We went to my grandmother's house to start cleaning out the kitchen last weekend. I pulled out a jar of beans that looked pretty old. It had a rusted top. It was from 1983. I saw several more in the back. It didn't make sense to me until I saw a note attached by a rubber band. The band broke as soon as I pulled because it has dry rotted. The note said "Canned by my mother before she died in 1985."
It was like vegetable shrine to her mother.
I do feel there is something sacred in preserved food. Especially if you grew, picked and processed it. My grandmother grew up on a farm where survival was dependent on the hard work of growing and stocking food. I understand why it these cans of vegetables were so important to her. I understand that saving them was a part of a grieving process. I just don't know what you are supposed to do with another person's shrine. More importantly, what do you do with grief that is inherited?
Grieving takes on different processes for different people. When Meme died, I had a ham she had sent home with us in our refrigerator. I didn't have the heart (or energy) to use it, so it just sat there for weeks. I finally had to feed it to the dogs because I didn't want to risk food poisoning. I let perfectly good food go bad because I couldn't face the loss of someone. I think this was part of the reason Meme kept those vegetables. She really didn't want to let go of her mother and acknowledge the loss.
I grew up in this family where losses weren't acknowledge. I still live in this sort of territory where my personal losses aren't acknowledged. If we started acknowledging losses, it would be too many to handle. Sometimes, I think they pile up and are handed down to the next generation to deal with, like cleaning out some one's pantry. You are left wondering what it is and what to do with it.
I finally made an appointment with my Spiritual Director a couple of weeks ago. I seem to be struggling a bit in my grief for the loss of my last grandparent. It is grief that has caught me off guard. We were not really close. She was close with my kids, and I have been working hard to acknowledge that they all loss something. I do that for them, even though it was not done for me.
I opened up myself to all of these things to my Spiritual Director. I confessed that I have been grieving many things over the past few years. I am grieving the loss of friendships and the loss of an important Church family. I've spent time with a therapist grieving my grandfather among other things. The appointment where I was exhorted to spend time with loosing Pop, I realize that it had actually been his birthday. I miss him. For many of these things listed, I've had to do the work for myself of acknowledging the loss. Again, it was not done for me.
So, being left to do much grief work for myself has been exhausting. I've committed to doing it because I don't want the next generation to be handed it. They will have enough to face on their own. My work has been long and tedious. I've had many helpers along the way. I've had many people who understand how hard, and valuable, this work is.
At the end of that appointment, I got some real and beautiful validation. I seem to be heading toward closure on some things. Real closure, where people get to Rest In Peace within me. Shrines are important, but so is transformation. I took a cake box from Meme's pantry and made cupcakes last night. We used her decorating equipment to ice them. For his baseball practice, my 12 year old took a bottle full of Gatorade from her house. We are moving forward, lovingly remembering where we received these things. These ways my grandmother showed us love will live on, thriving.
