|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Sandra Harper
My life was falling apart. My eldest son had died of leukemia. During his
illness I decided to retire early from my long established career as teacher
and Principal. Faced with my own major surgery and the sudden deaths of my
favorite aunt and uncle, a pool of darkness enveloped me. Everything seemed
out of kilter. Nothing was right. Rooms once full were now empty. Even the
sunlight was dull. I wanted everything the way it used to be. I didn't like
the way it was now. I wanted to walk briskly into each day. Instead I was
scared and tired of the pain of working through grief.
I decided to travel to places that had no memories. On a whim I picked
Morocco and Tunisia, both so different from where I had been. My family
was horrified that I would think of going to Muslim countries after
September 11th. They remained unconvinced that fresh, sun-filled landscapes
and exotic ways of living could fill my days with distractions after
nine months of grieving. Where I visited was not the most important
thing, but getting through each day was my goal. When I started I
had no idea that my travels would become a healing journey.
If I wanted change, this trip was the answer. But, once in Morocco, the
first days of my six-week trip were consumed just looking after basic needs:
accommodation, food travel, and safety. On the nine-hour train ride from Fez
I watched the landscape change from lush farmlands into the industrial
center of Casablanca and then slip into the red starkness of the desert
before our arrival in Marrakesh. Everyone left the train and entered the
mass of people in the station, with hustlers and taxi drivers shouting for
customers. Stepping into a taxi to drive to the hotel, selected beforehand
from my guidebook, was like starting a game of roulette. Some drivers were
honest and polite; others were out to skin a layer of money from any
visitor. This time, I had selected the latter. A disagreement on the street
over excessive cab charges was followed by another disappointment when the
hotel manager said that no rooms were available. Walking with a large
knapsack, I reached a second hotel where food and bed for the night awaited
me.
Decision-making and planning took hours at the beginning of the trip. I
marveled that I had made it through the day. Handling situations, from
negotiating a Grand Taxi in my limited French to finding my way back to the
hotel in the dark after getting lost in Fez, built my confidence that once
again I could handle anything.
Gradually, less time was spent on the basics. I began to think and write in
my journal more about the present moment and less about the past. As I
lounged in a café, men and women in long outer garments, called djellabahs,
streamed by like cascades of rainbows. One man, with skin like a starless
night, wandered about, blowing a sad howl on a long, convoluted horn before
each store. Another man, with very pale skin and a blue scarf trailing in
the wind, meandered in the square like a desert specter searching for a
scene forever gone. The warmth of the sun, the energy, the creativity and
the diverse people made me happy and interested in life.
During the trip there also emerged stretches of unfilled time as I endured
the long train trips and relaxed during the tranquil evenings. These were
moments to ponder and make notes on the events of the day and on my feelings
about what had happened during the last year. I found myself gradually able
to look at the changes in my life with more objectivity - to hold them at
arm's length.
One of those times happened when I was sitting in a square glistening with
sunbeams and embroidered with tumbling pink bougainvilleas on the Isle of
Jerba, in Tunisia. Soaking in the rhythms of the day, I drank mint tea and
reflected some more on my life, past and present. That day I acknowledged
for the first time the joys and frustrations of my son's life and death. In
this light-filled pool of time, I began to remember without pain and to tell
stories about my son to an acquaintance without falling apart. I recounted
the Christmas Eve he had chopped off the top of a mature fir tree and
dragged it home for our festivities. It was only several years later that he
recounted how he had actually climbed the towering tree.
>From the quiet minutes and hours that were available to me, I was able to
consider all that had occurred in the past year, feel the emotions without
regret and begin to move on. Had I been at home, working and encircled by
family and friends, that undisturbed time would not have been as easily
accessible. The passage of time allowed the emotional loss to be knit
together with reflective thought so I could move into a new stage of
healing.
Sometimes the magnificence of a place in North Africa put everything into
perspective, even my own grief. Leaving the walled Kasbah in Rabat, I
suddenly faced the blue Atlantic Ocean, as still as a Canadian lake on a
sun-clenched day with patches of white gravestones in the foreground. The
ever-present reminder of death and loss was there in the landscape filled
with beauty. I sobbed. Then my thoughts returned to my eldest son, now in
his own grave surrounded by tall evergreen trees, and, for that moment, I
knew that I was not alone in my loss. I drew comfort from that moment.
Seeking and understanding the similarities among cultures allowed me to
metaphorically connect the dots of my life into the bigger picture of
living.
After six weeks on the road I returned home, renewed and filled with joy. I
felt secure that I could now get on with my life. When a woman who had
recently lost her baby asked me how my journey had helped to heal me, my
response was terse.
"You are not alone in grief. If you decide to take a trip to help you heal
with your loss, think about this. Traveling built up my confidence that I
could handle life again. Forced to look after daily life on the road, I
found that I could take a break from the pain of my son's death. I don't
know when things started to change, but I gradually discovered myself
smiling and becoming interested in other people. Eventually I did achieve
some distance from what had happened. The pain lessened to a dull ache. The
journey also provided time and space to reflect and write about the losses
and changes. I grew to accept that I had a choice on how grief would affect
me and how I would respond to the rest of my life. I have chosen the
positive road because, even with my raw scars, I want to move forward. I can
truthfully say that, after my trip, many days are now filled with
happiness."
Sandra Harper, Ph.D. is a travel writer and educational consultant,
after a first career in teaching and administration. Her doctorate
probed the ways to assess how people change.
 Top
|
|
|
|
|
|
