My friend Helena called
me the other day, in great distress over her daughter's impending
divorce. There are children involved, and a worst-case scenario
of bitter feelings and angry suits and counter-suits. The situation
is compounded by the fact that Helena dearly loves her son-in-law,
and despite feeling that she should support her daughter, suspects
that the majority of the blame for the situation rests with her.
What's a mother to
do? What, for that matter, is a grandmother to do? There seem
to be a number of guiding principles here, some of them in direct
opposition to each other. I muttered the usual inanities about
not taking sides, and being a good listener, and helping the grandchildren
to understand that they are not to blame, but I felt completely
inept when it came to easing Helena's pain.
As always when divorce
is the subject, I found myself revisiting my own experiences.
An early marriage ended in divorce, a casualty of youth and ill-matched
backgrounds. We had a two-year-old child, and although he survived
without discernible emotional damage, who can really say that
there was none?
My own parents were
divorced when I was eight, and although I don't dwell on it or
excuse my quirks of personality because of it, I am well aware
that it will never disappear from the radar screen of my life.
Occasionally, it comes at me out of nowhere and shows up as a
rather large blip.
For instance: thirty-four
years after my parents' divorce, I was sitting in an airport lounge
in Newark, when a swarm of passengers deplaned from a Los Angeles
flight. Two children who had been playing nearby spotted a young
man carrying a briefcase. "Daddy! Daddy!" they yelled, and hurled
themselves on him. Watching them, I found myself with tears streaming
down my face. My husband looked at me in amazement.
"Sorry," I choked.
"It just never goes away."
Nor, I suspect, should
it. To speak of "closure" for some things is to belittle their
importance to our lives. Can't we move on with our lives without
denying the import of things that deeply affect us?
Loss and heartbreak
are as much a part of life as are joy and fulfillment. To quote
that old song from The Fantastics, "...without a hurt, the heart
is hollow." Or, as my friend Maeve said when her son was dumped
by his girlfriend, "Everyone needs to have his heart broken at
least once. It makes for a resonant human being."
Those of us who have
lived long enough to be called "senior" have probably endured
more than a few heartbreaks, and yet the old organ just keeps
pumping. My stepfather died twenty years ago, and my mother said
sadly: "The salt has gone out of the stew." And yet until her
own health began to deteriorate, she managed to enjoy many lively
interests, as well as her relationship to family and friends.
Living with sadness
is nothing new. The rending of families by divorce may have reached
epidemic proportions in modern times, but only a few generations
back, lack of medical knowledge had the same effect. Somehow human
beings survive despite bearing cruel losses.
Imagine losing a beloved,
18-month-old baby brother who is the delight of your life, as
my grandmother did. He was born on her birthday, so that she always
thought of him as a birthday present. During the great grasshopper
plague that hit Minnesota in the 1870's, he and hundreds of other
infants in the area died from drinking "poisoned milk" that the
cattle produced after eating grass covered with the insects. At
least that's the diagnosis that doctors gave in those days. My
grandmother felt the sorrow of his death all her life, and yet
she was neither a bitter nor depressed person. On the contrary,
her bright spirit and amazing strength supported all of us, right
up until her death at age 98. For all who remember her, they continue
to do so.
Death, divorce, or
any of the things that turn our lives upside down are part of
this bargain that we call life. Sometimes we can fight against
them and win. Sometimes the price of doing so is too high, and
we have to accept them. Sometimes we don't have any choice in
the matter. Traumatic events exist and are inevitable. In the
long run, escape isn't within the realm of possibility.
"Closure," with its
implication of being finished with a matter, doesn't seem to me
to compute. One can never finish with life-changing events. One
simply absorbs them and moves along. They become a part of who
we are. Who is to say we don't become better, more sensitive human
beings because of life's hard knocks? You don't have to like something
to discover that you've learned something from it.
As long as we can manage
to keep putting one foot in front of the other, we'll probably
get through the worst of times. To me, the much over-rated "closure"
isn't nearly as important as the simple determination to survive.
They say that time heals wounds, but it seems to me that it doesn't
so much heal our sorrows as put them into perspective. Eventually,
one notices that there are still beautiful sunsets and starry
nights. And although the sorrow itself never goes away, new things
develop to bring joy and meaning back into life, so long as the
heart is open to them. There
are many avenues to finding them: religion; the love of friends
and family; professional counseling; the arts; travel; doing for
others; enjoying nature; embarking on self-improvement projects;
etc. There are as many methods of coping with sorrow as there
are individuals in this world, and who is to say which one is
best?
There's nothing wrong
about continuing to feel grief. The thing that's wrong is to let
it take over your entire life, dwelling on it so that nothing
else exists. In cases like Helena's, where her own grief is only
a small part of her family's affliction, it may well be necessary
to forget about solutions and closure, and get on with living
life as normally as possible in spite of her grief, for the sakes
of her grandchildren, daughter and beloved son-in-law. In my grandmother's
time, this was called "keeping a stiff upper lip." In our own
more indulgent times, it is often perceived as being cold and
unfeeling. But where there seem to be no good solutions, conducting
oneself with a certain restraint may well be the best answer.
The word "closure"
sounds like the end of a business deal, or the compartmentalizing
of a problem (like closing the door of a closet). I don't think
it is beneficial to human beings. You can't escape your life experiences:
you can only absorb them and move along.
