I distinctly remember my closest friend’s pleas to the world after her mom passed away unexpectedly — all she wanted, she said, was kindness. It was desperate. It was almost carnal.
And now, 18 months after my dad passed away, I’m living that same need. And I live in one of the cities most unlikely to give it: NYC. Every moment is a potential for a micro-aggression, particularly if you’re peripatetic during the day like I am, weaving through coffee shops, doctors appointments, grocery stores, etc. Sometimes keeping the door open for another elicits a look of shock and gratitude that makes you feel like a Nobel Peace Prize is about to fall out of the sky and into your lap.
But, when you’re so raw and so vulnerable, you can see that many others are, too. In my attempt to stop pushing my grief away, I cried myself from 70th/Broadway to an almost heavenly spot in Central Park. (Watching geese dunks their heads in synchrony in the disgusting brown water was cathartic in the most satisfying way). Getting to a place where I let my grief in somehow means I don’t have the capacity to re-gear up to be an ass**** to the rest of the city. So, I’m gentle and quiet in how I say hello, and people are kind and gentle back. I felt it most today at my first physical therapy appointment. The therapist and staff were warm and nurturing, almost taking my lead in how gentle I needed to be. The most heart-warming moment was when a fellow patient told off one of young staff members for replying “what?” when someone called her name. “The appropriate reply, dear, is “Yes?”. The staff member smiled and agreed.
This slowing down, this quietness, is a necessary part of my new openness to grief. It makes me think of this divine poem that I recently came across:
“Do not surrender your grief so quickly.
Let it cut more deeply.
Let it ferment and season you.
As few human or divine ingredients can.
Something is missing in my heart tonight
That has made my eyes so soft
And my voice so tender
And my need of God so absolutely clear.”
- Hafez
