I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: grief

  • when sorrows come, they come not single spies


    “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”  (William Shakespeare – Hamlet)

    While we mourned the passing of Congressman John Lewis last week with the rest of the world via amazing coverage in the media, Pretty and I felt the loss of two other folks closer to home.

    Martha Faye Ketchum,  eldest daughter of Willie M. Flora, passed on July 27, 2020 in Rosenberg, Texas.  She was 73 years old. Our niece Carmen Woods said of her, “Faye was one of a kind. She definitely kept you on point.” What a wonderful way to be remembered – oh, that more of us could stay on point.

    Monroe Scott, our neighbor at Casa de Canterbury for more than nine years, also passed away last Monday, July 27th. He was 84 years old. Monroe was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known – I enjoyed visiting with him early in the mornings while he stood on his front porch with his beautiful flowers he planted every year. He would laugh at my pathetic attempts to grow flowers in our back yard. He even came over one day to give me a few tips, but it was a lost cause. After we moved across the river in 2017, we still kept in contact with Monroe and his son Anthony who called us last week about his father.

    Martha Faye, an African American woman I called family, and Monroe Scott, an African American man I called friend both died during our mourning for another African American man that became a national hero but was also part of a large extended family who knew him as Uncle Robert and an even larger group of friends scattered across the world. As Shakespeare said, sorrows come not as single spies, but in battalions. This past week I felt the battalions circling.

    The coronavirus pandemic which continues to rage in our midst amplifies our sorrows, makes our hibernating selves more susceptible to fears about our own safety along with concerns for the well being of our families and friends. Grief becomes a constant companion for many of us who have lost loved ones and additionally lost an even more fundamental faith in our institutions.

    Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had this to say about grief: “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not get over the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”

    We shall never be the same.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.

     

     

  • sidetracked: takin’ any comfort that i can


    I have a good friend who is alone tonight following the death of her wife of 30 years last week. In the midst of the fear and panic we are all facing with the pandemic news every day, she must face the additional challenges of finding a new reality, a new normalcy for her life. I’ve published this post several times since the original in 2012, but tonight I dedicate it to Karen and all of us who are struggling to overcome.

    ******************************

    I’ve been too long in the wind, too long in the rain,

    Takin’ any comfort that I can.

    Lookin’ back and longin’ for the freedom of my chains

    and lying in your loving arms again.

    ——  Kris Kristofferson

    For the past few days I’ve been haunted by these lyrics, and of course I couldn’t remember the third line exactly so I researched the words on the infallible source of all information: my computer. Google knows everything which seems curious to me about how it knows everything, but then I accept its wisdom and move on. For example, I discovered that Kris Kristofferson wrote the song and recorded it with Rita Coolidge. I wasn’t surprised really because Kris is a wonderful lyricist who sang with a number of women through the years.   I was totally surprised, though, at the list of artists that had recorded the Loving Arms ballad. Olivia Newton-John. Dobie Gray. Glen Campbell. Mr. Presley himself. Kenny Rogers. And more recently, the Dixie Chicks. I was also stunned to learn that I can send the tune to my cell phone as a ringtone.  I’ll pass on that opportunity for now.

    I digress. It’s common for the words of a country music song to occupy my mind for  several days. I like country music. I listen to country music when I’m driving around in my old Dodge Dakota pickup by myself.  When I’m in Texas, I typically leave the kitchen radio set to the country legends station in Houston and turn the radio on as soon as I get up in the morning– right before I pop the top of my first Diet Coke of the day. I turn that radio off late in the evening – the little click it makes is my own version of Taps.

    I digress further. I tried today to reflect on the words, why I had the song in my head in a kind of loop. I’ve been too long in the wind, too long in the rain. Over and over again I sing it. Sometimes I even sing out loud, but mostly it’s inside. Were those the lines that mattered? Was that the secret code? Nope. No more suspense. No more digression.

    The key word is comfort. Takin’ any comfort that I can. I love the word comfort. You can have your words solace, console, ease and reassure if you want to. Give me comfort. Seriously, give me comfort. Give us all comfort.

    Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted. I’m not too sure about this beatitude, but I’ll let it slide because I’d like to believe it. All of us who mourn shall be comforted. Our frontage road of grief will slowly merge into the passing lanes of optimism and hope if we are willing to pay the toll required to enter. We pay a price for the passing lanes that make our travels easier as we watch our grief fade away in the rear-view mirror, if we are fortunate enough to have the resources within ourselves to cover the costs.

     Now I know the third line of the song perfectly. Lookin’ back and longin’ for the freedom of my chains. What a great line it is, too, but that’s a subject for another story. I’ll let you ponder it on your own while I say good night and take my comfort in two loving arms again.

    Stay tuned.

  • and may you have no more sorrow


    This is a special post for our friends who live very far away from us in New York. They have lost a precious member of their family, an adorable little dog named Butterfly, this weekend. She succumbed to many health issues and passed away in her mother’s arms.

    If we lived close to them, we would be at their home tonight to mourn with them as they sit shiva – we would be bringing them a bite to eat and a treat for Butterfly’s sister Cricket who is the inspiration for The Cricket Pages, the blog that introduced us to their family.

    Every weekend I looked forward to Rachel’s posts that always included Cricket and Butterfly’s antics – sometimes funny, sometimes more serious – but always entertaining.

    I will miss Butterfly from now on. I hope she and The Red Man get to meet somewhere and swap stories.

    May God comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and may you have no more sorrow.