Sunday, December 13, 1998

Tales of loss and recovery keep us alive

By Sharon Randall

I was in a rush, trying to fit too many errands into too little time, when I ran into a woman whose daughter had gone to kindergarten with mine.

We hadn't seen each other in years, but she knew a lot about me and my children, she said, from reading my columns.

I get that a lot. So do my kids. They joke about the book they plan to write someday. Well, I think they're joking.

Glancing at my watch, I asked the woman about her family. The look on her face told me more than her words.

"I know you lost your husband," she said. "I lost mine, too. Eight weeks ago." Suddenly, I was no longer in a hurry. "I'm so sorry," I said, and she nodded.

It's been a year, almost, since my husband died. In that time, I've met or heard from hundreds of people, women and men, young and old, who have reached out to me in my loss by telling me about theirs.

Early on, in those first weeks after my husband died, I found it amazing that anyone -- let alone, so many people, most of whom I'd never met -- could find the grace to see beyond their own grief and try to comfort me in mine.

It amazes me still, but I'm beginning to understand it. As a child, I was taught that any pain that didn't kill me would only make me stronger. I don't know about that. What I do know, or what I'm learning, is that to comfort others is a way to find it for ourselves; to bear another's burden somehow lightens our own.

I don't know why it works that way: I only know it does. So I forgot about errands and quit checking my watch, as much for myself as for her.

She told me about the heart attack that took her husband without warning, without even a moment for saying goodbye.

It was very different, she said, from the way I lost my husband, who battled cancer for almost four years.

"I don't know which way is worse," she said.

"One is no worse or better than the other," I said. "They're just different."

Then she asked about my wedding ring. How did I know when to stop wearing it? I didn't plan to tell this story, but, oh well, here it is.

Some months ago, expecting major house guests, I hired a cleaning crew to do things I had little time or inclination to do myself. They did a fine job. But after they left, I discovered that my wedding ring was missing from the chest where I'd left it when I went out to work in the yard.

My husband had inherited the ring from his mother, who died of cancer before we were married. It belonged not just to me, but to my children.

Loathe to accuse unjustly, I tore my house apart searching. No ring. So I called the young woman who had worked in my bedroom, told her what the ring meant, asked if she might help me get it back.

She could've denied taking it. Instead, she did the right thing. That is how I got my ring back. And how I decided not to wear it any more.

When you lose something you love, you discover in time that you don't need to see it to keep it safe in your heart.

As to the timing, there is no right or wrong. Loss is a road we all walk sooner or later. But we each have to walk it at our own pace.

Sharon Randall is a winner of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and the Best of the West commentary awards. Her column regularly runs on Sunday.

Scripps Howard News Service