The Bear Cloud

MESSAGES OF HOPE

“We all have something.” I said that to a librarian at a public library, and a volunteer standing at my side turned to me and said, “I don’t.” I looked at her with a surprised look on my face, and she continued, “I can honestly say in all my fifty years, I have never had anything bad happen in my life.” I was nonplussed. How does one get by in life unscathed? I then realized I had not had anything traumatic happen in my life until I was fifty-five years of age. I could have made the same statement when I was fifty.

We all have something, or at least most of us do, and we all have different coping methods. As shown on this page, some of us take on multiple tasks and fill our time away from the source of our pain. Others affix tattoos to their body parts to provide reminders that they can endure adversity with persistence and determination, using symbols that show their courage and indomitable spirits. Still others honor the pain source in their manual activities—they may erect a memorial to the deceased or create a garden dedicated to their missing loved one—grieving as they work, moving through their emotions, allowing their actions to propel them toward healing. There are also those who have undergone trauma who connect with nature and enjoy the beauty that surrounds them when they immerse themselves in God’s handiwork. Many others avoid their sadness by escaping through reading, enabling books to be their conveyor into heretofore unknown worlds.

If you are going through a tragic period and are feeling at a loss, believe the pain will decrease with the passage of the days. Allow yourself time to grieve and please know you are not alone. Many of us have endured unimaginable losses and we hold you up.  Feel our strength and allow it to seep into you. We are all connected.  We all share the human spirit. We choose love.

Multitudes of people face tragic events or encounter some type of adversity in their life circumstances. I want to remind individuals they are not alone through the sharing of other people’s stories. The Bear Cloud is a symbol of hope for me, and my wish is that these true stories will shower you with uplifting encouragement.

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A WIDOW’S WORDS

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a dear friend I have known since college, and I asked her how she coped with the death of her husband of twenty-three years.  The following is her story.

Fun loving and outgoing would be the labels used by my friends to describe me in high school and college. Knowing what I wanted and sticking to it. Once in the very beginning of my freshman year of college I was confronted and backed into the corner in the back stacks of the campus library by two broad shouldered football players. I was told I had a decision to make. If I wanted to date football players, then I could not date others in another hated group. I, shaking in my boots, told them they couldn’t tell me what to do. One of them is my best friend to this day.

I married a wonderful, successful man, who, because of how good he was at his occupation, was promoted and reassigned with one job site following another. Our two children made and lost friends in each move, as did I. We finally stopped all the relocating and settled in Missouri where we planned to stay until the children graduated from high school. But then tragedy struck, and cancer found my husband. He was sick for three years, and I watched him whittle away to a mere skeletal shadow before he died. I was only forty-four years old, with a son in college, a daughter in high school, and I hadn’t had a full-time job since I was twenty-three years of age.

Life had changed for my family and me. When asked how I coped after losing my husband, I have to say I really do not know. I lived one day at a time, coasting endlessly from one moment to the next. My college roommate sent me a book, “Living with Loss: Meditations for Grieving Widows,” by Ellen Sue Stern. Astonishingly, Ellen seemed to know exactly what I had felt that day. Reading Ms. Stern’s words each night before I fell asleep eased my mind. I did not have many friends in the town—most of my time there had been spent with a declining cancer-ridden husband—but his employees called and made me take walks with them, play cards, or go out for lunch. One friend would insist we go to lunch but would take me to a restaurant that was hours away so my day would be filled.

Before my spouse’s death, I had only worked part time. Now, full time work was upon me, and I was miserable. Every day I would arrive home, greet my dogs, and take them out with me to sit under my special tree. Somehow, they knew I needed them. They would rest their heads on my lap and lie quietly for as long as I desired. Hearing their methodical breathing, mixed with mine, and feeling the gentle afternoon breeze on my face as I reclined against the tree provided an elixir for my soul.

After a period of mourning and a job that was not at all satisfying, I went to work for a telecommunications company selling cellphones. I discovered that I could sell a rock to a farmer. I could charm the angriest customers and have them come back and ask only for me. One of my bosses who had worked for my husband asked me, “Who are you? You’re not the same person I knew when your husband was alive.”

