SHARING GRIEF continued SHARING GRIEF continued
appeared overjoyed, even tearful. I soon asked
her for a date.
Sitting at a table in a Howard–Johnson’s,
Carol told me that her father left before she
was two and that she grew up in two–rooms–
and–a–bath apartment with her mother. She
said she was the only child from a broken home
in her Washington, Pennsylvania, first–grade
classroom. Her mom remarried when Carol was
15; that marriage lasted only a few years. Carol
left the college dorm before her junior year
because her mother moved to Greenville. They
lived in an apartment; her mother worked as a
secretary; Carol worked part–time as a restaurant
waitress. She said her first grade teacher, Mrs.
Esther Clark, inspired her to become a teacher.
As a somewhat–country boy, raised in Greenville
County, SC, I was smitten by Carol’s intensity.
They say it’s best to let grief flow, let it have
its way.
Danny Penman, Ph.D., says about grief, “You
can suppress it . . . for a while at least, but this
can have devastating long–term consequences
because if you suppress one emotion then you
end up suppressing all of them, which will leave
you cut off from all that is good about life.”
Some say grief does not go away but changes
as time moves along.
Penman says, “In our mechanistic world,
grief, like all uncomfortable emotions, is seen as
something that should be either got through as
fast as possible or pushed away at all costs.”
He says we must experience grief and grieve
at our own pace. Grief is part of life. “From time
SHARING GRIEF con't next column
Sharing Grief
by Larry Steve Crain
I drove to Greg’s Barber Shop in Greenville,
SC. His place reminds me of The Barber Shop in
Aberdeen, NC, where I received great haircuts
during the 28 years my wife, Carol and I (and for
a time, two daughters) lived in Southern Pines.
Greg began barbering as a teenager, served
four years in the Navy and is in his mid-sixties.
He and Brian, a young barber, were waiting for
customers.
“How you doing?” Greg said.
“Pretty well,” I said.
“Well, I wouldn’t say pretty.”
“Okay. I’m doing fairly well. But I guess I’m
not fair either.”
We laughed.
“Take off a few weeks worth of hair,” I said.
Greg scissored and clipped and turned me
toward a mirror behind him.
“Is that enough off the top?”
“Yeah, looks good.”
“Now that you’ve got the most important
thing done, what you gonna do the rest of the
day?” Greg said.
“I was just thinking about that.”
“Does that mean you need something to do
or you have a lot to do?”
“Oh, I have a lot to do. I was trying to figure
out what to do first.”
“Well, my wife tells me what to do,” Greg said.
“Since my wife passed on, figuring out what’s
important to do is a lot harder for me than you
can imagine,” I said.
Greg flipped away the apron covering my
chest, and I paid and tipped him.
“See you guys later,” I said.
I drove home, feeling ambushed.
I visited the barber shop for a simple haircut,
but something was said that caused a rush
of emotion in me. Greg knew about my wife’s
death—Carol passed on Jan. 11, 2019—but he
probably wasn’t thinking a comical comment
about his wife might affect me.
At a GriefShare group I attended, they said
emotional reactions relating to a departed loved
one can ambush you—come at you from out of
the blue. If I grocery–shop and see a coconut
cake or a yogurt flavor that Carol liked, mist may
come to my eyes.
Carol and I met in early 1968 in an English
class at Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC,
during our junior year. I sat on the far side of the
room and one row back from her. I had noticed
her classic facial profile. Carol asked a friend if
she knew anyone who could draw a dachshund
for her; that friend told her I was an art student.
Carol introduced herself and asked if I’d draw
for her a dachshund, one like her beloved,
deceased Heidi. I thought, “Who walks up to a
stranger and asks him to do a drawing for her?”
But I agreed to draw a dog for a needy damsel.
Carol had no picture of Heidi, so I found a
dachshund photo, sketched a watercolor from
that image and matted and framed it. Carol
to time remind yourself that the price of life is
death,” he says.
