Communication and Love

I finished the biography I was reading on the great magician, Harry Houdini last night. All in all a very satisfying read - I don't usually read biographies but picked this one up a couple years ago because it grabbed my attention and was reduced to $6.99. There were a number of aspects about the book from a historical perspective that I found very interesting and relating to grief.

Back in the period of 1900 -1930, there was a huge following of the Spiritualist movement. This was actually practiced as a religion which believed in the occult, ghosts and other unexplained mysteries. Mediums who contacted the dead were very popular and 250 alone were working in Chicago. This group was well organized throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. Houdini had worked as a fraudulent medium in his early days and knew all the tricks of the trade. It became his mission in his later years to attempt to expose the Spiritualist movement and destroy it. He sincerely believed that the people who profited from their work as phony mediums were taking advantage of those most suffering and in pain - the grief stricken.

Houdini and various scientists (some from Harvard) worked to expose the tricks of the Spiritualist leaders and mediums. It was not easy since there were so many sincere believers. The movement gained momentum after World War I when grief stricken families attempted to come to terms with the loss of so many young men killed.

Although Houdini knew the Spiritualist movement was a sham, he wanted to believe that the dead could communicate with the living. He spent his life trying to prove that such communication existed and died without doing so. In other words, he had a very open mind and hope.

I have never heard of the Spiritualist movement. It was an interesting piece of history for me to learn. I thought of the thousands of families grieving for the death of their young men after World War I and cannot imagine what that was like for our nation at that time. There must have been a sort of collective grief and mourning that existed. I think of how those families are no different than all of us today just wanting one final word from our deceased loved ones. Basically to know that they are okay and happy. To tell them one last time that we love them. Those points keep coming back to me over and over again - communication and love. That is what matters most. I wonder for many of us, if our grief would be somewhat lessened if we did receive a message from beyond reassuring and soothing us.

So many of us did not have an opportunity to say goodbye and I think that this haunts us. I know it does for me since my husband was in a coma for two weeks - with it one moment and the next unconscious and unable to breathe on his own. I can also relate this to my divorce and why that became so devastating to me. Husband #2 did not want to and refused to communicate with me. His refusal to say goodbye to me after our mediation session was especially painful. Saying goodbye is essential for closure and not being able to do so leaves such a huge gap open of unresolved words, feelings and emotions.

Today I am grateful:

1. For another amazing fall day.
2. For those cool State quarters designed to celebrate our great nation.
3. For beautiful postage stamps that are little works of art.
4. For all the symbols of our country - the flag, eagle, White House, Liberty Bell, buffalo, cowboys, pioneers, Pilgrims...
5. For libraries.

Grief and Houdini

I am over halfway through the book, "The Secret Life of Houdini - The Making of America's First Superhero" by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. Harry Houdini was extremely devoted to his mother and was deeply affected by her death. He apparently would often wake up in the middle of the night and call out loud, "Mama, are you here?" When he received no response he would sigh with disappointment and fall back to bed morosely. Even five years after her death, he still suffered great feelings of loss. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "I have worked hard and faithfully, and never knew what it was to shirk work, until one morning I awoke and found that my Mother had departed - and since then I 'loaf' in my work."

I find it very interesting and informative that Houdini also makes references to how he is affected by his mother's death around the date of her passing. He writes, "I have not recovered from my Mothers Loss, and July 8 was the last time I saw and [held] Her in my arms kissing Her a genuine Goodbye, and about the 17 of each month the feeling comes back to me, and I get melancoly [sic] moods." On the second anniversary of her death, he purposely stayed in the room "in which My Darling Mother went to Sleep for Evermore."

Houdini was friends with the "The Call of the Wild" author, Jack London and his wife, Charmian. When Jack died at only the age of 40, he immediately sent a telegram to Charmian. While she was in New York 11 months later, she attended one of Houdini's shows and met him afterward. He appeared somewhat shocked and upset that she was looking "so well and blooming" that soon after her husband's death. She responded defiantly with "I REFUSE to be beaten! I am going to put in whatever years life still hold for me as profitably in the pursuit of happiness as I possibly can. You have lost and suffered. An I not right in my attitude?"

Again, I found this reaction to be very interesting. Even in 1917 two very different reactions to death and grief are at play and at odds here. Houdini doesn't feel his friend's wife should be "over" her grief while Charmian has adopted a mindset of moving forward despite her pain and looking for happiness in the future. I was just blown away by this very small part of the book - probably most readers find it somewhat interesting and continue reading without much further thought but it really impacted me in many ways. I am most struck by:

1. Houdini's love and devotion for his mother and his acknowledgment that the grief lingered long after her death.

2. For the courage of Jack London's wife to forge ahead meeting life head on and with the specific intent of pursuing happiness (and not feeling guilty with herself for this attitude).

Interesting that Houdini was upset with Charmian for not grieving enough as he saw fit. After mulling all of this over I have settled in on my conclusion. I think that we all need to grieve in our own ways and for the time we need. I have come to believe that the grief over my losses will forever be incorporated into my life and they've become who I am. But at the same time, I also want to move ahead and experience much more happiness. Debbie Ford puts it so perfectly in her book "Spititual Divorce" by asking, "In this new situation, how can I be happy and have a great life?" Like Houdini I want to honor my losses. But like Charmian and Debbie Ford I am ready to ask this question and to seek the answers.

I pay tribute to Harry Houdini on this Halloween for the mastery of his magic, his talent, devotion to family, work ethic, creativity, courage, honesty and patriotism - all true measures of a great man and true American legend.