Flecks and Nuggets: The Dance of Grief and Hope

I read these words yesterday. They're from Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies:  Some Thoughts on Faith.  I apparently really needed to hear them.

"The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it, like a nicotine craving, I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.  After a while, it was like an inside shower, washing off some of the rust and calcification in my pipes.  It was like giving a dry garden a good watering.  Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does.  Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit.  Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible.  You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people;  shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession.  Martyrdom can't be beat.  While too much exercise works for many people, it doesn't for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering.  But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you.  A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart.  But since your life may have indeed fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion.  You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying;  and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things:  softness and illumination."

Today, I am holding on and falling apart.  I've been avoiding writing for the past several weeks.  I knew that if I wrote, I would write about this.  And I'm just so ridiculously good at avoiding.  If there was a medal for top avoider in the whole world, I would probably win it.  But today, I can't.  I can't win OR avoid.

Today, I'm in it.  I'm fearful and sad and confused.  There is a pit in my stomach, that comes and goes.  It has been growing there the past several weeks.  I don't feel it constantly... it sneaks up on me and hits me like a wave of salt water, stinging my open wounds, grinding in my gut... and then retreats.  I've been trying to figure out what it is.  And after reading Anne Lamott yesterday I think I've figured IT out.

It's grief.

I've been holding on to hope for the past several weeks.  Since we found out that Dad would have another brain surgery on Sept. 27th.  Since the (first) surgery on October 10th.  Since all these other things have gone so wrong.  And as the days go by, I continue to hope, but this other thing has been visiting.  Grief.  It comes suddenly and then washes away, as I continue my daily routines.  As I continue living.

How strange, to continue living.   How difficult, to do this dance between grief and hope.

This morning, I drove to pick Hazel up from preschool.  I talked with my mom on the phone, hearing the latest updates on Dad's condition.  He is less responsive now than he was in the week following his four major surgeries. (Yes, four. That's 3 brain surgeries and a bonus emergency spinal surgery to attempt to correct lower body paralysis that came from a complication).  Maybe it's due to the effects of the bacterial meningitis he contracted... maybe it's due to the side effects of the sedating anti-biotic he is on for the meningitis... maybe it's because he had three brain surgeries and he needs more time to heal from the trauma of that.  But no one can tell us.  The doctors can't tell us.  The surgeons can't tell us.  The physical therapists and speech therapists can't tell us.  No one knows.   All we know is that he has "significant neurological impairment."  Those three words, that keep pinging around in my head and my heart, leaving bruises along the way.  

The science of the brain is still so unfounded.  Still such a mystery.  

I pulled into the preschool, swallowed mom's tears, and shoved that pit in my stomach down hard.  I strapped on my baby and my armor and I went inside.  I smiled at the other parents in Hazel's class, as I passed and said hello. 

I have gotten quite used to avoiding the grief and stomping it out and shoving it down over the past many weeks.  It's been over a month since my father walked (walked!) into the hospital at UVA for surgery to remove his growing brain tumor.  Now he has a feeding tube, rarely speaks, cannot stand, only sometimes gives us signs of recognition, and sleeps most of the time.  

He is still physically with us, but we feel the loss of him.  And we continue to pray for his return to us.  

How can we grieve, while simultaneously fighting for our hope?    

This morning at 5am, Charlie woke as usual and I got up to feed her.  As I was nursing her, half awake,  my thoughts drifted to the dream that I was just having when I awakened to her cries.  I was dreaming about many different people, who intersected different seasons of my life, all in the same place.  We were celebrating something.  And as I drifted into the sequence of the dream, I remember my Dad being there.  Standing with my family, around a table.  Laughing, talking.  As I remembered this part of the dream, there it was... that pit in my stomach again.  That ache.  In the dim light of the nursery, with my babe in my arms at my breast, I let it hang around for a bit.  The grief.  Then the sting slowly faded enough to move and I put Charlie back to bed.

When I went back to sleep, I dreamt of Dad again.  But this time, we were somewhere else.  It appeared to be some type of resort.  Some type of place where people go to heal.  But quite unlike the skilled nursing facility where he is currently, in real life.  We traveled for miles to see him, up winding roads and through lush green mountains.  When we finally arrived, my whole family was there.  Dad's house was beautiful... ornate and decadent, with jeweled tiles and lofty, serene hues of blue.  We entered the house and all of the family poured inside, loud and boisterous.  Several of us plopped down in the living area, playing games and enjoying each other.  But I didn't know where Dad was.  I continued searching and journeyed outside, onto a huge, beautiful deck that overlooked the mountainside.  I turned a corner, and there was Dad... in a wheelchair looking out, with Mom by his side.  I approached, and before I reached them I woke again.  This time, to the sleepy morning sounds of a toddler's voice.

The more I think it through, it's as if the first dream represents my grief.  Thinking of Dad, the way he used to be.  Fully functioning.  Even with that brain tumor.  He was himself.  And the second dream... represents my hope.  Or as Lamott puts it, a softness and illumination that comes after the grief.  This hope, that Dad will still be with us, and we will still have a beautiful life with him... even if we don't yet know how it looks.  Or if it looks different than we have always imagined.

When we got home from preschool, I nursed Charlie with the pit fully present in my gut.  I looked into her eyes and tears blurred my vision.  Again, I let the ache stick around until Charlie finished eating and smiled her sweet smile at me.  She smiled relentlessly, and almost involuntarily, I smiled back.  She started to giggle and coo, and I couldn't resist smiling and cooing, too.  Pretty soon I found myself feeling moments of joy, amidst the painful sting, and I thanked God.  For the blessing of my children and for these moments.

For these moments when I am present, in the pain and the joy and the realness of life.

These flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling the grief will give you.  

These moments, when I can figure out how to move back and forth and forward simultaneously, in this dance of grief and hope.