Observations across the Kitchen Table of Loss

Observations across the Kitchen Table of Loss

June 6, 2018

What the HELL!  Have I gone insane?  How insensitive, shortsighted, mind blowingly stupid can I possibly be… completely out of touch with my reality.

The culture of our language is permeated with death references.  It is not until you face a death itself that it becomes so blatantly, horrifically evident.  Such language is so hard to avoid and it creeps in when we least expect it.

Innocently speaking of her housekeeping deficits, one says:  “Well, I guess no one has died because of them.” Innocuous in almost any other setting.

Another remarks, “Well, I guess we won’t starve to death”

There’s discussion about well worn shoes:  “Looks like you’ve worn them to death.”…

But the wingdinging daddy of them all:  Gathering at my cousin’s table, with relatives I don’t know well, I sought to normalize the gathering; to ease the pregnant silences with regular getting to know you conversation.  

“So what kind of medicine do you practice?” I say

Joe replies, “Emergency Medicine.”

I use this as a launching pad to talk about regular things, to put us all at ease, but am quickly aware of my mistake.  Our words devolve into what Emergency Medicine is about… saving lives…

My cousin’s widowed husband is sitting at the table and we are talking about cardiac arrest and CPR!  Truly: OMG! What is wrong with me? What I had intended as polite, ease giving words have made me shockingly aware of my undeniable fallibility.

Perhaps he did not hear them, I hope; perhaps he didn’t understand the implications, I fervently` wish; please, I implore, make it that he is full of grace, knowing, as he does, that  our hearts mean him no harm, I pray.

I am aghast, ashamed, saturated with my own inadequacy, unable  to take back the implications of my words. And I am undone, once again.  

Please, Lord, erase my unintentional mistake. Please, Lord, let me be a comforter, a come-alongsider.  Give my words and actions healing power and forgive me of my ridiculous imperfections…as You do, please empower me, then, to forgive myself.