Grief

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Getting What We Need

We don’t always get what we want or expect! Generally, we get what we need.

I anticipated a typical Holy Week attending Triduum liturgies at church with an eye to our family gathering Sunday afternoon. That shifted last weekend with news of yet another death in my family which refocused attention to all this week holds.

Most people know today as Tax Day. To me April 15 was always the day on which the only Grandpa I ever knew died on his 75th birthday. I was hit by a car on that same day and was not able to join the rest of the family at his funeral (actually this 5 year-old welcomed the attention and notoriety). Later a sister-in-law who shared this birthday joined the family. Today I am en route to her wake this evening and her funeral tomorrow.

It’s quite an intense week… April 12 was the birthday of another sister-in-law who, who I knew since I was 5 years-old, who died at age 62. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my Grandma Wieseler’s death – our beloved matriarch who transformed her ride on the “orphan train” at age 7 into a maternal love for an expansive family that still displays her photo in our family rooms. April 20, Easter this year, is the 21 anniversary of my Dad’s death.

Grief is in the air as I embark on a “way of the cross” I did not request or anticipate.

My friend Susan Stable offers wise counsel on her blog today [link]. She recalls Ignatius of Loyola’s invitation in his Spiritual Exercises. During Holy Week we are to be with Christ in his suffering, to extend compassion, attend to emotions evoked by a loved one en route to his death. To the extent we are willing and able we are, as Susan quotes, to follow Jesus in “his choices, his anguish, his truth, his desires, his aloneness, his sense of the absence of God.”

So I am en route, traveling. Last evening I indulged a rare opportunity to share a meal with a nephew and his great family in Sioux Falls. As the evening waned, the three kids peeled off leaving Dean and me the space to tell stories and share memories. I will be staying with a sister in Omaha – another rare opportunity holding more stories, memories.   Having gathered for Joyce’s funeral earlier in the day, I’ve made plans to attend the baseball game of a 7 year-old grand-nephew. Denny in one I don’t know well and, as a middle child, I too easily overlook.

Holy Thursday will be in my family’s hometown with a brother I have not seen since the last family funeral nearly two years ago. On Good Friday morning I will go to my parents’ grave in that town’s cemetery to say a simple prayer. Lyrics I stumbled upon last weekend echoing still, “there are things you cannot hold but the heart carries”.

I did not anticipate or ask for the events of this week. Life teaches us to trust that we are given what we need. Later, not now, I will look forward to the drive home this weekend, celebrating Easter in the familiar embrace of my church and Minnesota family.

For now I am en route – attending as best I am able to the grief, the compassion, the pain, the love, the journey, the companionship that is Holy Week.

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Lyrics cited are from Amberstone by Sarah Thomsen.

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Redeeming Pain

There is more than enough tragedy and suffering to go around. Instant global communication has compounded the impact. For example, outrage at the killing of Jesuit Father Frans van der Lugt in Syria yesterday ricocheted around the world within 24 hours. Such moral outrage is necessary and important – but it can be numbing. All the more reason to celebrate healing, success and grounds for hope!

Thanks to a friend from the Minnesota International Center who shared a [link] to a really powerful piece about forgiveness and reconciliation in Rwanda. Stunning photos accompany disarming profiles of human anguish and triumph – a testimony to healing and hope for what is possible within a generation of the horrific genocide in which 1 million Rwandans were killed.

We have witnessed such reconciliation and reason for hope before. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu provided a mechanism for people to confess their participation in human rights abuses during apartheid and receive amnesty. Some argue that those responsible for the policies of apartheid should have been held criminally liable. But that is not the route chosen by the Nobel Peace laureate archbishop or President Nelson Mandela.

The moral genius of the TRC was the public airing of the painful truth which prevented the violence of apartheid from being buried in the past.  Rev. Marie Fortune warns on her [blog], the Shakespearian advice to “forgive and forget” is too often directed at victims and survivors of violence. “Forgiveness does not come from a position of powerlessness but from a place of empowerment and a degree of safety; forgiveness is never about forgetting the past, but in remembering the past in order to strengthen our efforts not to repeat it.” Justice requires truth-telling and remembering before forgiveness.  We see this in Rwanda.  And, as numbing as it can be, instant worldwide news reporting has the potential to serve this essential purpose.

