My Friend Helped Me Survive the Death of My Son; Then She Died Too

“After someone dies” doesn’t mean “completely absent from your life.”

There is no manual for how to grieve the loss of a loved one. There are no words; there is no fixing it. We can’t wish it away or explain the loss adequately, no matter how hard we try.

Grief must simply be endured. All we can do is figure out a path through the rubble, picking up pieces as we go, and try to hold on long enough to get our bearings and figure out a route forward.

When the loss is sudden, when there is no warning indicator to set our weight and prepare for the impact that will shatter our world, we are left struggling to breathe. We grasp helplessly for an explanation, for meaning, for anything to ease our pain.

I see my life in two parts: before and after the cataclysmic loss of my son. The entire axis of my world shifted when Ben died. Before, I had a map; I had a general idea of what I wanted from this life and how to achieve it. After, I was curled up at the bottom of a cliff, in the dark, gasping for breath, buried in the rubble.

As After became my new reality, as the shock wore off and the loss settled into my bones, my friend Rachel helped me walk through those early, horrible months. Rachel was steady, a fellow mom who empathized and understood my pain, who willingly shared the burden I carried until I was strong enough to bear it on my own.

I remember being hurt and angry that so many people had opinions and judgments about everything I did. They saw everything I did through the predefined filter of their expectations, not for what it was: my experience. Rachel told me, “people’s reactions say more about them and their fear of loss than about you.” She repeated these words several times and never judged me for taking so long to learn the lesson.

When I took a leave of absence from my teaching job, Rachel kept reaching out, never more than a text away. She made me feel connected when I felt most isolated, reaching out regularly to remind me she was there. She reassured me that I wasn’t alone, that I was still part of the school community even though I felt shunned by most of it.

Rachel commiserated, encouraged, and told me I could do the hard things I needed to do. When I laid on the couch crying for two weeks, she told me to get up, breathe through the anxiety, and go hiking. Rachel knew I would find solace and peace out there. She knew I would find my connection to Ben.

Rachel helped me find my voice, just as she did her students.

Before I fully understood myself, Rachel understood that I needed to do things to honor Ben’s memory and begin to heal. She encouraged me to try new experiences, to define what it meant to move forward and still honor Ben’s life.

Rachel had beautiful tattoos, so when I decided to get a tattoo for Ben, I turned to her as my Wise Counsel. After telling me that “Wisdom and tattoo are not words most people put together, Thompson,” she treated it as a teaching moment and walked me through the whole process. I’m sure she was amused at my constant stream of questions.

Rachel, an accomplished artist, helped me with the design concept, listening to the idea and talking through it. Then, when I left NH for WA, she gifted me a sketch of the tattoo design: it included Mount Katahdin — the mountain that Ben and I were supposed to hike together — and an eagle, which she believed was Ben’s sign for me. When I found an artist I liked, Rachel reassured me that I wanted the artist to create an original design. Her drawing was meant for inspiration; it was a starting point and not a blueprint.

When I began writing about Ben, Rachel was one of two women writers who provided an early set of eyes. She read my work critically and gave feedback and encouragement. Rachel helped me find my voice, just as she did her students.

Rachel was my chief cheerleader; she was thrilled when I got an essay published in the New York Times. We laughed ourselves silly when Cheryl Strayed became one of my 25 followers on Twitter as we debated whether that meant I could call Cheryl and ask her to come hiking.

Rachel used to tell me I should write a book; I would respond that I would only do it if she would agree to be my editor.

Rachel believed in signs, in the timelessness of love.

When I wrote an essay about how I desperately wanted to talk to my grandmother the night Ben died and how it felt like each new loss leads you to older ones, Rachel and I talked about her faith. She told me that Jewish customs and rituals help the family accept the loss of physical presence and focus on the spiritual connection that remains.

Rachel believed in signs, in the timelessness of love. When I mentioned the frequency that eagles appear on my travels, she saw them as an indicator that Ben is still here, that his energy, his spirit, remain close. She believed the eagles are trying to tell me that After doesn’t mean Completely Absent. Ben is still part of my life.

Rachel died suddenly on April 7, 2021. She went peacefully in her sleep, no explanation, no warning. The sudden loss ripped opened the well of sorrow I feel over the all-too-recent loss of Ben. I was starting to carry Ben’s loss better, but the weight of Rachel’s loss brought me to my knees.

There I was again, at the bottom of the cliff, digging through rubble, looking for the light.

My tears the last few days have been for both of them, for our families, friends, and myself. The losses are different: my beloved son and my beloved friend, but they are entwined, reinforcing each other. Both colossal, both too soon, both leaving me raw and longing to feel their love, to hear their laughter, to see their smiles in more than a fuzzy dream or imagined moment.

I learned to walk the path of grief in part because Rachel was there to help me figure out the way.

I decided to travel back to NH to be with Rachel’s family and our mutual friends and say goodbye to her. Though the circumstances are tragic, I reconnected with people and places I’ve known for years. I took some time and went to Maine to visit my mother. Also, Ben died in Maine, and I longed to be close to him.

My heart heavy with sorrow, I made my way to the Penobscot River, to a particular spot on the banks where Ben used to meditate. It’s where my family saw an eagle a few days after Ben died and where I first scattered some of his ashes. As I sat there sobbing, talking to Ben about Rachel, I saw not one but two eagles.

I know that Rachel’s sign would be a heron, but she would tell me not to discount seeing two eagles.

I learned to walk the path of grief in part because Rachel was there to help me figure out the way. I’m shattered to tread these steps now for her. My world is a much dimmer place without Rachel’s laughter, love, and wisdom, without her light. But I know she’s still here and that I’ll find her on my travels just as I find Ben.

I’ll feel her presence, alongside my Ben, when I stop and take in the endless view from some mountaintop, or notice the sunlight hitting just so on a river, or see an eagle or a heron. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing more of them than I used to.

We lose people, and we grieve, and we pick up our shattered selves and figure out a way forward. If we’re lucky, we find a friend like Rachel to show us that death doesn’t mean love ends; it means we have to look harder to find it.