Bad News Abroad

Just as a disclaimer, I have a presentation tomorrow to research and write, 3 papers due, and a test I need to study for. So blog writing now is obviously a good choice.

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Driving home from our rural visits, my friend got a call from her sister in the States. She was laughing on the phone, and then her face suddenly turned very serious. She gasped, let out a long string of *&%$#*&#!!! and then asked in her
still-shocked voice, “When’s the funeral?”

This is the third brush with death I’ve had in Senegal.

Experiencing a death abroad is a very strange thing.

Thankfully there have been no deaths of immediate family members of anyone on the program this semester. Friends’ parents and parents’ friends only.

But then again, if you’re the one grieving, this ambigiously defined relationship to the deceased makes the empathy bit even more challenging for your Senegalese support system. Because you have no direct connection to the deceased person, there are no automatic implications of how your life will change as a result of the death. It’s not your mom or dad, so you don’t have to worry about being supported or having that mentor to guide you. It’s not your brother or sister, so you haven’t lost your childhood and lifelong friend. With no clear or obvious relationship defined, it’s hard for other people here to understand what it is exactly that you’ve lost. Who exactly you have lost.

People on the program or in your host family may ask, “Who died?” All you can say is, “a family friend” or “my friend’s dad”… but how could they ever even begin to know who that person really was to you and what their death means from those few words?

Yes, a family friend. But so much more than that, too.

A huge part of grieving is being among the other people who share your same loss. Crying together, remembering together, sitting together. But here, you are literally the only person in the entire country who is grieving this person’s passing. As much as people here would like to try, they just don’t know who or how to grieve. It’s not possible.

When I received news of my own friend’s dad dying this semester, I think it was the most alone I have ever felt in all my time abroad. I had never even met my friend’s dad, and it was something that had been a long time coming. Even so, when I read the news, I just sat with his obituary on my computer screen and bawled. I mean big, heaving sobs.

If I had been in the States among my friends that knew him, I truly do not think I would have had the same reaction. The gift of grieving with other people is that you share your sorrows, you don’t carry them alone. But being far away, alone—I felt a weight, a need to grieve in a bigger way because I was the only one around who could convey the sadness of what had happened.

Being far away when the death occurred was such an isolating feeling, but I sensed such a strong connection to the people who I knew were grieving at home, too. My heart felt like it had left and gone back to the States to join the rest of the people in mourning.

I finally understand the meaning of the phrase, “My heart goes out to you.”

Having already experienced the news of a death at home, I knew what my friend must have been feeling when she got off the phone with her sister. But in the quiet car ride back to Dakar, I knew that even with my experience, I, too, was powerless to reach out to her in the way her friends and family in the States could at this time.

So we rode back in a heavy silence, bodies present, but knowing that each heart and mind was wandering to be with their loved ones in a different corner of the world.