The Walking Stick Journal
Stepping Stones of Transformation
An Unfolding Manuscript
by
C.D. Baker
Chapter Thirteen: Well of Sadness
Sadness can be a healthy, emotional response to loss. The weight of sadness identifies what we value and locates it in its context. We feel the special loss of this or that, as in the end of a friendship, the death of a dream, or the deep grief of someone’s passing.
Yet, sadness invites us into something more. As we allow ourselves to experience all that it has to offer, sadness can reveal how our loss is enveloped within the rest of our story. The bigger picture assures us that we are not alone, that something else is coming, that something more is afoot.
***
Spring 2021
March 17: Bill seems annoyed with me. I wouldn’t blame him.
“So instead of asking ‘why’ all the time,” he says, “learn to ask ‘what.’ ‘Why’ is analytical; ‘What’ is experiential. For example, don’t ask ‘why’ you’re sad, ask ‘what’ you’re sad about.”
It’s a miserable day in late March and Bill’s ‘corrections’ bother me. He goes on with what feels like a lecture from my father. I jot down the highlights but am feeling scolded.
“You need time to let things settle; you need to feel loveable; you need to notice the love around you…”
I sit very still, obliging. What I need is to not feel sad all the time.
***
April 7: In Bill’s waiting room going over my notes. Last week I got news that Dakota has a tumor. I love that dog. He’s a rare source of joy. Now this. Am furious with God.
Sadness is overwhelming me from everywhere. I wake up sad. I grieve everything. I was sad at church on Easter when everyone else was high-fiving the Resurrection. I was especially sad at Dad’s grave later that day.
“Come on in, David.” Bill’s voice startles me.
I sit, feeling guilty about how I resented the last session. I probably should tell him, but that will send us down a rabbit hole and I want to get into this sadness thing…
“…and I even felt sad at my father’s grave. And yet I felt weirdly safe.”
“You felt safe because there was no risk of aggression.” Bill folds his hands. “And the sadness was offering you something.”
I wait.
He then begins an honest review of my childhood, but as he’s talking, I feel tension filling my body until I surprise us both by interrupting him with an unexpected defense of my father. I point out the man’s intelligence and courageous independence, his idealism and his poetic side. “He had good intentions.” I shift in my seat. “Besides, I’m a grown man now and…”
Bill patiently responds. “You are conflicted, aren’t you.”
I exhale. “Maybe.” At my age, this feels suddenly ridiculous.
“What do you think is at the core of that conflict?” He sits back.
“I don’t know.”
Bill pauses, then says, “The core of your conflict is that you have always loved your father.”
Hearing that spoken back to me triggers a great deal of emotion. I hold it, waiting for more. I watch Bill’s eyes suddenly filling and I realize how much he cares.
Bill bites his lip, lightly. “Your well of sadness comes from a child who believed that his love for his father didn’t matter.”
***
April 18: Returned to dad’s grave, processing Bill’s observation about my love not seeming to matter. How would any child react to a feeling of rejection like that?
Is that why I spent my whole life keeping him at arm’s length? Maybe, but that had to be hard on him, and my dutiful obedience must have felt so cold. Am feeling sudden sadness for dad.
But still, why would a little boy feel the need to keep so much distance? I stared at his headstone until the answer hit me hard: Because he did not feel safe. Offering love to my father really did feel risky.
But maybe I should have taken the risk anyway?
My fault? His fault? Does it matter? It’s all just sad. Time to go.
April 29: Had to put down Mischief [my horse] today. Terrible. Death crushes me. One minute he was looking at me; the next, the light left his eyes.
May 8: Uli [my friend] reminded me that the sadness of the world is not for me to bear. Not sure how to escape it.
June 15: On a walk, I engaged the Holy Spirit about my unrelenting weight of sadness. Out of the blue she asked me why my father didn’t feel safe. The answer came quickly. “I believed that if he really knew me, he’d have been disappointed.”
“And then your love for him really would feel rejected.”
A long silence followed until I suddenly realized that I am looking at Father God the same way. He does know me and must be disappointed.
The awareness chilled me.
June 18: Spent an hour laying on my meditation rock, exhausted. This time I allowed the sadness to simply fill me. I couldn’t fight it or process it anymore. I just let it be. I felt it rising and falling in my chest as I listened to the water rushing by my feet. My body shuddered a bit, then settled into a rhythm of inhale-exhale.
It was then that I suddenly sensed an unexpected assurance that my grief was clearing the way for something more. Look at what it had already revealed. I sat up and stared into the trees.
Maybe this well of sadness is not the end of the story, after all.