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 Reykjavik, 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  to wear 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 I remember her wrapped in joy that day.

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 that I do keep learning from their good teaching — 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 young lives and yet they were so generous. No I never thought of that while I enjoyed all the “good things” they provided.

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 simply wanted to work and move ahead and raise their families. I believe all of them were “great.”

When I use the tea cups my mother kept safe in her china closet, I know why they were carefully wrapped 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. Toward the end of his life he told this story as if he was that young proud man leaving on that very day.

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.

Our Mother and Father

Photo taken by my sister Nancy White Carlstrom,

Friday Harbor, San Juan Islands