Why...

Why? Why do expressions uttered in the face of death often mirror New Year Resolutions, made with good intentions, but just as ephemeral?  Why is it that well-meaning friends and strangers alike, use tears as the primary barometer for assessing "real" grief? Have you cried, they probed? "Well, you need to!  Try and figure out why you're not boohooing. Let your emotions loose!  Release yourself! Let her rip!'  Suffice it, well-meaning friends, acquaintances, and downright strangers intrude in sometimes unconscionable ways.  They deflate; they incite; they flabbergast; and in the end, they've worn me down, tired me out!

The loss of life, while engendering a kind of not-so-subtle voyeurism, isn't the only standard.  The termination of a love relationship or business association or a job or any unexpected or unpredictable event ranks high on the list. They spark speculations that sprout like weeds in an untended flowerbed.  Of course, humans are hotwired to question everything. "Why," a two-year-old asks, attended by its chorus, repeated over and over until it rings like a litany in a Call to Worship.  Most people question reflexively. Or maybe we just like the sound of our voice.

Death, however, carries such juxtaposed emotions, and not in an orderly or rational way.  I call it the "Rollercoaster of Grief," that crazy, unbelievable, heart-wrenching roiling that socks the soul and plays Russian Roulette with the mind and spirit.  It sounds banal to say that physical death is final.  Of course, it is! Yet, the heart keeps remnants and pieces, however well-hidden, that come alive and unbidden at any time.

Grieving is messy;  grief work is hard work.  Neither simple nor easy, grieving stressed every muscle and sinew of my being.   Any reservoir of strength I had stockpiled vanished like a wisp of smoke.
Irretrievably gone, and I didn't care. Didn't have enough vigor to wrestle with the relentless pain. It required energy of which I had been depleted. Unfathomable loss.  It may not have so much entailed what others expected of me as much as the unrealistic demands I held of myself.

My lineage encompasses the history of the Diaspora and Slavery with a capital "S." It contributed to my ability to endure suffering akin to what my ancestors experienced.  They died a thousand deaths, a thousand times over, as they witnessed an unweaned infant being snatched from their arms, or as they were sold from one hell to another.  Perhaps, I cannot viscerally express loss  because of what may be called "race consciousness." I don't know.

 More often than not Grandma Lucy Brown hummed, "Sometimes, I'm up,.sometimes I'm down, Oh yes, Lord; Sometimes I'm almost to the groun', Oh, ye, Lord.  Nobody knows the troubleI've seen, Nobody knows my sorrow.  Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, Glory Hallelujah," as she washed and ironed, and cooked and cleaned, and soothed fevered  brows and bruised hopes.---every day.

Reactions and responses to the cessation of life with each of us.  We seem to expend stupendous amounts of limited energy just trying to travel from one movement to another: shock, anger, denial, bargaining, and trying to reach the Holy Grail of acceptance.  An invitation awaits: "Come, ye disconsolate where'er ye languish---Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel; Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that heav'n cannot heal."