell, there’s often very little we can do to help improve their situation other than create a safe space for them to just be with however they’re feeling at any one time.
On a practical level, we can choose ourselves how we’re going approach our lives each day.
It’s one thing to say ‘‘Live each day like your last’’ – which is impractical, to say the least.
If we all really did this, very little would be achieved in life, as many of us would be sipping cocktails in an overwater bungalow in Tahiti – great in theory but useless in practicality.
But the overriding message of living a life that absorbs the horrible situations that happen to ourselves and others while looking for the gratitude in what is left is important.
What I take from the last couple of weeks is that bad things happen to good people, but that there is a brilliant and amazing human connection that brings people together in times of need.
They can’t always fix things but they can offer some bloody good black humour and try and find that little bit of light in the darkest of moments.