Grandpa was really sick now, thin like a skeleton.
The last thing I remember him saying was, "Did
you bring the little dog?"
We hadn't brought Kip because Grandpa was in
a hospice, but the pain-killers made him think he saw the chihuahua at
the foot of the bed. Kip had been a faithful friend stationed at the
foot of his bed the previous five years at home when Grandpa was
bedridden due to cancer.
 |
| Melanie, Grandpa and Kip 1962 |
Technically,
Grandpa wasn't our 'real' grandfather. He was our grandmother's second
husband. But to me, my sister, and all the many cousins, he was the best
grandpa in the whole world. Everyone says that, even over fifty years
later. He loved children. He loved us. He spent time talking to us,
taking us on walks, teaching us to play the card game 'Casino.' And card
tricks, too. All the photos with him showed everyone smiling. He was
like that.
I
recall watching baseball on television with him. He was a San Francisco
Giants' fan. I realized last year that the reason I knew so much about
the Giants was because I watched the World Series (1962) with him (the
last baseball season Grandpa was at home), before he passed away the
following spring. His going left a dark hole in the family.
Literature
can ease the stress of a child's serious loss, so the effect doesn't
advance to toxic, chronic stress. Literature draws the isolating pain
out in the open. We aren't alone in our experiences; universal themes
speak to our human condition, too. For me, I somehow found "The Rainy
Day," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, probably in my parochial school
library. It soothed my heartbroken, prepubescent soul with lines like
"Behind the clouds is the sun still shining" and "Into each life some
rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary." Henry knew how I
felt.
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/12207
 |
| #16 Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All by Ian Lantz |
Childhood
can be filled with fears, even terrors, real and imagined. We don't
need to
describe the traumas kids suffer. Maya Angelou's "Life Doesn't
Frighten Me," infers a child's nightmares and possible real terrors;
the voice in the poem stands up to her fears. A group discussion of a
poem allows a student to absorb the comfort at her own pace and need;
she can share her fear or not. But the universal experience of fear is
acknowledged.
http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/life_mayaangelou.htm
Kids
can be demeaned, betrayed, bullied. How can a kid handle that?
Students, usually middle-schoolers, respond with shock at the opening
lines of'
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Someone
else knows how it feels? I'm not the only one going through this? When
you're born into the caste of the rejects--what's a kid to do? Like
Emily Dickinson suggests, reject the insult--its the conformists who are
to be ridiculed. To read how the totally unique Emily suggests we do
this, go to this link and see all the poem. http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/448/
Every
year I have taught in Southern California, I have students that have
had traumatic losses due to violence close to them. Even what we
consider to be a cliche can comfort them. Famous sayings and poems
aren't famous to kids--its new material. The well known saying from
Tennyson's "In Memoriam" is still valid:
I
hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
For the rest of the poem,
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174603.
I always liked the reference to not wanting to be a 'linnet' (caged
bird) that was never free to experience 'the summer wood.' Life has joys
and sorrows, and we fly to the first despite the eventual descent into
the second.
Our people, our family can uphold us.
Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son" speaks a mom's heart.
http://allpoetry.com/Mother-To-Son Life's exertion,
exhaustion, and unexpected reversals require relentless effort to
overcome, often too much for the young person by himself. Whether its a
mother to son, grandpa to granddaughter, teacher to student---there are
grown-ups reaching out to you. Someone cares. We can navigate you, one
step at a time, past the hidden trip-ups. We know where they are-- we've
tripped over a few--but let's get up and keep on climbing.
The
comfort from the community; poets from even two hundred years ago can
be a member of that community. A poem can embrace the sad, frightened,
lonely soul of a child.
I thought of Grandpa when his Giants won the Series. I couldn't
share it with him, except in my heart. That's a comforting thought. I
learned it from poetry.
