The Shape of Grief
I did not know the shape of grief until my healthy father and my vigorous mother died a few short months of each other. I find myself sifting through the old coins my father left me and I am not counting the value of money, but I am feeling each one as though I was he. There are the coins from Raekeyvk, Iceland where he was a sailor in WW II in 1942. And all the silver coins feel so thin in my fingers – so worn and so wonderful.
And my mother – there is her light green night shirt from Orvis that I gave her and she wore after she returned from the hospital. She went around her house so happy to be home and getting better. It hangs in my closet and occasionally I wrap myself in it and weep in grief.
I am an orphan like the small rain-drenched fawn that attended my mother’s funeral. I did not see the fawn’s mother and many days I cannot find my mother or my father. They are lost to me. But I do remember their voice and the shape of all of what they taught me to be.
I believe I keep learning from my good parents — the way they did things and now more particularly the “why” they did them. I think of how they were shaped by the Great Depression and by World War II. These were not ideas I often thought about before they left. I think of how careful they were with money and how much they knew scarcity in their own lives growing up and yet they were so generous. No I never thought of that while I enjoyed all the good things.
Theirs’ was the Great Generation, but they never wanted to be known as great. They were determined to be silent about all of what happened until the window on it was closing. And then we heard a bit of what they saw and witnessed and how they lived. They were “great.” They simply wanted to work and move ahead and raise their families. They wanted their children to be educated and they to move on in life and always have enough.
When I use the tea cups my mother kept safe in her china closet, I know why they were carefully protected and so infrequently used. When I feel the coins of my father’s, I know what was so special about them and his Navy tags. I also remember the story he told about “being on the bow of his ship as it left Boston Harbor for Iceland.” This story he would tell as if her was young and in his sailor uniform.
I am comforted by the shape of these small offerings of unconditional love. I use them and ponder “why” life is more precious than possessions. I will hold them near and dear to my heart. I will remember and never forget our growing-up, even our struggles and especially our laughter, but most of all I will remember our love. (February 2014 and June 2014)
My mother & father
Photo taken by my sister Nancy White Carlstrom,
Friday Harbor, San Juan Islands
