Accepting empathy

Let me tell you a difficult story:

When I was 18 years old, my grandfather died. Not an uncommon story, I know. But, when I was 18 years old, the man who had a large part in raising me (as my own father was in prison throughout my childhood) woke up in his bed one morning and never made it out of it.

I sat there with him in his bed while he clung to life, not knowing in that moment that he was suffering a ruptured aneurysm and the massive stroke that would cause our family to remove him from life support that evening.

It was, hands down, the most difficult, horrible, life-altering moment of my life. At that moment and for many years after it, I was certain that if anything were going to change me at my core, that was it - nothing else could have a greater impact.

And in many ways, I was right. But what I didn't know then is that this moment would ripple throughout my life in so many ways and for so many years. You might be thinking that it's short-sighted to have not imagined that would be the case, but hey, we're talking about an 18 year old, remember?

All this is to say that my grandfather's death was one of the first times I truly knew what it meant to have empathy. When people lost someone, I knew the feeling. I didn't know what to do with that empathy (and to be honest, sometimes I still don't know what to do with it), but I felt it.

Despite the many other life experiences I had up to that point (living with an addicted parent; growing up poor/on welfare; being a step-child old enough to remember vividly the day the younger half-sibling was born; never knowing a father; being the fat kid and suffering effects of bullying; etc), this would be the quintessential moment that I could look into someone's eyes and say "I want to let you know, that I know."

And I never wanted to be able to feel that again. From that moment on, I wanted to distance myself from that connection - as far as humanly possible. I didn't embrace it; I ran from it. In many ways, I became a cold person - someone who did not want to hear about suffering. I did not want to hear about all the reasons and ways people felt defeated and unable or unwilling. I proclaimed that I did not understand it - I didn't get it - and that was that. I convinced myself that I was not the person for them. If they wanted a cheerleader, they could come find me. If they needed a shoulder, they could go find a therapist - because get up, that's why. Just be strong.

I was convinced that strong was who I was and that it would save me from sorrow. I had left empathy so far in the past, I forgot how to do it.

And then I was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease of which there is no cure.

Still couldn't empathize.

And then I suffered a painful injury, sidelining me from my level of fitness and causing severe daily pain.

I still wished people would just deal with it.

And then I got married.

You might be thinking... wait, what? That's a happy thing! So far you've been equating empathy with terrible, even tragic, moments in life...

And you're right. But it was the day (and all the days following since) I married my husband that I felt the weight of my empathy avoidance fall heavy on my heart.

But before it all makes sense, I need to finish my story...

After my grandfather died, as you can imagine, my grandmother was lost. She was devastated. Her husband of 44 years passed away without warning. I was there the moment the doctors told her that he would not recover from the stroke. It was almost 13 years ago and it's still tough to even type those words. I remember her screams.

But in the days following his death, I urged her to be strong. I might've at times even asked her to acknowledge that we were *all* in pain. The memories aren't very clear, but I feared that I was not there for her in the way I should have been. This fear set in when for the first time in my life, I knew what that love was like. Holding hands with my husband, kissing him goodnight, when he calms my fears and I, his, I think of my grandparents' marriage. I think about what it would be like if I lost him.

And my empathy grows so fast that I cannot contain it. Despite everything that had happened in my life, I had finally accepted my empathy. I knew what it meant in that moment to empathize.

And, yes, I went to my grandmother and I told her I was sorry. I told her I was sorry for not understanding how she felt when grandpa died. I cried buckets of tears for thinking that I might've hurt her more then when all she needed was my support and understanding.

But in that moment she told me that I was not as awful as I remembered. In fact, she told me all she could remember was the love that surrounded her in that time and the calmness of my grandfather's spirit that she says was all around her then, letting her know he was ok.

And while I could not identify with her devout faith, I was happy that it was there for her when I might not have been. And more than that, I was happy that I finally accepted my capacity for empathy, understood it, and had the ability to share it with her and others.

The lesson being: sometimes it takes people a while to get what it means to empathize - sometimes the lessons come when we least expect them - and most importantly, we should learn to forgive those who may not know how to say "I get it" and leave it at that. They'll figure it out soon enough. We hope.