Grief doesn’t always hurt anymore

I watched “Torch Song Trilogy” last night. It’s only about the billionth time I’ve seen it. I just love Harvey Fierstein, and the fact that Matthew Broderick plays a gay man in it doesn’t hurt.

It all got me to thinking, though.

In one part of the movie, Arnold’s (Harvey’s) father dies. Well, we all know I’ve been there. Arnold’s mother, when asked what she’ll do, says she’ll go to Florida. Pressed to say what she’d WANT to do….she says she wants to die, but until then, she’ll go to Florida. That so reminded me of Mama after Daddy’s death. If anything can tear your heart to shreds, it is watching your own mother hurt like never before (and, hopefully, never EVER again!!!!!!). It was hard watching Nanny’s decline after her only child was gone, but it was worse, by far, to see what it did to Mama.

I used to tell people that it was really like BOTH my parents died on December 20, 1989. For years…at least three years…Mama was not herself anymore. She gained herself back, but it took a lot of work and time. I used to be so angry that my precious mother had to find out what being a widow was all about.

There are those, such as Nanny, who think that because Mama remarried a year after Daddy died, she didn’t grieve very long or that Daddy didn’t really mean a lot to Mama. These people are full of shit. They didn’t live with Mama. They didn’t see the changes that we, as her children, saw in her. They don’t know how painful it was on the night before his funeral, when I stupidly asked her what was wrong….she looked at me, with tears streaming down her red, swollen face and said in a shaky voice that she had just said her “final goodbyes” to my father. That’s what was wrong.

I have tears in my eyes just thinking about all of this. I will NEVER forget (God willing, anyway) how it tore my mother up to lose half of herself. It’s always sad to see someone widowed. I know this from experience, because two of my aunts are also widowed, and I’ve known other people, such as Mrs. Chaffee, who lost a spouse. It puts it all in perspective better than anything besides the direct experience when it is one of your PARENTS in the situation.

I miss Daddy. I miss him terribly. Sometimes I wish God would loan him back to us for a while. But how long would be enough? Now that he’s had sixteen years of peace, what would he WANT to come back for?

Much as I miss him….much as it CAN hurt….it doesn’t always hurt anymore. Sometimes I am comforted by knowing that my sister in Heaven has our father with her now. That Grandpa is visiting with his son. That my uncles who have died are visiting with Daddy again.

Life goes on. Whether we always want it to or not. Aren’t you glad?

My Mikey, I love you forever times PI cubed plus one,

Your Jack