The Hard Goodbye

I’m not great at grieving, I’m actually not sure if anyone is. In an ideal world we’d be shocked then sad then maybe reflective and finally move on. Of course that would be to eliminate loss, emptiness, bewilderment, regret and the whole package of other things which everybody deals with differently when someone we love or have simply known passes away. Death and grieving is something, at least in the West, we have no manual or handbook to fall back on. We only have our hearts and our emotions and they are never great teachers although are our first responders.

On Wednesday I heard of the death of an old friend, a former work colleague from over 20 years ago; a funny, warm, sweet man who I have nothing but fond memories of. He was getting ready for work, stepped out of his shower and just died. Gone.

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken. There’s a pain goes on and on…”  

Only a few hours later 293 people were on a plane from Amsterdam, some returning from holidays, some planning to head home or onto further adventures and some coming to Melbourne for the AIDS conference. As they thought about what inflight movie they’d watch, popped to the loo, flicked through the airline flight magazine, chatted to a neighbour or their family a couple of missiles hit their plane and they plunged to their death. Gone.

I was moved by the words of The Netherland’s Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans at the UN Security Council:

“Since Thursday, I’ve been thinking how horrible the final moments of their lives must have been, when they knew the plane was going down. Did they lock hands with their loved ones? Did they hold their children close to their hearts? Did they look each other in the eyes, one final time, in a wordless goodbye? We will never know.

The demise of almost 200 of my compatriots has left a hole in the heart of the Dutch nation. It has caused grief, anger and despair. Grief for the loss of loved ones, anger for the outrage of the downing of a civilian airplane and despair after witnessing the excruciatingly slow process of securing the crash site and recovering the remains of the victims.

Images of children’s toys being tossed around, luggage being opened or passports, including passports of children being shown, are turning our grief and mourning into anger… We demand dignity for the victims and the multitudes who mourn their loss.”

I am not at all interested in the angst people are expressing over the contamination of the crash scene, it’s just too bad and too ghastly but it is what it is. We can’t expect people who are going about the pointless business of armed conflict to have a sudden rush of morality and decency when they shoot down a passenger plane ‘by mistake’.

My concern is for the return of the citizens who were murdered to their families and friends and in to the warmth and sad welcome of their nations. From Amsterdam to Adelaide, from Kuala Lumpur to Quebec and all other cities that have lost someone just give them one last act of respect. I’m pretty sure we know who did it and how they did it. We know Putin is  being loose with the truth about who's responsible and while Russia has the gas that supplies a fair whack of Europe and much of Kensington in London is ‘owned’ by Russian millionaires there’ll lots of fancy words and furrowed brows from some leaders but not a lot more.

And so today strangers are bound together, some look across a room expecting to see someone who will never be there again, some will call to a child who will never respond, some will wonder what their parent would think about…only to never know. The why will never be answered, the how maybe. There will be anger, sometimes at a God that ironically many won’t really have believed in, even at the dead themselves but most certainly and appropriately at the murderers. Does time heal or does it just move it to that place where memories reside, waiting to return when we least expect it? It is fascinating where the reminders reside and when the sadness surfaces. It might be a song, it might be an expression, it might be a passage in a book, it might be the briefest glance at someone who you think is the one you lost. Grief is breathtaking in its sinister ability to just not let go.

I hadn’t seen my friend for many years and yes I regret that today. But I also had enough memories of him and reminders of the laughs, the lunches and a weekend in Launceston to make my heart sag a little and to flatten my spirits when I heard he’d died.

 
When someone dies it hurts as much as it matters, as much as it is worth; it is never futile because it just wouldn’t be if it didn’t matter. There is pain in grief but pain shows you have not forgotten and is proof of love – it matters.

Those who lost someone on MH17 and those of us who are confounded, maddened and sad by the crash will always remember what happened on Thursday over the skies of the Ukraine. Our history has been changed in a moment, our world has gasped and we will never know in what ways the world would have benefited from those we have lost. As our tears are shed or as we stop to think about them, and us, we grieve in the way that gets us to tomorrow and beyond.

“Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.”

Take care and be kind to each other.

(The two lyrics used are from ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’ from ‘Les Miserables’ -Herbert Kretzmer, Claude Michel Schonberg, Alain Albert Boublil)