THE PATH

I felt a slight sense of happiness make its way into my thoughts this morning.  It’s been over a week since learning the news that plunged me and many others in Barrow into an almost inconsolable grief.  I’ve avoided my favorite path to work and back most days since hearing.  It is just too painful to be reminded of what happened.  I thought that my grief had lessoned and that I could safely walk the path again, so I ventured on it this afternoon, taking Jenta.  The small grave we passed is covered in fresh flowers.  It’s beautiful, but for all the wrong reasons.

The people I’ve gotten to know here seem genuinely friendly and pure hearted.  The practice of generosity of knowledge, time and resources seems to flow naturally.  This describes very well a young man who makes a valuable difference in the community through the work he does.  He and his wife and children are loved by many people in Barrow.

While out on an early morning bike ride the Sunday before last, I stopped to talk with a friend at the airport.  She’d heard from the taxi driver who’d driven her there that there had been an accident involving a child on a bike and that she was in the hospital.  I felt for the child and hoped to hear that she was recovering soon.  Several days later I received an email letting me know that the bike accident had involved the young man--that he hadn’t seen his little two year old daughter behind his vehicle before backing up and that she hadn’t survived.

The friend who sent me the email gave me the family’s address where I later joined others who brought food, expressions of empathy and attempts of comfort.  The look on the young man’s face was grief-stricken and he looked as though he hadn’t eaten in several days.  He acknowledged those who had come, but eye contact seemed impossible and I think we all understood.  Many family members were there from Barrow and other parts of Alaska to share their sorrow. 

I was glad that Nellie was able to reschedule the people I would be seeing on the afternoon of the funeral.  It was held in one of the larger churches and many people attended.  For me, the most gratifying thing to see was the young man’s wife standing very close to him and encircling him with one of her arms.  I can imagine how something like what they’d experienced could affect their marriage and family.  What I saw during the service made me think that they will be alright.

The day was a cold, rainy, gray one matching my mood and from the looks on others’ faces, theirs too.  This wasn’t the sort of funeral one attends where stories of a long life well-lived are shared.  There were several short endearing ones about how special this little girl was, but there was no laughter.  The mother, looking very sad, joined the church choir to sing.  Her brown hair parted into two long braids and she wore a beautiful atigi, a pullover parka made of bright fabric.  I wonder if her mother, sisters and aunt had helped prepare her to say good bye to her child that day.  One of the mother’s cousins had felt as though she was visited by the little girl and given a poem to share.  It was heart-felt and moving.  Her husband or boyfriend joined her to sing it.  There were many prayers and then the little girl’s paternal grandmother sang a song in Athabascan.  All who passed by where the family was sitting stopped to reach out to them with hugs. 

There is no funeral home here and no undertaker that I’m aware of.  I was told that her grave was dug by men in the community.  Many people walked from the church on a dirt road along the lagoon and over wet grassy mounds until they reached the place where she would be buried beside her ancestors.  It rained while the men, along with the girl’s father, began shoveling inside of the grave, sometimes using a ladder as the rest of us stood and watched.  They seemed to be making it flatter so that her coffin would fit in just right.  In looking at the father’s face, he seemed to have a sense of determination that things be right in the spot where his little girl was to lay from now on.  I couldn’t help thinking that working together with these other men who all understood his pain was somehow healing.  After a long time the men put ropes under the small coffin and together lowered it into the grave.  A little boy, maybe three or four years old, stood next to the opening and began to shake and cry.  His father came and took him a further distance away where he comforted him.  Songs were sung, a prayer said, and tears came to the pastor’s eyes.  I’m surprised that I was able to see them through mine.  The men and the little girl’s father replaced the dirt that had been lifted out to make room for her casket that morning and created a small mound after securing a wooden cross deeply into the dirt.  Led by the girl’s mother, several women arranged pieces of drift wood on all sides of the mound.  The mother looked intent on the arrangement being perfect, picking up and moving pieces until she indicated that the job was done.  Those who were carrying flowers laid them on or stood them next to the grave.    

Many people feel as I do that there is life after this one…that we enter a bright place, even more than bright, where there is only Good, where all sense of pain of any sort is gone and where every moment is more wonderful than a person’s most wonderful day here in this existence.  So theoretically, this little girl is there, is counting herself fortunate, and is joyful while empathetic to the pain her family and friends are feeling.  She’s very probably not missing the muddy streets here and the cold gray days of late summer.  I still can’t feel happy for her though as one does when an older person who has been suffering dies and I’m having difficulty moving beyond profound sadness for the loss her parents and family have suffered.  It’s a complicated grief and it will take time to recover, but I imagine a minuscule amount compared to theirs.

People here are watching their children extra closely and I’m seeing many melancholy families in our clinic.  On a rare sunny day when there would usually be joy, a sense of sadness hangs.  Like in most things, I imagine that the family and the community will recover and know joy again.  It may be some time before I can bike or walk past the little girl’s grave and keep a sense of happiness intact.   I see others struggling too, stopping at the grave and turning with tears in their eyes.  But I know, that sorrow, like a fire, is eventually spent.  A fire burns down and is then reduced to warm coals that can bring comfort.  Sorrow, if left to its own, turns pain into a gentle remembering that we’re not in control and that the mysteries now will make sense in time.