“Do not listen to people who suggest that you
should be over it in a set period of time such as
one month or one year,” Penman advises. “Your
grief will rise and fall. Sometimes you will feel it
intensely, other times hardly at all. The intensity
of your grief does not reflect how much you
loved the person.”
“Grief is the price of love,” someone said.
Carol and I married in 1970, in Greenville
County, SC, while I served in the Army. We were
blessed with two daughters: Janelle (1973) and
Suzanne (1978). We lived in Southern Pines, and
I worked at Gulistan Carpet in Aberdeen from
April 1989 to Jan. 2013.
Carol was hit with pulmonary hypertension
when a blood clot moved from her leg in Dec.
2012, and burst in her lungs. In FirstHealth
Moore Regional Hospital’s emergency room, Dr.
Michael A. Pritchett of Pinehurst Medical Clinic
told Carol, “Most people don’t make it here in
your condition.”
Dr. Pritchett treated Carol until we moved
back to Greenville County, SC, on Jan. 10,
2018. Dr. Armin Meyer then served as Carol’s
pulmonologist. She died one year and one day
after our move.
I feel part of the church I attend and often
think on Jesus’ words found in John 11:25, “I am
the resurrection, and the life: he that believes
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” I
believe I’ll see Carol again.
We all will deal with losing a loved one. A
lady in the GriefShare group I attended lost five
family members over a short time. GriefShare
advertises as “a friendly, caring group of people
who will walk alongside you through one of life’s
most difficult experiences. You don’t have to go
through the grieving process alone.”
Recently, while sorting through things in
Carol’s office, I found an envelope with a return
address for Woodland Baptist Christian School
(WBCS), 3665 Patterson Ave., Winston-Salem,
NC 27105. Carol taught sixth grade there in 1988-
89 while we lived in Kernersville.(We moved
to Kernersville, NC, in 1988, because Karastan
Carpet bought out now-closed Bigelow Carpet
in Greenville, SC, where I worked.)
I decided to write the school and enclose a
copy of Carol’s funeral program and an article I
wrote about her. Maybe someone at the school
remembered Carol. Days later I found WBCS
internet information (wbcseagles.com) and saw
a different address: 1175 Bethania Rural Hall
Rd., Winston-Salem, NC 27106.
Perusing the website, I found a phone
number. Carol liked the 1988-89 school
principal, Mr. Joel Groce. Before Carol arrived
there and after school challenges, Woodland
Baptist Church’s much-loved Pastor Zeno Groce
asked his son, Joel, a business executive, to serve
as principal.
On the website, the school office business
manager was listed as Mrs. Martha Fulk. Mr.
Groce was not listed as principal. I called to
verify the address. Mrs. Fulk, age 72, answered
and remembered Carol.
“I’m so sorry,” she said about Carol’s passing.
“Yes, send us a bulletin, and I’ll share it. Yes, the
church and school moved from the old address.”
She mentioned a couple teachers who would
remember Carol. When his father retired in 1998
after pastoring for 46 years, Joel Groce returned
to the insurance business.
I wrote the new address on my envelope
prepared for WBCS and felt mist in my eyes as
I inserted the funeral program and my story
about Carol. I attached two stamps, hoping to
insure the envelope’s delivery, and walked to my
mailbox. I had made a connection with friends
who knew Carol and would fondly remember
her. I felt good about that.
I agree with this statement Dr. Charles
W. Shepson made after his wife died, “I shall
move forward in this healing process. I shall
be enabled to rise up and out of my sorrowing
into worthwhile productiveness. I shall, by
God’s grace, be a blessing instead of needing to
be blessed.” ☐ Sou Pines resident, L. Steve
Crain now lives in Taylors, S.C.
SHARING GRIEF con't next column
Above: Steve & Carol, Wedding Day, 1970.
Below: Carol Crain, 1972.
p.34 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. No. 138
/(wbcseagles.com