Every Picture Tells a Story

 Week Fourteen: Every Picture Tells a Story

“...and if they had the words I could say to you

To help you on your way down the road

I couldn’t quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats

‘Cause it’s all been said before

Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off

You didn’t have to come here anyway!

—Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells a Story, from album of the same name

My daughter sent me a message telling me some distressing news regarding one of her childhood friends. She asked if I might contact her friend in an attempt to help. I agreed, and as I wrote to “Crone” (as I call her) this Rod Stewart classic occurred to me.

As I composed my message to Crone, I remembered a day many years earlier. My uncle died in the 1980's. I was asked by his daughter to give a eulogy, which I did. I should add that because I am and have always been exceedingly emotional (my father called me “Sarah Bernhardt”; Google it) delivering a eulogy was darn near unthinkable, but I managed. That day, that service, those few minutes in front of friends and family that loved him dearly still lives with me. Although I cannot remember what I said, I can remember what my aunt (his wife) said to me during one of the many long pauses I was forced to endure to compose myself. I had looked up from my notes and directly into her eyes. 

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To My Crone

Some time ago Julie sent me a text message that read in part (Crone is) “really upset and needing reassurance. I told her that if she needed a ‘dad’ voice in her life that she could call you.” Julie knows me. She should have added, “I told Crone that you would want her to call you.” She shared no details at my request except that you had asked your husband to leave your house. I can only imagine how difficult things seem right now.

We can agree that you are not my daughter, but even if you were I would not love you more than I already do. Yes, I am not your “dad”, but there are all kinds of dads. All kinds. 

I understood what Julie meant, and I’m glad the offer was made, but I had to laugh to myself at the phrase “if she needed some dad time.” She can’t yet understand what you and I already realize: you don’t need me for “dad time”. I trust that you hear your father’s words often. My father has been gone for ten years yet I recall the things he said and can readily imagine what he might say or how he might react to the stuff in my life. Still, it helps sometimes to hear from a “dad” in real time, huh?

Remember chalkboards? No, seriously. I’m talking about old-fashioned chalkboards--the greenish black slate boards in classrooms before whiteboards and erasable markers. Remember the erasers? Yeah, I’m talking about the gray brick-looking things that we used to erase the chalkboards. Stay with me.

Whenever we used the erasers, wiping over and over the chalk writing on the boards, the words just seemed to blend into the background. The erasers didn’t so much “erase” the words as much as they fused the words into a cloudy background. After the first few swipes we could still read the original message. After repeated rubbing the words were transformed--changed from whatever they once said into a sort of misty cloud, creating a new background, even to the point of obscuring the next message to be written on the board. (Sooner or later someone had to beat the erasers and clean the board with water. You were probably that kid from time-to-time. Julie said that she was.)

Sadness is a chalkboard eraser. Sadness encourages us to wipe over the words...until the original message is obscured, creating a cloudy background; and what’s worse is that sadness seems not only to cloud the original message, it sometimes changes it altogether. Sadness makes us forget.

CS Lewis is sometimes credited with saying that joy and grief spring from the same well. He writes, “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.” He reminds us that without sorrow we could not know joy--that only because of the contrast are we able to experience one or the other, but more importantly, they are in fact the same. Whitney Hall says it this way: your Joy is Sorrow unmasked.

So, in this time when the eraser called sadness is obscuring so many joyful memories, you might consider my analogy a bit further. The eraser becomes the problem. The chalkboard becomes so cloudy that the eraser just makes things worse and worse. Sadness does that, too. More than the thing that prompted the sadness in the first place, the sadness becomes the issue. Sadness becomes the norm. Sadness consumes.

So, what to do?

Years ago I worked with a guy who was promoted and eventually transferred to a different school. At some point while he was away, his wife called me and asked if I would speak to him because he was so depressed. I don’t even remember what started his downward spiral, but by the time we met up and talked, he was lost. 

Last summer, he and his family were vacationing near Wilmington so Debbie and I spent the day on the beach with them. That time in his life was brought up in conversation (by them, not me). He said, “I still remember what you said to me.” For the record, so did I. And now I’ll tell you the same.

But first, back to the eraser. 

The board becomes so cloudy that we can’t really see any new words written upon it. As hard as we try, the new words can’t be discerned from the cloudy background. They’re there. We just can’t see them. The eraser...as does the sadness...drastically alters our perspective. That’s what I told my friend: He had lost his perspective. He couldn’t see what was once perfectly clear. 

The bad news is that there is no easy way to regain perspective. But just like the kids who beat the erasers and wipe the boards with clean water, it is entirely possible, and...this is the very best part...deceptively simple. I repeat, simple, just not easy.

Sadness is a part of a continuum, right? Most people are aware of the stages of grief even if they can’t recite them in the same order as the textbook. Labelled differently by various people the stages include: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Wiping clean is the key to acceptance.  

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My aunt was sitting in the front row mere feet from me. The moment was overwhelmingly sad. As we looked at each other, she said, “OK Jay, that’s enough.” It felt awkward. In fact it took me years to understand what would have prompted such a comment, especially in that setting, in that moment. But now I know she was verbalizing the innate desire to wipe the board--to accept the inevitable (albeit unexpected) reality.

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So it was for Crone. When acceptance begins, sadness dissipates.

Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off

You didn’t have to come here anyway!

I love you Crone. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqi_m-pMuoI