On Sadness

Sadness is cousin to grief
a haunted space
echoing what is lost

This past Thursday, I went on a guided tour of the Washita Battlefield (with friends from my church). We know the place because Magpie lived to tell the tale. A ranger told the tale, she told it well: How Gen. Custer sent four divisions to attack from each of the ancient sacred directions. "No women and children," Custer said, remembering the massacre at Sand Creek. Our guide pointed out Custer's knoll, where he surveyed the scene just before the attack. Where he would have heard reports on missing men. Where he would hear women and children were being killed, contrary to his orders.

The ranger told us she knew of some Native Americans who were sensitive to this space — who felt echoes of the lost lives. According to family lore, I am fifth generation Comanche. Perhaps it was the ranger's suggestion, perhaps it was the heat of the day and the exertion, perhaps it was my prayerful heart, intimately trained for contemplation. I felt it: I felt my heart burn. I was aware of the echoes of loss.

I keenly felt it as we crossed the field where the Cheyenne lived that winter, along the banks of the once mighty Washita. I keenly felt it as we passed the trees where people had left prayer cloths in the sacred colors of red, yellow, black, and blue. I felt it as we placed our own prayer cloth near where the ponies had been killed. I felt it as we climbed out the rise, back to the park center.

Sadness is a haunted space. Sadness is not the absence of happiness; not exactly its dark brother. Sadness is less than depression, but it may lead to depression with time. Sadness & grief are cousins: they often come together, but I don't suppose sadness is only caused by grief. It may have many kin.

There's a moment in the second movement of Henryk Goreck's Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) that, for me, bespeaks “Joyous Sorrow.” How can that be? I think that is the moment when you perceive the hopeful light on the dark's horizon. In the context of the symphony, it is the moment a mother grieves the death of her child — yet there is the suggestion that life goes continues. The mother's song concludes:
“And you, God's little flowers
May you bloom all around
So that my son
May sleep happily.”

Sadness is cousin to grief
a haunted space
echoing what is lost