A Walk on the Beach by Joan Anderson

Author:Joan Anderson [Anderson, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

JOY IS A DUTY

It’s fall, and I’ve all but lost track of Joan since Erik’s death and subsequent memorial service. She has been wavering between two personas—that of a dignified woman who receives the numerous visitors flooding her house to express their condolences, and that of a recluse. The public Joan who is mourning has no time for sustained, intimate conversation; the private, grief-stricken Joan stays put in her emotional wilderness, reliving her special and private memories alone.

Although I respect her need to grieve on her own terms, I sense she should have a bit of diversion to ease her out of her grief. It was she who told me that she didn’t hit bottom awfully easily. “When I do,” she once admitted, “I try to focus, not on the problem but on my strength. One way out of the doldrums is to do something . . . take action rather than sit passively.”

And then one day she left a message on my machine, her normally melodic voice sounding desperate: “I feel suddenly left out of what must be going on around me. Please, dear, call and let me in on the action.” I raced out of the house and headed for the beach. This being a foggy day— her favorite beach weather—I thought I might find her there. Sure enough, I spot her black cape billowing in the wind as she walks along the shore.

“Joanie,” I shout, waving fiercely in hopes that she will notice my arrival. “May I join you?”

She turns slowly, then lifts her cane. I race to her side and gather her fragile body into my arms. “How are you?” I whisper. “It’s been a while.”

“All right until you asked me in that sympathetic tone. I guess I’m coping, but I hurt down to the bones,” she says, as tears fill her eyes.

I pull back and stare at her absent look while she dabs a tear with an already dampened handkerchief.

“It’s all right, Joanie,” I say. “You’ve told me so many times that the way to feel a whole range of emotions is to use them. Well then, why are you holding back now? A most enormous event has occurred in your life. You need to dive into the emotion of it.”

“But I’ve been doing this too much, lately. I can’t cry forever, now, can I? How pitiful would that be?”

I reach out to offer another caress and she falls into my embrace and sobs unabashedly.

“Cry,” I say, as her shoulders shake with emotion. “You must go through some things crying all the way if you’re ever going to live with them without crying.”

“What was that?” she asks, suddenly straightening up her body.

“A quote from Howard Thurman. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“It really does,” she agrees, swallowing her tears and now gazing at the endless sea. We stand in silence until she reaches for my hand and we plow on through the damp, mushy sand, listening to the honking gulls and the distant foghorn.

“Quite a fog,” I suggest.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.