I woke up at 4 a.m. Feb. 26 with two things rattling inside my head, the song “Leader of the Band” and the words “good grief.” The first was beautifully performed by a musician at my friend Robert E. (Bob) McDonald’s celebration of life at the Plantation Coffee Shop on Laurel Street in San Carlos the afternoon before. The second is Charlie Brown’s lament on the state of his world in the comic strip Peanuts, a favorite from my childhood.
Bob was known to many as “The Mayor of Laurel Street.” At 4:30 a.m. you’d find him at the Plantation fueling up for doing taxes and audits and in the evenings you could often find Bob somewhere playing his guitar. Around 100 people packed into the Plantation to remember Bob and as his friend Rick Laub played “Leader of the Band” my grief hit a crescendo. I wasn’t alone as I looked around the room. With only one month of having my own shop in San Carlos, I only recognized one or two faces from the neighborhood but all the faces I saw seemed to be experiencing that same high level of grief in that moment. Bob’s children, Robert (always Bobby to me) and Kathryn (always Katie to me) spoke of how doting Bob was as a parent, showing up at every recital and football game, despite, as Katie pointed out to Bobby’s chagrin, neither of them being very good at their art or sport. Watching and listening to them speak about their father on Saturday I need them to know that they top the charts in life, love and talent and their father was always proud of them, as are my husband and I. Derrick lost his dad at a young age and, for a time, Bob became a second father to him, playing the role of Derrick’s father when we got married 33 years ago.
I realized that my grief at that moment encompassed more than losing Bob and feeling his children’s pain. Charlie Brown’s exasperation and exclamation of “good grief” is about more than just the one painful thing at that moment. The losses we’ve all experienced over the last few years are staggering. We’ve all lost people directly to COVID but have also lost people to all of the other everyday causes and, for too many, we have been separated from those we love by our responses to the pandemic, forced or chosen. How many fair or fantastic dance, piano, jiu jitsu, baseball, basketball, football or soccer performances have we missed? How many hugs? During the lockdowns, how many cups of coffee did we drink alone instead of with friends at the Plantation where one attendee quipped “When you add up all the time chatting here it could be more conversation that you have with your wife!” (He should work on that).
As I drive these days, I sense a fury, impatience, frustration in the drivers around me. We have all suffered losses way beyond our imaginations, not just people but our very ways of life. The routine joys were ripped away from us and we are just now, sort of, starting to figure out how to rebuild our lives, but having a hard time doing so with the cloud of COVID still hanging over us. I’ll speak for myself and say that I get incredibly angry at things that, in the past, would not have bothered me as much. I walked into a fast-food place where I used to love getting a couple of $2 chicken sandwiches on occasion. When I got to the counter the person at the register didn’t say a word to me as she turned around and walked away, opened the door to the back, and left me standing there slack-jawed. No one else took her place. I walked out furious and my husband, wisely a few minutes later, pointed out that my reaction was way out of proportion to the slight. He was right. I should have just said “good grief” and moved on. The sadness, the anger, the tears, for me, are about all of the profound losses we’ve experienced in these last few years, perhaps a bit of post-traumatic stress in response to the pandemic.
So what to do? For me, recognizing loss is critical. This is a normal response to long-term trauma. I’ll take a few minutes every day to read the Charlie Brown books I just bought from Bloomingayles on Laurel Street. Bob knew everyone’s name so I’ll try to learn some too. My father used to bring me one of those books whenever I was sick or sad. Gayle, your shop reminded me of him. Thanks!
“How much of human life is lost by waiting.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, requoted by Linus Van Pelt.
Craig Wiesner is the co-owner of Reach And Teach, a book, toy and cultural gift shop on San Carlos Avenue in San Carlos.
(1) comment
Thank you Craig - Many of us feel the same pain that you so well articulated.
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