There is a fine line between what we may call “profound love” and “chronic grief”. Both are very real, very powerful and potentially very destructive.
Chronic grief is, bottom line, awful. I see it far too often here. The widows and widowers that are “left behind” when their spouse dies truly feel in some cases “lost”. They really, truly can’t function without their “other half”. I once had a brother and sister bring their father into my office to buy new flowers for their mother/wife’s (respectively) grave. “Mom always took care of the bills” they told me with a knowing glance implying that, yes: their dad had never, ever written a check, kept a budget or even done laundry in his 80+ years of life.
I realize this has much to do with perspective. You have to recall that the generation we are currently interring here were born right before the depression, had mom & dad take care of them while lived at home until they were drafted into World War II or Korea when the military took care of them. Then they returned home, got married, and had their wives take care of them and their own kids. In short, for many of the men, this is the first time they’ve ever really been on their own. Parents, military, spouse… someone was always there to take care of them. Now they need to take care of themselves and they really are in the dark. Something as mundane as brewing a pot of coffee is a mystery to them because, as I mentioned before, “Mom always did that” and they simply do not know how to do it.
For the ladies their husband, friend, partner, support system is gone. They remembered falling in love in high school and still get emotional when they recall the day their boyfriend got his papers to report to boot camp. They realized the love of their life was leaving… and may never return. They cried, said goodbyes, promised to write and waited for newspapers and radio reports about the war and where their boyfriend/fiancé may be fighting. They ran to their mailboxes every day hoping for a letter (and in my grandmother’s case getting really ticked-off when they’re wasn’t one. I’ve read her diaries. I know.) and dreaming of a homecoming that may never happen.
In some lucky cases, that homecoming did happen. Marriage, children, struggling to find work and pay bills until finally they got the house, the car, a washing machine and maybe –if you were particularly well-off- a TV. 40-50 years of life together, traveling to visit friends and relatives, cruises, bingo, dances, regular fish fry dates. Souvenir photos from Hoover Dam, Alaska, Florida, Wisconsin Dells. Then “traveling and visits and souvenirs” became weekly trips to doctors, X-rays, scans, new treatments, special shoes, walkers, canes and wheelchairs. The house they worked so hard for is suddenly for sale and they trade in 50+ years of memories in that home for a few hundred square feet of retirement home or apartment living.
Man or woman, like I said before, some never get over it all. Chronic grief is horrible. Story time:
“Joe” was a World War II veteran. He made it back home and got married and they had a daughter. He was a barber here on the south side in his dad’s shop and eventually worked for a prominent insurance company. A lifetime together with his wife ended with her death in 1994. His daily visits to the cemetery began then… and never stopped. He was here every day, at least once or twice in all kinds of weather. I remember one particularly horrible snow storm a few years back and I didn’t see his car drive past my office like usual. I thought, with relief, “Thank goodness. He’s stayed home out of this terrible weather and he’s safe and sound and warm and dry. I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow but I’m glad he didn’t risk it today.”
I went to lock-up our main chapel and as I walked I saw the tire tracks had come in from a different direction. No wonder I didn’t see him. They stopped at the usual spot and there were the footprints in the snow leading from the car to his wife’s crypt and back. I wondered if he ever took those steps –and thousands like them- and thought about the footprints he left in the snow in the Ardennes in 1944 during the battle of the Bulge of which he was a proud veteran. He was one of my regulars and was here every day, one to three times a day. For 17 years.
Now on the one hand, this is the “profound love” I mentioned. His daily pilgrimage to his wife’s crypt was heartbreaking. The words of an old song came to mind and I thought to myself, “I want to be loved like that”. However, I must admit, it was also heartbreaking that, after 17 years, he was still here EVERY DAY.
This is what I mean about a fine line between profound love and chronic grief. I’m not a doctor or a psychologist but do I think he had chronic grief? Yes. Period. Multiple trips a day for 17 years? Yeah. He was in here once a few years ago with his daughter and son-in-law and I was praying he’d go use the restroom or something so I could politely but lovingly hint to them both, “I really, really think he needs some help. For his sake and yours, please look into this.”
But then, last fall, the visits stopped suddenly. I was surprised but also thought, in my own naïve way that maybe he did get some help and he was “better”… perhaps he was only here on Sundays or something.
Then I got the call for a service for today… for Joe. I’d be lying if I said I was fine. It didn’t ruin my day but I was certainly saddened by the news.
His family and friends gathered and said their last goodbyes to him this morning. Everyone, including me, choked-up when the Army honor guard folded the flag that draped his casket and the local VFW post fired their shots in salute. No MP3 player in a fake horn today: a real, actual bugle player sounded-out “Taps”. Joe’s daughter received the flag bestowed to her on behalf of our grateful nation and that was that.
I’ve done over a thousand funerals here in my 6 years. This one hurt.
Near the end of my marriage my ex-wife asked me if people could really, truly love each other and stay married forever. (I did not know that when she was asking me this she was already engaged in affair with her now husband and had successfully pursued several affairs before this one). I thought about Joe, both sets of my grandparents and countless others that walk through here every day. Through my tears and shock at such a question I answered her, without a doubt, “Yes. True, lasting love exists. It is real, it works and I have it for you. Period.”
Our marriage did not last. True, deep love only lasts when both people feel it. I guess I was alone in that endeavor. Never the less, I believe in it and people like Henry, Joe, my grandparents and others are all the proof I need that it’s real. I hope it happens for me someday.
Rest in peace, Joe. Tell the Mrs. I say “Hi”.
