Mary Potter Kenyon

“In the midst of the darkness of loss, I found light. Admittedly, in those first weeks, it might have been but a single small spark I sensed deep inside of me, but that spark guided me in the twisted, dark journey of grief. As I stumbled over the roots of hopelessness and despair, that light grew to illuminate my path, a path I sometimes felt very alone on. At some point in the journey I’d turned around, and there was God.That is grace.”

“The whole encounter was surreal. No one had mentioned cancer. I hadn’t requested special treatment for Jacob. Yet he’d just nabbed a private meeting with an actor from his favorite movie. I would later ask Mike, the comic book store owner, what had prompted him to invite Jacob to the supper and a private meeting with Mr. Bulloch.“It was Jeremy at the door. He recognized something in Jacob. Jeremyis a cancer survivor.”

“Can you remember another time when your chest felt like this?”My fingers splayed across my aching chest as I carefully pondered herquestion. Then I nodded vigorously as I remembered. Tears streamed down my cheeks unchecked as I whispered hoarsely, “Yes, I do remember.After my husband died, it hurt like this. My chest felt full and heavy, and I thought then, Oh, this is what it feels like to have your heart break.”

“I held back from seeing Jacob much during those weeks. He wanted only his mother, and I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing him like that. I stopped by to pick up his siblings and take them away, but I rarely went inside the house. After several days of this, I knew I must face the sight that my daughter faced daily. Inside, I approached the couch tentatively.Would I upset him? A few times when I had visited, he’d hidden his facein a blanket. I reached out hesitantly, touching his thin arm, the skin hot and dry as paper. He didn’t move, but I could see the rise and fall of his swollen chest. Suddenly, my legs gave way, and I dropped to my knees in front of the grandson that I loved so dearly. My hand shook as I lifted it to his soft, fuzzy head. I felt as though I was in the presence of someone very holy.“I love you,” I whispered, and when he didn’t respond, an even softer whisper, “Tell Grandpa that I love him and miss him.” And then, with a groan, “Dear God, don’t let him suffer.”

“You have no idea how well you are doing,” John complimented mejust a few minutes after he mentioned the Christmas card. What did that mean: That I was doing well? That I’d come to a family gathering? That I’d remembered to bring food? That I was dressed, and my hair combed? That I was wearing shoes? I wasn’t sure, but maybe just making an appearance at a family event meant I was handling things well.”

“Tonight I attend my thirty-fifth high school reunion with some trepidation.I have not seen most of these former classmates for thirty-some years. I am not the same young girl they knew in high school. What they cannot know, what I am just realizing myself, is that I am not even the same person I was two years ago.”

“What were you going to make for Christmas dinner?” one of my older children asked in a very reasonable tone. I cleared my throat, but couldn’t speak. There was no real explanation for my behavior. I’d been so intent on getting through this first Christmas without David. I’d found new rituals to replace the old, wrapped gifts, and even made cutout sugar cookies. I’d modified Christmas in order to endure it. What I hadn’t done was plan on or prepare a Christmas meal. Everyone waslooking at me expectantly by this point, including my sweet, hungrygrandchildren.“I forgot all about Christmas dinner,” I finally admitted. No one batted an eye.”

“That evening I sat across from Jeremy Bulloch and Jacob at the dinner table. I watched as Jeremy, who seemed to speak Jacob’s silent language fluently, drummed his fingers up and down on the edge of the table, as if playing a piano. A delighted Jacob mimicked the actor’s actions. My throat filled with tears. I met Ben’s eyes across the table, where he sat straight with pride next to his son. He was enjoying the show just as much as I was. Jacob was in his element, interacting with an actor from his favorite movie. The other men at the table were part of the set: Mike, the owner of the comic book store, who had made the entire thing possible, and the Mandalorin Mercs, new friends of the little boy who hadbecome one of their own, a comrade in distress.”

“We put on a pot of tea, a necessity between these two writing friends. Wecould no more imagine writing without this hot sustenance than we couldwithout pen and paper. We sat at the table to talk shop, sort through ournotes, and make plans for the book. Then we settled down in the sunroom,giggling a little at the unexpected absurdity of our activity, editingwithin arm’s reach of each other, like toddlers at parallel play.”

“What were you going to make for Christmas dinner?” one of myolder children asked in a very reasonable tone. I cleared my throat,but couldn’t speak. There was no real explanation for my behavior. I’d been so intent on getting through this first Christmas without David. I’d found new rituals to replace the old, wrapped gifts, and even made cutout sugar cookies. I’d modified Christmas in order to endure it. What I hadn’t done was plan on or prepare a Christmas meal. Everyone was looking at me expectantly by this point, including my sweet, hungry grandchildren.“I forgot all about Christmas dinner,” I finally admitted. No one batted an eye.”

“Don’t you believe that Jacob can be healed?” some persisted, pressuringElizabeth to believe—just believe—and Jacob would be healed. Theunderlying message was that Elizabeth’s faith was not strong enough to save her son. I remembered then the same kind of statements David and I had heard when he was undergoing cancer treatment, when several well-intentioned people informed David that all he had to do to rid his body of cancer was to believe he was healed. I’d resented the implications then, and I resented them for my daughter now. People die. Goodpeople like David die too young, and innocent little children die, and thestrongest faith in the world cannot keep anyone on this earth forever. Ifonly the same Christians professing their faith in healing could clearlysee the flip side of that faith, that earth was not where we ultimately belonged.If Jacob died, he would be going Home.”

“You who have never “been there” in the throes of grief, have no idea what is going on inside the head of the grieving spouse: the scatteredthoughts, the constant worry that we will forget something or someone in our fog-induced state, that strange feeling of not quite “being all there” when out in social situations, the pall that covers everything, like a cloak of sadness that never lifts.”

“I often wondered after David’s death: Had they known something then? Did their very souls recognize each other? Did Jacob, closer to God than anyone else I knew, somehow sense this was the last time he would see his grandpa? Hadthere been a message to the little boy in David’s long-held gaze? Did these two people—the six-year-old boy and the sixty-year-old man— realize something the rest of us didn’t?”