A million emotions
Mask grief:
Anger and madness
Contrition and control
Exhaustion and endurance
Helplessness and hopelessness
Too many to name. So much to bear.
The hurt reaches into each pore,
Slender branches poking and prodding
Taking over until the misery spills out faster
Than we can process it.
And that is why we
Weep.
Grief doesn’t always give fair warning before picking you by the scruff of the neck and shaking you until both eyes leak copious amounts of tears. No, sometimes grief slides in without even a whisper, wraps its arms around you and squeezes so gently you don’t even realize it’s to blame for your distress until you’re writhing on the floor in agony.
Today, grief was triggered by a song I’d never heard before. It was an Emmylou Harris cover of the John Prine song, Hello In There.
The damned song grabbed me by the throat and choked tears out of me. I’d already been thinking of old friends who’d died way too young, and the song added to my melancholy.
Today would’ve been the 65th birthday of my first real friend, the first bond formed on my own, without my parents’ intervention. Johnnimae Bachus, my polar opposite.
We first met in Sunday school at Calvary Baptist Church, gravitating to one another in that mysterious way children do. Johnnimae was petite and ladylike while I was a gangly weirdo. Her mother created all of Johnniemae’s wardrobe—each dress was perfect. She could twirl a full circle with her skirt floating elegantly around her, suspended in beauty above her perfect little knees. When I tried to emulate her, my sturdy shirtwaist clung to my skinny legs and I looked like a dork,
We attended the same kindergarten—she cried for her mama until she saw that I was there. I felt quite emboldened by her confidence in me. Still I tried to copy her in everything she did. She’d color a page in blues and greens, so would I. She’d express a song preference and it would become mine. One day she became fed up with my copycat mentality and ruined her picture by coloring it in bold black marks. She did me a favor that day and I developed my own style.
Johnnimae moved away in our eighth or ninth grade year, and due to some silly school girl politics, I wasn’t invited to her going away party. I lost track of her, but we reunited at a mutual friend’s wedding several years later. I was the matron of honor and she was maid of honor. She was still perfect, while I was still a dork.
Not long after, that same mutual friend called me out of the blue one sunny day to tell me Johnnimae had died. She was maybe 24 or 25 and poised to graduate from pharmacy school. She was engaged to be married. Her life was filled with joy and accomplishments and a world of possibilities. Then, on one ordinary day she went for a swim with friends and somehow ingested or inhaled an amoeba and died soon after. The shock at her loss was immense. This golden girl was no longer in this world. How could that be?
So today I cried for her. Big old tears that wouldn’t stop and left my nose red and my eyes bloodshot. I cried while listening to Emmylou Harris sing about growing old—a privilege Johnnimae never had.
Peace, people.
I stopped in at a Walmart yesterday. Not the brightest move I’ve ever made, I must admit. All the usual Christmas craziness was on parade: bright-eyed children asking, no, pleading, for toys. Harried moms of all shapes, ages, and ethnicities asking, no, pleading for them to be good for just a few more days. Weary clerks just waiting for their shifts to end.
And there I was, an island of calm in the midst of chaos. All I needed was a bag of pecan halves to make my famous pecan pie for Christmas dinner. Ten minutes should have been sufficient for this errand.
Finding the pecans seemed simple enough, except all of the bags I found on the baking aisle were pecan pieces. I insist on pecan halves because they rise so beautifully to the top during baking. Almost like magic.
I couldn’t find a clerk, so I wandered to a center aisle thinking the pecan halves might’ve been moved to a holiday display. I found a likely looking spot, but at first glance, not the right pecans. A pleasant, well groomed woman, maybe a few years my senior, was also perusing the display.
“Excuse me,” I said, “Have you seen any pecan halves? All I can find are the pieces.”
With a bit of a flourish she lifted a bag from a lower shelf. “Voila!”
“Thank you!” I said. “These are exactly what I was looking for!”
I began to turn away, when the woman said, “You could make divinity with the leftover pecans.”
“I suppose I could,” I said. “But my husband won’t eat divinity and I’d end up eating the entire batch.”
She laughed. “My husband only wants cherry pie for Christmas dessert. I used to make pecan pies for our son and grandson, though.”
Again I started to turn away, but she said, “They we’re both killed in a car accident. On the interstate between Jacksonville and Orlando.”
My heart lurched, and time stopped. “I’m so sorry. How long ago?”
“Four years. My grandson was just twelve. I think about them both every day.”
Then she told me how an erratic driver, lane surfing had taken the lives of two of the people most precious to her. He’d had multiple tickets for a variety of violations, but still had a license.
I hugged this stranger. In the middle of Walmart beside shelves of pecan halves and pecan pieces we stood and cried.
She apologized for upsetting me. “I can’t believe I just told all this to a stranger,” she said. “But I think all of my friends are sick of hearing how sad I am. They want me to get over it, or to at least stop talking about it.”
“Sometimes a stranger is just the right person to talk to,” I said. “I’m glad I came in search of pecans. Thanks again for helping me.”
She hugged me again and we wished each other a Merry Christmas. She and her husband were going to her daughter’s home for Christmas dinner, she told me. She assured me she’d be all right. “You found the right pecans, but I found the right stranger,” she said.
We never know, do we? In the rush of the day, in the quest for some mundane object, we might find not only what we need, but be the answer to someone else’s need. Slow down. Listen. Be present. You might find exactly what you’re looking for.
Peace, people.
Bang the drum slowly
Follow the horse drawn carriage
Wearing dark colors
This mask of warm tears
Covering a mother’s face
Her child lost to war
This fake president
How easily he threatens
Others’ children’s lives
She’s forged in the fire
Of unspeakable sadness
Such weighted sorrows
Loss, her companion
Her memories, filled with love
The pain, hers to bear
When darkness threatens
She wields the brightest of lights
Searching for justice
In response to one of my Facebook posts about the increasing number of hate crimes committed since Trump’s electoral college win of the election:
I obscured the friend’s name to protect her privacy. I’ve known her since kindergarten and we’ve managed to remain friends even though we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
The thing is, I’ve gotten several comments like this, and my first thought is, how dare they?
I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone to get over something they’re feeling intensely. Maybe I’ve thought the words, but I would never presume to tell them that they don’t have the right to grieve or to feel something.
After my mother’s funeral, after everyone except my dad, my brothers and their wives, along with my husband and I had left the church Daddy pulled us all together in a massive hug and told us he loved us. As we all sobbed he reminded us to always tell our spouses that we loved them. We took a private moment to grieve as a family.
Later I received pointed criticism from someone outside my immediate family. Apparently it was inexcusable that we’d kept everyone waiting for a few extra minutes. You know what? Screw them.
That time was a part of our grieving and part of the way we found the strength to move on. My family doesn’t always speak about its deepest feelings, and to have denied my dad that moment with us would have been a terrible mistake.
No one gets to decide how I grieve. No one. Not a Facebook friend, not a family member, not a co-worker, not a smug acquaintance. I’ll be ok, but today, I’m still grieving. So back off. Seriously.
Peace? Yes, peace, people.
Praying for Eyebrowz 