Generational Grief

On Monday I was thinking about people passing from this life into the next, and remembered what it felt like when my grandparents died.

They shuffled off this mortal coil at different stages of my life.  One before I was born, another when I was little, the others when I was old enough to feel it strongly.

But what I remember most clearly about those experiences was watching Dad mourn when his father passed.  I figured on Mom crying when her parents passed, sure, but I didn't know what Dad would do when Grandpa Ted died.  

I had never seen my Dad cry.  Ever.  He just wasn't the type (at least as far as I knew.)  

He was the oldest boy, and at Grandpa Ted's funeral, he went up to the casket alone, not with his brothers, and knelt and prayed (which is also something I never saw him do.)

I watched from a distance, giving him space to be alone there, but watched him with unblinking eyes, not wanting to miss a thing that he would do right then.  I thought, somehow, that this would reveal something of the man inside.  It did.

Huge, racking sobs shook his shoulders.  It was a motion I had never seen his body make before.  Not like a bronchitis cough or even like losing your stomach when sick (both of which I'd seen), just... convulsing with grief.  I was stunned.  My God, I thought, who is this man?  I don't know him.

And then I thought, like every young son would, I suppose... is this what I will do when *he* dies?  Will I shake with grief like this?  Will I sob uncontrollably in public?  Is that what a grown man does when he loses his father?

Time went by, and no, it wasn't like that.  I reacted differently.  When I took the podium to deliver the eulogy for both him and for my brother, I had prepared for it and was ready.  My many previous opportunities to be on stage helped me a great deal to handle it.  I'd often sung very emotional songs and delivered feeling-laden talks to large numbers, and had learned how to channel my very real emotions into the delivery.

So it was more of a performance:  honest, open, heartfelt, emotional, yes - but measured, planned, scripted, rehearsed.  I've done it at other times, too.  Some of you have seen me do that.  The real emotions were beforehand (when preparing); or later (when alone, maybe for months afterwards.)

But that's not really the point of this post, I guess.  The point I wanted to make is that I think when we are children or young adults we learn how to grieve by watching those older than us.  We see their mourning, learn that it's acceptable to do in public, and watch afterwards how the loss changes people, how they deal with it.

And grandparents especially help us with that.  Most of the time, they pass before our parents and siblings do, and so we can learn about grief from watching our parents go through it with their Mom or Dad.  

Grandparents are wonderful for many reasons, but one reason that hardly ever gets looked at is how they help us learn about death, as well as about life.   Because of them, we can experience our first brushes with mourning and loss from a little safer distance... before it hits us head-on with our own parents or siblings.  

Because of grandparents, we can learn early how to let loved ones go.