I have seen many patients over the years who are dealing with grief in many forms and ways. They approach it differently depending on their own personalities, established coping skills, social support and the nature of the loss. I have heard stories that were quite painful, shocking and some that hit home with my own experiences.
As often happens in my day to day life, two events occurred last August that gave me pause for very similar reasons. First, my mother in law died on Wednesday, August 16th after a rapidly progressive illness. It was painful for my wife and family to watch her steady decline as well as to anticipate her passing. However that is not the focus of this column. In the days immediately following her death, some of the family including me were looking through items in her home, deciding what to keep, what to donate, and what to discard. Always difficult for any grieving family, this was an especially poignant task, as my mother in law loved to collect bits of information, comment in writing about events and ideas, and paperclip and store many things that spoke to the very active, vibrant lady she was, with her eclectic tastes and curious mind.
I was going through a few dresser drawers and then bags of stored paper, when I came upon some bound correspondence. I picked up the first letter, dated several decades ago, from this sweet departed lady to her betrothed. I began to read and after only the first sentence, I began to weep. My vision went blurry, I became flushed and hot, and as my wife offered consolation with a big hug, I lost it. Completely lost it. “I just can’t throw these away. I can’t throw these out!” I managed to croak through my tears. I tried to read a few of the lines to her, to no avail, but managed to tell her what I had found. This letter and the others, written according to the lost art of beautiful flowing script, expressed my mother in law’s deep feelings for her soon to be husband. They went on about her hopes, dreams, anticipation of their long life together. The letters and the substance of them expressed her so very well. They reflected her thought, her love, her life. They were her. I immediately knew that these letters were a part of her that still existed on earth, that reflected who she was, where she was, why she was. As long as they existed and someone could read them, she existed. As long as they were here, she was here. The feeling that I had on that day come back exactly the same as I write this, just not quite as intensely as that first time.
Fast forward just a very few days after that to my wife and I watching a movie that she had come across titled Mr. Turner. This 2014 biopic covered the last twenty five years of the life of one of the most famous of English artists, J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) , sadly unknown to me until my wife, also an artist in her own right, gave me a mini education on who he was and why he was so important in the United Kingdom. A sometimes lush, sometimes dark, sometimes enigmatic film, it was much like the subject it portrayed, hard to fathom, harder still to understand. It is said that you may recognize an excellent book or film because you can’t stop thinking about them long after they are completed. I am still thinking about what this film taught me about art, relationships, abuse, neglect and genius scorned.
In the film, Mr. Turner is a prolific artist who was accepted into the Royal Academy. He made tens of thousands of sketches, had several hundred completed works, and more uncompleted ones. He challenged the status quo, was both revered and reviled and had a messy, challenging, troubling personal life. At one point in the film, a wealthy admirer offers to buy his entire collection of works for 100,000 pounds, an astounding amount of money at that time. Turner declined, stating that he wanted his works bequeathed to the British government so that they could be installed, maintained and made available to the art loving community in his country for free. When he found himself on his deathbed, his doctor quietly advised him that his time was short and that any necessary personal business should be attended to soon. Turner replied “So, am I now soon to become a non-entity?” Even though he had to have some inkling that his body of work would indeed be famous, appreciated and viewed by millions many years after his death, he was afraid that when he left the earth, his essence would also be gone. As with my mother in law’s letters, and with the stories about their loved ones that scores of patients have told me over the years, that was certainly not the case. His creative spirit, style and interpretation live on, long after he passed those many years ago.
Who are we, and how do people know us? What do they know about us, really? How do we think, feel, love and create? How do we communicate? Are we doing all that we do simply for now, or do we think about the future and how we will never truly be “non-entities”? Reading the very first line of my mother in law’s love letter to her future husband provoked in me the same feelings of awe, wonder, peace and resignation as looking at Turner’s painting Study of Sky. The warmth, color, love, and power of the artist in all of us will never pass away, as long as there is someone to read it, view it, take it in, and make it their own.
Patients have always told me stories and I love that. I try to pass some of them along, and add a few of my own. I would encourage you to do the same, for as long as someone remembers and shares one of your stories, you will continue to exist.
