Welcome to almost August. August brings the dog days of summer. The onset of a new school year. Reflections on the future and goals for a new school year. August also brings for a time to reflect on the loss that lasts forever- the early loss of a parent. The narrative never changes. The feelings run deep and the only way out of a loss is to find a place to funnel the pain that benefits others. August brings the magic of grief.
August 1974
It was a day in August, 1974. I was fifteen, my brother was thirteen, my sister five. We lived in a small town in Illinois. I was going through those adolescent crazies... you know... rebellion... friends are more important than family... let me rebel because I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. Little did I know that I would carry this with me for many years to come.
I flipped burgers at a fast food place in town. So did my best friend. It was close to five and my time to go to work. We lived in the country. I hated the country. My Dad was a milkman, worked long hours in a town far away, and on his days off, helped his friend Willard with construction. On this particular day, I was at my friend Kristy's house hanging out until time to go to work. My Dad was working right down the block.
I walked over to work and got started. My brother came in a few minutes later and I told him he was supposed to go over and ride home with Dad. He came back a later and I was always the big sister, "Why did you not go and ride home with Dad?". His reply, "Dad is sick". I freaked out. "Dad is sick. What do you mean? We need to call mom."
And In An Instance
Little did I know that Dad had died. That my good, loving brother found my Dad, fallen over in the seat of his truck, seemingly reaching for his pipe, and that at 46, my Dad had had a heart attack. Not only did my brother find my Dad, he watched as the ambulance came, they tried to resuscitate, and pronounced him dead.
What began next was kind of a blur. The phone rang at Reaban's. Barb was a lady I worked with and she told us she needed to take us to the hospital. I walked by my friend Jerri and she had her head down on the counter. They knew he was gone. Chris knew he was gone. I did not.
After this is it all a blur. Going to the hospital. The preacher and the doctor telling us. I can only remember saying to my brother, 'What will happen to us now?" The next few days are not too planted in my mind. The funeral. All the people in our town who came out to help my Mom. My aunt flying home.
I remember a few things:
- My grandma seeing his spirit walk through the house after the funeral as if to say good bye.
- My little sister started kindergarten a few days later and we laugh now about her being let off by the bus in the country and my Mom did not know school had let out early. My sister walked up the hill, crossed the highway and back down to our house.
- Mine and my brothers friends came to the funeral.
- School started in a few weeks and it was a blur.
- My brother scored a touchdown in his first football game of the season.
- I lost my cool in English class with Oldfield which was my first outward expression of the grief.
- And life was never the same.
Grief is a Blur
Grief came as a trial and error process. I turned to my friends and my job. My brother his friends and sports. My mom trying to keep up all together. My sister grew up with a life totally different than ours with little memory of our dad. My brother, my mom, and sister became a unit. I detached and looked outward. All be it, soon to be sixteen, you grieve as at teenager in the best way possible. You turn to those who understand and you cling to those who make you feel safe.
When you are fifteen or thirteen or even five, you assume your life as you know it will go on forever. You are a family. You show good times and you show bad times. Adolescents between the ages of 9-15 can be quite precocious.. Challenge what cannot be handled through relationships with parents. In 1974, Dads went to work. Moms stayed home or worked and kept track of things. Church was a given. Also central were aunts and uncles and friends of the family. A small Midwestern town where everyone knew everyone.
When a parent dies, all of the family baggage comes to visit. Family of origin roles continue to emerge and play out. People react with learned mechanisms. Comfort comes in the way of trial and error. You long for those safe days again when life was simple because after a parent dies when you are a teenager, life is no longer simple. You question God. You question your remaining parent. You feel guilty and internalize the guilt. You blame yourself.
Process
You process. You mature. You find a place to put it. You act out to avoid thinking. You learn to value family. You feel fear that you will lose the other parent. You find substitute parents to take over. You become very attached to taking care of the people who are left. You can no longer be free and a kid. You learn responsibility.
That is OK. It makes you a stronger adult. You learn to funnel the grief to keep the good parts of the person you lost alive in your day by day actions. You stumble. You fall. You either hold it in and it oozes out or you find safe places to process. You hold yourself to super vigilante expectations of self and you are harder on yourself than anyone else perhaps because you somehow feel you deserve the pain.
You go wild. You rebel. You are angry and hurt and you take it out on whatever or whoever you can and still remain a functioning adult. The relationship with the remaining parent can be a source of strength or pain. It depends on the dynamic before the death. You learn to be a survivor and yes carry a bit of self pity which is really not pity at all, but a wounded spirit. You learn to do it alone. You fear being vulnerable because the flood waters of emotion will take over. You choose who you let in.
You realize that as you age as an adult of 40, 50, or 60, that there are people who still have both parents. You know that they don't get it. The loss that is forever when it comes as a teenager influences an entire lifetime. And you get angry when people minimize or tell you to get over it. Or you become stoic and hold it in because the pain has become a part of you and you have to be strong. Or you mature as a parent yourself and find something bigger than your grief to live for. Kids should not have to go through that kind of pain but then we have no control over our destiny. And everything does happen for a reason. God gives us what we can handle because He has a purpose for us to carry out. Sometimes we have to buck up buttercup to get there. And sometimes we have to learn self-care and ease up on ourselves because we push too hard.
Life Is Never the Same
You watch TV shows about families and you know you have lost a part of your own. You carry the guilt that if not processed, becomes a sense of shame. You memorialize the person. They become stuck in time. You learn that faith gets you through. No matter what. Faith and God will get you through. You believe it and as you become an adult, you wish the person back. You have to deal with it, either as a family when it happens or later when the grief sweeps out. Sensitive and emotional events bring forth the feelings. For some, the wall goes up and survivor instinct becomes a way of life and you let few people in. Once a rebel always a rebel.
August
So what does August bring for me? Some years nothing. Some years a flood of emotions that come back like a snowball. As an educator, August is a new beginning. As a daughter, August was an ending. And with memories of the loss of my Dad, come now the memories of the others who were quasi parents who have also passed on. When August comes, I take time to reflect on the good. The good people. The goodness of God. Yet, that sweet moment of silence in the dog days of summer when for my family our lives changed forever will always bring a moment of regret for the life not fully lived, the words not fully spoken, and the safety that was taken away.
Yet...There is Always September and October and November and December
The first year is the toughest. The first Christmas. The first birthday. The first anniversary of the death. We have a fundamental responsibility in our lives to be kind and caring to others and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We find the goodness. We reach out to others. We may not categorize it or theorize it, but we take the early trauma and we become good adults with good intentions and a good heart.
Others
Then we find ways to reach out to others who are going through the same types of loss and give them support. We look for ways to keep the good alive and we learn as we become older to work through it either with our own kids or others. We welcome time with our family and we hold them close. We learn to use it as a teachable moment. We become strong in the broken places. It never goes away but we find a place for it. That is the magic of grief.
