Grieving Patricia Pickens: A Stalking Cat

We met a social worker who was keen on dental appointments.

She would not miss her dental appointments for any reason.  I did not ask why.  Perhaps she knew the affect of a lack of dental care over time.  Her case load undoubtedly included people without teeth.  Up close and personal experience with a toothless family member may have created the urgency.  Whatever the reason, she refused to miss dental visits and my mother knew of her rectitude.

We postponed our family dental visit because of the pandemic and again because of travel.  A new visit is scheduled.  We were not rigid enough to find a dentist willing to see patients during the pandemic or flexible enough to do cleanings on the road.  We waited and in waiting, I thought of the social worker.  While waiting, I read:

Doctors, pastors, counselors, nurses and other caregivers often fall prey [to putting off their grief]....Those who were caregivers for their loved ones before they died [put off their grief]...When people spend a sizeable amount of their time caring for others, it becomes easy to neglect their own needs by continuing to focus on the needs of other people. ~ A Time to Grieve by Kenneth C. Haugk, page 24.

While waiting for the dentist, the social worker's fastidious scheduling triggered grief for my mother.  A stalking cat, is grief.   As a pastor, I put off mourning her death.  Work, calling, provision for family and a thankful response to Christ delayed the cat's pounce by more than a decade.  Grief stalked patiently.

"Grief takes time, and grief takes work.  Much of this is emotional work," Haugk says.

I delayed the work of grieving and, like delayed dental work, the signs are unmistakable.  Recovery includes time in a dental chair; in a writing chair.  Dentists have dozens of teeth to inspect, clean and repair.  I have dozens of years of memories to revisit, reconsider and reframe.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. ~ I Corinthians 13:9-12

Throughout childhood, and into young adulthood, she took us to the dentist.  Each visit, the hygienist put the mirror in my mouth and gave instructions for my good.  There was nothing for me to do but remain in the chair, listen and obey: turn your head, spit, open, bite, rinse.  

In grief, there is nothing for me to do except sit in a writing chair, listen and follow instructions: chuckle, sniffle, smile, cry, write.  The Holy Spirit is quietly directing me in ways that hurt a little but are for my good.

Perhaps I need a bit more rectitude in keeping appointments.