On Coping
Carolina Williams
©
Copyright 2018 by Carolina Williams
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If
ever there was something easier said than done, it was being a kid.
Adults wearing stiff blazers recline in their brown leather office
chairs and welcome any wave of nostalgia that takes them back to
childhood, when they were carefree and overflowing with enthusiasm
for weeds that resembled flowers and dreams that were mistaken for
reality. But, unknowingly, they now view childhood through a lens of
sentimentality —
an excessive fondness and tenderness that masks the physical
struggles and emotional pitfalls that frequently explode in the day
to day life of a kid. Though many adults may hold that they first
encountered and learned to overcome true hardship as an adult, in
reality, the adversity with which they dealt as a child is what
shaped them into the adults they are today, and every minor calamity
in their early years prepared them for how they face tribulation and
tragedy in their adult life. As a child, it is challenging to process
the new events and resulting emotions that are encountered daily, but
over time, the coalescence of these experiences work together to
create a new strength — a strength with which one is not born,
but which must be acquired, and which will carry a person through
every travail to come.
I
was just four years old when my father told me we needed to talk. I
was nestled in my favorite spot that I claimed to be only mine —
the corner of our vintage, blue-flowered wrap-around couch, reading
one of my favorite books; at the time, I was convinced I was reading,
but looking back, I had most likely just memorized the words from
when my mother would read it aloud to me before bed at night. His
characteristically warm eyes seemed somber and distant; his tone was,
for once, solemn, and reflected the gravity of the circumstance. He
asked if we could go for a walk.
Never
one to relent to being interrupted while I read, and certainly never
one to be excited to go for a walk, I hesitated, but something was
different this time —
an unspoken coercion he exuded, compelling me to agree. I followed
him out the back door, down the small hill on which our house rested,
and onto the curved sidewalk of the cul-de-sac. The sky was bright,
the air was still, and the nature around me was seemingly silent. It
was the perfect day to be outside, but no one else was. My father’s
pace slowed to match mine, until we walked alongside each other in
mutual reticence. On any other day I would have grown bored, but the
anticipation of his words were enough to keep my heart beating and my
feet moving. I studied his face. I learned nothing.
When
he spoke at last, I listened carefully, soaking in the weighty verbal
notions along with his earnest countenance. His eyes became glassy as
he tried to stop the tears from escaping; I had never seen him like
this before. I did not ask questions; rather, I absorbed everything
as if I would be tested on it later, and I could feel my expression
become more stoic with each passing moment. It was a long
conversation, but only my father was talking. And when it was
finished, I only took one thing away: my grandfather had died.
I
was young. My only previous encounter with death had been a few
months prior when I had caught a butterfly in the park and brought it
home to keep, and it had died the following day in its Tupperware
captivity. I awoke to its wilted wings, wondering why it was so
still. But I had not really been affected. I had things to do, other
butterflies to see. I moved on.
The
fact that my grandfather had died was difficult for my inexperienced
mind to grasp. Even as a small child, I felt so close to him because
we were so similar. In the moment, it felt like the parts of me that
he brought out had died with him. I didn’t
really understand that I would never see him again until I never did.
And there was nothing more sobering than seeing my father cry, as I
watched my hero turn human before my eyes. He wasn’t
invincible.
As
the world around me seemed to blur, I thought that the worst thing
that could possibly happen to me had happened. My unscarred heart
shattered, thinking of everything in my life that would be affected,
and how it would affect me. My grandmother must feel alone, my father
must feel lost, my mother must be sad, my sister was too young to
understand any of it, and I couldn’t
process my own emotions enough to know how I felt myself. In an
instant, I grew up so much. If I hadn’t realized death existed
until now, what else did? I had been innocent and certain; now I was
wiser but unsure.
I
did what felt right at the time —
I put on a brave face, and I told my father I was fine. He knew I
wasn’t, but he accepted my statement, and we walked back home.
I went back to reading. Life would go on; the earth would keep
spinning. The sun would rise and set; people would continue to wake
up and go to sleep. I would be one of those people. And eventually, I
would be fine.
But
during my adolescence, I learned that going through the motions will
not solve your problems. Disaster will strike, and the consequences
will be inevitable. There will be fear, and there will be sorrow, and
these emotions have to be known and acknowledged before one can move
forward. I did not realize how much I internalized and suppressed the
passing of my grandfather at the time until I was sixteen years old.
My
mother was downstairs in the kitchen, my sister was downstairs in the
living room, I was upstairs in my bedroom, and my father was out of
town. It was a school night, and the whole house was quiet. From my
room, I heard the shrill, repetitive electronic sound of our landline
ringing; it startled me, because it never rang. Then I heard my
mother walk toward the kitchen counter to pick it up, her footsteps
somehow sounding perplexed, and from the long pause between when her
footsteps stopped and when the phone stopped ringing, I intuitively
knew that she had slowly reached for it. In that moment when I heard
her voice answer, I felt suspended in time as there was a long pause
before she spoke again. I could only hear her side of the
conversation, and I could barely hear it at that, but the thin walls
and floors were my accomplices, helping me listen. And as I continued
to listen for an infinite couple of minutes, I knew that my
grandmother had died. When I heard the beep of my mother hanging up
the phone, I immediately opened my door and ambled down the stairs,
before I could be left alone with my thoughts. I joined my mother and
sister in the living room, and though they cried, I did not. Crying
was weak. I wasn’t
weak.
But
then came her funeral —
the first funeral I had ever attended. The car ride to Kentucky, her
lifelong home, was long and hushed, interminable until it finally
ended, and we arrived in the misty, rural plains home to a Subway and
two gift shops. It was a place where one would usually feel so
removed, but I felt so connected, because my I could feel my
grandmother’s presence — her impact on the people there,
her roots.
And
yet, I held it together, until the day of the funeral service. I had
just gotten my braces off two days before. I was supposed to be
smiling more than ever before, but I couldn’t.
Alone in a bathroom, I couldn’t even see my teeth when I smiled
in the mirror, as the tears in my eyes made my whole face a foggy
blur. And for the first time in a long time, I cried, for my
grandmother was gone, and I was figuring out how to deal with it. I
cried, and I felt better. I acknowledged my emotions, and I felt
better. It was a hard day, but at the end of it, I felt better.
In
hindsight, this day was a triumph, because at such a young age, I had
learned how to confront something I had never expected, and I began
to learn how to deal with the effects of a tragedy become a reality.
When disaster strikes, ignoring it and suppressing emotions is never
the way to go about it. Only when someone can recognize how a tragedy
has made them feel and accept the effects of the event will that
person be able to truly move forward and rise above it. As a kid, I
didn’t
know how to face disaster. I assumed that by ignoring it, its effects
on me would subside. As a teenager, I learned the hard way that this
was not the case. Disaster is not about being prepared, it’s
about how you deal with it when it happens. As much as one might try,
no one can ever be fully prepared for a death or other tragedy. My
experiences in my adolescence taught me that the best way to face a
disaster is to fully accept the situation, let out emotions, and go
from there. As a child, I learned that life goes on. As a teenager, I
learned that emotions need to be felt. And as an adult, I know it’s
true.
My
name is Carolina Williams and I am a sophomore at Auburn University.
I have always loved to write and been fascinated by the way words can
translate emotions from one person to another. This essay details the
way I dealt with my grandfather’s death at a young age and how
it has impacted the person I am today.
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