Death is interesting to say the least...it seems to bring people to a lost for words. The last post I made was about a death, so I guess this is how I deal. Someone died and although you can his o-bit is on the internet for confidentiality reasons I won't say his name, but I'll note that he was a child, the littlest of our youngsters.Death touches us all differently. Some of us grieve briefly and move on, some of us grieve for years and never truly recover. The first death I remember effecting me gravely was that of my maternal grandmother. But I guess there is something that my mother taught that makes me sort of brush off the hurt/pain and get back on the horse. I think when my paternal grandfather passed I worried more about my paternal grandmother. I was a few year wiser upon this death and I had a better understanding of how to hold it in. Although I actually cried for like a minute out loud at work, but no one was there other than my aunt and maybe one other co worker. Then I wiped my tears and got back to work.
(Michael Jackson's death is a sour note in my life that still makes me drop a tear due to the terrible situation surrounding his death, so they are not tears for death but more idolizing tears of the pop star that was...)
I allow others to grieve and I "suck it up." It's sort of like I am the pillar. People lean on me; I am the ear that listens, I cottle, I build back up. While I let you feel, I make sure I look like the brick people know me to be.
I guess I made the mistake of being a cry baby in front of the wrong people, plus I have found that people are paralyzed when I (or others) break down. Especially men (at least the ones I know) and there is nothing worst than crying and needing that pat on the back from someone who is awkwardly watching.
My mother's text Monday was: "Hold it together about, little J--, sad thing." I did just that even as I remembered how on Friday he was sitting on my lap laughing and smiling as he practiced for the up coming Special Olympics. He was grabbing the modified small soft and squishy basketball, then dunking it like the next Michael Jordan. I held it together, when I remembered how that Saturday I found out this little guy knew how to play, "peek-a-boo."
"I notice he was putting his hands up to his eyes then bringing them down, while I was changing him, I told my mom, I finally figured out he was playing "peek-a-boo."
I can see his face while he was on the changing table with the biggest smile on his face with his very quiet laugh. I even mentioned my favorite thing to do with this kiddo, which was when he would be sitting on my lap and I would let him hold my index finger with his tiny hands. Then I would make my legs sort of bounce and move his arms ever so gently as to mock driving a horse and buggy. And I would say to him: "Oh you must drive the buggy, do you drive the buggy?" He would smile and I would stop as I worried about too much movement or excitement. No matter how much the teacher/para would say he was a tough dude and not as fragile as he looked I would still always worry that I was doing to much. I am sure if he could have talked that he would have asked: "Why'd you stop?"
If you haven't figured it out he was Amish. So I also held it together as I told a co-worker about putting his little homemade Amish coat and bonnet on his little body before we went out to get on the bus at the end of the day.
When I walked into the school this morning I knew that I had to continue being the pillar that I am, even as I saw wheelchairs moving and I knew he wouldn't be in them; even when I walked in the classroom and saw his little shirt lying on the desk along with his o-bit.
I don't think people would blame me if I broke down, but I think I would be mad at myself, but when being a pillar you're basically holding it all in, so then when you want to feel it won't come out or worst the original feeling turns into other emotions. Basically, after working in the classroom of the student who passed and holding everything in I went to my second job and wanted to get some of it out, but by this point it had been transformed into a different emotion. So now I am here typing these words as I think about Michael Jackson's song: Gone too Soon.
Now I don't know what the Amish believe, and although there are many ideas from the Christian perspective, I can see this little guy in heaven with the other children that leave us at an early age playing and laughing and singing. Maybe he is with other little Amish children, or maybe all children are together. I guess I can see this because that is the last image I saw of him before he died. Or maybe he is an angel. Either way I can't ask why, and I can't be angry. I can only accept that this happen and hope that if he was in pain that his suffering is over. I hope that he can sit on my Grandmother's lap and "drive his buggy."
