In my American Lit class today, we were talking about Emily Dickinson's death poetry. I had skimmed some of the poems (I have been a terrible graduate student this semester), and had momentarily thought that it could have been a difficult class for me, but I decided to go anyway. After all, talking about death in an academic sense is completely different from experiencing the death of a loved one, isn't it?
Apparently, I was not able to make the distinctions as easily as I thought. I was fine, at first, but my classmates started bringing up their own experiences with funerals and grieving. All I could think about was my dad's funeral: the dark gray metal of his coffin; the drawn out service that would have bored him to tears; my grandmother managing to squeeze out the words "It was a beautiful service" through her tears.
And, honestly, I was annoyed too. My classmates kept posing questions like "What is the point of funerals? Who are they for?" We talked about cremation too--- which also irked me, as a girl who would have been my younger sister-in-law was cremated two years ago.
So, I tried to say something. I really did. I was going to talk about closure. I was going to bring up people who plan their own funerals. I was going to be smart, and I was going to try and put to words everything I had been feeling for the last hour or so...
...but I just couldn't do it. My voice cracked, I had to stop talked, and I decided to leave class ten minutes early. And, you know, it hurt my pride more than anything. Before now, I had been very good at compartmentalizing my grief and putting on my "Student Hat" and my "Teacher Hat." I felt like all of that went away during class today, and I was inexplicably embarrassed. Embarrassed because they'll always remember the time someone started crying in class.
And, I suppose to some extent, I'm ashamed of myself too. I know I shouldn't be, but I thought I was stronger than that. I guess, sometimes, grief is just bigger than I am.
I have cried in class for much lesser reasons than that (I skipped a class once because the guy I was dating broke up with me 5 minutes before class... later the professor told me it was probably better that I didn't come because we were reading poems about heartbreak and unrequited love. I still ended up crying when I went to see the prof about what I missed). You are so strong and brave, and it's okay to have a moment of grief - even in the middle of class.
ReplyDelete