A Time to Grieve, a Time to Heal

It was much easier speaking with her this time. She called in response to a letter I'd sent to her last week. I'm able to express myself far easier through the written word than the spoken word. Not always, but under some special circumstances. In this case the circumstance was the death of her husband of some forty-five years of living and loving, tolerating and cherishing. That kind of shock is trauma beyond belief. If you haven't suffered it yourself - just imagined how your life would be diminished beyond endurance - then it's difficult to convey to the bereaved how you ache for them.

And so it was. Our conversation was stilted, awkward. She was abrupt, scolding, aggrieved. I could understand. I was glad she had the comfort, such as it was after such a fatal body-blow, of having her son and his wife and their two young children living in their own separate house, but on her property, close to the farmhouse she and her husband have lived in for decades and where they raised their two children, just outside Truro.

She is the estimable mother of our daughter-in-law. We've never met in person but have, over the years, written to one another, spoken often on the telephone; extended greetings and invitations to visit with one another, yet never have. She told me about her determination to get on with life, yet how difficult it has been. She thinks of him daily; mornings are bad, evenings are worse.

She forced herself to go on a three-week trip back to Germany, her birthplace in Ulm, to visit with family and friends, knowing she would return to an empty house sad with memories. But she went, and she is glad she did that, even though every time she experienced something novel when away her first thought always was that she had to share it with him, as soon as possible. Not possible.

We talked on and on. She mentioned a bad fall she had experienced a week earlier. She had her two grandchildren with her, visiting the Cenotaph in Halifax. The children were scrambling about and she was standing close by them, when the little girl called out to her to beware of the wasp approaching. At which she took a startled step backward, forgetting she was not standing on a perfectly flat surface, and she fell on her back. The back of her head cracked on the pavement.

The doctor assured her that she had suffered only soft-tissue damage; a large bruised area, a very sore skull for a while. The discomfort would pass. And it was, it was; mere discomfort. Not to be compare to irreparable life-diminishing loss. She felt, she said, ever so much better. About everything. I could hear that in her voice. She sounded half-happy, optimistic. The trip was an antidote of sorts, it helped her to restore herself.

She'd hired someone to paint the house, she said. A handyman referred to her by the local paint and wallpaper store where she had bought the paint. Turned out he was an older fellow interested in older houses and appreciated hers. She was impressed. Impressed and happy with the job he did on the house which most certainly needed the work done and had, for a long time.

We talked about the death of Lister Sinclair. She had met him personally, she said, decades ago, at a craft fair. She is a weaver, an enthusiastic craftswoman, lover of the arts in all its forms. He had approached her, enquired about her name and where she was from. He said her parents must either have been obsessed with Nordic legends or they were German. Both, as it happened. And, Elfriede said, she had always hated her name. What to say?

Lister Sinclair, she went on, asked where in Germany? Ulm, she said. Ulm, he repeated thoughtfully. Ulm has an ancient lineage, he said, dredging his memory. It is celebrated for having the tallest church spire in Europe, is it not? The birthplace of Albert Einstein, with a famous bust of the genius sticking out his tongue at the world? And isn't that where Herbert von Karajan began his conducting career?

Ah, she sighed. What a man. What a memory. He introduced her to a well-known weaver from Quebec, a master-weaver. It had been a memorable occasion. Which took us to a discussion of the paucity of geniuses this world has produced. Did I realize that Goerthe was a polymath as well as a sublime writer, a philospher?

Little wonder with a mother whose interest in history, music, the plastic arts, we have a daughter-in-law with a fiercely intelligent mind.