JOURNAL, Friday, Dec. 14th

I had never been to a funeral parlour before.

Tommy, one of the boys in my grade 7 math group, lost his father this week. He died of a heart attack wrestling their Christmas tree up from the basement. Will they ever be able to enjoy Christmas again?

He was a big man with a big personality: a contract negotiator for his union, an enthusiastic fundraiser for all of the sports teams that the kids were involved with, a dedicated Rotarian – he’ll leave a big void. The father’s name was Tom. For a few months now, Tommy has wanted people to call him “Tom” as well; perhaps now they can.

Tommy has a younger brother, Cory. They also have lots of cousins in our school – four families all together. They’re really more like siblings than cousins; they were all at the funeral parlour. One of the teachers commented on how weird it was to have so many kids running around in such a place. No one seemed to have the will to make them stop. It was probably helpful and even kind to let Tommy and Cory have their cousins with them; I couldn’t imagine them being there alone, just the two of them, among the adults and the grief.

The kids were all dressed up. The cousins wore their best clothes. Tommy and Cory had new outfits. Their aunt told us that she had taken them shopping that morning. She cried a little when she remembered of how excited they were to be able to pick out their new clothes. Tommy had insisted on black jeans and a Roots jacket to go with the black Nikes that he got when school started. Cory, the more flamboyant brother picked out a leather tie – burgundy – to go with his new shirt covered with swirling skateboarders. There‘s something very caring about this family that would let the boys wear whatever they chose to their father’s funeral.

Cory was away playing with the other kids. Tommy/Tom stood beside his mother, greeting the visitors as they filed past. He looked tired but drawn to his mother’s presence – they were like two magnets, each needing the other to activate their combined energy. She would squeeze his hand now and then; he would pat her back.

A group of us from the school go in together. I make my way down the reception line. (How strange that it’s so much like at a wedding – our condolences a poor substitute for congratulations and wishes for a lifetime of happiness.) I shake hands with Tommy’s grandparents – it must have been the unnatural pain of parents who’ve lost a child that I see in their faces. I speak with Tommy’s mother: still young, beautiful, strong, lost. She says how much our coming means to her and the boys – I can’t imagine why. I shake Tommy’s hand and say how sorry I am.

“Thank you for coming, Miss,” he says, manly, automatic. I comment on his nice new jacket – he smiles, forgetting himself and his effort to keep on the very narrow track of acceptable emotions that will allow him to get through this day.

He reminds me so much of what Jean and I were talking about last Tuesday. She was speaking of the stages that everyone must go through to process trauma: Manage, Deflect, Reflect and Move on. Each stage has its own definition and duration for each person’s situation. Tommy, his mother, his grandparents, and even Cory in his own way, are managing.

I spent much of my childhood managing – or trying to manage – our lives. I picked up the pieces of shattered motherhood that mom left scattered around our apartment. I examined the pieces and did my best with each. Many, like laundry and mending, were discarded like sky pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don’t seem necessary to the picture. Others, like bathing, grooming and feeding, I worked at until they fit together, wearing down the sharp edges, leaving almost imperceptible gaps in the grooves that told of the way pieces can be made to fit together, even if they aren’t exactly as the puzzle maker originally intended.

I remember going with Danny to a pub/film night at the university, watching an old black and white western where the team of horses was spooked and running wild. The hero jumped aboard the buggy that they were pulling and grabbed the reins to try and control all six horses at once. Sometimes, especially before Sophie came, that’s how I felt about my life. I was always trying to rein in the wild horses, to regain control and save the young lady.

Then, I learned to deflect.

In time I came to fully embrace and appreciate our lives with Sophie. I learned to live in the present, to leave behind what had gone before, and to cling with a tenacity born of hope and fear to the good times as they arrived. When I started to relinquish my responsibilities towards Claire, once we were in Sophie’s care, I felt a certain amount of guilt but it was a guilt that was powerless before the crashing waves of distraction that security, new friends and approaching adolescence brought with them. What a strange and powerful influence moments of happiness can be. They allowed me to deflect the pain that I’d known in my life, to greedily relish those moments of happiness.

Managing and deflecting are the screens I’ve used throughout my life, to camouflage my fears and my uncertainty and to help me get on with the business of living. They’ve served me well; I’ve accomplished a lot with my life. But I think that part of me has always known that it wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t reflect. I was too young, and too busy trying to make my way in the world. As I grew older, I never felt the need to look back on what our lives were like – I couldn’t see what good it could do. Until a few months ago when, at the deepest level of my being, my body took over and the tears came forcing me to look for help when I didn’t even know that it was needed.

Jean insists that each of these stages must be passed through, that it’s essential for me to look back, albeit from a safe vantage point, in order to move on to where I want to be.

Now that I’ve started to tell the story I’m beginning to understand what she means. I see how many times I have to fight the impulse to hide from the pain and remain faithful to the details. I’ve begun to accept how the memories and the impulses have been so much a part of my existence that they’ve worked their way into every corner of my being, including my relationship with Danny. They’re like nagging little brothers who’ve come along on a date, constantly interrupting the flow of the evening – and Danny has patiently cajoled them each step of the way. Perhaps it’s time to send them away.

I called Danny when I got back from the funeral parlour. I needed to hear his voice. There’s nothing that makes you want to hold on to what’s precious in life like seeing someone who’s just lost it.

I once had a psych professor who was fond of telling us of the desert oak: a tree, according to his metaphor-laden lecture, that grows in the desert areas of Australia. This tree apparently sets its seed in the most inhospitable ground, germinates and grows to be a small bush. For the next 75 years, it sets out a root system that burrows deep and far to seek out the sources of water that it will need to sustain itself. Once it has found those sources – decades into its life as a bush – it grows to be a full sized tree.

I don’t want to know if such a tree really exists; I love the imagery. I believe that Danny’s love is the source of nourishment and support that I need to go beyond the bush stage – but I was always afraid that it wouldn’t be enough, that it might dry up if I relied on it too heavily. Perhaps I’ve never believed that I deserved to be more than a bush.

Copyright 2003