Coincidentally, David Brooks has a marvelous piece in today’s NYTimes entitled “What Suffering Does” [link]. He is quick to point out, “there is nothing intrinsically ennobling about suffering. Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to becoming the next Steve Jobs) suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited as quickly as possible.” Yet, Brooks celebrates those transcendent survivors who have the capacity to understand their suffering in some larger providence:

It’s at this point that people in the midst of difficulty begin to feel a call. They are not masters of the situation, but neither are they helpless. They can’t determine the course of their pain, but they can participate in responding to it. They often feel an overwhelming moral responsibility to respond well to it. …  

The right response to this sort of pain is not pleasure. It’s holiness. I don’t even mean that in a purely religious sense. It means seeing life as a moral drama, placing the hard experiences in a moral context and trying to redeem something bad by turning it into something sacred.

Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different. 

Martyrdom in Syria, the hard work of reconciliation in Rwanda, requisite remembering with truth-telling of Marie Fortune, suffering’s ennobling potential cited by David Brooks… wherever we look a world in anguish invites us – desperately needs us – to embrace the paschal drama of Holy Week.

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Contours of Capacity

I landed in Phoenix seven days ago with a quote from Dag Hammarskjold’s Markings framing my arrival: “Each day a life. Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back.  It must be held out empty – for the past must only be reflected in its polish, its shape, its capacity.”  Enduring gifts of family, companionship, place, years and memory invited me to trust my emptiness as the markings of capacity.

For decades my brother Jerry made sure my sister-in-law had a fresh long-stem red rose on the coffee table. This was my first visit since his funeral in July so there was a boatload of apprehension about his absence. I arrived at Marilyn’s house on the first morning with a fresh red rose from the same Safeway that was Jerry’s source. We shared a tearful embrace in the family room within eye-shot of Jerry’s recliner, his mantra fresh in my ears: “Life on life’s terms.”

How proud he would be, and I am, of his sons! On Sunday evening, in the side yard of the home where the boys grew into men, 39 y/o Matt leapt with sweeping command of airspace tossing a football to a jumble of Jerry’s grandkids – unknown to Matt I recognized his father’s athleticism and good-looks flashing across his face. We had just returned from the zoo where the kids were strategically preoccupied with all-things exotic allowing this godfather to savor with approval stories of a godson’s incessant juggling of parenting, profession and priorities. What is “success”? How is its definition different at different times in our lives? Quantification, calculation are so inadequate, deficient. Marilyn had previously presented Jerry’s walking stick to me. I was grateful to lean upon its sturdy base while we made our way through the elephants, camels, flamingos, jaguars and macaws!

Before dinner Chris garnered an uncle’s unspoken praise and admiring attention when he dismissed his choice of ice water as a matter of Lenten abstinence. His eldest would later share her frustration with “giving up candy” but failing to “make it through Ash Wednesday.” She quickly shifted to excitement at the prospect of her fourth grade class being able to enact the Stations of the Cross at church on April 12. With an inward smile I commiserated with Ella’s frustration and delight – of course we fall short with even our best intentions. Perhaps the point is not our success or endurance but our need for God and enduring providence.  Enacting the Stations of the Cross will serve her well – hopefully a far distant time from now – when life inevitably presents them to her in a myriad of forms. But that avuncular wisdom should surely wait another time. We had a multiplicity of blessings before dinner as numerous children vied for the prestige of leading our family prayer. What goes through a grandparent’s heart at a moment like that?

My mind remains awash with the prospect of Ella’s class enacting the Stations of the Cross. I was reminded all too well throughout the week. Staying with a dear sister is a precious gift but provides yet another lesson in letting-go and moving-on. Claudia and her husband share a love strengthened by having grieved the loss of their first loves. Dean is an absolutely marvelous man! Thankfully, love is not a zero-sum game and he and Claudia have no need to disguise an enduring love for Carol and John. News on Saturday of a sister-in-law’s uterine cancer weighs heavy as another cross to bear with a tenacity only hope can inspire. The prospect of a favorite nephew’s move to Boston comes with the sobering reality of seeing much less of him, and his objectively adorable pre-school daughters. A weekend retreat at the Franciscan Renewal Center imprinted a resonant image of Moses – a man of privilege as a member of Pharaoh’s household whose fidelity to his core identity transformed him into a poor desert nomad with leadership and authority of a very different sort.

