Alyssa Duncan
Sharyn and I met in 1973. I’d moved to Hamilton, NY with my husband and our three-year-old son after Vic got a teaching job at Colgate University. I was pregnant and mad. I didn’t want to move away from my spiritual community and our home near Seneca Lake.
Sharyn and I connected. We shared the same meditation/philosophy teacher and similar spiritual and social ideas. She was also a hatha yoga practitioner, a musician, a gardener, a woman who knew about herbs and natural healing, and a creative cook. She welcomed three of us, then four. Around 1980, she moved east and I moved west to our home near Seneca Lake. I heard reports of her adventures from a friend.
Dalai Lama at Middlebury College, 1984
In 1984, I saw Sharyn at a gathering at Middlebury College where our spiritual group had an audience with the Dalai Lama. Sharyn was with her husband Tim and their two-year-old daughter Alyssa—a vibrant laughing girl riding high on daddy Tim’s shoulders. That’s how I’ll always remember Alyssa: watching the Dalai Lama and our teacher Anthony Damiani from her privileged perch.
Less than a year later, little Alyssa contracted meningitis and died—suddenly in a few days of disbelief and sorrow. Sharyn was pregnant with their second child. I’m ashamed I did not support Sharyn and Tim well. I must have called or sent a letter, but I didn’t stay in close touch.
We learn the importance of our support after we experience deep grief ourselves.
When Vic got cancer in 2006, Sharyn showed up. After his death, she and Tim visited when they were in the area. I could be honest. My tears didn’t make them flinch.
With Sharyn in the church kitchen
After seeing my brother in Massachusetts last week, I visited Sharyn. I’d stopped by for a few hours in the spring, but this time I stayed for twenty-four hours of gourmet food and soul talk.
I learned that before Alyssa’s illness, Sharyn and Tim began attending an Episcopal Church. It was the music that drew them, but after Alyssa’s death, it was the kind priest and community of support, as well as the healing balm of spiritual music.
Sharyn took me to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church that afternoon. It was two days before the thirtieth anniversary of Alyssa’s death, so Alyssa was on Sharyn’s mind. She showed me the choir stall where she and Tim sing. Light poured through stained glass windows, illuminating the darkened church with spirit.
We walked to the place where “Alyssa K. Duncan: 1983 – 1985” is engraved into the stone exterior of the church. I touched the receded letters that Sharyn and Tim have caressed for thirty years. Alyssa felt both present and gone, in a way I often experience those who’ve died.
When I returned home, I got this message from Sharyn:
It was a real balm for the heart to see you and to be with someone who ‘gets’ deep grief – a hard-earned distinction. A line from a piece by Mendelssohn has been going through my head today – -‘Shouldst thou, walking through grief, languish, He will quicken thee.’
When we walk together in grief, we lean into Spirit and each other for support. Once we’ve been through major loss, we know the importance of our presence as witness and friend. We understand why a mother and father grieve for a child who died thirty years before. We understand that grief is a natural part of love. We understand the wisdom of Ram Dass’s words:
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When you reached out to support a friend, did you receive as much or more than you gave? And when did you fail to show up? My experience with Sharyn helps me remember it’s never too late to admit my shame and contact a friend.
For another post about the value of old friends, see Remember What You Love. For a post about what it feels like to be in the presence of the Dalai Lama, see Zapped by the Dalai Lama. Visit Open to Hope for a powerful set of interviews and articles called After Loss of a Child or Grief Healing for in depth articles and resources about the Death of an Infant, Child, or Grandchild.
This is really beautiful, Elaine. Thank you. Xoxox
Thank you, Sharyn. Makes me happy to honor you and Alyssa and share the heart lessons I’ve learned from you.
Elaine,
You’re so very good at this. With heart and humility, you weave past and present, then wind it all around photos. The photos add a perfect nuance, which words alone just don’t.
Your insights into your own heart and mind always make me want to see myself with such clarity.
Thank you,
Patti
Thank you, Patti. That means so much to me. I let my feelings guide me. If something moves me, a conversation or an image or an idea or anything at all, I dig into it and see what’s there. I had no idea where this piece was going. When I got home I didn’t have a photo of Alyssa or a photo of her name engraved on the church wall. Sharyn sent Alyssa’s photo and Tim went to the church and took the photograph of the wall and emailed it. Usually I’m better at gathering my own photos and I often start with them. What grabbed me this time was the feeling that I showed up for the first time to be with Sharyn and Tim in their grief.
Wao…this is very beautiful..Love it. thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Esther.
Beautiful story Elaine, isn’t it amazing how the divine weaves threads throughout our lives. The threads that disappear and the ones that appear. everything in divine order ! We are in control of nothing, as we travel this road called life, all life lessons and adventures, and yes, we are all just walking each other home…blessings and hugs <3
Yes, it is amazing, Jean. It seems to be our job to keep our eye on the wonder. Thanks for your beautiful grace-filled comment.
Wonderful piece, Elaine. I had no concept of grief until I experienced the devastating loss of my mother.
Prior to that, I can’t tell you how many times I pondered going to calling hours and then thinking, “Oh, they won’t miss me; it’s ‘just me.’ We aren’t that close and we haven’t spoken in years.”
And then there I was in my time of need and people came… people that I wouldn’t have expected to see or hear from – not in a million years, and what a difference their support and kindness made. Now I know that the smallest gesture, whether it be paying my respects at the funeral home or dropping by with homemade cookies or a meal – those gestures mean everything.
I also remember going back to work after Mom’s passing and feeling so angry as I sat in my office and listened to the chatter around me. People had gone back to their normal lives!!
“How dare they! Life will NEVER be the same. What’s wrong with these people,” I thought.
But alas, I had been one of those people my whole life. Once the memorial is over, things go back to normal, right? Oh how wrong I was.
No one understands grief like another who has grieved.
Ann, I wonder how grief and death denial could become part of our culture since we are all mortal, so we all will grieve and die. Seems silly to deny what is factual, but we seem able to forget until we’re faced with the reality of suffering and loss. Like you, I didn’t quite get it, even though I’d been through my dad’s death as a kid–where the whole family didn’t speak about it. The culture of denial is changing and people like you are changing it. Thank you for the wonderful work you do to make us all conscious about Alzheimer’s and grief. We’ll keep holding each other’s hands–even across cyberspace.
This was beautiful, Elaine. Yes, unfortunately I didn’t know anything about grief or supporting a grieving person until I was drowning in grief myself. Sigh.
This seems to be a human trait. It amazes me that even knowing 100% of us will grieve and 100% will die, we’re able to pretend it won’t happen to us.
It’s amazing how life really is a circle. A very profound statement Elaine, “We learn the importance of our support after we experience deep grief ourselves.”
For nobody knows the true extent of grief until we’ve walked into it with our own shoes. 🙂 <3
Thanks, D.G. I know you know.
This is a lovely story Elaine. I have learned since my introduction to grief in 1993,after the death of my husband, that although I was separated physically, spiritually I became closer. And now I like to extend a hand to other grief travelers and feel the closeness with them.
Thank you for sharing so honestly.
Vic feels part of me now, Kim. A resident in my heart, close and accessible. Extending a hand to others is one of the best thing that’s come out of loss. Thank you, Kim.