Healed

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” ~Marcel Proust, French novelist, critic and essayist (1871-1922)

I stood there facing my family. The white enameled double doors behind me had just closed. On the other side two caretakers were carefully closing my mother’s brushed silver casket for her last ride home. How she loved going for drives. She once rode with me from Washington, Pennsylvania to DeKalb, Illinois to find an apartment for graduate school. We stayed overnight at a Motel 6 and drove back. This last ride would only take a few minutes.

The Lay Minister, officiating over the funeral, asked me to say a few words of remembrance. Me? What would I say to the family who, for the past ten years, had been more involved in my mother’s life than I had been? What could I say to the people who had visited her several days a week and who had taken responsibility for her care while I lived on the other side of the country; only coming home once or twice a year? What could I say that they didn’t already know and which wouldn’t sound disingenuous?

My family is like every other family. Over the years we have had our share of skirmishes. Alliances have been made and broken. Battle lines drawn; truces negotiated and demilitarized zones created. Amidst it all marriages were held, babies were birthed, holidays celebrated, relocations and job changes endured and even a war survived. Amidst it all we remained a family. Dysfunctional? Yes! But show me a family who you consider functional? Declaring a family functional is like declaring someone “functionally illiterate”.

My mouth finally opened and I began to speak. To my surprise I talked about being human. I spoke about my mother’s obsessions: like the year we drank apple cider vinegar every day because it was a miracle curative. But mostly I talked about family. Five children, ten grandchildren and five great grand children later we are still trying to figure this life thing out. Each child has taken their turn being the youngest, garnering the most attention, weathering the resentment of being replaced as the youngest, finally surviving the awkward moments of adolescence and weathering their Uncles’, Aunts’ and parents’ scrutiny of their latest crush or lack thereof.

My brief reflection closed with a food commentary. After all these years we still break bread together. Some of our foods are traditional, though not for any religious or ethnic reason. They are traditional almost exclusively because we like them and none of them are particularly healthy either. Most of our “traditional dishes” were gleaned from magazines of the 50’s, mostly McCall’s, tested in our mother’s kitchen and validated at our dinner table.

During my “words of remembrance” people chimed in. Reminding me of things I had forgotten. It was more like a dialogue than a speech. The brief interjections were reminiscent of the many stories told at our dinner table. It is unlikely you will get through any story in my house without at least a few interruptions so you better have a good grasp of your material or learn to surrender the floor graciously.

I finished, the funeral service ended and the mourners filed out toward the coat racks (it was in the twenties with a wind). The casket slid effortlessly into the waiting hearse and the door closed with a solid bank vault sound. We dispersed to our cars and began the orderly drive to the cemetery and my parents’ crypt which, at my father’s request, overlooked a duck pond. Dad was already waiting there for Mom.

Too many of us assume being a member of a family means being responsible for fixing other family members. If we are to be stewards of our families we must focus ourselves on healing not on fixing. A fix is quick and temporary. A repaired object is commonly weaker that it was originally. After all fixes are meant to be temporary rather than permanent. But “fixing" can be dangerously satisfying. It makes us feel as if we have “done something.” We have handled the situation. We are lulled into a sense of security and accomplishment with minimal effort by the “quick fix”. It is no coincidence the term “fix” is street slang for temporarily satisfying a drug habit.

Healing, on the other hand, takes time. Helping a person “heal”, particularly when we’re talking about healing emotions, may mean waiting…seeming to do nothing at all except being present. Healing requires we share someone else’s experience. Fixing, on the other hand, avoids experiencing anything, by superficially solving the problem, then moving on. It is a “hit and run” tactic.

Yes, healing takes time and it may even leave a scar, but the one who is healed is stronger than they were previously. Scars are a good thing. They tell us where we have been, but they don’t necessarily determine where we are going. Our families and family members are not to meant to be fixed or managed, they are meant to be experienced and embraced...they are meant to heal.

Death is daunting because we can’t fix it, but grief can be an opportunity to heal. It opens windows of opportunity beyond simply closing the lid of a casket. Raw emotions can be destructive, but they can also point us toward the raw realities of our lives. We have a choice to heal our wounds or to tear them open. Healing changes us for the better. Wounds happen and are often unavoidable. Families are not perfect, nor should they be. They would be pretty boring if they were.

Dear God, help me to help others heal.

“Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.” ~Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Clinical Professor, proponent of holistic medicine, American author best known for Kitchen Table Wisdom

© 2010 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.

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