The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
The never ending journey of grief
I have struggled emotionally and mentally over the last few weeks on how I would tackle the “Israel-Gaza situation” on this blog.
I have been very vocal in some areas and completely silent in others. It is such a polarising discussion that divides the world, the media, your friends and colleagues. Even though I know exactly where I stand on the issue, I decided to approach this blog post from a different angle.
One where I know no matter what religious, political or academic views you hold, we can all agree on this one topic - Grief.
Loss. Sorrow. Heartache. Heartbreak.
Grief goes by many names and even more emotions. It is a universal experience, yet it is uniquely personal, often leaving individuals feeling isolated in their pain. While our reactions to grief may differ, we all share a similar journey - a never-ending journey you might say.
The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
These words by Irving Berlin, which I first heard sung by Nat King Cole, was one of my mom’s favourite songs. Growing up she would play Nat King and Natalie Cole songs all the time, and while I came to love this particular song, I never knew what it truly meant until she was gone.
In the months and years after my mom’s passing, I would listen to this song often. Cole was so perfectly able to capture the essence of my grief - a profound sense of loss where her physical being was gone, yet her memories and presence continued to linger on and resonate in my heart.
Grief is not just an emotional response - it is a catalyst for profound personal change. When someone we love dies, the world as we know it shatters, forcing us to reconstruct our reality. Our very sense of self.
I have a vivid memory in the wake of my dad’s passing. When all the logistics was over on the night he died (someone had to drive my dad and my sister’s cars home after… thank you Craig and Jason!) my sister had come home with me and had finally managed to fall asleep. I sat on the stairs alone in the dark and tried to make sense of “forever”.
I would never see my dad again. Never. Forever. Its such an overpowering emotion. I was flooded with memories - memories of us working together, driving in the car all day every day - discussing both the meaning of life and mundane things like whatever movie or series we were both watching. Memories of hugs, back rubs, laughter, love, discussions and debates (damn my dad loved to debate - I definitely got this from him!) I remembered not only the good, but the bad too - arguments, fights, stress and sadness.
I remembered it all - and forgot it all in an instant. Forever. I wouldn’t have any of those experiences with my dad ever again.
I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before - I never cried at either of my parents’ funerals. For years I “boasted” that I never shed a tear, that I dealt with my grief internally. Like a man. Like my dad had raised me. I cowboy’d that shit!
That was a lie. That night. In the dark. Alone. On those stairs. I cried - I cried not only for my brother and sister, not only for my aunts and the rest of my family, not only for the loss of my dad - the beacon of virtue and love that I looked up to every day - but for the death of the new memories that I knew would now never be made.
I thought of weddings, births, family reunions and even those silly mundane conversations I would share with him while we snuck and drank Roxies chocolate milkshakes together before heading home after work for dinner.
I ugly cried.
Yet my dad taught me to be a man. Everything I know about being a man, of being honourable, a loyal friend, a lover - a mensch - I learned from him.
I was the man of the house now - so I wiped away those tears and said goodbye to my grief, said goodbye to my dad... or so I thought.
“When one person is missing the whole world seems empty.”
- Pat Schwiebert
I can’t begin to understand the profound sense of grief families from both Israel and Palestine must be feeling (or Ukraine. Russia. Afghanistan. Algeria. Burkina Faso. Sudan and more) right now.
However, as someone who has been through his fair share of grief and loss, I thought in some way I could share my experiences and how I have learned to find strength and empowerment through it.
For those of you who know me well, will know I collect quotes like kids collect Pokémon cards. So expect this post to be filled with them! I have always found comfort in reading and escaping my reality. During my search for comfort and meaning in my grief, I often came across quotes that encapsulated how I was feeling and I will share some of them during this post.
“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”
- John Green, The Fault in our Stars
One of the most painful realisations you discover in grief, is that it never fully goes away. The loss becomes part of your life. Your narrative. At the very core of your being. Every new decision, memory, experience you make going forward is in some way changed by your loss.
I am not going to bore you with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's model of the five stages of grief - we have all heard of them, some of us have even experienced them, but what I will say is that once you have gone through them, it does reveal to you who you are as a person.
I, together with my brother and sister, had to go through this pain twice. In the space of a year.
As I spoke about in my previous post, we lost our mom just over a year later. In the most terrible of ways: I made a decision that again changed the fabric of my being forever. After almost 2 years of suffering, I signed a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order and told the doctors to let my mom go the next time she stopped breathing (which was very often, almost daily at this stage). I’m sure if you have watched ER, House or any of the many dozens of medical shows on TV… you have seen this situation play out.
This decision not only went against the Jewish religion (its not for us to decide when someone dies, that is God’s decision) but went against my own personal beliefs too! Yet in that moment, seeing the quality of life my mom had (or lack thereof), seeing the suffering of my siblings, my family, my mom’s friends, hell even the nurses - I made the tough call (as my dad would have put it) and eased her suffering.
Even though, according to some, this decision will ultimately lead to me not being granted access to heaven one day, I stand by the decision.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I honestly believe that had I not lost my dad, had I not gone through and learned from that grief - I never would have had the strength to end my mom’s pain.
Their deaths changed me.
Grief is like a rollercoaster. Your emotions soar to heights of sadness and depths of anger. You go through periods of guilt (of which I have a lot) and disbelief. Yet, every once in a while, if you are lucky, you get to experience a sense of joy and happiness in that grief.
I said earlier that I had dealt with my grief. I had not.
