Grief is a “tricky fellow,” as a friend and former colleague of mine put it. She was exactly right. Since 2021, grief has been a constant part of my life, my family’s life, in many forms. It hasn’t stopped our living, nor has it put us in a depressive corner, awaiting external circumstances to lift us out, but it has blanketed us and at times been oppressive, overwhelming and yes, hard to take.
I’ve neglected to point out the research and writing I’ve done during much of this time, which as a freelance writer, I should be doing. I get rather sketchy and nervous, though, about tooting that horn. But for my own sake, I suppose, I’ll put up a few links: Here is one on why white wine is too overlooked. Here’s one on the Wine Science Center at Washington State University that has put that institution on par with the likes of U.C. Davis, Cornell and Cal Poly SLO’s enology and viticulture programs. And I still get to write these fun pieces for the Philosophical Research Society (donation wall here), this one about Thea Wirsching and her creation of a new American Renaissance Tarot deck.
But at Easter, the holiest of Holidays in the Christian calendar, I’m digging around for optimism and it hasn’t been futile. I found myself getting ensconced in Dr. Naomi Wolf’s reading and interpretation of the Geneva Bible. This is the Bible of the protestants who fled to Geneva in fear of Queen Mary’s Catholic reign in England. If you’ve not done so, I highly recommend it. Her unique skill set as a professor of English literature who can read Elizabethan English as well as Hebrew, provides insight to the published Bible that the American founders knew, as well as the Puritans before them. And as she postulates, it provides a whole new level of personal connection to God, even in the Old Testament. It is that connection that I am forever seeking, and needed this year as I process through the darkness. I’m not sure Dr. Wolf knows how much this work of hers means to me, but perhaps she’ll see that now.
As Easter dawns, the most important sunrise has been that of my adult daughter’s struggle of the past few years with a very serious eating disorder. She went public with it herself just recently after a year-long intensive treatment program, including 9 weeks of residential treatment and she has begun herself to process through the darkness and find a swift sunrise. While I feel good mentioning it here, I won’t link to her posts or writing as it is her story to tell, not mine. My part in the story is as her dad, grieving with, worried about, praying over, and celebrating her as she begins again to thrive and see life anew again.
Finally, in this most strange of posts (not really an essay, nothing literary in here, I’m afraid…), I’m grateful for the past three years as well as grieving them. Almost certainly, the depths and struggles of this hard time are still with me and they’re not far enough behind me to simply smile and turn away to walk a lighted path. But, perhaps where I am along the path is that the memories of these times, their companionship with me, are no longer just enemies. They are part of struggles I never imagined I would have, and here I am learning about myself again, and finding that I’m not the man I was 3 years ago, and certainly not the man I was 10 years ago. The changes, the losses, the triumphs, the joys and the grief have all changed me, and I’m someone different than I was. I’m just getting to know myself again and I’m excited to know that.
Today, during what is called the Easter vigil, Saturday before Easter itself, we will go to meet a new dog who might become part of our home, which is empty now of that energy that has so long been a part of it. I don’t know if he will be the one we choose, and will choose us—but I sort of hope so, even though I’m not done grieving Simon yet. I don’t know if I ever will be done with that, but I do know that Simon and his memory move me to make room in my heart for more love, and more connection. If that alone were all I was processing, then spring is the best time to do it.
Happy Easter. He is Risen indeed….