Grief

by Tom Peters

We all have done our fair share of grieving for a loved one, friend, relative, pet, or humankind in general for you philosophers out there. The type of suffering that invades our very soul and brings us down for a period, then life goes on, and you think of them now and then. The longer we live quite naturally, we go through this cycle repeatedly. And even though I was in combat at twenty years old, not one person I was emotionally close to died in Vietnam. However, two grandparents died during my one-year “tour”
(a euphemism that seems funny now).

A dear cousin was killed in a car accident while serving in the Army in Ft. Hood, TX. It saddens me to think of parents losing a child, ‘One of the worse ‘clubs’ to be any part of’. I know, I probably should have said ‘One of the worse ‘demographic statistically’ to be in’. Knowing beforehand you’re going to die is another ‘club’ I wish to avoid. Knowingly harming someone and they die ‘club’ sucks as well.

Being born into a situation that never allows one to relax and enjoy life for the sake of enjoyment, another sad ‘club’. Dying in infancy or as a young child is one of those cruel ‘clubs’ that might make one question your religious and philosophical beliefs.

I recently looked into the eyes of a friend who told me her brother died on Santa Monica Blvd., homeless. He was a vet and had been lost for many years and refused her help and as he became seriously ill and would not seek medical care. I mourn for this friend’s entry into another ‘club’ one hopes to avoid in a lifetime.

The pandemic and retirement led me to take free classses at Santa Monica College's Emeritus program. These classes are made up of mostly elderly students, and they can take the classes over and over. Grieve is presented most every semester when we hear of a fellow student has died.

I woke up this morning to a text from an old friend that his wife had just died after years of poor health following a severe stroke. So again, this will bring on various degrees of grieving, lapseing into a occasional sadness, hardly having an effect on our daily lives.

A long, nagging grief has visited me for the last few years. It’s related to my age and my daughter’s age. I’m 77, with a 20 year old daughter. My years are short, my daughters, well, hpefully long. Of course, I created this grief by the decsion to have a child at 57, I can own this grief.

Here’s the rub, I’m one of those ‘seekers’ from the 60s that equates the death of JFK with the end of our nation’s future. The pandemic and Trump have solidified my belief these United States is headed into a grim future. I read the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times every morning. Actually, more and more, I'm skimming the news, reading a few lines, quickly processing the essense of the article, then on to another.

It's a nagging grief. However, I’m one of those gifted ‘compartmentalist’ that can finish the news, be quiet, still….breath a bit, then go on about the day. A day that I might have a chance to make a brighter future for my daughter.