All Of The Selves We Have Ever Been
Menu

all of the selves we Have ever been

The Cost of Sorrow

2/16/2020

3 Comments

 
Picture

My father’s pack was already heavy
that day that he enlisted in the United States Army.

He just didn’t know it yet.

At 16, filled with youthful energy and resolve, dad thought he had found a solution to life’s problems.  His father died when dad was 14.  The death was sudden and unexpected—a bad case of pneumonia before the advent of antibiotics.  It did not take long for the pneumonia to overtake my grandfather.  In a couple of days, he went from being a healthy, active dad of two boys to only a memory.  The older of the two boys and now responsible for the care of his disabled mother and little brother, dad made a pact with his brother Bob.  As soon as he could, dad would enlist in the military and provide financially for their needs.  Bob would remain at home and care for their mother.

Already in that invisible pack the day dad enlisted: being born at the start of the Great Depression to two physically disabled parents; living on the edge of poverty throughout his youth; a great war that terrified the world and made the future uncertain; the death of a father and no time to mourn; worry and care for a younger sibling and a grieving mother.

Added to that pack through years of military service first in the Army and then the Air Force:  adjustment to military life, a pack or two of cigarettes each day; a hasty and short marriage that ended in annulment; deployments; marriage and four children; moving every couple of years; job stress; deaths of family members.  It seemed the pack was bottomless.

After 17 years of active duty, my father separated from the military.  Later, my parents divorced, and my father moved away.  More weight for the pack. Further down the road, he developed pancreatic cancer.  Dad faced it like a soldier-airman, and through a miracle that awed his doctors, dad lived five more years.  The illness and treatment took a toll, but dad had some quality of life.  Disappointed that he no longer had the stamina to work, dad became a hospice volunteer.  My talented and artistic sister-in-law made dad some calling cards that said, “Believe in Miracles.”  Dad was a hit in his hospice circle. 

When our father’s cancer returned, his attempts at treatment were halfhearted.  My brother, HB, became desperate to keep our father alive.  HB had a menu of health drinks that he concocted daily for Dad.  During a visit to his home, I noticed that Dad left the health potions untouched on the end table while he stared blankly at the TV.  One day, alone with my father, I pointed out the warm health drink that now looked thick, flat and disgusting.  “Dad, you don’t want to do this, do you?”  My father began to cry.  He had nothing left, he said.  The first round of cancer had been so difficult that it took everything he had to survive.  “We must tell the others,” I said.  True to his roots as a soldier and an airman, my father expressed a feeling of shame about giving up.  He did not want any of us to be disappointed in him.  He did not want to let us down. I assured him that we all understood.  We had all been with dad through that first horrifying round of surgeries, complications, and treatments.  We had all survived dad’s blackout and car crash that sent us searching for him in the night when his blood sugar tanked as he tried to adjust to his post-surgical insulin-dependence.

As the disease progressed, I often spoke to my father by phone—he from his home in California, me from my home in Ohio.  I always knew it was dad calling because I heard gut-wrenching sobs coming from the other end of the line when I answered the phone.  I waited patiently until my father reached the point where he had exhausted himself and could cry no more.  I then offered what comfort I could.

One day the phone rang.  Again, there was sobbing on the other end of the line.  When the sobbing ceased, and it was quiet, I spoke, “Dad, I know that you are sick and sad and scared, but somehow I know there is something more that you are not saying.”

More tears.  “For fifty hears something has been bugging me.  Until now, I never knew what it was.”

The thing that had been bugging my father for most of his life was the death of his own father.  Years of unexpressed grief were now overtaking my dad.  “Because of it, I was not the man I could have been.  I was not the father I wanted to be.  I did not have the life I dreamed of.”  Dad’s last piece of fatherly advice: “Don’t let sorrow ruin your life.”

In that moment on the phone, Dad’s invisible pack burst open.  There was no holding it back.  The pack had grown so enormous and so heavy that the real man had been hidden from view.  It had gotten in the way of fully living his life.  My father was like Sisyphus rolling a giant boulder up the mountain.  Every day was consumed by the effort of shouldering his invisible pack.  And now he had insight but no time left for a do-over.  Mercifully, there was enough time for frank conversations and forgiveness.

