It was last Tuesday, she was going in for a fairly common surgery, so many of them done all over the world, most of them successful, but not her's. Something went wrong, and everything changed for my co worker and his young son. His wife of 25 years, no longer there for him to love and be loved by, to care and nurture him and the son, her no longer there to receive from them the same. No opportunity to say goodbye and I love you, that last time. No chance to say....goodbye.

I have know idea what my friend and son are going through, this sadness, as I have never lost a wife to death nor as a young child a mother. I have in the last year lost my Dad, him at almost 85, me at 56. We had the years to come to understandings, to let our love for one another ripen and grow into something additional to dad and young child but to know each other as men. We had the time to see the end approach, to say those things left in us, to express love, gratitude, to say goodbye. My friend did not have the chance to say this, his son to never know his mother as an adult and present her with her grandchildren. Things he does not yet know about the relationship between a mother and son, he will never learn, only the pain of not having had that moment to say goodbye, after a long and wonderful life.

As I said, I have know idea what my friend is experiencing. I can only imagine what it must be like,,,,and it feels devastating. To try and express my condolences in the presence of this empathy, is so hard and still keep my manly composure and be strong. The imagined pain of what it must be like is so overpowering, all I can do is say I have no words, rather simply be present, shed tears for their pain, and pray for God's comforting presence in their lives.

I recall a number of years ago, another coworker lost his wife and after he came back to work, he was out in the parking lot visiting with another fellow whose wife had died a couple of years earlier. I decided to say something to the one fellow, express my condolences. I was so naive about loss back then and knowing so little of such, it was always so hard to express sorrow when I could not relate to it, what does one say? I screwed myself up and walked over to them and as I approached I overheard the fellow who had been widowed a couple of years say,"when I came back to work, very few people said anything to me about my wife." Those words really hit me, because I was one of those who had not. I approached them and expressed my condolences to the newly widowed friend and turned to the other and said I was one of those who never shared with you, and I am sorry, it was wrong of me, but I just did not know what to say or how to say it....so I said nothing,,,,I'm truly sorry for your loss. I was genuinely contrite, and he was gracious, he paused a moment and shrugged and said that really, he could understand. I suppose the moment helped me to realize that a bungled attempted effort at expressing care can be consoling.

Something I have noticed in these moments when we try to console those in grief, and we are dealing with the feelings within ourselves, I find that often those that I am trying to support, are consoling me. I saw it at my Dad's memorial, people almost and actually tearful, so sadden by my family's loss, bravely trying to console us with their presence and tears, I found us consoling each other. I suppose a funeral is that time when we all experience loss. For the survivors and their actual loss, and the consolers in their remembered loss or realization of the pain of what loss is. These are moments of community, maybe some of our best moments, when we come together and try to share the pain and loss.