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Do You Lack Comfort?
When a loved one dies, the death of that person is tragic to the lives that person had an impact on. The memories of that person are often hard to talk about and cause severe pain. The gaping wounds in your everyday life will heal but it takes an abundance of time. Along with that a grieving person needs love and support when faced with a profound tragedy. In the story Redemption, Jack accidentally killed his younger sibling, David. Jack was dealing with his brother's death the best way he knew how but never received love or support from his family. His father, Dale, abandoned him to the self-destructive thinking of his own pain. Dale became a habitual adulator and was never there to help his son cope with his feelings of guilt and loss. His mother, Betty, never spoke her feeling outwardly but indirectly insisted on being the strong pillar of faith for her family. Betty however forgot that along with that strength she must also be compassionate and help her children to deal with the indestructible enemy called death. Phoebe, Jack's sister was to young to experience the immeasurable feelings of loss acquainted with death. Though the entire Hawthorn family suffered a major loss, Jack deserves the most pity. Jack lost his brother to the cultipacker, his father to immorality and his mother to feelings of abandonment.
Jack would forever be plagued by the memories of his brother's hideous death. He wakes up every morning remembering that he was a killer. Though his brother's death was accidental, Jack would watch the scenario play in his mind, " ...with nearly undiminished intensity and clarity all his life." With these unexplained feelings of guilt and a lack of love and support, Jack began to reason that he was a killer. He would tell himself that he never loved his brother and that by telling himself this would hopefully lessen that pain of his loss. He, just like his mother bottled up his emotions. Jack began thinking that, "he was incapable of love...he was evil." Without someone there to help him with his feelings, his thinking was not in the right perspective. Jack should not have thought that he was a murderer who could never be redeemed; instead he should have been taught that he made and accident, though deadly, it was an accident. For his mother and father not to have tried to help their son understand that he was not to blame was just wrong. To let a 12 year-old think that he was the cause for his family's destructive behavior is cruel. Though his parents were suffering a great loss, their son was experiencing more and on greater levels of loss and guilt. His parents did not have the feelings of guilt that he did. His parents would not remember, "the huge cultipacker lifting...as it climbed toward the shoulders, then sank on the cheek, flattening the skull..." His parent will not have nightmares with that picture in their mind. They would not experience what their son will for the rest of his life.
Dale, Jack's father had probably the worse behavior of all when it came to his son's death. He left. Though Dale was, "...nearly destroyed by it... crying, unable to stand up...", he never thought about how it would affect his son, daughter or wife. His absences from his home had the worst impact on his son Jack. Jack has already lost a brother; the last thing he needs is to lose his father as well. With his father gone, Jack may have reasoned that his father blamed him for the death of his brother. Because his father wasn't there he never found out what his father was really feeling. His father never tried to talk with him, trying at least to help him understand that sometimes atrocious things happen. His absence also hurt his wife. He became "a hunter of women...trading his sorrows for the sorrows of unfulfilled country wives." How could a man suffering from the pain of losing a son willing go out and hurt his family, especially his wife even more? He wasn't there to give support or love and caring for his family. He was selfish in the way he dealt with the subject. He cared only of himself and how he would survive. Not once did he consider the damage he would do and that his actions would forever be remembered by his wife, his son and daughter.
Jack's mother also dealt with the death of her son in the wrong way. Instead of talking about it with her family, "...she kept her feelings strictly secret." By keeping her feelings pinned up inside she not only hurt herself but also her entire family. She hurt Jack but ignoring his pain and not talking about the accident which is sometimes the best medicine. She ignored the fact that she was hurting and insisted on filling her time and her children with other activities, "piano..." for phoebe, "...and for Jack, French horn lessons..."Helping yourself not dwell on hurtful memories is a good intention but, not talking about the pain at all, is worse. She tried to help her children forget that David had died, or at least the way in which he died. This may seem well but trying to forget a terrible accident is painful. When you are forced to deal with that horrid memory it is even more excruciating because you heart has been prematurely deprived of grief. Everyone needs time to heal in his or her own way but having someone else to share the pain with makes it not so unbearable. Jacks mother tried to avoid her pain of losing a son and the pain of Jacks for losing a brother by not talking to him at all. Ironically heightening and lengthening everyone else's pain She never talked to Jack about how he was dealing with the tragedy but assumed he would get over it and that life would return to normal. Life would never return to normal after the tragedy that occurred on that "clear blue day when there were crocuses in bloom."
Jack has had to find comfort and understanding in himself. This heart wrenching task would have been easier had his family been there to help him deal with his feeling. This story relates to our lives as well; how we as a society deal with the death of a loved one. Would we shy away from our feelings of loss or guilt and those that care about us? Would we leave our family member and those close to us in their greatest time of need? This story is a test to see what we would do in the same situation. Hopefully we will be there for those that need us. And we will be there to receive encouragement and support when we are in that situation. The ones that we turn to for support are the wound sewers. They help us mend the holes that have been created by the death of our loved ones. These are the ones that Jack needed but never received.
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