They needed a pianist. Someone to softly play his favorite old hymns. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know any of them. They didn’t go to our church. I don’t remember how they landed there that morning. What I remember is the love they had for him. And I remember his wife.
When you’re a church pianist, you have a bird’s eye
view of everything and everyone. You see water drip off the noses of the
recently baptized. You notice who’s missing from the choir, how much more gray
the pastor’s hair is now, and are in the right spot to throw a glaring stare at your misbehaving
children.
I'd played for weddings and funerals before. It wasn’t unusual for me to serve as a musician in
someone else’s drama. I just never meant to become invested in their stories. After
all, someone needed to stay calm, cool, and collected. And when you’re playing
favorite hymns for a grieving family, it’s important to make those quarter
notes land correctly on the ivories beneath your fingers. Blurry vision is a
hazard.
Hearts have a mind of their own.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Surrounded by a squadron
of burly sons, she sat on the front row, her attention focused on the speaker at the mic, smiling. Soft whisps of white hair encircled her wrinkled face, but
her eyes were bright, and she nodded her head throughout every tribute given
for her late husband. She was the bravest woman I thought I’d ever seen, and it
leveled me. How did she do it? How could she sit there and smile, watching her
grown sons weep as, one by one, they told of the great love their father had
for them and his wife? How in every pickup truck he’d ever bought, the first
thing he did was install a seat belt in the center of the bench seat so she
could sit right beside him while they drove together.
She just smiled and nodded, still feeling the deep
love of a man she would never sit next to again.
When the service was over, I joined the long line of
sympathetic guests who waited their turn to offer condolences to the family. I
didn’t know what I would say. It just seemed appropriate to acknowledge their
loss and not simply be the paid musician who showed up for an hour or two. I
needn’t have worried. When it was my turn to awkwardly shake hands with each of
them and hug their eighty-year-old mother, I broke down in tears and couldn’t
say anything.
The kindhearted widow held my hands and looked into my
sad face. “Are you all right, dear?” she gently asked.
Ironic. And kind of hilarious. I never saw her shed a
tear, but she was moved by mine. The mourning widow comforting the stranger who
wept for her. And, if I’m honest, wept for myself.
Sometimes in life you may notice that it’s difficult
to watch the sorrow of others because their circumstances mirror what you know
deep down will one day be your story. And it terrifies. I sat there on that
piano bench watching grown men cry and observing the diminutive rock of a woman
who clearly was the family glue, thinking and hoping that a day like theirs
would never come for me. I had it all planned out. I would, of course, go first
because Rob would be so much better at handling loss than I would. Plus, he was
healthier than me. It just made sense.
But when has life ever made sense? And why do we
maintain the illusion that we have control?
The day came for me anyway, seated on the front row,
listening to tributes made too soon for my husband. There are few things I
remember about that day. His fire helmet placed on top of his grave, a framed photo
of him wearing it sat propped on the headstone, his name chiseled into the
granite below, and relentless sorrow chiseled into my soul. How did I get
through all of that? How am I still getting through it? All the lessons that
accompany sadness and sorrow? The realization that grief comes to stay, that
you don’t “get over it”, you don’t heal. For the rest of your life you simply
learn to carry it and find your way through the dark.
I was thinking about that funeral and the smiling
widow today. Who knows what was going on within her. I could only observe from the
outside. What surprised me was my reaction to this family’s tragedy. I wanted
to stay detached the way the pastor was. Just do my job and stand aloof from
the emotion. Offer my sympathy and get out. Get away. Don’t let it rattle my
sense of security.
That’s the difference between sympathy and empathy.
Sympathy is when we feel for someone, but not with them. Sympathy
recognizes the sad story and that’s as far as it goes. Sympathy watches from
the piano bench and prays to God that they never find themselves on the front
row.
But empathy takes the risk
of identifying with the pain of someone else. Empathy taps into its own
experiences and similar emotions. Empathy, says Brene Brown, is where we drop
down into the hole where someone else sits overwhelmed by painful feelings and
circumstances, and we say to them, “Hey, I know what it’s like down here and
you’re not alone.” Empathy shows up to weep with those who weep,
sit with those who can’t move, remains silent with those who have no words, and
witnesses the pain so their person won’t be alone.
It makes me wonder why we send “sympathy” cards to
people when their hearts are breaking. It’s something. I know. It’s better than
nothing. But what if we ditched all the platitudes Hallmark overcharges us for
and simply put our hearts in a handwritten note that risks being honest about
loss? What if we wrote, “This is so hard and I am so sorry for the pain you are
going through. I love you.” As someone who stood over a trash can tossing sympathy
cards that told me it was God’s will for Rob to die and explained how God had
more work for me to do here and that my memories would be a good enough
substitute for having my husband beside me, it became evident that the majority
of sympathy cards don’t cut it. What I needed, what I still need, what we all
need, is empathy.
When it’s all been said and done, the thing that helps
carry us through our pain is the courage of people who just show up and sit
beside us without trying to fix something that cannot be fixed. Even if it’s
awkward. Even if they fear doing it wrong. Even if they fear it will happen to
them someday, too, if it hasn’t already. They are willing to witness the
sadness and pain of another and not try to talk them out of it. They do this
because we are all human and death is a part of life.
I used to sit on the bench, watch from the sidelines, feeling
helpless at the sight of ongoing grief. I sent useless cards. I avoided sad
people. I’m not proud of any of this. Our culture is so uncomfortable with
sorrow and it was as though I was their mascot.
