My brother-in-law is dead. He died four days ago of a heart attack at the age of forty-six. And in the rush to find out what happened, console my loved ones, and travel back home for the funeral there has been little time to process that fact. But as I sit in my father’s living room and look out the window, the realization grows like a tree in the murky darkness of my mind. Eventually, it becomes the only thing that I can think about. My brother-in-law is dead.
What am I
supposed to do about that? How do I
console my sister when she started this week as a wife, only to end it as a
widow? As I mull over these questions, I’m
reminded of a story I read a while back.
A Zen monk learned of his mother’s death, and responded by bursting into
tears. When he saw the confused looks on
his students’ faces, he asked them, “What does it mean to lose a mother?” No one was able to tell him, so the monk
gestured at his tear-stained face and said, “This is what it means to lose a
mother”. When I first read this story,
it confused the hell out of me. Where
was the calm detachment that Zen is supposed to teach? I assumed the monk just had a momentary lapse
in judgement, and that the story was teaching me what not to do in the face of
grief. But I know better now. By working with my teacher, I’ve learned that
Zen practice isn’t about turning your emotions off. It’s about learning to be fully human, and
feeling your emotions in an open and honest way. When we’re hungry we eat. When we’re tired we sleep. And just like the monk in the story, when we
feel like crying; we cry.
My sister is
crying right now because my brother-in-law is dead. And I hate that. I hate the fact that he’s gone. I hate the fact that she’s in pain. And I really hate the fact that there is nothing
I can do to make this situation better.
But if I’ve learned anything from the countless hours I’ve spent sitting
and staring at walls, it’s that sometimes “better” is too much to hope
for. Sometimes the only thing we can do
is to simply sit and bear witness to our pain; whether it’s in our legs or in
our hearts. My brother-in-law is dead,
but my sister is still alive, and she’s hurting right now. I can’t make this situation better. In fact, I’m not even going to try. But I am going to sit with her, and bear
witness to her pain. I’m going to tell
her that I love her, and I’m going to let her know I care. Because no matter how much I hate it, that’s
all I that I can do.
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