A Lovely Surprise
Early in my grief process, I learned that I had to take peoples’ words with a grain of salt when they expressed condolences. Not knowing what to say, folks would make vague statements like, ‘If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.’ But of course, those statements were not entirely truthful, as there were limits to what folks were willing to do. The problem was, if a person didn’t make those limits clear, I had to be the one to decide whether my asks were appropriate, something that required emotional energy I simply didn’t have because I was grieving the loss of my spouse.
Those early experiences helped me formulate the advice I now give to others: when speaking with someone who is grieving, be specific about what you’re willing to do. It’s okay to offer something small that you know you can do because the last thing you want to do is over promise and under deliver.
At the end of the day, I don’t think I’m cynical about folks’ initial responses to the bereaved, as I think they come from a place of wanting to help. However, I learned to be cautious about folks’ ability (or willingness) to deliver on their promises, as I was let down on more than one occasion by folks who over promised and under delivered. Actually, more than let down: I was hurt by those unfulfilled promises, particularly those that centered around honoring Chelsea.
So imagine my surprise when, a few months ago, a group of Chelsea’s former colleagues at her University approached me about putting together a memorial symposium that honored Chelsea’s scholarship and teaching. Unlike other memorial events, this one was unsolicited; they reached out to me about it, and came with a solid plan of action and a commitment to getting it done. I knew the people who were organizing it and trusted that they would honor Chelsea’s legacy/memory.
The event occurred last week and consisted of a talk by one of her friends/colleagues from back east, as well as a ‘maker’ event for students on the quad.
Similar to past memorial events, I worked with a few of her colleagues to create some fun activities for the maker event that were representative of the types of activities Chelsea might have done with her students. In this particular case, the maker event consisted of multiple ‘light puzzles’ in which students had to figure out either how a series of lights were wired together or how light filters blended together to produce a certain image. The hook was, ‘play a puzzle, get a cookie,’ (cookies tend to work well for college students) suggesting that the activity was less about solving the puzzle than it was creating space for students to tinker with gadgets in a low-stakes way.
At the end of the day, the event worked out differently than we thought it might, but was still fun and honored Chelsea’s teaching quite well. One particular moment that really stood out occurred when a student approached one of the light puzzles and said, ‘I’m a liberal arts student, I can’t do this.’ In that moment, I tried to channel Chelsea’s teaching philosophy by inviting the student into the puzzle, explaining that she didn’t need any sort of technical background to do it, and communicating my belief that she was capable of figuring it out. That moment encapsulated Chelsea’s teaching philosophy so well: she was so committed to empowering liberal arts students (women in particular) to tinker with technology, and she aimed to take some of mysticism and intimidation out of tech by, as she would say, cracking the hood and exploring what’s inside.
Her colleague’s talk later in the day was also lovely, exploring Chelsea’s scholarship and what it might mean for contemporary audiences and situations like the recent solar eclipse (Chelsea studied public science events, particularly those with a component of spectacle; think, the eclipse, the Sphere, or a Saturn V rocket launch back in the 60’s). It was a great reminder of just how serious a thinker Chelsea was, which of course was both lovely and really hard, as it foregrounded her absence.
Chelsea had such potential as a teacher and scholar, and was really starting to come into her own when she died. While she made a tremendous impact on students, faculty, and the broader intellectual community in her 15 years as a grad student and junior professor, it’s hard not to think about what she’d be doing now if she were still with us. I always try to think about the former, as the latter is both hard and somewhat irrelevant, but events like last week kind of force you to think about the what ifs.
So in addition to robust discourse, the talk included tears and feelings of loss and regret. But that’s okay, as this was I think the first time her university colleagues had created space for themselves to grieve and process the loss, and that sort of activity is always difficult.
And, as lovely as the event was, it served as yet another reminder that I’ll never ‘get over’ the loss. I’ve found such joy and happiness on my new life path, but I still carry the emotions and pain of loss with me, and probably will for the rest of my life. That’s okay, as it’s the price of having lived two spectacular decades with Chelsea; if I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t change any of the decisions I made, as my life was and is so much better because Chelsea was in it. Still, as I told my best friend recently, trauma changes you, often in strange and unpredictable ways, and part of the healing process is learning how to embrace those changes as you move forward.
