Reminder: Be Kind Today

By Delaney Couri

I have a friend who went through a terrible loss. This friend’s pain and grief is not mine to divulge, but it is tangible and painful… a walking open wound.

A little while ago was an important date that reminded my friend of their loss. I wanted to reach out and provide a little extra love on this day, so I did what I do with any important upcoming date; I set myself a reminder in my Google calendar. When I input the info into the calendar I didn’t think much of it, but later on it struck me. My friend wouldn’t have to put this date in their calendar. My guess is that if they could, they would forget the date altogether and save themself the pain of remembering. But while I need a calendar invite to help myself remember, they have no choice but to remember. To relive their trauma.

What a privilege it is, to be able to forget. To not have tragedy so intimate, so close to me that in order to mourn with others I need a reminder fifteen minutes ahead of the event.

While my friend walks around, a body, mind, and soul weighed down by pain, people pass them, in the grocery store, at work, in the parking lot, completely unaware of the date they cannot forget. It’s just another Wednesday for most people, but not for them.

This private pain can be helpful in some ways. It allows for grieving to occur outside of the public eye. But it leaves my friend vulnerable to every little reminder, every little offense, every little comment made that may remind them of what they’ve lost.

Humans are unique in this capacity to carry these open wounds alone. When I walked home from work yesterday, I passed by dozens of painted planks of wood that say “open hole” on them, covering up the ground that had crumbled underneath because of construction. My friend is also crumbling, but they don’t have the luxury of caution tape and spray painted signs to show it. Maybe they would want that protection, maybe they wouldn’t. But hidden pain hurts the same way open pain does, nonetheless.

I myself have a few calendar dates that are burned into my brain, reminders of events that I carry around with me on that day. But for me, those events are not just painful on that day, I carry that pain and grief around with me everyday, though after many years, it is normally so faint an echo that I am only reminded on one particular day each year.

It is a privilege to not carry so much pain. It is a privilege to only have a few days each year where I am reminded. Not everyone has such a privilege. And those that do not have this privilege, those that carry those days with them all the time, they are often not seen as carrying the loads that they are.

So, where does this leave me? With a hole in my heart that I keep there for solidarity with my friend. With a date marked in my calendar as a way to remember something they can never forget. And with the reminder that every person I meet in a day may be mourning something on their calendar of life that I may never see.