On Friday morning this week, I randomly pull up a video about grief on social media. A mother whose son died from a deadly form of brain cancer was being interviewed about her painful, two-year path of dealing with loss. Everything she said resonated with me. It feels odd that last week, the world emerged with joy and welcomed me with open arms, and that seven days later, sorrow is on my mind. It is as though my somnolent heartbreak collection has been awakened and called to attendance.
In some ways, I am not surprised. I am listening to a fictional Audible book about a twelve- year-old child who is the lone survivor of an airplane crash. It is an odd selection as stories about accidental deaths are not my favorite genre. I wonder if I choose books that allow me to process my emotional meanderings or whether my choice of literature initiates introspection. Who knows? But I am on that familiar, time-tested journey.
I remember the last time I spoke to my father. I was eleven years old, and we were in the basement of our family home talking about the new litter of kittens my cat had brought into the world. (This was long before we were aware of how important it was to spay cats that were allowed outdoors.) I was obsessed with the furry little nuggets, and my dad smiled at me fondly and acknowledged me warmly. He turned and left to go to the airport for a short business trip, striding up the stairs as though it was simply another day of teaching and laboratory research. I never saw him again.
I am disconcerted by the fact that I had no warning or intuition about what was to come. I was just like a little woodland fawn, watching the family buck wander off into the capricious target range of deer hunters. You would have thought that the universe would have signaled me to run after my father for one last hug or to ask one more time when he would be back. But no. I just returned my attention to my baby kittens and rearranged the nursing line-up so that the runt was ensured of getting his fair share.
Death devastates us. Its cruelty is disproportionately significant when children lose a parent. You do not just lose the person, and you do not just lose the life you had with that person; you lose the life you would have had with them in the future. Your entire identity changes in the one explosive flash. The structure of my family of origin disappeared in a heartbeat. Everything I thought I could become, the possibilities and assumptions of my life disintegrated. At least I believed they had.
I wish for all of us that healing from sorrow and loss were linear events that could be counted down like days before stitches are removed or the plaster cast comes off your leg. You could look back on every day of existence knowing that tomorrow will be incrementally easier. But the heartbreak pathway is not a paved, level esplanade; it is a circuitous route over uncertain terrain, at least for a long time.
Either by coincidence or providence, my brother and I receive a telephone call this week from a representative of a non-profit organization inquiring about whether we would be willing to sell real estate we own in Kentucky to the National Park Service. We are stirred by the idea that the land might eventually become a national historic park. I remember my mother telling me that my father loved the idea that it might become a place whose natural beauty would be accessible to the public. The remains of my father, my mother, and my sister are sprinkled throughout the lush and profuse acreage.
I remember scattering my mother’s remains at the property years ago, on a sunny October afternoon bursting with autumn vigor. I see the pictures of that day in my mind vividly, my brother and his family shuffling through fallen leaves, the circling of a lone raptor overhead, my unbridled sorrow barely constrained by the solemnity of the occasion. I recall the long-sleeved fuchsia shirt I wore, its colorful warmth complementing the richness of the small, dark walnut box I cradled in my arms.
As I email my brother about responding to the national park service inquiry, I glance down at my wrists on the computer keyboard. I am startled to see that I am wearing that same shirt. It is though the emotions of that day have been transported in time and touched down and docked today. It is a tangible reminder that the physical world often manifests the intangible universe.
I feel healed. At least for now.