A Discussion on Grief

I think we are all born with pure emotions. As we gain experience and are taught lessons of life, our emotions are tainted by social expectations and beliefs. We are told by the words, actions and reactions of others how we should feel and our infant emotions grow away from their authentic truth to conform closer to what is expected.

Jack spent hours on Tuesday collecting tadpoles. His actions were loving and gentle. He expressed sincere excitement with each little creature in his scoop, and transferred each into his bucket with tenderness full of respect and awe for the life it contained. At our suggestions, he added stones to make them feel at home, bread for them to eat. He held the jar the whole two hour home from Tremont, making sure the inhabitants received both sun and shade to be comfortable. Each day this week, as soon as he was allowed in the morning (he had to be fed, dressed and ready to go) and as soon as we got home at night, he raced out to check on his tadpoles. Each time he returned excited to tell me what they were doing; growing legs, eating bread, swimming around the rocks. This morning he and Elliot came back and told me they were doing great, they were all "swimming at the top of the water". I was concerned, but didn't say anything until Steve came in from outside where he had checked on them himself. Swimming at the top is not as exciting for tadpoles as it may seem to young boys.

Steve confirmed with me, then broke the news to Jack. We had let him down, let the tadpoles down, and they had died. Jack was silent, and then he cried, which brought back my memories of two other similar occasions; when I told him his young friend had died of cancer, and when I told him our sweet Sam was sick and needed to go to Heaven. While I held him in that moment, as he cried for the tadpoles, I moved between those three mirrored experiences and felt like crying too. Jack's grief was grief. He was as sad for his legless frogs as he had been for our beloved pup, and as he had been for his then lifelong friend. He has experienced more than a five year old's share of death, but he is yet untainted by social opinions about how much sadness is warranted at any given moment. To him it didn't matter that the lives were not human or even canine, and he grieved accordingly.

Don't worry, as true as his grief may be, it is also short lived. As with the other moments, after a cry and some solomn time, he moved on to thoughts and actions more appropriate for a five year old's daily life. I know it will remain with him, because those other moments are with him. We were recently talking about how adults do cry sometimes and he told me "you cried when Sam died". I thought he meant Sam the pup, but he corrected me saying "No, Sam our friend. When he died and you told me, you cried." I wasn't sure if he was remembering the moment or remembering our discussions about it so I asked where we were when I told him and he fittingly said "in your room, on your bed". So while he went about the day without much mention of the tadpoles' demise, I'm sure he has filed it away. I hope he has some time left before his moments of grief start to transform into a more socially acceptable emotion that dictates hierchy of emotion and extended length of feeling.

N