My Old Friend, Grief

There will be joy after grief. From experience, I know this to be true.

When my dad died at age 53, the shock was staggering. I’d just sat with him on the patio the evening before, and he was fine, enjoying his brandy Manhattan (easy on the vermouth) while my daughter, Jessica, played with the hose, intent on trying to water down Grandpa’s drink. Dad’s love had recently anchored me through the hardest time in my life, and he loved his little Jessica, who hadn’t even turned three yet.

Grief didn’t move on or magically disappear, but my life continued.

At the time, Jessica and I lived in a second-floor apartment, and coming home after work, or after picking up Jessica from school, or from an outing, climbing those stairs seemed a herculean task. There was a fog over the days that made them seem long and lonely. The heaviness of my dad’s death settled deep inside my body and stayed, making itself comfortable.

My family didn’t talk about Dad’s death. I didn’t know about support groups. Other than a compassionate boss who took me into her office after I started sobbing at my desk, I had no one to talk to about it. I was sent home from work, and there I stayed, unable to function without crying for three days, until I could return to my job.

I wonder about how our dad’s death affected my brother and sister. I carried Jack’s anger and blame that somehow “I killed him,” as my little daughter and I had moved three times in as many years, and each time, Dad had helped us get an old copper-colored Naugahyde sleeper sofa that seemed to weigh more than a semi-truck in and out of our apartments.

As for Jill, she started crying while we walked behind a procession of men in their dress blues carrying a flag to Dad’s resting place at Woods Cemetery. Mom told her to stop and to be proud as the twenty-one-gun salute began. The sound of the guns was shocking. I felt like I’d been struck in the heart with each bang.

In the forty-five years that have passed since then, there have been other sorrows, like the sudden death of my “other mother,” Pat Martin. Then Mom and my sister, Jill, died, and grief came to visit again. Or had it never left?

But joy and awe came again, too, in many ways, through nature and in my family, as when my grandson Ethan got married, and when Dane and I encountered a playful water snake on Washington Island.

After a harrowing ride through the Devil’s Crossing, pitched by the wild tossing of the waves, we stumbled off the ferry and drove to our favorite cabin, Sunrise Lodge.

The wind had picked up as we walked down the road and turned on a path that led to a beach along the east side of the island. Suddenly, Dane and I stopped and pointed. A friend was swimming alongside us next to the shore: a not too big or too small, just right-sized water snake!

As we watched, it stopped, poked its skinny head up from the water, and looked right at us. We thought it was a fluke until we sat on a log to watch. Over and over, as if playing peekaboo, the snake would coil down and around, creating a whirling pattern, then pop up and peer directly at us!

We didn’t want to leave. If there had been a sudden thunderstorm, we would have stayed plastered to the log, mouths agape, hearts wide open, soaking wet.

Eventually, we had to move on—a tough decision, as the snake was still entertaining us with its antics. But the rest of the island beckoned, and daylight was fading.

Mom and Jill’s deaths were still fresh in my heart, but life doesn’t wait for grieving folks. It was time for Ethan’s wedding. Dane and I stayed at my daughter’s home for their last night with Ethan living under their roof. His sister, Helena, let us use her bedroom for the night, and she chose to sleep on a blow-up mattress in her brother’s room.

There were plenty of laughs, sweet family times, and a beautiful wedding that weekend. I thought of my dad and mom, and especially how Jill would have loved to be there. In the morning, we said our goodbyes. I woke Helena up to get a hug and a quick “I love you,” and we drove back home.

Weeks later, Helena was killed in a car accident. My old friend grief came knocking, knocking, knocking, and hasn’t left. But even with grief as a companion, I have experienced great joy and awe before and since these events, and I know I will again.

The Cats’ Meow!

Winter Routine

Jane Schmidt