What the dead give back
People in recovery from mental health problems or substance misuse often speak of ‘giving back’ to those they’ve hurt in the past, and to others. Joe, when he was in the grips of psychosis, may have wrung the last reserves of love from his family members. Ellen, in the grips of addiction, may have proved through unkept promises and unpaid loans that they could not be trusted. Giving back to those you’ve hurt may start with an apology, and go from there. Giving back to people outside the circle of those you’ve hurt can involve, for example, advocating for and with someone who stands where you stood once. It also involves taking on a valued role in society, one of the building blocks of citizenship (a topic I’ll take up in a later post).
But what about the dead? Do they give back? If the dead are merely dead, dust returning to the dust they came from, then what they give back must come from their presence in the works and deeds they leave behind and in the ways we incorporate the lessons of their lives, including through our grief.
Since those who believe the dead are merely dead, those who believe there’s an afterlife, and those who aren’t sure are all influenced by the dead, let’s go with the idea that we are vessels for the dead to give back to the living. And if giving credit to the dead via this scenario seems to grant them more staying power than they merit, consider the following mental exercise.
Remember, or imagine, a person you met a long time ago who gave you lessons on how to live and be, through the example of himself as much as what he said or did. That is, he was a mentor to you. Now imagine you’ve not been in touch with him for years, may not even know if he’s alive. Does he not teach you still, if less dramatically than when he was most present in your life?
The dead who give back to us are who they were for us when they were alive, although we may discover parts of them we missed while they were here. Through grieving and remembering them we may become deeper, more sensitive, more giving and helpful to others. True, we may also become embittered over our loss and shut ourselves off from others. Being Pollyanna-ish about something as tough as grief won’t get us far.
And the mental exercise above? That was about me as a young man when I came to New Haven after the break-up of a serious relationship, feeling empty, lost, and with no idea what to do with the rest of my life. I rented a room in the home of Julius Scheir, a violinist and teacher, and his wife. Julius was a mentor to me. He made me go deeper when I thought I was already deep, taught me to think things through when I thought I could skim over them and get the main idea. I hadn’t seen him in years, though I had thought of him many times. I decided to look him up online not long before our move to North Carolina.
He died in 2004.
