After our daughter Amy — wife, mother of three, pediatrician — died in 2007 at age 38 of a rare and asymptomatic heart condition, I was clobbered by the death itself. You think death happens to other people. Then you’re other people. Still reeling, my wife, Ginny, and I dealt with the calamity by trying to be useful. We moved in with our son-in-law and our three grandchildren for the next seven years, hoping to make a normal life of the unthinkable. And we succeeded, for the most part. But then something would happen, such as a sudden question asked of the kids by some stranger at a school event — “Is your mom here?” — and we were clobbered again.
During those years and for a long time afterward, an ever-deepening sorrow enveloped us like a fog that didn’t lift. I would drift away during conversations, stare out windows or bury myself in work. Every thought of Amy flew through me like a spear.
Psychologists often talk about the stages of grief: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance. For me, something akin to depression lasted so long, I thought it would never end. But recently, I discovered another stage of grief that I haven’t found on any lists. It may be a version of acceptance, but what I’m experiencing is much more active and positive. I write of this stage here because it may bring some hope to those in similar situations.
Unlike the first stages of grief I experienced, which cling to the past, this new stage occupies the present. I say occupies because it seizes the present with both arms, bringing with it a strange, surprising joy.
Sometimes the joy is carried by a tune she liked. “Wind Beneath My Wings” was one. Or I catch sight of a young woman studying, bent over a book. Amy boning up on organic chemistry. Or I overhear a phrase she often used. Occasionally, it’s a speculation on how Amy would respond to a current situation. Or just a memory out of the blue. On the phone, in high school: “Dad, I’m shopping for the prom. Would you come by the store and help me choose between two dresses?” (Naturally, I chose both.)
In this, my third stage of grief, the past, miraculously and mercifully, does not feel painful. The photograph of her that brought me to tears a few years ago now gives me a smile. I am peaceful with the memory of my child, experiencing my life with her as if for the first time, with just a touch of déjà vu in the bargain.
I have no idea how this happens, or why. Maybe the mind, tired of its punishment, rebels. Maybe it simply tires of looking inward. It sounds harsh to say so, but after a while, grief becomes an act of self-indulgence. You are so steeped in your own suffering that you forget to acknowledge the person you had with you for however many years. The person you loved, who loved you. Once you change your focus from the self to the other, grief turns to gratitude, gratitude to celebration. Your child is with you again, resurrected by the happiness you both shared. Or, to be fair, the transformation may be inexplicable, quasi-accidental. In every period of heartbreak, beauty intrudes. Inevitably. Mysteriously. It just happens.
I’m not sure if this third stage only appears when one is old, but if that’s so, it makes sense. The old know too well that death is part of life. The dead exist with the living, as Amy exists with me now. She is — as I know she would have been, had she lived — a great comfort to her old man. To say nothing of keeping him in his place. She had a gift for doing that. When choosing grandparent nicknames, I came up with El Guapo, the nickname of a paunchy Boston Red Sox relief pitcher. El Guapo. The handsome one. Since the grandchildren could not pronounce El Guapo, they called me Boppo. “Justice,” said Amy. “He thought of himself as the handsome one, but he was really Boppo the clown.”
Of course, this stage is tracked by a shadow. However cheering it may be, one never loses sight of its context. Yet see how much better this is, to have not only the past, but the future as well. The conversations you recall continue into tomorrow. That walk the two of you took together on her wedding day. You don’t remember a word of what was said, yet you walk with her forever.
There are many pictures of Amy in our home. One of her playing basketball with her two brothers, Carl and John. One at her graduation from medical school. One of her reading to her then 2-year-old daughter, my granddaughter. One at the age of 6, swimming underwater in an outdoor swimming pool, heading directly for the camera. A family friend, an underwater photographer, took it. That one I make a point of looking at every day. Amy in her red bathing suit, her dark hair flowing up behind her, her arms stretched wide like a glider’s wings. She looks where she is going, smiling confidently as she swims straight into the world.
Roger Rosenblatt is the author of “Making Toast,” “Kayak Morning,” “Cold Moon” and “Cataract Blues.”
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