Grieving

Probably sometime during middle school, I found Madeline L'Engle's books, and I've been reading them ever since. For those of you unfamiliar with them, her books are a mixture of math, science, fantasy, poetry, religion, family, romance, history, and the future--and I personally find them delightful. :)

This past summer, stopping by an old book store with my family, I found a copy of A Ring of Endless Light for a couple bucks and picked it up. It's not my favorite L'Engle book, but it's good. :) And somehow (I'm not admitting to anything!:)), when I packed books for Japan, the small paperback found its way into my book box. I've read the book many times over the last ten years of my life, and in some ways the words of L'Engle seem to capture a deep part of me that I can't put into words myself. The whole book is about grieving and death. In a simple, child-like way, it tells the story of Vicky, whose summer includes the accidental death of a family friend, an almost-successful suicide of a former romantic interest, a young child dying of a seizure, and watching her grandfather slowly succumb to lukemia. The last few pages of the book document Vicky's entrance into a dark depression, and her rescue out of the depression by some dolphins, which she had been researching for some scientists.

Even though it sounds maybe kind of childish, or fantastic, I love L'Engle's description of Vicky's grief. Sometimes, I wish I could just sit and cry over the people that I miss, that I leave behind in life when I move...but I can't. So I'm going to type L'Engle's last page instead, stealing her words to remind me that darkness does not win, and death and separation is only the step before life, light, and eternal relationship with our heavenly Father.

There was no light.
The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle.
There was no point in being human in a world of emergency rooms where a little girl could die because there weren't enough nurses or doctors
in a word where desperate fisherman clubbed a thousand porpoises to death
in a world where human beings stole from dead bodies, from pieces of dead bodies

What for? Why be conscious in a world like this?
Why bother
it doesn't matter
because nothing matters

Somehow or other I was in the front seat of the station wagon beside Adam.
We drove through darkness
and a horrible silence
and then I was standing on the beach because Adam took me and pulled me out of the car and across the road and down the path
Take off your clothes, he said.
I felt him pulling my shirt off over my head
roughly ripping
dropping my shorts on the sand
pushing me into the ocean
through the small waves
into the breakers
fell and went over me
a blue-green comber curled and
mouthful of salt and sand
Adam's arm around me in a strong grip
over my shoulder, across, under my other arm
he was swimming
and I with him
automatically moving my legs in a scissors kick
swimming
forever
into timeless darkness

Surrounded
by flashing silvery bodies
tossed up into the air
caught
held between the sleekness of two dolphins
holding me, but not hurting
holding and swimming
and then leaping with me up into the air
Basil and Norberta leaping into joy
with me between them
and before us and behind us and beside us
the others of the pod flashing and leaping
and I was being passed from pair to pair
And I knew they were trying to bring me out of the darkness and into the light, but the darkness remained because the light was too heavy to bear
Then I sensed a withdrawing
the pod moving away from me
not out to sea, but away, swimming backward and looking at me, so that I was in the center of a circle
but I was not alone
Norberta was with me
Suddenly she rose so that her flipper was raised, and then she brought it down, wham, on my backside
Ouch!
I submerged, down into the strange green darkness of sea, shot through with ribbons of gold
gulping sea water
choking
rising, sputtering, up into the air
into the blazing blue of sky
and Njord was there, nudging me, and laughing as I choked and spat out salt water, coughing and heaving

And the light no longer bore down on me
but was light
and Njord nudged and poked and made laugh noises
and I grabbed his fin and he soared into the air.
And I played with Njord.

The pod began to sing, the same alien alleluias I had heard first from Basil, then from Norberta and Njord, and the sound wove into the sunlight and into the sparkles of the tiny wavelets and into the darkest depths of the sea.
One last alleluia and they were gone, leaving Basil and Norberta to watch Njord and me play.
And then they were gone, too, flashing out to sea, their great resilient pewter bodies spraying off dazzles of light, pure and endless light.
I watched them until they disappeared into the horizon.
Then I turned and swam into shore.


Other quality quotes from the book:
"It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes."

"The song of Norberta and Njord echoed in my ears. And it was joy. And joy, Grandfather would remind me, joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God."


"Resurrection has always been costly, though not in terms of money. It took only 30 pieces of silver."

Maybe the words don't communicate so much without the whole story...but thanks for sharing in the moment with me.