Grief caused by the death of loved ones is new to me. I am lucky that way. My "little" brother Bill died about two and a half years ago just shy of 61 and my dad died just six weeks ago at 92. The other day was my dear grandmother's birthday. "Ma" died in 1979 and this would have been her 112th birthday.
These losses all seem to be blending together. Maybe that's making the most recent one easier. I don't know. But I find I am crying more about the fact that I can't share something with my brother. I am half mad at him for not being here now in the wake of my Dad's death. On the other hand, I am glad my mom can imagine the two of them playing golf together at the Pebble Beach of the Great Beyond.
At least I can talk to Ma about it on her birthday. Named Lillian (as in Easter Lily) for the fact that she was born a week after Easter in 1901, her birthday is always an occasion for remembering her and checking in with her. Of the many things I appreciated about Ma, I loved that she took things as they came. She was not a big control freak that I could see. She could do whatever she set her mind to and she was always full of good cheer. She definitely fit into the pro-Laughing Camp in the family. She avoided conflict and took great pride in whatever she did, including sewing some pretty amazing wool Easter coats for me and my sister or decorating a basket cake for a bake sale. She was big on Jackson & Perkins roses, but what I remember the most about her gardens was the patch of Lily of the Valley next to her back door.
Her first memory, probably from about age 5, was of standing on a chair, a big dish towel tied around her like an apron, washing dishes. Her young mother, already widowed thanks to an influenza epidemic, was trying to support Lillian and her little brother by cooking at lumber and other work camps. Ma always claimed to love washing dishes. I think she really meant it and I can guess that there may have been happy memories of being near her mother associated with it.
When I was a kid--before automatic dishwashers--after the Sunday family dinner Ma would organize the girls (naturally!) into helping with the dishes. Now washing dishes is a lost art in the developed world. I am not complaining. Believe me, the person who invented the automatic dishwasher ranks right up there in my world view. But imagine the quiet time enjoyed by women who wash dishes. Everyone leaves them alone for fear of being roped into helping. They get to think all the way through a sentence without a child distracting them with a new demand, to integrate their day's experiences before moving on to the next of never-ending tasks.
Today on Ma's birthday, I wish I were back in her kitchen drying the dishes with her. I would ask her so many questions. What was it like growing up without a father? How did she bear the death of her younger son when he was only 29? How did she brace herself to go to the trailer park community center after my grandfather's death and find a card game to join? In so many words, how do I do this grief thing, Ma? I think we would have had a great conversation. Ma would have laughed a lot and she would have told family stories to steer me off the sad stuff (she was a Champ at Laughing in the Face of Adversity).
But it is not just about the answers to questions. Grief right now is lost opportunity for connection. Or, in my case, a stronger connection with people who shaped me, who gave me my bearings. And who left me with a treasure trove of memories to cherish and pass on to the next generation.
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