Nancy Hands
I wrote a comment a few days ago that happened to spark a few questions that I had neglected to answer over the years. I’ve struggled with depression most of my young life and have just recently, in the last year or so, decided to cleanse myself of all the negative emotions I keep suppressed. Monday was my first class of Grief Psychology and I found myself crying because I knew exactly what the teacher was saying. Of course once I start crying, I can’t stop, and however much I tried I couldn’t erase the thoughts of past mistakes from my head. They were stains that couldn’t easily be removed the first few tries. Yesterday’s class as well as today’s class went much more smoothly though my throat kept clenching tight and my eyes were burning. The teacher reminded my class that there is a research paper due by the end of the quarter. He said that we could choose a topic in which we had personal ties to and write about that without providing refrences. At first I didn’t want to but I dug up an old essay I had written to a psychologist but had not finished. I plan on finishing it and turning it in but without putting any emphasis on my own personal experiences, instead I decided to write about my grandmother, Nancy. I began with the first time I ever heard of her, so tell me what you think:
I was young when I first heard her name, though then she was only dead. I woke up in the back seat of the family van as Callie’s shoulder shifted slightly against my ear. Mom had rolled the back passenger door open and was standing at the front, wringing her hands, looking across the hood of the van. Before crawling out to join my mom and sister outside, I looked out the window and saw Daddy slowly walking away from the van with a row of headstones to either side of him. He turned to stop infront of a marker and kneeled, placing the flowers he had brought in the vase. I didn’t have to hear him to know that he was speaking to his mother in the same voice that he uses when tucking Callie and I into bed. I also know now that he probably heard her answer, not as the widow absorbed in self-destruction, but as the loving mother of three children.
I will add updates to this essay as I finish it. The purpose of the essay, my teacher said, was to be able to understand why providing counseling to the grieving is so important. My essay will explain the results of the possible extreme outcome that can occur without early treatment. Oh, by the way! I still love my new job!
