Epistle 5: Storm of Tears
April 29, 2016
It is early morning in Berkeley. Wendy and I had a brisk morning walk and await our porridge. Walks are good for tears. The body overrides the mind, and the mist and fog of grief condensates from storage deep in the cells. While it is not a hike in nature, there is still plenty of non-human life which can serve to recalibrate the constriction of our anthropocene selves.
This missive’s genesis started as a call to create a container for what collective grief might come forth as we end our time together on Cortes Island. Before that pleading, some of you might have interest or wondering related to the death my mother, Betty, and the dying of my father, Hank. So, briefly…
The death of Betty, even though they had been divorced 35 years, impacted Hank considerably. Neither of my parents remarried nor seemed to find that illusive soulmate. They had been two creative adventurers, leaving the Midwest to settle the westernmost part of North America in a time full of optimism and hubris.
Shortly after Betty’s death, I was sitting with Hank in the hospital bed, where the diing room table once sat. He asked to be told, again, the story of her death. As we get to the point where she raises her arms in the air, I declare, “Let’s practice.” So there we are, his arms raised up, asking to be gathered in, both us full of tears.
On Friday, April 14, I cried more than I ever have. The day before, my sister and I had spent a successful time working together on various projects around Mom’s house, sorrowing throughout the day. On Friday I was in the house alone, getting the pictures ready for the montage to be played during the memorial.
Since her death, one of the things I have discovered about my mom is that she saved everything and, for the most part, organized it as well. There are 60+ scrapbooks, year by year, so the photo-picking was easy; reliving her life in pictures was heartbreaking.
At one point I went to the garage for a change of pace. I looked up in the rafters and saw three big boxes marked “Toledo.” Never having been opened, they were old and dusty. These were boxes Betty had shipped to California after her mother’s death in 1970.
I dove into the boxes and out streamed pictures and mementos of people whose lives had only been rumors. A dozen pictures from before 1900 were quickly added to the pile for the montage. There were more than 300 old letters, 100+ between my parents when they were courting. Every revealed item unleashed a flood of tears.
Now I have been back in “my life” again for a little more than a week, all of those activities were patiently waiting here for my attention. Yet, I now view them through the prism created by tears and reflections of this deepened pool of grief. Do I want to do this? How do I live today, having learned its end? These seem like important questions for daily consideration.
Surely another storm of tears is on the horizon. I leave for Los Angeles in an hour. There will be a week of cleaning Betty’s house, her memorial on May 7, and then our last time together.
So, People of the Storm, how can we create a container to fill with tears? Certainly there are plans brewing and already in place for the “next time.” Yet this seems to be a lot like “hope,” not believing or embracing the moment. So many of you are practitioners of ceremony and ritual. My prayer is that we find a fitting expression to the ending of our days together.
And for those of you who will not be with us in Canada, may we as well have the opportunity soon to sorrow together, celebrate our comings and goings, our learnings and our wondering.
For now, sitting in the showers of the storms to come...
Brian