As a child, Memorial Day meant visits to the cemetery, a place of grassy fields blanketed in silence, winding paths, and strange stone markers. At age six, following the family tradition of laying flowers at the burial site of my grandparents, I ask a probing question.
“Dad, are Grandma and Grandpa really in the ground?”
More hazy questions follow: Do they want to be here? What is it like? Did they come together?
Dad seizes the moment and says that yes, his parents died, and their bodies are buried here, that everyone dies eventually, that some day he will die and some day I will die too, and though he doesn’t know what it is like, it is forever.
Alarmed by this incomprehensible news, I make clear I don’t want to die, and wonder why Dad doesn’t put a stop to it. My child-like concern quickly escalates from disbelief, to tears, to terror. When I break into inconsolable sobs, the family’s grave-side visit comes to an abrupt end and we leave the cemetery.
Looking back
I recount this incident to a psychologist-friend who remarks on my existential angst. Unknown to him, my journals attest to a lifetime of angst—causing me to judge myself as an unhappy, dissatisfied person. Compared to light-hearted friends and family I feel heavy, a lead balloon unmoved by the usual parties, pleasures, and pursuits of happiness. Someday I’ll be ‘fixed’, I tell myself. Someday I’ll be more social and fun and life will look like it should.
Looking ahead
With youth behind me, I stumble upon Soul’s Code by James Hillman. The author suggests the destiny of an adult is visible in the behavior of the child. His ideas challenge me to understand my serious side differently. Perhaps it is not the regrettable flaw I imagine, but a necessary gateway to the future. We do, after all, live in a time of staggering change. Surely existential questions and deep concerns are necessary to its coming. Surely Life needs serious inquiry to grow down, to push forward, to carve out a new future.
Inspired to live my questions and concerns more courageously, I resolve to welcome my serious side. Little by little, the side that often left me lonely and disturbed transforms into a valuable gift and creative way forward.