I had become a silent partner in our marriage. I had replaced my wishes and desires with his, losing my autonomy and myself. Don’t get me wrong. I miss him. I loved him and enjoyed being a dutiful wife even though I felt my identity was entangled with his. But my true self—independent, fun loving, outgoing—had returned. I had relied on him for so long, had put his wants and needs before mine, but now I had to count on myself. I was grateful “the person who could do anything” was back. –May 13, 2020

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THE LOSS OF A CHILD

I visited with a friend recently who lost her son when he was twenty-five years of age. He died on a Wednesday, and his sister had to attend her high school graduation the following Friday. I cannot imagine the pain this family had to bear while assuming the mask of wellness during their visibility on those first days. Claire tells me she lost focus for several years and tuned out of things she began to see as trivial. With no interest in any activities, she didn’t listen to the radio, watch television, or go to the movies for three years. Her life was put on hold as she grieved the loss of her child, her only son. She found peace in nature—solitude became her friend and provided the salve for healing her broken heart.

Claire’s son had majored in international business with a minor in Japanese, logistics and transportation management. While Claire brooded through the initial days without her son, the thought of creating a Japanese garden occurred to her. She grabbed a pickax and started hacking, digging, and pulling up underground runners of honeysuckle vines that had invaded a section of her backyard.  She filled the back of a pick-up truck multiple times with rocks and debris from the yard as she engaged in near-back-breaking work.

At the beginning of the creation of this fine garden, Claire lost herself in her grief as she axed, shoveled, and dug. One day as she was digging, she sat back on her heels and released a primordial cry toward the heavens. She noticed movement as the tears flowed, and her eyes locked on a mockingbird that flew beside her and perched on a piece of metal she had used for a stake. The stake was within a foot of her, and she watched the bird as she cried. The mockingbird sat motionless as Claire continued to dig and cry. It stayed with her until she was spent.

A few days later, Claire sat on a wrought iron bench on a little patio she had designed, and the mockingbird returned, this time sitting in a chair that was directly across from her.  She sat for an hour and, again, the mockingbird was still and patient.  Claire waited it out, thinking the winged creature would surely fly off, but she went into the second hour and it still had not flown away.

Days later, Claire pulled into her driveway and parked as she always did near a tall hedge that bordered her neighbor’s yard.  The mockingbird sat at eye level on a small branch in the hedge and sang its song without making any other visible movement.

With the passing of time, Claire was no longer surprised when the mockingbird made an entrance, and she knew her movements would not scare it away. She felt peace each time she encountered it. The mockingbird continued to visit her off and on for over a year during those moments when grief beckoned and claimed her.  Claire’s son’s favorite book as a youngster was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The Japanese garden unfolded during those first two and one-half years, complete with a waterfall, pump, boulders, wrought iron benches, and stones carved with Japanese symbols and words as well as English words for son, brother, friend, child of God, and his name.  Claire planted twenty-five different species of Japanese maple trees and dug those holes and the four-foot-deep water basin herself.  It was important to her that she receive no help, but she acquiesced when it came time to putting in the pump and boulders. She added black bamboo fencing and gates and found true peace during her strenuous labor.

Claire has learned to “not do harm.” She had focused and concentrated all her life on all the blessings she had received rather than focus on the negative, and in doing so, she realized the blessings of her life far outweighed the bad. She recalls that after speaking at her son’s funeral, a mother of three adult children complimented her and asked how she knew her son so well as she herself knew little about her three children. Claire knew everything her son loved, and she realized in that moment she had been given a gift.

“It isn’t always the length of years one lives that is important but the impact and love that a life has given to another no matter how many years that one life has. I see now that through our personal suffering we are better able to give true compassion to others who have had loss and are in pain. We show more love and truly feel it. I am now better equipped to not criticize or judge another’s journey but to pray for them.” She adds, “Birds don’t sit motionless near someone who is crying and moaning and pounding a shovel and pickax. That just doesn’t happen.” –July 10, 2019 

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ESCAPING THE CONTROL OF OTHERS THROUGH NATURE AND BOOKS

A friend in Jacksonville, Florida told me she had traumatic experiences in her young life with an abusive, alcoholic uncle that lived in her home in Central America.  While she knew her uncle had control of her situation, she decided she would not let his behavior have control of her or her mind. She realized at a young age of eight years that she had a choice, and she chose to block him and not let his words, rage, or actions affect her.

