Hair Grief Burst

Sundays, as I have mentioned before, are always difficult.  Partly this is because pretty much all of the volunteer work with which I distract myself from the pain of *being* myself, is not available on Sunday.  Partly, it is because the hymns, which are generally emotionally fraught, in any case, tend to mention things about God comforting the afflicted, and binding up the brokenhearted, and restoring the years that the locust has eaten (well, OK, in reality, no, the book of Joel doesn't tend to inspire too many hymns) when you are not feeling particularly comforted, or bound up, or having had anything restored, is pretty painful.  So it is not terribly surprising that this happened on a Sunday, in a Sunday service.

But it's interesting to see what can trigger a grief burst.  I am not certain, but it seems to me that our memories are more like linked lists than binary trees.  So, it is somewhat unpredictable as to what will get you to a grief trigger.  (The case of a binary tree might be slightly more predictable.)

This Sunday it was a young mother, holding her toddler.  The toddler was playing with his mother's long, straight hair.  This got me to the stories that Gloria told about "Mummy's hair house."  Probably, that wasn't sufficient to trigger a grief burst.  But, thinking about Mummy's hair house, and wondering about what Gloria would have looked like at that time of her life, got me to the time when Gloria was having chemo for Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Gloria's hair had fallen out, and she had gotten the remainder shaved, but, as this was after the final course of chemo, she had started to get a bit of gray fuzz back, although it was very short.  (This was before Gloria's hair grew back in in an astoundingly curly fashion, and then, rather amazingly, a year later started to straighten out.)  In any case, at the time of the gray fuzz, Hannah had decided to give Gloria back her long hair, by holding her (Hannah's) head over Gloria's, and allowing her (Hannah's) hair to fall down as if it was Gloria's.  We even took a picture of it.

And that was what triggered the first grief burst.  I don't why it was there, particularly, but that's what triggered it.  It was during a hymn that was talking about God comforting the afflicted, and I didn't feel particularly comforted.  But the grief burst came in waves pretty much for the rest of the service.  Regardless of what was going on.  And what was going on wasn't particularly deep, or emotionally fraught.  But I cried, pretty much all the way through the rest of the service.

I don't mind crying out on the streets, when I'm out walking.  Since I am the only pedestrian in Port Alberni, there is pretty much nobody to take note of my tears.  But it also seems to be okay to cry in church services.  I get pretty much ignored in any church services, and even though I have had grief bursts, well, I can't say in *absolutely* every service that I have been in in Port Alberni, but certainly the vast majority of them, nobody takes note of my sobbing, or my tears.  I can cry safely, in any church service in Port Alberni, as long as I don't sob loudly during the sermon itself.  Only once have I been caught crying in church, so, yes, crying in church is pretty safe.