Shattering Glass Ball

“I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. I scream, but they do not hear me.” – Ellen West (Carl Rogers)

A few weeks ago, someone asked a friend of mine if I was okay. She was referring to the fact that it has been over half a year since my mother passed, and I have seemed different. My friend answered truthfully that I was not. To be clear, my “not okay” is not debilitating. I get up each day and work with the same dedication as always, perhaps even more. In my clinical work, I am as present as ever. Yet, I am not okay. However, as the recent soulful country song “I am not okay” by Jelly Roll expresses, “it’s all going to be alright.”

When I first lost my mother, I felt like I was in a “glass ball,” as Carl Rogers quotes the “desperate cry” of a patient, Ellen West, in his book “A Way of Being.” No matter how much I screamed (or silently mourned as loudly as I could), I did not feel anyone heard me. I was surrounded by family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers offering condolences and support. Yet, I was alone. Alone for two reasons: the unconditional love that had propelled me since birth was gone and irreplaceable, and while I was in my glass ball, I did not believe that anyone could truly understand my loss. However, as time, the greatest healer of all, passed, my glass ball slowly wore thin, and newly appeared cracks increasingly shed new light into my life.

Grief and loss are painful and a heavy weight that does not leave easily. In fact, I don’t believe the weight will ever be completely gone, and that will be alright. The weight is a reminder of the love once had that remains with you. At the same time, the heaviness lightens every day, some days more than others. Tearful memories become joyful. Angry thoughts become appreciative. The feeling of loss replaced by love. Changed but the same. And eventually, the ball comes crashing down, thankfully, making you realize you were never alone with a new sense of self.

There were many naked-to-the-human-eye cracks along the way that have only become clear in hindsight, but there were a few “time to call Safelite” cracks that got me out of the glass ball.

The first crack in my glass ball came from a friend who had also lost their mother recently. She reached out, and we shared our experiences with our loss and those who tried their best but could not illustrate understanding of what we felt. I discovered that things I did not think anyone else could feel were felt by another. I was not as alone as I thought.

The second crack appeared when I returned home after six months away, expecting everything to look different and for her to not exist. It didn’t, and she did. Throughout the house and in the hearts of my family, she remained present, loved, and missed, despite each of our our glass balls being different. I was not as alone as I thought.

The third and possibly final crack was when I finally had a dream about my mother the other week, something I had been waiting for but never came. I will keep the contents of the dream to myself and my loved ones, but it was warm, loving, and beautiful. I was not as alone as I thought.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, after the loss of his father and while mourning his mother, said:

“When my late father died — now I’m in mourning for my late mother — that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

With the shattering of my glass ball (most of it anyway), I was in some ways reborn, forged in the fire of pain, stronger than the fragile glass that isolated me. That strength is, as Rabbi Sacks says, “a new simplicity.” We live in a complex world, which very few would likely call a life of simplicity, but whether it is unplugging, spending time with nature, or just an intentional moment with your wife and children, simplicity is strength. This simplicity, though, only comes when that which distracts you can be pushed aside. That takes tremendous strength or, in my case, painful renewal.

Things do not matter to me as they did before my mother died, and other things matter to me more than ever: family, friendship, personal meaning, purposeful life, and above all, simplicity. There is no more unconditional love to hold me; that ball shattered with the loss of my mother. There is no more isolation to hide me; that ball shattered as I realized I was never truly alone.

We have many glass balls cradling us in our lives at different times. They serve a purpose, and I am grateful for them. But they will and always do shatter. Knowing that is liberating, frightening, and empowering. May we all recognize the limitations of those glass balls, remain in them as long as needed and not a moment longer, and be stronger when we emerge from them.