Several weeks ago, I had dinner with some of my new Texas girlfriends. All four of us have diverse backgrounds and
none are Texas natives. One is a former
editor from Chicago, one is a Finnish musician and the other is an Alaskan
native who moved to Texas in her youth.
Throughout the evening, we were sharing stories from our past and of how
we got to where we are today. As you can
imagine, we had quite a collection of tales.
For some reason, I was remembering an encounter with certain
extended family members shortly after my husband’s death. What surprised me through sharing was how much
my anger over the situation had subsided as time had passed.
It was Good Friday, 2010.
We had just buried my husband a week prior. It was early in the morning and my kids, my
mother (who was living and caring for us at the time) and I were resting at
home and hoping to sleep in that day. We
lived on a 15 acre wooded estate and weren’t in the habit of locking our doors
on a regular basis at night. I woke to
the sound of our dogs barking which really didn’t cause me much concern as they
often barked at a deer, raccoon or other creature that wandered close by.
At one point my six-year-old daughter unexpectedly came into
my bedroom and asked if she could ride her Auntie’s horse. The children were supposed to spend the afternoon
at their Aunt and Uncle’s farm and thus, my response was simply “of course.” I thought she was unusually animated and
excited about my response so I questioned her a bit. She said, “Auntie is here now and I am going to get
ready” as she scurried out the room. In
my typical early morning mental fog, I still wasn’t sure what she was telling
me. Whereas my brother in law and his
family lived just a couple of miles down the road, no one had ever ridden their
horse over to the house so this simply sounded absurd.
I decided that I needed to investigate a bit more. I got in my wheelchair with great effort (as
I had only been out of the hospital a few weeks and was still in a great deal
of pain) and proceeded to go into the main part of the house. Sure enough Auntie was in my home lurking
around while her horse was tied to a tree grazing on my front lawn.
(Auntie and I have had somewhat of a contentious
relationship for years and for the most part didn’t interact much. So this was totally out of the norm.)
Naturally, I was shocked that someone had the audacity to
walk into my house unannounced and was greatly offended by the boldness of the
actions – especially in my current state.
It was revealed that my sister in law rode her horse over when she
assumed that we would all probably be sleeping.
She didn’t drive over like she would have normally as she was aware that
the sound of a car driving down our gravel road would most certainly arouse me,
especially on a holiday when we would not be expecting any visitors early in
the morning. She came to snoop, to see
what she could find and was caught red handed. And to make the situation that
much more appalling to me, she came riding in like Tonto on horseback.
You see one of those unpredictable / unforeseeable issues
that I’m still trying to process is that often times when someone dies, sensibility
and compassion are often tossed aside. And people get weird – normalcy and rational
behavior is lost.
Whereas this may sound like a trivial story 3+ years later,
I gained a new perspective by sharing . . .
At the time, I was enraged, insulted, violated and very
emotionally charged over her audacity, accusations, boldness and sheer irreverence. What surprised me the other night was how in
telling the story, I found humor in the absurdity of it all; at how my friends
and I were on the brink of tears, laughing at a situation that at one time was
ridiculous and appalling; and that how given time, this same ridiculousness brought
about hugs, laughter and facilitated the sharing of dessert and another glass
of wine.
In short, a situation that at once invoked such anger and
hurt, now made me laugh. What a blessing
that time can transform one’s emotional reaction.
Moving forward with grace and forgiveness is what I work on
every day – keeping this at the mental forefront can do wonders for the soul.