The Absence of Pain

Dear Rachel,

It’s been five months, almost to the day, since you were killed. It’s interesting, the phases of grief one goes through. Numbness strikes first: You feel nothing, not even any real pain. You go through the day with no affect and without taking note of the world around you, except to wonder why things appear so normal. How could the sun rise, you wonder. How could the wind blow? Why is the earth still spinning? You get through the day, doing what you have to do, but wondering all the while: How can I get up and get dressed? How can I be brushing my teeth when such a terrible thing has happened?

Then comes the pain. Agonizing, gut-wrenching spasms of aching loss that feel as if someone is tearing apart your heart even as it continues to beat. At the same time, you feel guilty: What should I have done differently? Could I have done anything to save her? Was I a good enough father? Did she know how much I loved her? This is when you begin to understand why some people shut down completely or dive into a bottle, why a bereaved parent might go over the edge and never quite make it back. Or how a person could be so crushed by a loss that he feels the only way out is to take his own life. I never understood before how someone could hurt so much that he might feel that suicide is his only recourse, but I understand now. When the pain is so great, when the sense of loss is so overwhelming—and when there appears to be no end to it—one must wonder, “Why do I bother to go on? If this is what it's going to be like, if this is how I’m going to feel for the rest of my life, then I can’t handle it. I’m not strong enough. I need to find a way out.”

But that feeling doesn’t last forever. Eventually things ease up just a bit; I find that I can now get through the day feeling mostly okay. Busy with work or visiting a friend, spans of minutes can go by without thinking of you, and then the minutes become an hour. Imagine, an entire hour without feeling any real pain. Sadness, yes; I guess you’re never completely out of my mind. But that searing pain has abated, and I find that I can get a certain amount of enjoyment out of some things: writing an article, joking with a friend (Who would’ve ever thought that I could joke again?), getting a subroutine to work correctly, cleaning up an old motorcycle that I recently (and foolishly, I know) bought to mess around with.

I wonder, though, if I’ll ever again feel true joy. You know, the kind of goofy, unbridled enthusiasm I used to feel when playing the drums or coming up with a way to improve the magazine or putting together a new computer and watching it boot up for the first time. Or the happy wonder of suddenly realizing (again!) that I have a fantastic wife, two beautiful daughters, a challenging job, and a great life.

Maybe I will. I wouldn’t have thought so at first, but I’m now feeling better for longer stretches of time, so perhaps there’s hope. It occurs to me, though, that the absence of pain is not the same thing as the presence of joy.

Love,

Dad