A friend wrote this week to tell me that his younger brother passed away unexpectedly. Re-reading one one of our email exchanges today, I found my words easier to write than live by. I believe what I said is true, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy: “Grief is a wild child. You’ll never tame it, but it’s ok to let it flow through you. Better through than around. Be good to yourself, and don’t take shortcuts.”
As many of you know, March is a tough month for me. I wish I could skip right to April and bypass all the blech and blah, but that never worked in the past and so I do my best to head into March like a lion and hope to come out at the end a little softer and wiser.
Today would have been Bruce’s 66th birthday, and one week from today will be the 42nd anniversary of his death. I thought I’d share a small excerpt from my book, An Obesity of Grief, about a few of the ways I go through grief this time of year. Please feel free to share your own go-throughs in the comments.
(Minnesota, 2007) After a few more days in Minneapolis, it’s time to head up to Lake Edward. I haven’t seen a decent sunset since the last time I was in Minnesota. Sunsets at my house in western Pennsylvania, while pretty, are brief. The sun disappears behind the hills and trees long before it actually sets. Here on the prairie, the sun sinks slowly, like butter soaking into pancakes. Driving between Big Lake and St. Cloud, I watch the long, lazy sunset and think about how the weather is one of the few things death doesn’t change. I still sometimes check the forecast for Jasper on Bruce’s birthday, Father’s Day, and our anniversary, and I imagine the ways we’d celebrate the occasion based on the weather. If it’s supposed to snow on his birthday, I would have gone to the grocery store early and made sure I had candles and coconut for a German chocolate cake. If it is sunny on Father’s Day, Carlene and our other children—in my daydream we always have more children—would give Bruce their homemade cards while we had a picnic in the field or down by the creek.
I don’t check the forecast on the anniversary of his death, although I often daydream about that day with an alternate ending. Bruce stops at the tracks while the train passes. He comes in for noon dinner. He washes his hands in the sink at the foot of the stairs while I put the pork chops and mashed potatoes on the table. I nurse Carlene while we eat, and then hand her to my mom so I can get ready to go to Pipestone.
Bruce and I go to the grocery store, and as we walk down the baking aisle he says, “I forgot to tell you that I made that banana cake on my birthday and brought it to play practice.”
“That was nice of you,” I’d say. “Was it any good?”
“Yes,” he’d say. “Everyone liked it.”
We pick out a bottle of champagne at the liquor store, maybe a bottle of blackberry brandy, too, then drive home listening to the radio. We sing and talk and don’t think at all about trains or death. When we get home, I make coffee and warm up some muffins for afternoon lunch. Mom joins us, still holding Carlene, and I ask her if she put her down at all.
“No,” she’d say, and rub her cheek over Carlene’s peach-fuzz hair.
“Did the fuel guy come?” Bruce would ask, and mom would say yes and that she gave him the check.
Afterwards, Bruce would start chores and I would start dinner; an ordinary day, not one I would remember with sadness and tears every year for the rest of my life.
If you would like a signed copy of An Obesity of Grief, send me an email at lynn.haraldson@gmail.com. Cost is $17 which covers tax and shipping. Otherwise, click here to visit my website for ways to purchase through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.
Lynn Haraldson, Author and Writing Mentor 
So touching. It was comforting to read a clip from your book. It’s a wonderful book, one I will always keep. May March go out like a lamb.