Anne Lamott tells the story of having her tonsils taken out
as an adult. After two weeks her
prescription for painkillers ran out.
She called the doctor’s office to get a new prescription. The nurse said No and told her to find some gum and chew it vigorously,
which is the last thing that Lamott wanted to do with a painful throat. The nurse explained that when we have a
wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to protect it from any
more violation, and that Lamott would have to use those muscles if she wanted
them to relax. She got the gum and
she said that the first chews felt like she was ripping things in the back of
her throat, but in a few minutes all of the pain was permanently gone.
For some people the death of a loved one is so traumatic
that they never want to deal with the grief. This freezes the one who died in a perpetual state of
unresolved dying, and prevents survivors from taking the risk of loving someone
else as deeply again. They think
this protects them from ever feeling the pain of grief, and it partially does,
but it also drags shadows over every good thing that happens. If we take no risks, we will experience
no wonder.
