A memory with a lesson learned

Most of the Facebook “Memories” I see nearly every day are perfectly ordinary, just some documentation of what I was doing on that day in previous years—sometimes a long time ago, going all the way back to when I joined Facebook in 2007*. Every once in awhile, though, those “Memories”, especially of things from the past 6 years, can make me reflective. Today was one of those times.

This morning I saw that one of today’s Facebook “Memories” was something I published five years ago today. That post, which I also shared on Facebook’s now-defunct “Notes” feature, was mainly about how people enduring challenges and pain often don’t talk about it, and so, we may never know what “private hell”, as I often put it in those days, they were going through. I used my own experience as the starting point for the piece, something I wrote just nine months after losing Nigel.

What I wrote five years ago today is still valid, though things have definitely changed since then, especially because I lost Sunny, and then Jake, the following year. Also, I almost never have meltdowns like I mentioned, though if I do it’s still related to frustration—a LOT of frustration. Another difference is that I now seldom talk about my journey, which is mainly because the sharp edges of the suddenly solo life I began 5.75 years ago have been ground down a bit and don’t slice me open nearly as much as they used to. I also now understand how grief is a journey, not an event, and the path people walk along on their grief journey is as unique and individual as the person walking it.

As I approach the sixth anniversary of losing Nigel, I can see that I could have predicted at least the rough outlines of what my path became, though I couldn’t see that back then, of course. It’s obvious to me now that my path has been exactly what I needed it to be, filled with all the highs and lows—and mostly neither—I needed to get me this far. But that’s not the kind of thing that lends itself to commentary or narration, and so, I rarely say anything about it.

Even so, the lesson I learned five years ago is still important, and still worth sharing: We usually never know what private hell someone is dealing with at any given moment, so being kind to others is always important. Always.

Nigel would be happy I took that as one of my biggest lessons.

*My “Facebookaversary” was this past Sunday, June 22, and that means I’ve been on Facebook for 18 years, which is nearly as long as I’ve been doing this blog. This blog turns 19 in three months.