Even with the realization that her circumstance was frightful, she decided she would live without fear and she would find joy.  When she looked upon a tall, dark volcano outside her back door, she compared it to him and saw its erupting potential but found beauty in its structure and its function. She decided she would put her focus on the beauty around her and not on her uncle’s behavior. The following words are hers:

“On one dark, cold winter night, a ray of sparkling moonlight guided me out of the dark labyrinth where I was stuck as a young child.  I had been finding and enjoying beauty in nature, books, and stories, and both nature and reading provided the route for me to escape the blocked passageways in which I found myself.  The harsh reality of experiencing the ugly ups and downs of the emotions of an alcoholic uncle and his destructive behavior made me appreciate simple things in life, such as enjoying a sunrise or a sunset. The magnificent sight of the rising and setting sun made me realize that life was bigger than dealing every day with a controlling adult.  I saw clearly that he was making poor choices for himself, but, yet, he ‘pretended’ to make decisions for my life that didn’t agree with me.  I was determined to find and hold onto beauty in everything around me, and reading provided the open window for me to escape.” –February 23, 2019

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LIVING WITH AN ALCOHOLIC

I heard from a friend today that I had not talked to in ten years or more. Carla told me her husband had not always been a drinker; he had occasionally had a drink (maybe once or twice a year on holidays but no more than that) until 2001 when he tried Smirnoff Ice. Someone told him about that refreshing concoction, and he found it quenched his thirst better than water after he mowed the yard, after physical labor that made him sweat, and at any time he was thirsty. Over time, he added vodka to the Smirnoff, and he gradually increased the number of drinks. When his drinking became excessive, and he drank every evening and every weekend, his family decided to do an intervention. After a thirty-day treatment program and a year of sobriety, however, he started drinking again and the frequency and volume again increased as the days passed. Carla has been reluctant to suggest a second treatment intervention as she feels it is a lost cause; she had first-hand knowledge of the alcoholic recidivism rate when she was involved in his treatment at the rehab center.

Sadly, or fortunately (however you see it), Carla indicated her husband had always had a sweet disposition, and he was one who would never want to hurt or cause pain for his wife or his children.  “Even now,” she said, “he gets upset with himself after an episode of heavy drinking.” She told me he was remorseful four nights ago after an episode in which he was seized by alcohol’s grip, and he has been sober since then. She is thankful but afraid to get hopeful, as she knows this could be a temporary blessing. What does Carla do to cope? She stays busy. She has her women’s groups (thank goodness for women), and she has included him in activities for couples: card-playing, Mahjong, dinner club, and church group. She and he are active at the athletic club, and she exercises beyond that and is an avid hiker. While he remains his sweet self, and he does not directly impact her sense of well-being, he does get that “look” on his face when he has too much, and his voluminous use of alcohol has her concerned and worried about his physical and mental future. –February 11, 2019

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DIVORCE

“Divorce is damaging to your self-esteem and your sense of who you are. Divorce seizes your identity, and it tosses it around in a whirlwind of emotion and lost dreams.” –from Married to Merlot 

One woman inked this tattoo three weeks after her divorce was final.  It is the Finnish term/cultural identity for perseverance in the face of adversity—a constant reminder of the power within.  Karen told me she sometimes finds herself rubbing it, as if for good luck, when she is feeling down.  Her husband had said to her more than once during their marriage that if she ever obtained a tattoo, he would divorce her—and he was not joking. Getting her first tattoo was Karen’s final ink on the divorce papers.   She is of Finnish descent, and a counselor had told her a number of years ago about the word, SISU, and its meaning.  She kept it close to her heart for years and when the divorce was imminent, she was inspired to put that inside piece of her on her outside.  For Karen, it was a fitting finale to a rough year. She knows she will continue to be strong and resilient despite any rough patches or dark times.  Resilience and strength are her core.  Grievous events may happen and knock her about, but they can’t knock her down. Her core keeps her upright and enables her to move one foot and then the other, as she takes the steps toward a happier future. –January 19, 2019

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PHYSICAL ABUSE

Amanda took a job at 16 and became a cheerleader. Cheer practices, along with the required participation at football and basketball games, took her out of her abusive home. Amanda also started writing. She wrote about the worst of it; she wrote about her anger, her hate, her feelings.

If you are so despondent and feel helpless in your own situation, please pick up a pen and write. Let your thoughts flow through you and let your feelings flow out onto the paper. You will soon know how therapeutic it is. –January 5, 2019