that unspoken word

The unspoken words, that hold us all back, we keep it inside, we hide it from each other something too personal to share. We can't show that to the world, it is too personal, it is uncontrolled, it is raw, and sometimes angry..

We can't show it at home, we can't show it in public, the only place fit for an open display of grief is locked in your bathroom with the shower running, and the fan on so people can't hear you scream.

A southern lady never makes a public spectacle of herself, a southern lady cries quietly in public, you don't want to make people uncomfortable...uncomfortable...uncomfortable...There is a huge list in my head bread by generations of southern ladies, who i guess have won this war, because i behave as the descendant of generations of southern ladies would expect me to behave, and they were all wrong.

My grief is real, and raw, and my hands, are shaking and i am wracked by sobs, i don't dare let escape, the tears quietly roll down my cheeks, and i carefully wipe them away so no one notices,but i have a wound that will never heal, and grief that i have never really expressed.

The cultural differences really hit me this week, I have been to many funerals, several of them for native american families, and what i know, is they know how to grieve. They do not have any feelings we do not have, they do not have a deeper love for their missing family members, but they do have the ability, and the cultural acceptance to grieve, and be in a state of mourning, not well tomorrow, you have to pretend it is all okay, because it will make people uncomfortable.

I understood the screams of the young widow, as she in shock with her 4 children and family by her side sobbed through the funeral, i felt her screams as if they were my own, i understood her standing up, and running toward the casket screaming no,no,no, trying to wake herself up from a terrible nightmare that will never end, i felt her running and running, and falling down in a faint as if i was with her on her journey...Her family carried her out of the church in a dead faint, i was with her too..and somehow she had it right...

I am haunted by the indian hymns from a funeral long ago, when the elders of the clan sang a 14 year old girl home in their native language, i have never gotten over it, and i don't think your'e supposed to. I remember the sounds in my head of the ropes lowering the casket into the ground the thud it made when it hit the earth, my shock and disbelief as the men and boys of the family passed the shovel from man to boy and friend to friend as the community stood and watched them cover their family member with earth..The screams and sobs, my own shock and grief as I watched my son, and his friends help bury their classmate,and i flash to another funeral and another...My own son who will never grow up, who will never know me on this earth...

I told my husband, I couldn't face the graveside again, he understood, but didn't understand. In empathy with the wife and mothers, i can no longer stand silently, dabbing my eyes like a well brought up southern lady, but i am on the ground screaming and i can't stop....

My husband asked me what do we say to the family, and i said say nothing, because there is nothing to say except we are praying for and grieve for your great loss....

Somehow, somewhere, someone decided, that if you were a christian, and a believer, you shouldn't grieve like this, but God gave us this great capacity to feel and love, and he understands our need to express it. I don't understand why it is unchristian to mourn and grieve and weep because we know from the Bible, from where we base our beliefs, that upon the death of his friend, "Jesus,wept", and so should we...