My heart still breaks

I don't know any other way to say this then to say it how it is: my heart still breaks when other people die. ...and it always will, I think. ...and that is a good thing, I think.

Nearly three weeks ago, I had news that one of my former students' wife died - at 26 - of a rare cancer. Two and half weeks ago, my dear friend and roommate lost a close friend of 22 years. Last night, a friend of my brother's passed away, at 30 (ish), of cancer with a wife and young son. In the summer, a friend from high school passed away after years of battling brain cancer, leaving his wife and two children.

...and I type my condolences and when I say, "I am so sorry," I literally mean: I. AM. SO. SORRY. I can't type those words on your facebook page without tears filling my eyes. I. AM. SO. SORRY.

I am so sorry...that you have to say good-bye to someone who has been a bedrock to your life; who has occupied your heart; you has become the voice in your head. I am so sorry that your person is no longer physically present to you...and now you have to navigate life without them.




Six weeks ago, I met a man whose father passed away in a tragic accident (before his very eyes) about 6 weeks prior. He (John) was assisting me in a cover letter workshop for my class. For some reason, we were talking about something...maybe how I got to MSU - and, I am now at the point in my life where I weigh whether or not to include that I came to MSU because of my husband and my husband is dead now. I know now that not everyone can handle the information - and I know now that whenever I say something about Dan dying...I am met with, "I'm sorry."

When I shared whatever I was saying, John then told me about his dad. ...and I said the obligatory, "I'm sorry" (and laughed - it wasn't out of context; it was the type of conversation we were having; trust me it wasn't a weird heartless thing). He laughed, too - and said, "Yes! You'll notice I didn't say that to you - because people have been saying that to me this whole time...and I know now how fake/insincere it comes across. ....and I used to be that guy. I used to say that all the time to people."

...and it's true. I can count on one hand the number of people who haven't said, "I'm sorry," when I mention something about losing Dan. At first it was weird, and then I came to expect something because everybody says it. You just expect that when you're telling the story about how you came to MSU that when you mention Dan passed away that there will be this interruption in your story (I'm sorry), that you have to acknowledge.




...there will be this interruption in your story...




...that you have to acknowledge....





That is why I write it to these people: to my student, to the childhood friend, to the widow I've never met  -- because I know this loss that they've experienced. I know it. I know it so deeply that sometimes I forget the wound. It seems impossible that you could forget the depth of the loss...but healing really does exist. It really does come...

...but, my heart still breaks.

...my heart breaks that these young people - these people whose lives and love I've watched grow and blossom - that they must also share in this deep grief, this heart-shattering, world-rocking loss.



...and you know what? my heart breaks at the unfairness that these beautiful people didn't get to live out their dreams.

With today's loss, there is just so much parallel between Dan and Chasen's stories. They were not the same - but there are so many parallels. ...and you know what? I'm so mad that these two were taken in the prime of their life. That these two men with dreams and goals and abilities to make them realities instead were given a cup to drink that included cancer and dying too early... and I'm just broken about it.

I'm so mad that Dan didn't get to live out his life. He finally made it home. He finally made it to a place that appreciated his work, effort, and truly valued him... and he didn't even get a year. and the year that he did get was filled with chemo appointments, sickness, pneumonia, and back pain ...and the unfairness of it all is so...upsetting to me, today.

He would have been so good at his job. When he had to make the call in late December 2015 to not field a team for 2016 - that broke his heart. He loved working. I am so sad that he never got to fulfill his dream.


...and sometimes the unfairness that instead I'm left behind to try to decipher his dream and his goal and see it become life - or to make something that remains that tells the world of Dan Kiesling - I just feel so inadequate to that task, sometimes. I was ready to support his dreams, be his cheerleader - I didn't have the career ambition, he did. Why am I the one left?



I know this post is wandering today. I just want you to know, I guess, that my heart still breaks at the injustice of death. Even when I know that healing can come - that God can be closer to our hearts in grief than we can even imagine to be possible - that God can make beauty from ashes...I still wish that this weren't the case. ...and I wish to God that these beautiful lives were not whisked away so early or that we had to try to make sense of life without them.

Emma, Chasen, Brian, Shay, Dan - they were golden like the sunset.



...and I am so sorry that we have to learn how to live without their physical presence...