i just read an article that, … i got it and it got me, but not really.
http://www.bestdaily.co.uk/your-life/news/a573059/a-healthy-baby-is-not-all-that-matters.html
the article is about not saying to women who just gave birth – “well, your baby is healthy, that’s all that matters”. as if what happened to the woman or how she’s feeling physically or emotionally is of no importance.
why do we have to be careful about this? there are lots of situations in life where people say the wrong things or respond with something that totally makes you feel unheard, judged or wrong. it happens all the time. it’s the way people have become. or. it’s the way people have always been. asking people to think about what they say is fair enough. that could require some extensive training. shouldn’t it be left up to each and everyone of us to speak up for ourselves? isn’t that the real talent. the real challenge?
i already worry so much about whether i said or did the right thing. now i have to worry about more? if there’s one thing i’ve learned from having lost Hunter, and i’ve learned tonnes, is that your life experience is your own. and even though some of it may hurt and we want people to care and understand, in the end, it’s ours and ours alone to bear. the compassion from others eventually runs thin and our pain will far outlast any person’s compassion for our life experience.
this article reminded me of a few other “inappropriate responses”
“well, you made it” or “you’re such a trooper” said to the cancer, chemo, radiation survivor. what was that? a compliment or a zip up?
“have you replaced him yet?” said to one who lost their pet. umm, would you say that to me if i lost my adopted child?
while i think these 3 scenarios could be evidence of,… an inability to deal with something outside one’s own personal realm, discomfort with raw feelings, stupidity,… it could also indicate that these responses may be meant to “move us along” ” move us forward” so one doesn’t have to listen. doesn’t have to feel. or,… they really just don’t know what to do/say. so they pull out a common response.
when i lost Hunter, i learned a great deal in my grief, but there were a few things/thoughts that really stood out for me:
1. how can i be so upset with what has happened in my life – this life changing event of losing Hunter – and everyone around me seems to have moved on so effortlessly. do my people not realize how distraught this experience has left me?
2. how can i have gone through something so traumatic and my people have not come together to support me. honor me. honor Hunter’s life force and impact, like when a human dies and there is a wake or funeral. it felt odd.
3. why do i feel so alone, not understood, and even judged as I experience this loss?
4. why do some people say such inappropriate things in response to speaking of my loss? piggybacking my truth by telling me of their loss 2 years ago, rather than listening to me now, or suggesting i get another dog to replace the one I lost, like it was a car that i wrecked and i needed new wheels?
while i would love to know that people care about my life experiences, i mean really care,… i just don’t think that’s possible. my raw truths may not be bearable or even of interest to others. fair enough. everyone deals with things (or not) in their own way. i think that if we humans actually cared about every”one’s” life and feeling experiences, i don’t think we could handle it. not all of it. it would overwhelm our sensories and render us unable to cope with or manage the mundane but necessary stuff for our basic survival. so we’ve learned to tune it all out.
i’ve felt alone many a times with my grief in losing Hunter. i’ve recently found myself acutely aware of his absence at times, and for a moment, it’s utterly unbearable. and then it passes. thank heavens. i don’t feel like a victim. i feel i’ve experienced something very profound in my life and it’s wounded me deeply. it’s healing but is very sensitive to touch. and it’s changed me.
last week i spoke with 2 cancer survivors and both of them welled up while recalling their life experience around it. obviously this was something very profound for them and i got it, but i realized.… it didn’t “really get it”. i had not experienced it myself and certainly not to their depth. i was most certainly empathetic, but i did not understand experientially as they had. and it’s in this gap of the “unshared experience” – even though verbally shared – therein lies the reality of us actually “not being able to fully empathize”. even though we may want to. we don’t.
to make matters worse we humans are not great at listening. we’re often just taking in what you say long enough, only to formulate and offer our comment or response that many times has nothing to do with what that person just shared. we come up with cliché responses possibly to fix things, divert attention, redirect, shut down the topic or tidy it up. so we don’t feel. it.
is that because everyone wants to be heard. and nobody actually is?
i can honestly say that i believe no one, not one person on this earth has any idea of how i feel living my life without Hunter. on a daily basis. just as i don’t know what the cancer survivor feels like living her life on a day to day basis and how that has changed her. or the mother who just birthed a child,… no idea of what that’s really like for her, the experience, the utterly huge responsibility and how her life has been altered.
regarding the ideas in the article about what you say to a new mom,…we are asked to be careful not to say anything that would shut her down, squash her feelings,…. while i think that would be a very sensitive route to take with her, with others, i just don’t see how that could work, in a sustainable way and in a broad sense. can we really expect others to “know” how to treat us around our major life experiences?
even though i would love love love for someone to really truly know how i feel,… it’s just never going to happen. because i am me and you are you and we have different life perspectives and experiences. we see it from our own vantage point. very personal.
maybe this one was just meant for me. and maybe that one, just for you.
so who cares anyway. but me. for me. and you. for you.
and i think, for now, that’s really who should care.
pets ♡ love is love 
