Speechless

Today, I went to lunch with a couple of co-workers. I forgot how the conversation got there, but one of the girls commented on how sweet my mom was. I agreed, of course, but I couldn't recall where this girl had ever met my mom. I asked and just looked at her blankly because I really couldn't remember. She tried to play it off like she'd forgotten also, and then she said, "You know, at the thing."

Again, I gave her a puzzled look. I had no idea where she was going with this line of gestures, she just kept saying, "The thing, the thing." I really had no idea for a solid couple of seconds, and she started getting antsy. Then I said, "Oh, the memorial [for Dylan]?"

She replied, rather uncomfortably, "Yeah, you know it's hard for me to talk about."

I didn't know what to say. I just kind of smiled uncomfortably. WTF!?!?! And I'm very understanding of the fact that people are uncomfortable, it's a natural human reaction when dealing with death. If you haven't been through tragedy, you don't know how to react to those who have. That being said, I've yet to come across someone who's been afraid to say "memorial" to me . . . until today, of course.

She still wouldn't say it. And when I said it, she immediately changed the subject. I just smiled. It doesn't hurt me to say it! Truthfully, it caught me off-guard. I wasn't angry at her, just speechless.

Some Borrowed Writing

Excerpt from "A Grief Observed"
By C.S. Lewis

If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to 'glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off.