Dog Walk Philosophy: Grief And Joy (Second Line)
I walk my dog every morning. Most mornings we walk pretty much the same route. So I decided to give myself a challenge. Find something unique along the path I tread daily and take a photo. Somedays there will be something genuinely new. Others I will have to find a way to shoot the mundane with a new perspective.
It has been a little more than three days since my mother passed. It was a weekend full of tears and sadness, but slowly smiles and laughter are creeping back. My son’s silliness, my wife’s ability to balance normalcy with extreme kindness in a way that doesn’t make me feel like a patient, the string of memes sent by friends when I said I needed an injection of goofy, they all picked at the doldrums of sorrow.
My father sounds stronger (he asked that we not visit and allow him time alone). He told me he spoke to my mother for an hour yesterday. My brother, who is the most sensitive of the three men my mother left behind, is running errands and debating over when he will return to work.
At its core mourning is a selfish act. We think of being selfish as something to be frowned upon, and sometimes it is, other times it is the best and most necessary thing we can do. Mourning isn’t for the dead. It’s for the living. Whether you believe in an afterlife or that death is a full-stop, the loved ones we lost are free of worry and pain. Our mourning is the acceptance of our own worry, our own pain. But at some point, we must shed the weight of sorrow and transition back to joy.
Today I will honor my mother’s Louisiana roots and transition from the solemness of my mother’s death to the celebration of her life. In lieu of a second line calling us to joy, I will play the music that filled my childhood home for years. I will clean and wash clothes. I will cook a sleep-inducing dinner (carbonara maybe) and lay on the couch. I might even light a menthol and let it burn like incense to truly capture my mother’s spirit. It is the kind of day my mother would smile through.
I cried for myself. Now I’ll sing for her.
