The Faces of Grief

I add this posting in honor of my parents, both of whom have passed on: my father Clarence Stolt and my mother Carol Stolt, who penned the following words in August of 1976.

          Since the death of my husband two months ago I have frequently been asked by relatives and friends, “How are you doing?” I usually respond “Pretty good” as I find it very difficult to state verbally the depth of feelings I do have. But the other day when I was thinking certain thoughts I decided I should put them down on paper.
 

            How deep a wound can grief cause before it starts to heal?  How long must I wake in the morning with that hurt feeling in the pit of my stomach – the feeling one has when you leave for your first day of school, or the day you begin a new job. It’s the feeling of quivering uncertainty inside which you try to cover up on the outside.
 

            I think to myself, “How could I have better prepared myself for this?” or “What could I have done beforehand to ease the hurt and help the pain?” There is no way one can realize the effect of the death of a loved one until it actually happens to you.
 

            At first there is the excitement of having relatives and friends there to support and help with the many funeral plans which need to be made. This occupies your mind almost totally at first. After the funeral is all over there is a great need to be alone just to catch your breath. Then the legal matters, which must be attended to keep you busy, and your mind is focused on what must be done first. Finally things settle down and minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, grief starts seeping in to your heart and your soul.  When you are busy with family and friends the pain and fear can be shoved to the back of your mind. But in those odd, fragmented moments when time suddenly catches up with you, those precious memories keep crowding in to your mind, and nothing will blot them out.

 

 

             It is hard to know what things my jog the mind and cause the tears to flow. It hits as suddenly as an attack of indigestion. It can be triggered by the refrain of a Guy Lombardo tune, the sight of a beautiful sunset, the sound of a friend’s voice, finding an old letter tucked away in a drawer, finding the old fishing shirt he wouldn’t let you throw away, even seeing the tomato plants he nurtured in the back yard. That’s when the grief rips at the very core of your being, and you wonder if life is ever going to be good again.
 

           Grief is a slow process. There must be time for tears and sadness before our hearts can begin to heal. There will always be a corner of your heart which will hold the hurt no matter how many days, weeks and years pass.
 

           After the initial phase of grief, as days and months go by, a new kind of emotion takes over – the kind of feeling that makes you feel warm inside when you remember something he said, an old habit that was as much a part of him as his voice, the way he laughed at a joke, or the nice things that people remember about him. When this takes place you are turning the corner and have conquered the hardest part of it.
 

            Grief can send you in to the darkest pit of agony, from which you may never quite return, or it can take you down a tenuous, frightening path for a while. When you get to a point when you tell yourself – and show the world – that you will no longer be the victim of death, then it all turns to that feeling of gracious thankfulness that you did know and love this person for the time you did; that you are blessed to have three wonderful children who are a part of him that lives on. Then you feel strong enough to face the future, knowing he would be proud of you and would say, in that inimitable way of his, “I knew you could do it, Mama.”

 

When I Grow Up I Want To Be…

         
            What did you want to be when you were growing up? What wondrous, unfettered dreams first took hold in that developing cerebral cortex of yours? Maybe you can’t quite recall. Long time ago, right?

            I’d be the same way were it not for an irreplaceable store-bought scrapbook my mother kept entitled "My School Years." In it my mother archived the class pictures, report cards, notes, even height and weight statistics from my long-ago grade school years. It may be quaint and antiquated now, but going through its contents now always makes my past and my present come alive, if only for one reason.

            At the end of each school year, each chapter if you will, is a little section where the student could complete a simple statement:

            WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A –

            There were little boxes next to given occupations, and one could simply put a checkmark in any one of them. Understand, this was a different time, so the choices offered were, to say the least, clichéd. If you were a boy, did you want to be a Fireman? Policeman? How about a Cowboy or an Astronaut? If you were a girl, was it going to be a Nurse, a Secretary, an Airline Hostess? If so desired, a girl could even check the box declaring her intention to become a Mother.

            Ah, the choices we could make.

            According to the book, in the First Grade I wanted to be a Scientist. The following year my vocational interests apparently drifted a bit. That year I wanted to be, of all things, a Private Investigator (a write-in vote). By the Third Grade I decided to give myself some options – I wanted to be either a Fireman or a Football Player. Maybe both.

Sure, why not?

            Well, in case you haven’t already guessed, none of those choices came remotely close to fruition for me. Hell, I never even played high school football.

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"The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why." 

                                                                                                             -- Mark Twain

Back in my formative years this was a playful little exercise, nothing more. But now in my more mature mind it raises a deeper question - why do some people come to know what they want to do with their life’s work and actually achieve it, while the rest of us struggle and bounce around for years trying to find our 'calling,' if indeed we ever do?

           What triggers that fateful light bulb to flicker on for some and not for others? Divine Intervention? Karma? The way one particular strand of DNA molecules happened to wrap around another? Or is it something a little more down-to-earth, like parental guidance and good education, mixed in with some hard work and spirited determination?

I’m not talking about Mozart-like prodigies or millionaire athletes. I just want to know how and why some wonderfully average people come to find their ‘thing’ with such certainty early on in their lives.   

Why? Because I wish I would have had such a revelation.

            That's not to say that anyone has an easier road just because they know what they want to do. We all have our struggles, our highs and lows, our lucky breaks and dead ends. No free passes when it comes to that. Nor should there be.

And not everyone needs to have that magical, mystical 'aha' moment in order to lead a productive and fulfilling life. But it stands to reason that, much like taking a long vacation trip, those who know ahead of time where they want to go have an advantage over those who simply get in the car and start driving, hoping against hope they’ll come upon their ‘true purpose’ before it’s too late.

            I write these words not as a scientist, fireman or former football star, but rather as a man of steadily growing years who is still learning, still wondering, still looking for that special road sign that might point me in the direction of doing my life’s work.

So what do I want to be when I grow up? I guess only time will tell. And like it or not, maybe that is the best answer of all.

             

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"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle." 

                                                                                                             -- Steve Jobs

 

           

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