Joy. . .and not so much joy

I was telling Doug this weekend that a lot of times people look at me funny if I tell them that I remember my grandma's funeral as a time of joy.

He remembers well what an emotional wreck I was in the weeks leading up to my trip home that fall.  One night, trying to be goofy and make me laugh, he made a comment about my button nose and then started singing, "Frosty the Snowman". I burst into tears, thinking about how I wouldn't get to decorate Grandma's tree and watch old Christmas cartoons at her house any more--so many of my fondest Christmas time memories revolved around her warm little home.  

So, make no mistake, I was sad.  For me.  I knew how much I would miss her.  I was home for more than two weeks when she died, and I remember that time, more than any thing else, joyfully.  Whatever her flaws, my grandmother had led such a life in how she treated people that we could spend that time in unity, celebrating a life well led and the love we all felt because of her.  So many people that week told my mom and aunts and uncles, "She was my best friend" or "She was my mom's best friend", and I'm sure it was true every single time.  She had been a wonderful mother, a phenomenal grandmother, and a true and steady friend.  In her wake she left almost nothing but love and appreciation and happiness.  It was exactly what a time of mourning should be for a family.

All too often, that's not what happens when someone dies, even someone who is deeply loved by those around them.  As human beings, we are full of flaws, contradictions and pride.  I have seen too many families where the result of losing a loved one is a trail of broken hearts and unanswered questions, and consequently fractured individuals and fractured families.  All too often, we can't get beyond ourselves enough to heal those wounds before we leave this earth.

In the book "Xenocide", by Orson Scott Card, the main character is Andrew/Ender Wiggin.  He comes to a world to speak the death of a father (a violent, abusive man), and in the process he heals the family and becomes a part of it.  The mother is a brilliant scientist, and all of her children follow in her footsteps and become scientists as well, save for one: Olhado, her middle boy.  He marries young to a beautiful woman, takes a job in a local mill, and spends nearly all of his time simply being a happy husband and father.  When it becomes apparent, through various events, that he is just as brilliant as his siblings, who define themselves so strongly by their professions and academic achievements, his brother asks Olhada why he didn't pursue the same path.  His response?  "I thought: If I could just make a good family, if I could just learn to be to other children, their whole lives, what Andrew was, coming so late into ours, then that would mean more in the long run, it would be a finer accomplishment than anything I could ever do with my mind or my hands."

He saw something better and he went for it. Not to spite the father who did him wrong, not to prove that he wasn't the same kind of man as the one who raised him.  He did it because it was good, and meaningful, so the world he came from didn't matter as much as the one he created.  In mortal life, we waste so much time and energy on anger, disappointment and frustration.  We spend so much time trying to justify, or find some retribution.  What does it matter that our mother or father or brothers or sisters did things we wish they hadn't or failed to do things we wished they had?  How does wallowing in self-pity or justified anger serve us or our spouses or our children?  Too much time spent focusing on what we didn't like in life often ends up hurting us or our children or spouses in ways that are perhaps different, but often no less severe.  

We live in a fallen world.  The people we love will occasionally (or perhaps often) hurt us.  Get over it.  I don't mean that we should suppress our feelings and not work through them, I don't mean that our feelings of neglect, abuse, disappointment or anger aren't understandable, but we are better off working towards forgiveness and bettering ourselves than seeking justice or punishment for those who have done us wrong.

I guess that's part of why the thought of my grandmother starting all this is powerful to me.  From what I can gather, she didn't have a world class father.  She spoke endlessly about her mother and brothers and sisters, but I only remember her mentioning her father once.  From what I have gathered, he was not always kind to his family, and was a bit of a drinker.  I give my grandmother much credit that all I heard about her family were the happy memories of her childhood and the continued friendships throughout her life with her mother and siblings--I was told nothing about a stern father and frequent poverty, and most people weren't.  She married a good man that she loved, had a successful marriage and raised her own happy family and moved on in life.  

Its much more effective in life to forget about what you're owed and focus instead on what you can give.