Years later, after avoiding therapy, not crying at their funerals, and partaking in a particularly dark joke with my brother and sister that my parents had not in fact died, but rather had faked their deaths and were living their best lives in Hermanus, (A story by the way, that we all still cling to and repeat to each other to this day!) I had an emotional awakening.
Well lets call it what it was - a breakdown - followed by an awakening.
In my first post I spoke about my physical suffering. In the second I spoke about my emotional pain. What I never told you was how I managed to get through it.
One of the many things I did to try and lose weight and repair my body was to water fast. I started out like everyone else - intermitted fasting, but I built myself up to long-term fasting - 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, eventually even longer… I even dabbled in long-term dry fasting! This is when you don’t even consume water during your fast.
Now there is a lot of information out there on the side effects of long-term / dry fasting - one that is almost never written about are the “seeing Jesus” moments - the clarity of mind and thought that lets you delve deep into your own psyche. Not many experience this, and for the most part neither did I. (Side note: this makes me truly want to try ayahuasca and a full purging experience!)
However, I remember one Saturday afternoon, lying on the couch - deep into one of my longest fasts ever - day dreaming about food - when my parents popped into my head. But for the first time in a very long time - not in a negative or sad way. I floated through memories of growing up, of the lessons they taught me, the values they distilled in me.. basking in the bliss and happiness of spending time with them - even if it wasn’t real…. but then something strange happened.
My thoughts changed from memories of the past, to hallucinations of the future. I lived memories of my parents being at my nieces and nephew’s births. Of them hosting Shabbat dinners like they used to every week - but this time with all the family there. I had a chance to see my own life from their points of view - of the man I had become - and realise just how their lives and their deaths had shaped me.
It was cathartic. It was incredible. It was horrific! :)
Remember earlier when I said I had ugly cried? This made that seem like a comedy show. I cried for what felt like hours. Days. An Eternity. Forever. But yet these tears were different. They were tears mixed of sorrow, anger, grief but also of joy, hope and acceptance.
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed
to death with the pain of it.”
- JK Rowling
Yet my pain seemed to vanish. I passed out that evening a sobbing mess, but woke up the next morning reborn. I woke up as the man my dad had raised me to be.
My grief had transformed me.
Grief teaches us to develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and our capacity to feel. I can’t speak for everyone, but I experienced an emotional revolution that day that lead to an increase in my ability to feel empathy, a greater capacity for compassion and dare I say it, I became a more evolved human - capable of finally understanding the complexities of human emotion.
I became a better friend. A better older brother. A more compassionate co-worker. A greater lover (yes I said it!).
I allowed myself to go deep into my grief and my love that day. Rather than striving to “get over it” as I had done for so long, I made the decision to just accept it - to integrate it into my life. Learn to live with it. Learn from it. Grow from it.
This acceptance didn’t diminish my loss, like I feared it would for so long - but actually finally allowed me to acknowledge its impact on my life. It allowed me to re-look at experiences and decisions I had made since my parents’ death and realise what they were and where I had gone right and wrong. I got perspective.
I felt a deeper sense of love for my parents, for my brother, for my sister after that day. Feelings that have stuck with me ever since.
“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”
- E.A. Bucchianeri
Getting back to the moment - as I said in the beginning - one of the universal truths is that death comes for us all. Grief is inevitable. Its how we deal with it that matters.
In the conflicts and casualties of war - grief goes in one of two directions in my mind. It goes in the direction of Viktor Frankl - who despite losing most of his family to the Nazi concentration camps - spent the rest of his life inspiring others, living with love and searching for life’s meaning.
Or it goes in that other direction. The direction I won’t speak of in this post - the direction that led to the events of October 7th. The direction where for every life lost, another life of terror is born.
Hatred is taught, you are not born with it. I choose to believe that under different circumstances, with different morals and upbringings - like the ones I learned from my parents - those who choose a life of terror or hatred could have lived a life of love, of joy and of kindness instead.
I choose to believe that this hatred, this desecration of human life comes from fear. Fear for their own families, fear for their way of life and fear of the unknown. I choose to believe that those who act the way they do, who opt for terror and chaos over peace and love - do so out of misguided indoctrination and fear.
The alternative to me is unthinkable.
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
- C.S Lewis
The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
In the aftermath of loss, the melody of our loved one's life continues to echo, re-shaping our hearts, minds and lives. Grief, while painful, is a powerful teacher and agent of change.
It challenges us, breaks us down, but also builds us up into more compassionate, understanding, and resilient humans. As we embrace this transformation, we honour not only our loved ones, but also the continual growth of our own lives.
My only hope is that in the aftermath of this war. Of any unnecessary war. There can be understanding. Acceptance that there is a better way - and that after both sides have had time to grieve in their own ways, that they can somehow come together in peace. In love.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.
I think the closing lyrics from Berlin’s song incapsulates what I am trying to say here:
And the melody seemed to say
summer will pass away
Take your happiness while you may
I hope that everyone who has experienced grief, is going through it now or is trying to deal with its pain daily, gets a chance to take their happiness while and where they can!
I’d like to end off with another memory of my parents and song from Nat King Cole. A memory that every time I think about it or hear this song, it makes me cry.
I remember fondly when my parents used to cook together in our family kitchen, a time when they were at their most happy - and my dad’s favourite Cole song would begin to play - Unforgettable, and they would sing together:
That's why, darling, it's incredible.
That someone so unforgettable,
Thinks that I am unforgettable too.
Mom, dad - you are unforgettable too.
Sending love and peace to all of the hostages being released and to the families on both sides who are sitting on those stairs. In the dark. Alone. Crying with grief.
I love you all. We love you. You can and will get through this.
SK. 🩶