I have been thinking for a long time about grief. Since losing my Dad in 2017 the world just feels different. Then, Grandma in 2019 and my grandfather in 2020... I have started to feel a little too familiar with grief the way I am too familiar with moving, after doing it 17 times in my adult life. But grief isn't just about human loss - we feel it when romantic relationships fizzle out, friends drift away or parts of our lives can only be seen in the rearview mirror. Some grief can be managed, like a headache is with ibuprofen and a good night's sleep. It was a little like this with losing my grandparents; terribly painful but over time bearable - an old ache rather than searing pain.
As I mentioned in my last post, 2020 was full of so much grief for all the things we couldn't normally do. It was another year without seeing family. Limited or missed birthday parties. No in-school concerts or field trips. A missed soccer season. Almost no travel to vacation and relax. Indeed, without regular reliable childcare, for a full-time working parent there was almost no such thing as relaxing. Then 2021 came along. We could finally get vaccinated and there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I found myself planning trips and trying to make up for lost time. I've been actively thinking about healing the exhaustion and burn out I've felt from enduring the pandemic with two small children in tow - and yet how lucky we have been, not to get sick, and not to lose our jobs when so many others have truly suffered. We have been blessed in many ways. Throughout this time I kept thinking it was not so much that something horrible happened to us (my family) personally in 2020, but that there was so little joy. There was no relief from the daily grind that asked us to dig deep, and keep doing it over and over again.
Finally, in late May of 2021, I was able to fly north to see my family for the first time in two years. Two years since I had hugged my mother. Two years since my sister had seen my children, the youngest of which had been just 10 months old when we visited in 2019, but now is an energetic nearly 3 year old. We also took our first ever full-week-long family vacation. Finally, finally; we could taste joy. The joy of my children's giggles when their feet dipped in the freezing cold ocean. The joy of eating delicious food from a restaurant. The joy of sunshine and wind in our faces. The joy of hugging my 76 year old mother once again. I was thinking this is what healing feels like; that I could go back to work this summer with renewed vigor and energy to do the teaching and research I find so meaningful and rewarding.
We also had the joy of seeing my friends Ruth and Rusty, whom we hadn't seen in two and a half years, last around Christmas in 2018 when my youngest was just an infant. We laughed and caught up, took pictures at the pool and in the sparkling sunlight. We chatted about the kids and their personalities, what was going on at work and our basement renovations. We chatted about how they were going to visit next summer when our new guest room was ready. I asked Rusty what he [a former middle school English teacher] was reading these days and he said something about a Western novel (I couldn't fully process with the kids tugging at my legs and attention). As I buckled the kids into the car with a last round of hugs and "see you soons" he asked what I was reading and I said, "a book about Emotions", and he said he looked forward to hearing more about it soon.
Then came the sucker punch.
Last night, just one night after we returned home from our trip, Ruth called to tell me Rusty had had a horrible accident and he wasn't going to make it. This man who had become like a father to me. This man who went on yoga and hiking trips with his wife and was going to live to 100, wasn't going to make it. The man who just 10 days earlier was helping my kids swim in the pool and taking my eldest on a tractor ride... wasn't going to make it. My brain is screaming "No no, this isn't possible. There must be a mistake. He's too young and healthy. He can recover - can't the doctors fix it? This isn't real", but my mouth is saying "I'm so sorry. Thank you for telling me" and my eyes are cried out until they are so puffy I look like I have been stung in the face by a swarm of bees. Some grief can be managed, the way you can still make yourself a piece of toast and a cup of tea when you have the flu, but some grief is ineffable. I am totally down for the count, more like when you have a stomach virus and have resigned yourself to sleeping by the toilet because all physical control is lost. It is one thing to have time to say goodbye, even such a very short little time like I did with Dad, but this is horrific tragedy.
I listened to the voicemail left from my birthday in 2018. Rusty and Ruth sing "Happy Birthday" in unison the whole way through and cheer "we love you!" at the end. I start to sob again. My cup of joy that had been full just a few days ago - my healing, my relief, has all been spilled out in an incomprehensible mess. Rusty was a person of optimism and positivity. He always had kind things to say and words of support and encouragement. He made me feel cared for. Ruth and Rusty were some of our precious few visitors when my eldest was born in 2014. They brought us lunch and lovingly held the baby.
They stopped by to visit us when we lived in St. Louis a year later, playing with our then almost 1 year old. They came to my Dad's funeral in 2017 and by then we felt more like family than friends. I wish I could say more to honor the man that taught me to love literature, to think critically, and to trust, but tonight I am exhausted with heavy grief. I am just grateful for the time that we had.
