When my father died, so many years ago, my heart was broken. And then it got broken again. In the hours and days after his death, I was comforted by family and friends. But I couldn't help but notice who was missing, people I cared about, people I thought cared about me, who didn't call, didn't come, weren't there. Later, much later, I asked a few of those people why: Where had they been? Why didn't they come? And the answer was always the same.
They didn't know what to say. They didn't know what to do. So they didn't say anything. They didn't come.
Here is the truth. It isn't hard. It isn't scary. Death is not contagious. The answer is: Go. Say you are sorry. Tell a funny story. As my friend Jack used to say, 90 percent of life is just showing up. In hard times, it's probably closer to 99 percent.
It's easier, of course, when the person who died was very old, when they lived a good life, had the chance to follow their dreams and see their children and even their grandchildren grow up. Then you can say, it is God's will, the way of the world, a life well-lived. Then you can smile and say, look what they left behind, all the children who live on. Let's drink to him. Then you can say, if you're younger
still, this is not about me.
My father died at 54. There were children, not grandchildren. My best friend died at 53. Her mother was still alive. Her oldest grandchild was a baby. God's will? I don't know.
I am sitting on a plane flying to my friend Tony Snow's wake. He was 53. He had a wife he loved, three children he adored. In a business that is full of snakes and sleazebags, of cheaters and charlatans, he was a sweetheart, a decent and honorable man who loved his family, his country and his work. Why him? Because his mother died of the same disease when she was 37? Bad genes is just not a good answer.
Here is what I know. You never stop missing the people you love. It never gets "all better," the way the scrapes and bruises of childhood do, the way career disappointments and broken romances do. It never goes away. It just becomes part of your history.
It was my friend Patrick who told me that, after my father died. At a time when others were pulling away, he would sit with me. His brother had died when he was a kid. His family was ripped apart. And then time passed. Life went on. And his brother, and his brother's death, became part of his history, a scar and not a gaping wound.
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