Instead of Bottling Your Pain, You Could Be Like Tahlequah and Show It

It’s a few days ago. I fling open the morning paper to search for an interesting story to read aloud to Mom as she eats the hot breakfast I’ve put on her tiny white kitchen table.

My eyes are drawn to a headline I don’t want to read, because it looks awful, yet I can’t seem to pull my eyes away from the text. It’s a story about an orca called Tahlequah, who is carrying the dead body of her newborn calf atop her own, as if she is the coffin and her baby is lying in repose. At times, the calf’s body falls into the water, and Tahlequah dives down to retrieve it. As of this writing, she’s made this choice every day for eleven days despite all the other elements she faces. Scientists call this grief and mourning. (Read the latest here.)

And to add insult to injury, this is Tahlequah’s second such journey. Back in 2018 she lost a calf for the first time and she carried that dead baby for seventeen days across over 1,000 miles.

I am drawn to the pathos and there is plenty here, and it tugs on what I’m holding inside of me.

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As I write you, many aspects of life feel overwhelming to me. I won’t enumerate what I mean as I say this - cuz you have fears of your own which are just as valid as mine. Just briefly tell yourself a few of the things that are really saddening and worrying you today and lately, then read on.

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I’m back at breakfast with Mom, reading aloud the grim details of Tahlequah’s sad tale. Mom reaches out to me with a trembling hand, her eyes wide and verging on tears.

And I feel tears welling in me, too.

But I don’t know what to do.

Because since I was little I’ve felt ashamed to cry in front of my stoic Mom.

Yet Mom clearly needs comfort.

So I take her hand and I nod at her and she nods back. We stare wide-eyed at each other for just a moment. Just long enough for it to be real. Then by instinct I shake off mt tears, and mutter “Yeah,” meekly, my voice guttural.

And with that the moment is done. Even though I know Mom and I are standing at an opening to a cave we could enter, where we could stoop and mine the ore of so much more. But we don’t have a relationship that allows us to explore our emotions, so we don’t.

Instead, we shut the door.

Protecting something or someone – I’m not sure – from any disclosure.

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So now I want to ask you, what are you keeping inside? What if you and I could be more like Tahlequah and just be with it and show it? Below my signature are a few of the things I’m holding right now. If you’re comfortable, comment below with yours, or if you want to share it just with me, then reply to this email (me@lythcott-haims.com).

xo

💔 The overwhelming tragedy of the fires in LA make me so afraid for all who are impacted by the immediate terror and by the daunting tasks of what comes next. And when people blame the fires and fire-fighting response not on climate change but on “Democrats” and “DEI hires” it pisses me off so much that I want to punch someone. As a person living in a place where wildfire is increasingly common, I also heed the advice that my own go-bag needs updating, and I wonder if a go-bag will be enough to save us or if we need to keep our family safe by leaving our beloved California.

💔 My mother is slowly but surely dying, and it’s sad and scary to watch someone go through their final demise. Also, I am weary from caregiving. It feels like living in a shadow universe parallel to your regular life, and when people ask “How are you” I have to ask myself, Should I shine light on that part?

💔 Few people can afford to rent or buy a place to live here in the Bay Area given that wages and salaries have not kept up with the cost of living. While it impacts so many populations, whom I’m most worried about are young adults, maybe because I have two of my own and I watch them enter adulthood with far more challenges than my generation had and that before me. If young people cannot make it out there, what have we done and what will become of us? This feels like an end game for our society.

💔 We can’t agree on facts or truths, a word can get you cancelled, and dehumanization of “the other” is such an ancient instinct and yet so twenty-first century, and it is everywhere around me. Where to even begin when trying to talk to someone?

💔 Trump. Oligarchy. The end of our Democratic experiment, and with it basic rights, protections, and freedoms.

💔 And other things I don’t feel comfortable putting in writing but I am saying them to myself right now and acknowledging them as real and valid.

Thank you for reading this. Gotta say it felt good to get that off my chest.

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💔_______________ Fill in a few of your worries and fears in the comments. I will hold space for it all.

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