Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Alongside grief, a hope for future joys
Elizabeth Strother
Recent columns
- For those who have too little
- Time to gather mountain views
- Our blind spot on roads
- Following the money trail
From the RoundTable blog
In my mind I can see my oldest brother, Bob, flit past the kitchen window, just visible through the dining room door. But I know that isn't my memory; it was my mother's, one I've incorporated into my own.
She said later that she thought she had seen someone hurry past the window, figured she must have imagined it and continued pouring milk into my little brother's glass as the family sat down that day for supper.
My memory is of her look of utter astonishment when Bob strode in, smiling broadly at pulling off a great surprise. He laughed and said, "I thought you were going to drop the milk, Old Lady," but as I recollect, she hadn't spilled a drop. Mother was steady.
Bob was in the Air Force then, just past an awkward adolescence, his skinny lankiness filled out into a mature man's body, his boyish face suddenly all angles but with that eager innocence that is the unmistakable mark of youth. He had cadged a pass and said not a word to any of us just to enjoy this moment of shock.
I cherish every detail of that memory because we were to have so few of Bob after that. He died while he was in the Air Force, drowned accidentally at age 19.
I'm thinking about him especially this Christmas, the first since the shootings at Virginia Tech, where so many who died were, like Bob, just on the cusp of the life they had imagined.
If their families, Christian or not, celebrate the season, this most festive children's holiday will be hard to endure. Every family will mark each of its traditions through the year as the first without the missing person, the one needed to complete the whole.
At least, I expect so.
I cannot presume to understand anyone else's grief. I have seen even within the tight circle of my family that each person grieves in his own way and own time. Some adjust to loss more quickly than others, but I don't think anyone ever "gets over" the death of a beloved.
The expectation that anyone should is painful, indeed.
It's my experience, though, that in time, it's possible to feel joy again.
For many of us, Christmas is a time to offer best wishes to friends and strangers alike. My wish for the Tech families and all the families who have lost loved ones this year -- to war, to crime, to accidents, old age or disease -- is not the joy of the season. Not if that mocks their personal anguish.
My wish is that they will have the hope of joy, for a future that will look brighter one day.
I say this knowing there is no way to replace a son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister who has died, but that other of life's joys can coexist with grief.
I was 12 when Bob died, more than 40 years ago. His loss can still hurt, but my memories about him are mainly good ones now.
Yet I recall that, as a child, I was greatly distressed whenever, amid the ordinary rituals of making new friends, people would ask how many kids were in my family.
Well, four, I would say. My parents had five children, but they have only four now. And then I'd follow up with the painful explanation that my oldest brother had died.
I was wrong, of course. My parents always had five kids. But in my child's eyes, I could see that where once we were five, now we were four -- yet I couldn't bear to leave out Bob as though he had never existed.
My parents are gone now, their children are spread across the country, leading separate lives that come together, mainly, at this time of year. Questions about my brothers and sister just don't come up anymore.
But Bob is with us still.
I think I will work next year on a gift for my younger nephew, who was born decades after Bob died but who recognizes from old photos and stories some genetic link -- a shared lankiness and athleticism and competitiveness that the rest of the siblings just don't have.
Bob is the uncle he was cheated out of knowing, with whom he feels some connection just the same. I need to record the family's memories of our brother for him. What a joy to think of them living on.
Strother is a member of the editorial board of The Roanoke Times.
