tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post339561996955516325..comments2023-10-28T06:45:31.002-07:00Comments on Brooke Hopkins & Peggy Battin: Loss and GriefSara & Greg Pearsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05484783478337960032noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-25276860030914859132009-08-23T01:27:04.822-07:002009-08-23T01:27:04.822-07:00Brooke and Peggy
Your recent post about Brooke’s ...Brooke and Peggy<br /><br />Your recent post about Brooke’s deep sadness at not being pictured with Polly and Peggy seated among the rocks and the pain of acknowledging that he most likely will never again be able to hike the hills he loves struck me, perhaps perversely, as hopeful. I didn’t know how to express it at the time. But you raise the issue again in this post. <br /><br />Brooke’s loss of his old body and his relationship to its functioning is real loss, a source of grief. The hopefulness comes from the willingness to embrace reality and grieve loss. Not that hope is necessarily felt along with grief; it is hope as potential, what may be possible on the other side of the bleakness and pain of grief. Maybe it has something in common with the pain and spasms and the hope that enduring them may be the price of new neural connections.<br /><br />At times of profound loss I’ve felt something like attachment to grief. As the pain recedes, the person I mourn is even more profoundly lost: Not only is the death a fact, but acceptance means the loved one is receding day-to-day life. It’s part of grieving I resent enormously, as though I’m giving up what I held dear. The letting go necessary for progress seems a betrayal and additional loss. Perhaps this is where courage comes in, the courage to embrace reality and re-build one’s life with what remains, doing whatever it takes.<br /><br />My own courage has been faltering significantly lately. This move has been harder than I had expected. Grief arising from many sources, some apparently long past, some having to do with the changes the move has brought, forces me to confront my own failures of courage. And I’m frustrated at having to share your experiences from afar, unable to see you and speak with you in person. At the end of the day though, all I can do is what we all must do: keep on keeping on.<br /><br />I too shopped at the 8th Avenue Market when I lived on G Street 30 years ago. I remember buying calves liver from the butchers over the meat counter at a time when supermarkets had abandoned them. I couldn’t have told you the name of the market if pressed, but I remember it and am sorry to hear it is now gone.<br /><br />We leave for Spain on Friday, going first to a wedding in the village of Valderrobes, then making our way to Tarragona and on to Barcelona. Between the weird family dynamics that will inevitably surface during the wedding and the journey into unfamiliar territory, it will be an adventure.<br /><br />love,<br />LorraineLorraine Sealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01497806391999639680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-87881459940136809122009-08-22T20:46:34.339-07:002009-08-22T20:46:34.339-07:00Dear Brooke and Peggy,
I just wanted to check in ...Dear Brooke and Peggy, <br />I just wanted to check in and let you know that I'm still reading, and still learning, from your posts. The most magical realization I've come to in reading through these many months is what kind of patience it takes to make love last long. I admire you both for your strength through this. <br />Thank you too for letting me know about Bill. When I lived on G <br />Street, I shopped at the 8th Ave often. I even wrote about it in an essay coming out in New Ohio Review. If I have even a scintilla of the intelligence and thoughtfulness of you two, I'll remember to send you a copy. <br />All my love,<br />Nicole Walker<br />(Grad student, 2006)Nikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15795554401570611521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7569355678882263943.post-13837961929674266262009-08-22T19:50:07.895-07:002009-08-22T19:50:07.895-07:00Hello, Dr. Hopkins. I was shocked when I discover...Hello, Dr. Hopkins. I was shocked when I discovered last November quite accidentally while checking out the local news on the internet that you had been seriously injured. Since then, I have been following your blog, feeling somewhat like a voyeur.<br /><br />I am Kim Griesemer, one of your recent past students (2007). During our last visit together, you asked me what I was going to do following graduation. I told you I was going to serve an LDS mission. I have been serving in Ecuador since March of 2008.<br /><br />Although I know something about grief, having lost my husband in an automobile accident in India five years ago, I do not know the kind of grief you are experiencing. Every loss is different and is experienced and responded to differently by each person. I admire your courage--which I suspect doesn't feel all that courageous from time to time.<br /><br />I would also like to say thank you. I still treasure the time I spent in your classrooms. Despite having high expectations, you also respected all supported perspectives. You challenged us to write more capably and think more deeply. You sacrificed your own time and personal priorities as you read and commented on countless papers. I recall thanking you for really working as a professor--meaning assigning papers and taking the time to evaluate them. You seemed surprised, and said, "That's my job." Indeed. Nonetheless, in my experience, many English literature professors choose a lesser commitment.<br /><br />Though your body has changed and may never be the same as it was, those same qualities that I so treasured in you as a teacher still remain largely intact, if now applied to a different endeavor. <br /><br />Grieving is a way of processing loss and is necessary and part of emotional and spiritual healing. I still count the losses associated with my husband's death--we will not enjoy together the birth of our next grandchild. He was not there at my long-dreamed-of graduation from college. I will grow old(er) without him. But on my good days, I can recognize and focus on what I did not lose--what I still have and am and am becoming. You created an atmosphere in your classroom that pointed me toward what I had retained instead of what I had lost, and thereby fostered healing.<br /><br />My hope for you is that someone, including and especially Peggy, or maybe many someones will do for you what you did for me. <br /><br />Like so many others, I rejoice with every advance you make and hold my breath when progress is harder to see. All the while, I feel privileged to have been your student, and to be your student.<br /><br />Thank you.Kim Griesemerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10260903074142218405noreply@blogger.com