The spilling out of truth

It was a fair few weeks after mum died. Dad was being extremely efficient at dealing with Mums stuff and we had agreed between the four of us that my sister should have her car. This was the day she had come over to collect it. The car was one of the last things to be dealt with as it was away from the house, parked on the drive. Not like her possessions which had filled the house that we were living in.

The initial shock of her death had worn off and I had been able to do a great deal of grieving by this point. I was coming to a place resembling a sort of stability and that crushing weight seemed to have started to lift. Things look very different from within a microcosm. I had no idea what to expect or what the journey I would undertake would hold for me. In truth even now, some 7 yrs on, I am still unwrapping the experience.....but now the surprises are not so thick and fast. They have slowed almost to a standstill.

However on this day in question, I was starting to feel like I was finally coming to terms with my mothers early death from cancer. I naively thought that the worst was over. That was my experience. My sisters was probably very different. My fathers grief seemed from an outside perspective fairly self contained but of course that was only a snapshot. As I have discovered, we all deal with grief very differently.

My father, my sister and I were stood on the driveway looking at the navy Renault Clio while discussing aspects relating to it. How it ran, how many miles to the gallon it did and how much Mum had loved it. All good. There was little teasing of my sister relating to her track record with accidents, a glass house from which I have no entitlement to throw stones, but do, none the less. The atmosphere was casual, even jovial.

And then we looked inside. Just to check what was there, in order to deal with it appropriately. Nothing noteworthy. The usual things were there. A few cassettes,  a leftover parking ticket, a bit of lip balm, a half finished packet of Polo's. The Polo's sent me into reminiscence a little and should have hinted at what was about to be unleashed. My mum was well known for her polo mints. A tool she had so often used to extend friendship and to bring comfort. When one was hurt the offer of a mint could be kindness that started a healing process.

The business having all but concluded, the conversation started to take the air it does when it was about to be wrapped up. Sentences becoming slightly more succinct, body language a little more kinetic. We had all but turned away from the car when Dad decided to have a quick look in the glove box.

They spilt out as soon as he pushed the release, like they had been inside there pushing against the flimsy panel for an eternity, stuffed in there as they must have been, their volume barely being contained by the tiny unit of the glove box, spilling out onto the passenger seat. Her black fur trimmed hat, her tartan scarf and her gloves.

It was not so much what was in there, although the trio of objects instantly conjured an image that was so typical of my mother, but rather it was that we did not expect it that caused it to have such an impact. It was like a jack-in-the-glove-box of my mums personality. And it was uncontainable.  The shock rocked across the faces of my father and sister and, although I could not observe it, I am sure that my sense of shock showed in my own face as much as their own did in theirs. We had not really gone there together at this stage, although obviously it had been talked about, and this corporate wave of grief seemed to overwhelm us all simultaneously beneath the same wave. We awkwardly addressed it but none of us really acknowledging the depth of it. At least that was my perception.

It was, for me at least, symbolic of the pattern of grief that was to unfold over the next few years particularly. C.S. Lewis wrote a book entitled "Surprised by Joy". If I were to write one based on my experiences over that time, I would have to call it "Surprised by Grief". So many times, unexpectedly, the grief would come like a wave. And like a wave it would send me reeling. Once, in my kitchen, in the middle of cooking dinner literally unable to stand under the weight of it, sobbing and heaving on the floor.

But the things that would set off my grief were often memories and the memories were so often good. The image of my dead mothers accessories spilling out of that glove box was an image of life emerging from death, of repressed emotions erupting from soul-sucking numbness. I'd rather have the pain of loss with the joy of the memory than the true death of no memories at all.

There comes a time when the thing you suppress becomes greater than your ability to contain it. In one of my favourite films "Sense and Sensibility" this theme is addressed expertly. Ang Lee, who is more than adept at portraying repression (See The Ice Storm or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) directs Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood, a woman who is forced to enact the sensibility of the title by repressing her feelings for Edward Ferrars and acting with what must be the crushing civility demanded by the social conventions of regency period etiquette. Throughout the film she is thwarted again and again and forced to act as indifferent whilst she is slighted and sidelined as her heart is broken by degrees. And then comes the moment where she is faced with Edward Ferrars, whom she previously believed to be married and he tells her that she is mistaken. In a wave of grief and relief as she is unable to control her emotions any longer she lets out a howl which rocks you to the core. All the more for the repressive feeling of the rest of the film and the quiet nature that you have been falsely led to believe is hers. There are flash points like this, for all of us, where we connect to who we are, deep down, despite our best efforts. It is impossible to hide all of the time.

King David wrote in his psalm;

You have searched me, Lord, And you know me.....you perceive my thoughts from afar....Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely (Psalm 139).

I always take great comfort in the knowledge that I do not surprise God. I may surprise myself but not him. I may disappoint myself....but not him. I may fool myself...but I cant fool him. He knows and yet his love for me is unchanged.

I suppose one of the reasons I like the psalms is their raw honesty. They rarely attempt to make pretty pictures of how the author is feeling. If they are in anguish they say they are in anguish. If they are being outcast or picked on, then that is what is depicted. If they are feeling abandoned by God then the accusation is levelled directly to the ears of the almighty. Questions are raised and aired and, shock horror, sometimes left unanswered. In short their authors were finding a space, a prayerful space where there was an outlet for all emotions. And I know we can be scared of the depths sometimes but we need to be able, like David at the end of Psalm 139, to pray sincerely "Search me and know me". I like even more that these earthier songs of disgruntlement were at times sung corporately. So unlike some of our far more indulgent but stagnant acts of worship. In Lamentations 2:19 we are told to

pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord

 

 

Lying to yourself will never produce good results. Lying to God could be a form of spiritual suicide, in that you cut out your only true means of healing. Thank God, David also said in 139

 

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
   even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

 

 



 



Pretty amazing, right? You see, you can lie to God, but you can never pull the wool over his eyes. In his grace this light that searches us, is a healing light, because he loves us. And because he loves us, he will not let us hide forever. Somewhere there is a flash point, waiting for you, like the glove box was for me. For darkness is as light to you. I love that.