Dad grew up in a time when people did not talk openly about their sorrows.  Adults did not even believe that children were affected by events like the death of a parent.  My father reached manhood amongst the brave but silent World War II veterans who provided an example of how to be a soldier and a man.

We all come into this world with an invisible pack.  Some of us are fortunate to reach adulthood with little weight added.  Others, like my dad, carry overwhelming burdens before they reach high school. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Sorrow makes us all children again…” For my father, the overwhelming sorrow of childhood robbed him of a successful adulthood. Though handsome in his uniform, It was all dress-up and make believe.  Dad’s pack was heavy.  It weighed on all of us.  We just didn’t know it. 
 
The commercial airlines have it right.  Keep your baggage light or it may cost you more than you want to pay.



3 Comments
Laura link
2/17/2020 11:41:46 am

Such a beautifully written and powerful essay. Such a pack was first strapped on your father's back by a culture that kept men from expressing the full range of emotion that comes with being human. Bless him for being able, finally, to weep to the daughter who could bear it with him.

Reply
Justin Secrest
2/22/2020 04:05:12 pm

Such great writing! So moving—so true Keep your pack light or you pay a high price. I suppose we don’t get to chose what goes in, but we can chose to move heavy things out.

Thank you for posting

Reply
Reylene Gard
3/7/2020 07:03:53 am

Such a beautifully written story. I am in tears as I write this. So many thoughts of my own story going on in my head. Both my parents grew up in a time that did not allow them to share their feelings. Sadly they both died without me ever really knowing their stories. Thank you for sharing your stories.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Lilli-ann Buffin
    ​

      Get Notified of New Posts 
      Enter your email address and click on "Subscribe"

    Subscribe

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All
    Acne
    Adulting
    Advertising
    Aging
    Arms
    Barbie
    Baths
    Beauty
    Beloved Community
    BINGO
    Birds
    Books
    Branding
    Bravery
    Cars
    Catching Up
    Children
    Church
    Cliches
    Clothing
    Comfy Couches
    Coping With Stress
    Coronavirus
    Death & Dying
    Diets
    Dignity
    Discernment
    Drive Ins
    Drive-ins
    Driving
    Essential Workers
    Exercise
    Faith
    Falling
    Family
    Father's Day
    Food
    Friendship
    Fruit
    Games
    Good Intentions
    Goodness
    Good Old Days
    Grace
    Graduation
    Grandparents
    Gratitude
    Hair
    Handwriting
    Health
    Heroes
    History
    Holidays
    Hope
    Houses
    Humor
    Illness
    Imagination
    Influencers
    Ironing
    John Lewis
    Knowledge
    Laughter
    Laundry
    Leadership
    Libraries
    Listening
    Lists
    MacGyver
    Madge
    Magazines
    Mail
    Masks
    Memorial Day
    Memories
    Mental Illness
    Miracles
    Moral Lessons
    Mothers
    Music
    Names
    Nancy Drew
    Nature
    Neighbors
    Oreos
    Other-Mothers
    Our Stuff
    Outdoors
    Parenting
    Pets
    Phones
    Poignancy
    Politics
    Prayer
    Purses
    Reading
    Recipes
    Reinvention
    Revelations
    Rewards
    Rotisserie Chicken
    Saturdays
    Saving The World
    Schools
    Shelf Life
    Showers
    Siblings
    Small Things
    Sorrow
    Speed
    Sports
    Stores
    Substance Abuse
    Success
    Sunshine
    Technology
    Thanksgiving
    Toilet Paper
    Tools
    Truth
    Uncles
    Veterans
    Voting
    Walking
    War
    Water
    Weather
    Wilderness
    Wishing
    Women
    Wonder
    Words
    Work

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Other Works
  • What Readers Say
  • Home
    • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Other Works
  • What Readers Say