It’s a paradox…both things can be true.
Glen was a lover of language and he often came upon a word or phrase that he loved so much…that he used it constantly or at least until the next word or phrase became a favorite. Everyone who spent much time with him would listen to him just waiting for the new word, knowing that it was coming…and when it did, they’d just roll their eyes…and smirk – that’s so Glen.
“Paradox” was one of those words. To be honest, I didn’t even know what the word meant when he first used it; he had to explain it to me. It’s also one of those words that once you hear it or read it…all of a sudden…the word is ubiquitous. (Thank you, Mrs. Miller, for teaching me ubiquitous in my 11th grade English class!) AND even more…once you know the word, you find that there are actual paradoxes everywhere in life!
(As I’m writing this, I think that I have introduced the concept in a past post. It had to do with the palliative care doctor telling me that I could hold grief and hope in my heart at the same time – meaning – both things could be true – I was living a paradox.)
Recently, a friend and I watched Steel Magnolias, the 1989 movie with a powerhouse cast of women. I remembered the general gist of the plot, but not the details. Spoiler alert – somebody dies.
Watching the movie, I felt like a yoyo bouncing up and down and spinning round and round through a gambit of emotions, memories and connections. Text – to – self, anyone? (My teacher friends will recognize that as a Mosaic of Thought reading strategy. And now I can’t resist…Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?)
I know the thesis of this post is supposed to be paradox and I’ll get to that in a minute, but I first want to talk about the metaphor of steel that runs through the movie…
Steel – aka the backbone of women. This movie celebrates the fortitude, resilience and strength of women, specifically, a collective of women who seemingly have little in common, but who support each other as they each face the challenges life brings each of them. Sally Fields’s character, the matriarchal pillar of the community, rules her family as only a Southern woman could with a carefully placed word or look and the expectation that everyone would fall in line with her wishes. In the end, she finds that she doesn’t really have control of her world as she sits by her daughter in her hospital bed. Sally’s character had to find a new level of courage and strength – of steel – to carry her daughter through her last moments of life. In that final moment of pain and grief, none of the men in her life were able to stay with her; they all walked away unwilling or unable to bear the pain. She sat alone in her grief.
There’s also the theme of the importance of acceptance, friendship, and kindness. The women in the movie were all at different stages and positions in life and yet they had the common bond of suffering through their hardships and coming together to support each other through it all. That bond is a bond of steel. And it’s also a symbol of the strength women find in banding together and supporting each other – in creating a community. It’s a bond as old as time.
So where does the paradox come in, you ask? For me, it’s the death scene and the cemetery scene. In the first, the mother quietly and stoically holds her daughter’s hand as she takes her last breath – bearing the devastating moment alone. Later, at the cemetery, after standing at the graveside, when everyone else has walked away, she breaks down and screams WHY??? And I mean SCREAMS…That was a difficult scene for me. Obviously, it made me think of losing my own adult child and my own screams of WHY?. The other difficult scene was watching a family make the decision to stop life support, knowing they were committing to a final good bye…the silence in the room after the machines were disconnected was deafening. That absence of sound took me to Glen’s last breath and the finality of that moment, of that last good bye..
So where’s the paradox? Which two things are true? As I was yoyoing between the idea of the sudden death of my child and the final breath of my husband, I found myself comparing the two losses. Was one worse than the other? Was one more devastating? Turns out…I can’t compare the pain of losing my child to the pain of losing my husband. There is no better ending. There is no easier death. There is no softer wound or lesser grief.
They are both deeply painful. They both bring me to tears at odd times. They are both devastating losses that have me screaming Why??? Both losses are the worst loss. Both losses are true. It’s a paradox in the most intense way. And it’s the acceptance of that paradox that has been so difficult.
In these last two years, many people have commented on my strength through it all. My usual quip is…What’s the alternative? I don’t know about other women who have endured such loss, but for me…there is no other option than to find my steel because that’s what gets me through the days and the nights. There’s the steel I find getting up in the morning knowing I have yet another phone call to a lawyer or insurance company or another trip to the bank. There’s steel in getting through all the firsts…and the seconds – birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. There’s steel every time I drive by Niels’s condo and for that split second, as I glance over to see if his car is there, I forget he’s not there and I still ask myself – Is he home?. There’s steel in the sudden mysterious waft of a smell that comes from Glen’s food that sustained him for three years and yet hasn’t been in the room for a year. There’s the steel of coming home after my Chico State meetings, excited to tell Glen about all of the good happening for students and…he’s not there waiting for my report. There’s the steel of hearing the “I Wanna Be Like You” Jungle Book song at Lesher as I’m ushering a school group. Niels, the man-cub and I sang that song at the top of our lungs when he was little. There’s steel in getting through the unexpected gut punch of grief that seemingly comes out of nowhere…again and again and again…
The steel is knowing that there is NO answer to why; in knowing that the answer will always be a mystery.
And the paradox is that I can have steel in my bones and putty in my heart for both of my losses – forever.
