What do Wicked, Whit’s teacher, Kelly Corrigan, and everyday aggravations have in common?

Last fall was the most difficult of my life so far.  In the wake of Matt’s and my father’s back-to-back deaths, we walked, dazed and numb, through the holidays.  I wrote about the radical perspective that marked this time in an Instagram post in mid December.  I talked about how the fall made our priorities crystalline.  December and January feel like a blur to me now, and I can barely remember the specifics.

But I was comforted by one thought.  At least these tragedies had made a dent in my universe.  I had been changed for the better (this reminds me of the song from Wicked, which one of Whit’s teachers sang outrageously beautifully a few weeks ago at a farewell event to mark the retirement of their long-time headmaster).  John and my father’s deaths had taught me something, and I was a better person.  I knew what mattered.  Priorities were clear.  Everything else fell away.

And then, as we edged into and through the winter, ordinary things began to irritate me again.  A line that wasn’t moving smoothly.  Difficulty getting a parking spot.  A long hold for Jet Blue.  Stupid, stupid stuff, of the sort I’d sworn I’d never get worked up about ever again.  Because I knew, didn’t I, that this stuff really didn’t matter?

It seems I forgot again.  I saw Kelly Corrigan speak last month, and read from her book Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say.  She referred to a very similar process: a period of clarity after the deaths of her father and dear friend followed by the re-entry of life’s small annoyances.  She spoke of her dismay, of her frustration, of her desperate wish that these losses have an impact on her, a permanent changing of the way she lived in the world.

I nodded hard.  I blinked away tears.  Yes, yes, and yes.

Were the losses of last fall not, ultimately, for something?  Now and then a few seemingly random things coalesce in my consciousness to make a point, and that is happening now.  Mrs. H singing from Wicked.  Kelly Corrigan speaking and bringing  me to tears.  My own anger at myself for being, in fact, the same shallow, irritable person I was before everything went black.

There’s nothing I can do but try to remember the intense clarity of those early days, of December.  Maybe that kind of crystalline awareness of life itself is unsustainable, and maybe that’s as it should be.  But I can remember the way I saw, like light through clouds, what really mattered, and the way I swore to remember that.  It’s only been six months since dad died, eight since John died.  I owe it to them to try to remember that beam of truth.  And so I will try.

7 thoughts on “What do Wicked, Whit’s teacher, Kelly Corrigan, and everyday aggravations have in common?”

  2. “My own anger at myself for being, in fact, the same shallow, irritable person I was before everything went black.”

    So, I view this differently. Only when you’re living in a state of emotional blackness are daily annoyances not annoying. You can’t live in that head space forever. And you don’t want to. And neither would your dad or father-in-law want you to. You were changed for the better because they lived, not because they died. It’s okay to move back into the land of the living where long hold times and slow drivers are irritating. The poignant clarity that comes from a life ending is important, but it’s also a moment of crisis. And I don’t think you want to live in crisis mode forever.

    I think what you’re going through is totally normal. And I don’t think it means that you’ve lost the perspective you gained in that time. It means you are healing, slowly, and that is a good thing.

  3. I soooo get this. After Joshua died so tragically I thought I’d never complain about anything petty again. You can guess what happened not too long after. I do get jolts of that good perspective still, but it’s not constant the way I wish it could be.

  4. your essay and these comments are salve to my aching soul. After a year of intense family drama followed by a “loss” of a relationship I didn’t think I could live without ( not romantic) – I read these words with scars and hope. Lindsay, I have written more than once that you put into black and white what lives in my heart and does not always know how to get out.

    Thank you — and prayers for your continued healing with the loss of your father(s).

  6. I agree with Gale. Rather than admonishing yourself for returning to your former self, I would take that as a true sign of healing… returning to normal. I suspect that your father and father-in-law loved you for you… even the you that gets angry at the long hold for Jet Blue and the difficult parking spot. Welcome back to feeling almost normal… whatever that is. 🙂

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