David McElroy

I knew a couple of days ago that this was coming, but it still hit me hard Saturday afternoon when a good friend contacted me to say his mom had died just 20 minutes before.

Mary Harris was one of the sweetest women I’ve known. I got to know her about 15 years ago when she was learning to use an iMac and I became her informal tech support person. She always felt guilty for asking for help, so she would wait until her problem had gotten worse and worse. Then I’d finally get an email or a call asking for help

She was an incredibly gentle and gracious soul. I never heard her speak a negative word about anybody or anything. I’ve known for months that she was going downhill, but I was shocked by how quickly things changed. About 10 days ago, she took a short day trip and was walking stairs. By a week later, she couldn’t walk. And now she’s gone.

No matter what you believe about life after death, there’s an awful separation that comes with the death of the body. Even if we believe we will know a person’s spirit in another world, the separation for the present — and the unknown about the future — can be unbearable.

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As I drove home from work Friday afternoon, I suddenly realized I was feeling anger. I felt confused about the reason for a moment and then it hit me. I was feeling a combination of anger and despair about something in my personal life which I can’t control.

For a few moments, I let the emotions fill me and I felt them clearly in my body. Then my muscles relaxed. The strength of the anger faded. I still felt despair over something I couldn’t control, but I felt peace.

I used to be a lot angrier than I am today. I was angry at the world and wanted to force it to change. I wanted to fix the world. I wanted to save the world. I was angry about various things in my life — about love, about money, about family, about all sorts of things. I wanted to scheme and manipulate everything in ways to change other people.

About a lot of things, I felt tremendously angry. At times, I felt as though the anger was driving me. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve let go of most of the anger. It still flares up at times — as it did tonight — but I’m far more likely to see the things I hate in the world through the lens of sadness than anger.

Maturity heals a lot of anger. Maturity embraces melancholy.

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