Lenten wisdom even sprang from the utter devastation ten and twelve-year-old grandnephews expressed after Creighton’s collapse in the NCAA basketball tournament. Their dad, another godson, used the occasion to introduce them to one of life’s hardest lessons: Very, very few people ever win their last game! Do the math… 68 teams, single elimination, only one team wins the championship, on that team perhaps only four or five are seniors for whom this is their final game.  So many compete, so very few finish with a victory. Perhaps the greatest lesson parents can teach children is the fine art of losing and that life is ultimately about loss, letting go… Lenten themes, Stations of the Cross, paschal mystery, emptiness marking the contour of our capacity.

I never shared Jerry’s athleticism and actually hated football. Perhaps now I can finally catch the wisdom he wanted to pass on to grandchildren. I leave PHX today with Jerry’s walking stick firmly in hand, grateful to lean on its steady base, with his mantra echoing still… Life on life’s terms!

Even more, as he never tired of saying… Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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Our Capacity

Today I repeated a forty-year ritual – it began at 4 a.m.  In 1974 I drove my parents to their retirement in Arizona.    Today I am the age they were then and have begun taking early Social Security.  Rushing down Concourse F to catch a 7 a.m. flight to Phoenix I recognized the change.  I could readily identify the demographic – faded polo shirts ten years out of style, denim pant suits, either a profusion of jewelry or none at all, sensible soft-soled shoes, demeanor suggesting a 4 a.m. wake-up every morning, and all the gray hair …or cocker spaniel blonde.  Even before getting close to the gate I recognize my companions on Delta this morning.  How did we get here? …so soon?

My Dad died in Phoenix more than twenty years ago.  We are now in our fourth generation of Phoenicians.  It’s my first visit since my brother’s funeral in July.  His son took my grand-niece to a father-daughter dance last weekend.  Change imposes its will on all of us. I am staying with my sister who was the fourth sibling to flee the wily Midwest for winter warmth.  In the guest room where I write the flag that draped the casket of a brother-in-law I knew since age nine sits atop a bookcase.  Laughter from my sister and her “new” husband ripples from the living room.   Life changes quickly.

I need this break.  Forecasters anticipate consistency: lows in the upper 50s, highs in the lower 80s.  No chance of precipitation.  Humidity today was 4% — low even by desert standards.   It’s been a harsh winter in MSP with more than just a few storms along the way.  I need the warmth that Arizona family has afforded these many years.  Reflective of the season, I fell on the ice this morning at 4:45 when Jeb the Dog took me out for my morning walk.  Jeb can be left to roll in the anticipated four inches of additional snow by himself.  Some things just can’t end soon enough!

The aridity of a three-hour flight has a way of focusing attention.  Time to reflect.  Remember. Read.  It returned me to an accumulation of unfinished books on Kindle.  Today I found a long neglected biography of Dag Hammarskjold.  A quote from the Secretary General jumped off the screen:  “To remain a recipient – out of humility.  And preserve your flexibility. To remain a recipient – and be grateful. Grateful for being allowed to listen, to observe, to understand.”  Hammarskjold never had the luxury of a long life or the reminiscence proffered by retirement.  He died too soon in a plane crash at age 56.

For those given the gift, a quote from Hammarskjold’s Markings frames our arrival: “Each day a life. Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back.  It must be held out empty – for the past must only be reflected in its polish, its shape, its capacity.”  Today I arrive empty hoping to remain a recipient, to be grateful, to listen, to carry, to give back.  The gifts of family, companionship, place, years and memory dispose me to trust my emptiness as the markings of capacity.
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I highly recommend: Hammarskjold: A Life by Roger Lipsey, University of Michigan Press 2013.