The Thing Itself

A number of years ago, I worked for the Victims of Violent Crimes Program.

Most referrals were difficult. Some stayed with you longer than others.

This was one of those.

A nineteen-year-old young man had been shot and killed in Compton on a Friday night. He was his mother’s only child.

By Tuesday morning, I was assigned to make the first home visit.

I remember the drive. Not because anything remarkable happened. Because of what was happening inside me.

I had done this work long enough to know there was nothing routine about what waited on the other side of that door. A mother had lost her only son. Four days earlier he had been alive. Now he was gone.

I found myself rehearsing possibilities as I drove. What would she ask? What would she need? What could I possibly say?

The closer I got, the less useful my training felt. Some situations have a way of exposing the limits of expertise. This felt like one of them.

When I arrived, I walked toward the gate. Before I could knock, I heard a voice from the doorway.

“Stop right there.”

I stopped.

“I only have one question for you.”

“Okay.”

“What are you going to do for me?”

I remember freezing. Not because I didn’t have an answer. Because every answer I could think of suddenly felt dishonest.

Her son was dead.

Not struggling. Not depressed. Not hospitalized.

Dead.

I took a breath and told her the only truthful thing I could think of.

“Absolutely nothing.”

She looked at me for a moment.

Then she said, “Come in.”

Inside, she grabbed a portrait of her son and asked if she could drink tequila. I told her yes.

Then she began to cry.

Not politely. Not quietly.

She wailed.

For the next hour, I said almost nothing. I simply sat there.

When the hour was over, she stood up, thanked me, and told me she would see me the following week.

I’ve thought about that moment many times over the years.

Especially recently.

The week my brother died, everyone seemed to have an answer. Not necessarily to his death, but to what it meant. What should be said. What should not be said. Which scriptures should be read. Which officiator should speak. Which traditions should be followed. Which words were appropriate.

Everyone meant well.

My mother. My sisters. The officiator. The guests.

Everyone was trying to help. Everyone was trying to make sense of something that hurt.

I understand the impulse. I feel it in myself.

Pain makes us reach.

Toward answers. Toward beliefs. Toward interpretations. Toward certainty.

Anything that might make the unbearable feel a little more bearable.

Sometimes those things help. Sometimes they comfort. Sometimes they even illuminate.

But there are moments when reality itself has already arrived with all the truth we can carry.

A murdered son.

A dying brother.

A broken heart.

The lesson is already in the room.

Adding more to it does not necessarily make it wiser.

Sometimes it only makes it louder.

A few days after the service, a friend texted me about a piece I had written.

“Agreed,” he wrote. “But it does not diminish the suckness when it happens.”

I laughed when I read it.

Because he was right.

The suckness remained.

My brother was still gone.

The empty chair remained.

The unfinished conversations remained.

The silence remained.

But I also wondered.

What was I really trying to do with the piece?

Was I trying to diminish the pain?

Explain it?

Redeem it?

Or was I simply trying to sit beside it long enough to see it clearly?

The older I get, the less interested I become in explanations.

Not because explanations are wrong. Many are helpful. Many are beautiful. Many are even true.

But some experiences seem larger than our explanations.

Grief is one.

Love is another.

Death certainly is.

Years later, I still think about that mother standing in her doorway.

At the time, I thought she was asking me a question.

What are you going to do for me?

Now I am no longer so sure.

I think she may have been asking something else entirely.

Can you stay?

Can you bear witness without turning away?

I don’t remember much of what happened during that hour.

I don’t remember any great insight.

I don’t remember any breakthrough.

What I remember is a mother holding a portrait of her son while the room filled with grief.

And for once, nobody was trying to make it mean anything.

Nobody was trying to solve it.

Nobody was trying to be right.

There was only a mother.

A son.

And the unbearable reality that one remained while the other did not.

The thing itself.

And sometimes I wonder if that is as close to truth as we ever get.

Alextotle ❤️‍🔥