It was late in the evening.  As best I remember, the sun had set and I was at home when my cell phone rang.  The appointed keeper of the funeral home phones was calling to give me a number . . . a number that belonged to a very distraught individual who was presently standing in one of the cemeteries we own, demanding to speak with “the person in charge”.  I always hate it when they use those words.  It generally means I’m gonna get an earful and that’s never pleasant.

I wrote down the number, changed the settings on my phone so it didn’t show mine, took a deep breath, and called.  I’m not sure it even rang one complete time before he answered and proceeded to complain loudly because the flowers he’d left just a few days before were now gone.  He knew there were rules about flowers on the ground and he understood it made mowing more difficult, but there’d just been so much and he hadn’t had time to buy a monument.  He just couldn’t bring himself to do that right now but he was going to just as soon as he could but he just thought surely we could leave them for a few more days . . .

And then he stopped.  He stopped and I heard him sobbing—sobbing while seated on the graves of his wife and daughter in the middle of the cemetery as darkness fell.  His daughter had overdosed, his wife had died of cancer.  The first was a shock, the second expected—and one within just a few weeks of the other.  As he sat there crying he kept saying over and over, “I couldn’t protect her.  I couldn’t protect her.  I’m her dad and I’m supposed to keep her safe but I couldn’t.”

I have never wanted to wrap my arms around someone so much in all my life, but that’s a little impossible when you’re nine miles apart.  We talked for a while, me assuring him I knew he’d done everything he possibly could and him sharing the lengths to which he had gone to try and save her.  Me telling him he couldn’t force her to accept the lifelines he offered and, as hard as it was, reminding him the final decisions were hers—and him assuring me he knew that, but he didn’t feel that.  As the conversation began to wane, I offered to contact our grief counselor and have him call, but he declined.  He just needed to talk.  He just needed someone to listen.  He thanked me but thought he would be ok.  And with those words we parted and I just hoped he really meant it.  The next morning we found his flowers and placed them back on the graves—with a note to ourselves that sometimes there should be exceptions to rules.

Death and Grief walk hand in hand.  When Guilt joins the party the road to adjustment just gets that much longer and that much harder.  Not only must the loss be acknowledged and eventually accepted but there is also the perception that we are somehow responsible for the death of another human being—a human being about whom we cared deeply.  The fact that there may be no truth in that perception is meaningless.  As long as we believe it, that’s all that matters.

I’m not going to tell you that guilt is easily dismissed, because it isn’t.  I’m not going to tell you that time will bring about a new perspective, because it may not.  I am going to tell you that guilt can never be bottled up and held in secret in the hope that, if you don’t acknowledge it, it will just go away.  That doesn’t work for an ostrich and it won’t work for you.  If ever there is a time to literally talk something to death, it comes when guilt rears its ugly head.  Sharing your feelings with those you trust will allow them to offer the reassurance that you aren’t the root of all the evil, and over time that thought can replace the overwhelming feelings of failure—as long as you are willing to forgive yourself for being human.

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