Controlled Grief

I now have periods of time, relatively long periods of hours or even days, when my grief is controlled. Controlled, or perhaps hidden is a better term, to the degree where I function in what would be classified as a normal way, an acceptable way. I go to work, I interact with people, I perform my job and, for the most part, simply live my life. It would appear that I am making progress, I am 'moving on' as they say. I'm not sure how I feel about those times.

My husband and I just returned from a vacation. Not just a simple vacation, this was a no-holes barred, all out real vacation. A few days on the beach in Florida followed by a week on a luxury cruise ship sailing the Caribbean and then another day in Florida. Days of leisure, exploration and entertainment accompanied by warm breezes, sunshine and the 'no problemo' feeling that seems to come so easily as you roam the islands of the Caribbean.

With thoughts of my mother nowhere in sight one evening we were joined at dinner by another couple. An older couple from the midwest, really older couple, like 80's older couple. It took no longer than a few seconds for me to realize my husband and brother-in-law were sorely disappointed in the hostess' choice of dining companions and it was their disappointment that opened the well where my grief was hidden.

He was an engineer, long retired. She never said what she had done or if she ever worked outside of their home, their home of 50 years. He designed nuclear power plants. Imagine, this man, now thin and stooped with a face I somehow knew was longer than it used to be, the lines in his cheeks accentuating the distance from his forehead to his chin, attended to the details of creating energy. He was a pioneer.

Our conversation over dinner was the benign conversation of strangers, strangers who happen to find themselves in a shared experience. My husband's annoyance more evident to me with each course served. Our "good-nights" and "so nice to have met yous" were falsely rushed under the pretense of wanting to get to the show before all the good seats were gone and that's when it happened. That moment when my grief erupted from deep within me with a force so physical I was disoriented and searched for a door that would lead me away from it, allow me to escape it. My husband and sister-in-law so shocked at my sudden loss of my way that he simply stood and stared while she came to me and hugged me, held me, anchored me.

I miss my parents. Dearly and truly miss them. My father lives in my memory at my husband's age now, having not lived to see his 60s, 70s or 80s. I miss my parents' friends, those people who populated my life, who lived their lives mingled with ours. Those people who shared our joys and our sorrows. I miss that generation that was before us. The ones who led the way, not as we lead with cynicism and an ever present insidious doubt and suspicion, but with wonder and pride. I miss their ability to believe that they make a difference, that their life and their work mattered, that there was a greater good and they owed it to themselves, their family and their country to pursue it, to dedicate themselves to it. I miss that.

Through the rest of our vacation my grief behaved and once again secured itself, rested itself in the recesses of me where it has made its home. It hid itself, allowed me to smile and laugh and dance and eat and walk the beach and sit by the pool. It let those with me relax and read and sleep and enjoy. But as it did this, as it hid inside of me, it didn't hide completely, didn't leave me, didn't let me forget it was there and every so often it would nudge me, move in the way a baby asleep in your arms moves but doesn't wake, moves and you hold your arms so still so you don't disturb their sleep, and when the baby settles you breathe again. And that is what I did. What I still do. I feel that nudge, wait for it to pass, then breathe again.