Grief Springs All Up Into Your Business
Grief Springs All Up Into Your Business
(the grief cliches and an airport kiosk)
My mom died on April 1 of last year. We’re coming up on a year and some of the grief cliches feel accurate. Grief is, in fact, tricky. Grief isn’t linear, ok, I see that. Grief isn’t the same for everyone. Clearly.
But grief doesn’t creep up on you. It isn’t slow or lethargic or reminiscent of a horror movie blob-shadow lurking in the shadows.
My metaphor would be grief springs all up into your business. Catchy, no? Fine, we can wordsmith but the point is, it is sudden and lacks the decency of any warning. It’s like one of those small, hard rubber bouncy balls launched from an unknown corner - crazy quick and unexpected, hitting you right in your face where the tear ducts are before you even see the little sucker. Bam. There is no creeping here.
I was in the airport a few months ago on a work trip and I was late. The airport security line was I’m-going-to-miss-my-plane long and a rep from a pre-check outfit said I could skip the line if I signed up. I agreed because it seemed like better odds for making my flight and also because I could tell the rep, who was about my age, disliked approaching random, hurried people all day and needed someone to be nice.
The rep spoke in that pretty, lilting way when Spanish is the first language. She walked me over to the computer kiosk, “ok, aqui, aqui, here we go,” she pressed the touch screen to get me going. Name, address, scan your eyes (seriously), social security, blah blah. The rep was doing forward palm circles in front of the screen, willing me to hurry because I had told her I was late. I was remarkably blasè about being as late as I was and kept spanglishing “està bien, we’re fine, we’re fine” as I offered up my firstborn to the kiosk to skip the security line.
Then came the part where you have to prove you are who you say you are. “Which of the following four vehicles have you owned? a) a Peterbilt semi-truck, b) a caboose, c) a rocket ship, d) a Toyota 4 Runner.” So, D. “Ok, ok, good,” says the rep. I am cruising along.
Next question: “Where does Susan Smith currently live?”
Oh. Well. Susan Smith is my dead mom. So by definition, she doesn’t live anywhere anymore. This is not something I was expecting to confront at an airport kiosk.
Let me tell you, the grief didn’t creep up on me. It sprang all up into my business and bouncy-ball pegged me in the face. Tears stung from behind my eyes with such force I knew keeping them back was probably going to be unsuccessful. But I tried anyway because I was in an airport for goodness’ sake and my mascara is never up for the job. I hard-paused, looked down at my feet, pressed my hands to my hips and did that loud exhale through my mouth thing that people do when they’re trying to keep it together.
The kiosk lady didn’t know I’d been pegged in the face by the bouncing ball of grief, she only knew that I was lolly-gagging around, missing valuable seconds when I was about to miss my flight. She was Team Get this Gal on the Plane. “Keep going, yeah, fee-nish” now using both hands to gesture to the screen. She was a gesturer.
I looked at the frantically helpful kiosk lady with my very watery eyes and did that thing women everywhere are trying not to do, but old habits die hard, and I apologized. “I’m sorry. OMG, I’m so sorry, this question is about my mom, mi madre. She just died, ella acaba de murir. In April. Ack, I’m sorry.”
I don’t know if my Spanish was right, it’s been 20 years since I’ve been anything remotely close to fluent, but as the tears started pouring over my crappy mascara, she got it.
She stopped all the pointing and gesturing and went still. “Oh mija,” she said, a term of endearment that I think is used for children and I’m on the cusp of 50, but whatever, I felt like a child. “I’m ok, I’m ok,” I said probably 5 times, nodding firmly, the way kids do when they have to do something hard. I’ve got this, it’s ok, I’m willing myself to be ok, nod, nod, nod. Maybe this woman was a mom, maybe she’d lost her mom, maybe answer C, all of the above, I don’t know, but something about the nod got her and this woman came at me with open arms.
I’m pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to hug the people she brought to the kiosk (and I’m also pretty sure the other kiosk people were wondering what service I was signing up for) but hug me she did. And a hard hug, a fierce hug. This woman is in the wrong job. She needs to be healing humanity, not marketing security skip passes in the airport.
I got it together. I picked the address where my mom lived (and died, actually), got the clearance, and lo and behold, the rep, with her hand on my shoulder the whole time, walked me right past that insanely long line to the security podium. I made my flight.
It wasn’t the only time grief sprang all up in my business. I got hit in the face at the coffee shop when I wondered how soon is too soon to send out invitations and lifted my cell phone to ask my mom. The tarnished salad tongs we used at every family get-together bouncy-balled me, as did the goofy chipmunk golf club cover I saw at lunch with my dad the other day.
Grief springs all up into my business frequently. The airport was the first time it sprang on me when I was hip-to-hip with a stranger and couldn’t wander away. I’m so grateful this stranger sprang up with it and acknowledged the mark that bouncy ball left. Thanks, Señora.
Girl… I haven’t lost my mom, but my grandma who helped raise me. And, 10yrs later, I still get bouncy balls to the tear ducts over some of the most trivial moments, items, words.
When I named our 4th child Mercy, after her traumatic birth because God was beyond merciful to me through it, I never realized her name would be one to smack me in the face when I least expected it. My grandma used to say “mercy mercy mercy” as a playful “shame on you”. And man, is my Mercy one of those kids my grandma would’ve had a ball with. I can just hear her voice saying Mercy’s name. Ugh.