“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
We were driving in the car when my almost six-year-old daughter asked, “What do you do with a dog’s body when it dies?” I answered that you take it to the vet and they take care of it. She said, “You mean they burn it, put it into a little vase, and you can put it somewhere to come visit like with Bumpa [her grandfather]?”
Ha, ha – the beauty of directness! There is something to be said for that. And since I come from a family that specializes in subtlety, especially when expressing emotion, it’s something I need to work on. Just being able to say, “I’m mad” has a refreshing kind of direct ownership.
But I write this knowing a bunch of writers will read this and agree that being direct and telling a story are two different things. Knowing that my dog’s ashes are sitting in the cherry box on the mantel doesn’t begin to touch the story of being with him through his last moments as he bravely both let me know he was ready to go and licked my tears as I said good-bye to him, my amazingly beautiful, goofy and loyal companion of almost 14 years. Visiting my dad in the Memorial Garden has very little to do with his choice to be cremated and interned and everything to do with wanting to hear his sonorous voice say just once more time, “It’s going to be great, Kid!” It’s the stories I have so about both of these characters that celebrate the whole-hearted and loving way that they both lived and give all the reasons we miss them now.
So I’ll continue to tell stories as we have our time for deep talks in the car. After all, her questions lately have been about homelessness (like in this post), drugs, and now death. It seems big topics deserve a lot of human understanding that only stories can bring.
Surprised By Joy 