It’s May Day, and I’m remembering my father, Everett Ellis Gantz, Jr. His human trek ended seven years ago today, not quite two years after the death of his charismatic artist-wife, Ann Cushing Gantz, my mother. After nearly 89 years on this earth, my father was full of wisdom but still an enigma—especially to me and to his only grandchildren, Elliot and Ian. Few truly knew the man behind the stoic, tacit Midwestern façade. The quintessential Greatest Generation engineer, my dad did long division in his head for fun. But he also clutched a lifetime of secrets in his shadows—some I have only recently exposed.
At the time of his gentle passing from dementia and heart failure in 2014, I was a struggling single mom of two precocious and complicated young men—smack dab in the middle of the caregiver “sandwich generation.” Though I tried to put my oxygen mask on first, my “sandwich-making” expertise in this stressful context was, well, uneven—always getting tangled up in the roughage. So, as I reflect on those difficult and devastating years, I recognize now that the vitriol and extreme stubbornness I often encountered on both sides of the figurative bun were clear indicators of a family unhinged. Adapting Bohn and Conrad, I’ll just say, ”The road to heartbreak is paved with good intentions.”
So, as another Mother’s Day approaches, along with the launch of another new normal, I have revisited and tweaked something I wrote at the time of my mom’s extended paralysis and aphasia after her stroke. I suspect it’s applicable to the full spectrum of grief—and hope.
Letting go.
No need to give to receive any-
more than her spirit shines,
without veneer,
without thoughts,
without words,
transcending—
her true essence, now real—
her soul apparent.
Awareness without will,
cognition, gone—
she looks at me
and now she sees?
Me letting go—
With her, content to be.
Helpless though,
in her wheeled prison.
Her body not knowing how
to bridge this chasm.
In fear, he clings,
together alone.
Refusing to accept—
or ever go home.
To let go
of control
when his seizures defy
the years
and the secrets—
he only knows why.
The anger.
The loss.
The stories,
hiding in the dark,
the stone walls—
deep in his heart.
Oh, let love live on,
forever in peace
and letting go
but never release.
Elaine Gantz Wright 