The Sound of Courage

by Liz Clark

 

There were sounds I didn’t want to hear.

The sound the shovel made as it pierced the soil.  The pause that followed.  The almost-silent sound of dirt piling up beside the neatly dug hole.

When the sounds were done, the thing that consumed my mind that day, despite the stubborn sunshine, was the hole that remained.

Others call it a grave.

I watched him dig the hole.  I listened to the sounds.  I shouldn’t have been there, listening, but I was.  The hole didn’t belong to me or my family. It was dug for a stranger.  Yet, the loss I felt was so profound.

The woman who raised me had died nearly two years before in an awful and tragic way.  And there was no funeral.  She was cremated, and we were confused.  Because she wasn’t supposed to die.

The memorial services were rushed and awkward.  She was so loved and had made herself home to so many people.  There were services in 3 different states, in borrowed churches, and people who only knew her through her laugh and her lasagna.  And it was nice for them to talk about her like she was the nice lady they once knew.  But they didn’t understand.

They didn’t really understand that she was alive and active and wonderful, and then she got into the backseat of a car on her way to her sister’s funeral.  Only she never made it.

Instead of her sister’s funeral, she met with her own tragedy that day: a car accident, 12 weeks in ICU and then her death.

And they also didn’t seem to understand that she was my rock.  And she wasn’t supposed to die like that.

But she did.

 

 

So I found myself at a cemetery nearly two years later.  To reflect on life, I suppose.  I came across a gravedigger and, for some reason, I stopped and pretended to pay respects to a stranger named Smyth and made myself listen to the sound of the shovel and the dirt.  It’s morbid, I know, but I needed it somehow.

Standing there in front of a stranger’s grave, an emotion swept over me that I haven’t been able to define.  I suddenly had incredible clarity.  All at once, I understood what she meant when she told me all of those times growing up, “I just want you to be happy.”

She didn’t mean “happy” in the shallow, fun-loving kind of way.  She meant happy.  Fulfilled.  At peace.  At rest.  Full of life and excited.  She wanted me to be who I was designed to be.

And I realized as I listened to the sound of the dirt that I was not happy.  In many ways, I was dead inside; and not just because of her death.  I realized that I had made choices to believe certain things about life and work and the possibility of happiness.

Inside my mind’s eye, the truth began to play out in front of me.  It was as if, years ago, a figurative gravedigger had said to me, “Your dreams aren’t good enough.  In fact, they’re dead.  But I can help you get them out of your head so you can go about your life.  You’re lucky – you’ve got good solid skills.  Stick with those.  They are safe.  Dreams are dangerous.”

And he graciously dug while I wrestled my hopes and dreams into a coffin and waited for him to finish the job.  And the sound of that shoveling had been somehow echoing in my soul for years, long before her tragic death.

When that gravedigger in my mind had finished, he turned to me and said, “You’re safe now.  Stick with what you know and you’ll be fine.”

I thanked him and glanced down at the name on his uniform shirt.  I couldn’t quite make it out, but it looked like it read: FEAR.

I stood there in that cemetery, stunned at this realization, hot tears racing down my face.  My dreams were dead and done, but she wanted me to be happy? Fulfilled?  What was this stark contrast I was sensing?

I gripped my purse a little tighter, standing there.  Blue skies, beautiful green grass all around.  A warm breeze picked up and danced across my face.  I said out loud in a voice that was quieter than I had hoped, “I will bring those dreams back to life.  I will find a way.  And I will start dreaming again. I will.”

Just then, something shifted inside.  I knew the road ahead of me would be so very different from the one behind.  I had been led to a bottoming-out place where an awakening would begin.  At a cemetery.

And in this place, I started down the figurative gravedigger named Fear and made a decision to change.

In this place, the sound of digging a grave changed into the sound of moving dirt to build a new foundation.

And my dreams?  I found them under all the dirt inside my heart.  Although dusty and in need of nourishment, they weren’t dead at all.  They had even grown and changed.  And although they are big and need discipline, support, and work, they are mine and part of who I am.  And happiness cannot come without them.

And fear? It’s just a gravedigger.  And I have no need for a grave.

Liz Clark calls the mountains of Pennsylvania home along with her husband, Scott, and their 4 kids.  A seasoned entrepreneur, project manager and communicator, Liz fights fear and builds dreams at www.getlifedone.com.