Finding Beauty After Loss
spring green and spring light
rain drops and trees
silence
My brother had been sick for more than three years. It started out with arrhythmia caused by a herpesvirus that made its way to his heart, a serious but treatable condition, especially when young and otherwise healthy. The doctors expected him to make a full recovery, but over three years, his illness became a chronic condition that impacted every part of his life. He went to countless doctors, saw specialists all over Germany, and even came to the United States once to visit a doctor he was hoping could help him.
It was an odyssey.
His illness was accompanied by a variety of symptoms, some more serious than others, and many doctors could not make sense of the fact that he simply was not getting better and that his condition worsened slowly and continuously. Even when there seemed to be progress, even when a treatment brought him one step closer towards health, something happened and threw him ten steps back.
Why wasn’t he getting any better?
Any illness that impacts the health of your heart is cause for concern and has to be taken seriously. And we were all concerned, my parents most of all, my sister and I, friends and extended family as well. He went through several hospital stays, received a pacemaker, and underwent all kinds of ordeals and treatments that sometimes made me wonder if they did more damage than good. We were all riding on the rollercoaster of hope and despair, but I never entertained the thought that this illness could cost him his life. And even when my parents or sister brought up the seriousness of his condition and mentioned their fears of him possibly dying, when my brother himself mentioned thinking about death a lot because of his condition, I was the one who vehemently said no to that possibility. I was the one who pushed the thought of death as far away as possible. And I was determined to leave it there. I wouldn’t listen to it, I wouldn’t hear it. I insisted that he was going to get well again.
Dying? Death? No! This wasn’t going to happen to our family.
Losing a loved one changes you. Losing a loved one changes how you look at life, the world, yourself, and others. Losing a loved one divides your life into two halves, the “before it happened” and the “after it happened”. After the experience of a loss or other traumatic event, your life continues on, and yet nothing is the same.
The experience of loss is part of life. And the experience of loss comes in all forms and sizes. We are all going to have our “before” and “after”: the death of a loved one, a diagnosis, loss of a job, loss of a friendship, an accident, a natural disaster…. These are events that happen to us, events that we can’t control because sometimes life happens to us. These pivotal moments change us, challenge us, and catapult us into a different life, different from what we thought it would and could be. Despite our ability to influence the trajectory of our lives by the many choices we have to make on any given day, these events happen. And often these events break us. They break us into several pieces that can take years to heal, but will bring a newness, beauty and wisdom into our lives that we couldn’t have known about before that experience.
According to the National Cancer Institute, grief is best defined as “The normal response to a major loss, such as the death of a loved one. It may include feelings of great sadness, anger, guilt, and despair. Physical problems, such as not being able to sleep and changes in appetite, may also be part of grief.”
Grief is a normal experience, it is a human experience, and yet, we hesitate talking about grief.
As much as we strive for beauty, joy and happiness in life and as much as we should embrace it every single day, the fact is that no one is spared from experiencing grief at some point in one’s life, even multiple times throughout it. Grief is as much part of life as joy, death is as real as birth. Yet, for obvious reasons, we would rather focus on birth. For obvious reasons, we want to avoid thinking about the opposite. We don’t know what to say, and feel helpless when it happens to someone else. We don’t say anything at all, because we are afraid of saying something wrong. We avoid it all until it happens to us. We avoid it until we have to face it head on.
In the summer of June 2006, my parents came to the States to visit us. It was their yearly summer visit and, as we lived in Northern Indiana back then, we always enjoyed exploring new sites along Lake Michigan or a trip to Chicago. While Brad and I were busy working and/or studying during the weekday, they would take a rental car and go on exploring on their own, often coming back in the evening with fresh groceries to cook us dinner.
For the last year or so they had been hesitant to travel overseas. They didn’t want to be far away while my brother was in the hospital or not doing well. But in the spring of 2006, my brother had undergone a treatment that seemed promising and for the first time in months, there was hope that he could heal once and for all. For the first time in months, he started to feel better. For the first time in months, he was released from the hospital and feeling strong enough to make plans for the future and envision a normal life again. My parents felt confident that visiting me in the States for a couple of weeks would be fine. We were all relieved about my brother’s improving health, and to me it confirmed what I had hoped and believed all along, he was going to live a long and healthy life.
On June 21, we all woke up to celebrate my father’s birthday. The phone rang quite early in the morning and it was my brother calling with birthday wishes. My father was excited to hear his voice and they talked for close to 40 minutes. Afterwards, my father said that my brother seemed well, content and peaceful, and that he was so thankful to be at his home after the lengthy hospital stay.
It was a beautiful early summer day and after spending most of the afternoon in a small town on Lake Michigan, we came back home in the evening to cook my father a nice birthday dinner. While we were all helping to prepare the food and set the table, the phone rang and Brad answered. We heard the voice of my brother’s wife Mareike on the other side: “Hallo, Mareike, I can’t hear you very well”. The connection was bad and he had to hang up for her to call again. While we waited for the phone to ring, my mother and I looked at each other with concerned looks. It was already very late in Germany, which could only mean that she had to call us because something bad had happened. There was silence in the room. Then the phone rang again and my father answered. I watched him calmly nodding his head and finally saying the three words that we never wanted to hear: ”Jens ist gestorben (Jens has died).”
My brother passed away in the evening on June 21 in 2006, on the day of my father’s birth, after spending a beautiful day with his wife at home, making future travel plans and talking about different color options to give their walls at home a fresh coat of paint. After eating their dinner together, they had planned to take a short evening walk. At the stairs, my brother turned around saying that he wasn’t feeling well and collapsed instantly. My sister-in-law called an ambulance and resuscitation attempts were performed for close to two hours. But he was gone.
This is the first essay of a series that I will publish over the next few weeks (approx. every other week) titled “Finding Beauty After Loss”.
I hope to tell my story of loss and grief and some lessons I have learnt since then. I want to talk about how this experience has shaped my life and work. Talking about grief and learning to respond to grief in a healthy way is, I believe, very important. Grief and loss are universal experiences and the beauty and meaning we can find in life after loss are gifts to behold.
Feel free to share this post or parts that resonated with you. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for reading!
Manuela
So sorry to hear of your loss, Manuela. It's strange how here's another parallel of sorts in our respective lives (as previously mentioned). About the same time the previous year I lost my oldest brother due to complications arising from surgery relating to his circulatory system (he contracted the dreaded mrsa infection and, in his weakened state, never recovered). As you say, in your mind you push death out, not accepting it until you're face to face with it and you have to. Maybe the way we are afterward is a little bit like a pot that is repaired in the style of the Japanese art of Kintsugi. All the pieces are there, but whole is never quite the same again. The sliver and gold holding the pieces is a little like the wisdom that holds all those precious memories together. Thank you for sharing. Take care.
https://open.substack.com/pub/perfectlight/p/lost?r=2b8uel&utm_medium=ios