growing up, i was one of those kids. something wouldn't go my way, someone would say something mean, and the tears would come. seems like part of every recess was spent with me overreacting to some slight, real or imagined. someone took my favorite swing. someone called me fatty. someone got me out in four square. and i'd stomp off, lip quivering, eyes too blurry to see. other kids would roll their eyes, wondering what the big deal was. and, as children are wont to do, the more i reacted, the more they tried to get me to react. and thus i learned one of my first universal truths:
no one likes a crybaby.
eventually, this lesson seeped in and i stopped reacting. i still felt hurt, felt rejected, felt angry, but i knew better than to let anyone see that. slowly the teasing faded and life on the playground became carefree - as long as i swallowed what i was feeling and kept it to myself.
i sit here, preparing to go to jeremy's viewing/funeral/burial, wondering if maybe i learned my lesson too well. my emotions since brent called on thursday can best be descirbed as flat. no tears, just a general sense of exhaustion. i feel i don't know how to feel. i feel i don't know how to mourn. friends ask me how i'm doing and with pavlovian candor i answer, "as well as can be expected," because it's so much easier than the truth. and the truth is i'm not feeling much of anything except guilt over not feeling much of anything. am i so calloused that i cannot bother mustering up even empathy for the loss of others? am i so afraid of being hurt that i refuse to feel or at least show what i'm feeling?
and then i think about the missed opportunities, the visits put off to earn a couple of bucks, the words left unsaid because there's always next weekend. i think of the unfairness of it all and question the wisdom of God. why would He take a father and husband, someone on whom so many depend, instead of someone, say, like me, someone without those strong earthly ties? why take men like chad and mark and jeremy, whose absence leaves such deep chasms that can never be filled?
Father, scrape away this callous 'round my heart
remove the fear that keeps me from feeling
for if i cannot feel, i cannot love
let my heart break, the pain and embarrassment be damned
forgive what i have left undone
and spur me on to greater love
Æ
tunes: patty griffin - trapeze
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3 comments:
"no one likes a crybaby."
I suppose that explains my great popularity.
Thurman, you're one of the more sensitive people I've encountered on this crazy path. Just the fact that you're expressing yourself here shows you have nothing to feel "guilty" about.
It sounds like you've had more than your fair share of this kind of tragedy to wrap your head around. And being that no one really ever CAN understand, your surface "flatness" is likely a common symptom.
But like I said...you've already shown so much sensitivity (and beauty) here (and in your previous posts). You're not unfeeling at all!
xox!
kat
You don't have to cry to feel and feeling numb is still a feeling. Sometimes feeling takes time and my guess is that the numbness may give way to something else soon. I am grateful for the time we had together at the cafe last night. Thanks for the call. If you want to talk, you can call or email. I'm around and I think that we might be able to relate.
We all grieve in our own ways.
I cried like a little girl in church on that Sunday.
I went up to our prayer chapel and hid myself away.
I knew that if I cried around our friends, around Monica; I don't think I would have stopped.
Time heals all wounds; yet, Time is the space between you and me (thanks Seal!).
We know how you felt about Jeremy. We all had our missed opportunities just as he had his; but how we remember the opportunities we had and honor those memories is the best way to show our love.
So remember him, and celerate his life; would love ask for anything less?
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