Christmas Day in San Luis Potosi Mexico with close family friends. We were two Grandpas, two Grandmas, three sons, two daughters, two grandchildren and several other family friends..
Several of us I are watching football on TV. The others know a lot about the teams and players. I confess I know very little about football. I don’t watch it. My daughter and granddaughter walk in about the time I make the comment about football. My daughter says:
“Dad, you played a lot in High School didn’t you?”
“Yeah”, I say, “All four years. My junior year the coaches wanted me to play quarterback. I played three plays, fumbled every one. They let me go back to defensive safety. That safety position is great anger therapy. My job was to hit whoever had the ball as hard as I could. Great anger therapy.”
Then I added, “What I never told you is that football season was the one when my parents went bankrupt, lost the business and our house. My dog had to be given away. My parents moved out of town. I moved into a house trailer in my friends back yard to finish school. Also that season, I got knocked out with a concussion, had my first migraine headache. Also around that time 3 of our classmates got killed in an auto accident.”
My daughter and the others in the room said almost simultaneously. “How sad, how sad”
I recognized and felt the depth of sadness. In 1963, at age 16, all I would allow myself to feel was anger. I was a very angry young man headed for Viet Nam and drug and alcohol abuse.
That anger also fueled my becoming a staunch conservative and distrusting any establishment, corporation, person of authority or God. Anger, anger covered up tremendous emotional hurt, pain and sadness.
Maybe unresolved, unrecognized grief could be what is driving many of the polarizing, finger pointing podcasters and politicians dividing the people of our country. Maybe.
