Loss, Coping and Selfishness
At work today I got a call from my dad telling me my grandfather, whom I had only recently met (a little more than a year) had passed away. I was in shock at first, I think. It was too soon. I had loved him upon meeting him and the joy he had for being able to meet me was more than visible. I’ll never forget how the tears welled up in his eyes when he hugged me last Christmas… our first in over 18 years and our last. He hugged me like I had come back from the dead. To him, I had. I’ve never felt more loved in all my life.
When my parents divorced I was only five and had not had contact with my father or his parents since then. I had never given it much thought but now I am realizing what a loss it has been and, in the wake of my grandfather’s death, how important it is to make up this lost time.
As I said, I loved him upon meeting him. He was the ideal grandfather to me. A funny, crotchety old man who shared many similar interests with myself. I will forever remember his unique way of telling stories. The long pauses and sort of ambling pace that is becoming characteristic of my own story telling ability. As a farmer, he wore overalls and was very tan and very tough. All these things combined with his gentleness and capacity for love and made him to be an ideal grandfather.
Despite all of this, as I have said, I did not get the chance to get to know him as well as I had hoped I one day would. I deeply regret not making more time for him. I do not live very close to him, but I do not live very far. I could have made it more often than not. I don’t think I ever got to tell him how I really felt. He knew I loved him and I had told him so, but there is more to it than that and I would have liked for him to know.
Other than regret, I am met with another feeling. It is almost shameful and I think this emotion hurts me worse than that sense of loss. I feel unusually serene about his passing. I have not cried, and right now I fear I might not at all. I don’t think crying is a necessary part of mourning but as most people do, I associate it with that sense of loss. In truth, I feel that I do not hurt enough and so I am left with guilt for not feeling adequately sad or hurt or anything for that matter. Is it because I didn’t know him as well? My father seems to be coping well, but I think either he had had some coping time of his own or he simply is approaching it as I am. I have seen a lot of death in my lifetime. More than my contemporaries and peers, for certain. Have I learned to adjust to this natural act?
I have always felt that funerals were mostly for the people left behind. My father echoes this sentiment. Death is a natural, uncontrollable and unpredictable thing. We all stand powerless before it, so why make such a big deal when one of us is o’er taken by it? Sure, there is that natural sense of loss and we grieve that we can no longer spend time with the one who is no longer with us. It is all selfishness.
As a self-proclaimed Christian I do believe that there is an afterlife. This one is so short and often wretched and petty that I feel there must be something more beyond it. Is there really? I do not know. I can only hope and hold faith. Some people take comfort in this idea. I am one of them, though to a far lesser extent.
All in all death is our reminder. It slaps us in the face and makes us re-evaluate our priorities. It makes us take a moment and stop taking things for granted. Sometimes the wake-up call sticks, but not too often. I now prepare myself for what I fear will be a torturous 8 hour drive with my mother and sister. If there be a God and he hath any grace, surely he will let me travel alone. There is nothing like driving through wilderness to provide catharsis and nothing like the mountains to help one learn his place in the world. I believe I will recenter myself along the way and come home to a new appreciation for family, life and the meager living that I have.
The Heart of the Matter
For as far back as I can remember into my early teenage life I have always wanted to live in a place where I could be close to the heart of the people around me. That in and of itself is a rather difficult statement to interpret and being such I will spell it out a little more clearly.
I want to live in a place that knows what it has and wants nothing more. Be it country or city. I have found that the suburbs are generally ruled out since everyone and everything in the suburbs wants something more than he/she/it already has. The suburbs are not shrines to contentment. Were I to choose to live in a city, I would want that city to be proud of its achievements and its shortcomings. I would want the citizens there to love each other simply for being a citizen there and for them all to be concerned for the well being of businesses, parks, etc. about their town.
As for the country, the country is often a place of great contentment. Rarely do you find the people living there wanting more than they have. They are often proud of what they have and often have worked very hard for it. There is a strong sense of community and a general concern for the well being of others. This is what I seek. This is what I need.
Having grown up in the incessant want and grumbling self-pity of the suburbs I can say quite confidently it is not for me. I need a place with a garden. Be it in buckets or over acres. I need a community interested in itself but not for its own sake. I need either open skies and green fields or hungry masses eager to succeed and to build and to create. Simplicity, love, devotion to an ideal and the hunger for something more out of life drives me and fuels my own creativity. These suburbs starve me and wither my mind despite my attempts to grow it. I think it is only a matter of time before I pull up roots and find a new home away from the gossip and idle chatter.
