Grieving "the whole way down"

But not grieving alone

Forty years ago, they called the sort of person my husband was then an “early adopter.”

Every new technology that came along, he had to have it. We were the first people I knew to have a car phone, even though the thing was as big as a brick (and as heavy too!) and required a curly black antenna affixed to the rear window of our little Honda Civic hatchback to work.

When we were first married, he found a second-hand IBM Selectric typewriter for our home office, which I loved. We were among the first to own a home computer, too, even though I don’t remember ever using it in those early days for much more than playing Tetris.

Anything and everything to do with technology was Doug’s domain. I was happy to leave it all with him. So much so that I confess it’s only recently that I discovered that things like TV remotes and digital thermostats even have batteries that need to be replaced periodically. Changing the batteries is my job now.

At times throughout the course of our marriage, I doubted the wisdom of always having to have the latest high-tech gadgets and gear. But over the years, I experienced how being familiar with computers and software and such gave both him and me an advantage in the job market at a time when such things were still new enough to be novel.

And yet, there were limits. When he bought the big-screen TV several years ago, I never learned how to do much more than turn the thing on, change channels, and turn it off again. I preferred to read, unless we sat down to watch something together, and then I just let him wield the remote.

But something happened one evening recently that reminded me of just how much things have changed.

Photo by: Nick Fewings, Unsplash

I was folding laundry on our bed when Doug came into the room, clearly upset.

“What’s wrong, hon?” I asked.

“The TV’s not working,” he said. “Something’s gone wrong. There’s all this stuff on it.”

“What stuff?”

“There’s all these lines across it.”

“How about if I come and have a look?”

When I turned the TV on, I saw the problem immediately. Somehow, he’d managed to activate the “Closed Captioning” feature, such that every spoken word appeared in white letters against a black background across the screen.

It took me a few minutes—pressing buttons and trying different things—but I managed to turn off the feature that had been annoying him.

He was amazed. “Thank you!! How did you do it? You’re so good!”

Amid so many other losses, recognizing this one—his loss of ability to navigate the various functions on our now almost 10-year-old television—seems a relatively small thing. But it disturbed me enough that I tossed and turned for most of the night.

Early the next morning, I picked up a new book, Every Moment Holy–Volume II, sent to me from an out-of-province friend. As Doug slept, I sipped my coffee and read:

And in the reading, I experienced that wonderful sense of someone else’s words and prayers giving voice to all that my own heart holds.

Yes, we grieve the whole way down. But in reading these lovely words I was reminded that we don’t grieve alone. Others have certainly walked this road before. And if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we know that countless others are walking it now.

“Yes this time is hard.

Take heart. It is only for a time.

So let me serve this loved one now,

In light of the glory of who they will be

When all these losses we lament

Are recompensed ten million times.

Amen.”

- Every Moment Holy, Volume II