Katie's birthday

Today, March 8, would have been Katie's 13th birthday. And my heart goes out to her mother, Karen, as she makes plans for the day. How, in the face of so much loss, do we go on? And wouldn't some of the blythe pronouncements of my last blog -- "All shall be well," and "How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having" seem horrendously callous under the circumstances?

I think, if I were Karen, my lip might curl in bitterness hearing these thoughts -- as my own lip often curled in the months after my father died, when I would go to church and hear the language church uses around the core concept of the loving father God. Because it is hard not to be angry when life is grossly unfair.

Thanks to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, most of us now understand that anger is a natural part of the grieving process. But what are we supposed to do with that anger? And what purpose does it serve?

My own daughter, who was celebrating her 16th birthday in this old photo from the family archives, came home over Christmas for what her college calls Field Work Term; two months of work (in her case volunteering at a local theater) in "the real world," preferably in her field of interest. At the beginning of February, 2 weeks before she was to return to college, she was desperately missing her school friends and eager to return. But when it came time to fly back to school, 2 weeks later, she was wracked with grief, a grief that kept her in tears for another 2 weeks after her return.

She is better now, which can be attributed to any number of factors. But one defining moment, I think, happened two weeks after her return. She encountered a situation which was grossly unfair, in which she felt, first helpless, and then furious. When she called to tell me about it, though, she was remarkably calm, and her voice, which had been weak and trembly in most of the multiple daily phone calls we'd received since her return to college, was firm and strong. And when I asked how she was doing, she said, "Well, the good thing is, I'm too angry to be sad."

I should back up a bit here and say that, as an only child, I was raised to believe that anger was bad, and I had no right to it. I was well into my thirties before I learned that it was okay, not only to feel, but to express anger. And only later that I learned how easy it is to get stuck in a pattern of righteous anger, that insidious ego-feeding voice in your head that feels superior because someone else has done something so obviously wrong.

But what do we do with this other kind of anger, that hurt, frustrated, furious trapped feeling when life seems so grossly unfair? I'm not sure I have the answer. Feel it, I guess -- and forgive yourself for feeling it. Maybe healthy anger works like a fire, burning away the other confusing thoughts that muddy our hearts and brains, clarifying the memories of beauty and joy; the sense of purpose that lies beneath the mud?

Perhaps the heat and the flame of that anger, the healthy kind, releases something in us, like the balloons Karen will release for Katie's birthday. And when the time comes to blow out the candles of rage, perhaps some peace will come. I hope so.