It’s Sunday afternoon when I write this, and the sun is
almost out. How nice it is after two
weeks of unremitting gloom. As it grows
lighter outside, I grow lighter inside as well.
Which is odd when you consider what I’ve been thinking about.
Grief.
We all see a
lot of it in our lifetimes. When we’re
young and if we’re lucky, we see it from afar.
We see old people die and it’s too bad, but...you know, they’re old. Then, of course, comes the time when it’s not
from afar and the person who passes on isn’t old. This is when we really find out about grief.
My grandmother
died when I was seven, and even though it felt strange that she wouldn’t sit at
the table and drink from her cracked cup anymore, she was eighty-four. So I didn’t grieve. Not really, though to this day, I think of
Grandma Shafer when I see a cracked coffee cup.
Then when I was eleven, a 10-year-old schoolmate died. Fifty years later, I still feel profound sorrow
when I think of her. She was smart and
funny and had so much to give here on earth that even now I have difficulty
coming to terms with her death. But I
couldn’t identify the feelings I had about her passing, couldn’t explain the
tears that came to my eyes for years whenever I thought about Cindy being
buried with her red cowboy boots.
When I was
thirteen, I lost the only grandfather I’d ever known, and the hurt came in
waves, like the throbbing from a bee sting.
He died in June, and by the time school started, I’d gotten over the
worst of it, but junior high was different than it might have been. Because grief wasn’t far away anymore.
I’ve thought
about it, off and on over the years.
When my parents and father-in-law died, it hurt, but the grief part of
it was far-flung, long lasting, and unexpected.
Life was so busy--we came home from Louisville after my father-in-law’s viewing
to go to my son’s football game, then went back the next day for the
funeral--that it just went on. I would
see things, of course, that made me think of the parents we’d lost, and I kept
Christmas-shopping for my mother long after she was gone. She was always hard to buy for, and I’d see
things she’d like. And then, in the
middle of J. C. Penney or Kmart, I would mourn, because I couldn’t give them to
her.
We often drive
by the cemetery where my parents are buried.
Sometimes we are past before I even think about it and occasionally I
wave--“Hi, Mom”--and sometimes those bee sting waves of hurt strike again. They’ve been gone for nearly 30 years; how
can this be?
Sometimes we
grieve for things--items irreplaceable but gone, or times--youth, when
everything worked right and gravity was our friend, or even places--remember
the Roxy and the railroad hospital and those spooky mansions on North
Broadway? Now and then it is a state of
mind we miss, or a conversation we wish could have gone on longer, or a
friendship we wish we could go back and fix because we blew it big time.
I write a lot
about gifts because, being the Pollyanna sort of person that I am, I think
nearly everything is a gift. While I
realize that this can be annoying to people who get tired of trying to be happy
when they’re just not, I find it much nicer than being unhappy when I don’t
have to. (Don’t even try and straighten
that sentence out—you can’t do it.) But
even I’ve never considered grief a gift.
Until now.
Because until
you love somebody or something, you can’t grieve losing them. I wouldn’t still miss my mother if she hadn’t
had such a positive and profound effect of my life. I wouldn’t remember Cindy’s red cowboy boots
if I didn’t recall their owner with affection.
I wouldn’t smile at cracked coffee cups if not for the grandmother who
died when I was seven.
The buildings
and the times and the friendships that are gone all leave remembrances and, in
many cases, laughter, behind them. So,
even though the Roxy is gone, I remember watching Woodstock
there and singing along, “...one, two, three, what are we fighting for...” And although the high school now climbs the
Broadway hill in Peru, I remember walking quickly past the railroad hospital
because it was scary looking. It is fun
to remember that.
I remember
boys who went to Vietnam . None of them were still boys when they came
home, and some didn’t come home at all.
A part of me—and of everyone else who remembers the Vietnam era—mourns
them still. But another part remembers
how tall they walked and all that they gave.
There was one who seemed stronger and better than the others and though
I’m still sorry he had to go there and I regret the 14 months of his life he
can never get back, I’m happy he came home safe. And married me.
So there you
have grief. It tangles up with memories
and joy and good things. It is, when all
is said and done, a gift.
Till next
time.