Melancholy vs. Sorrow

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When I was a freshman in college, I cried so hard watching a rerun of  Brian’s Song, my eyes were swollen shut for two days. Remember the 1971 telefilm about Brian Piccolo, a pro football player diagnosed with terminal cancer? It was told through the voice of his best friend, running back Gayle Sayers and was topped in sadness only by Love Story, another 1970s tear-jerker. The 1997 Italian film, Life is Beautiful, was of similar ilk;  a story of one father’s love, so infinite, it trumped the hate of Hitler.

As I wrestled this week to shake the blue mood that tends to plague me this time of year, I reflected on the nature of melancholy.  Defined as a deep, pensive, long-lasting sadness, what’s most vexing is its vagueness. It’s depressing to be depressed; hard to articulate and even harder to escape.

But on Wednesday, I received a text from a young friend who has a lump.  It’s not a good lump.  It’s a scary one.  They were going to take it out Thursday. That’s how scary the lump is.  But someone made a mistake.  Not about the lump, but about taking it out…and now she has to wait until next week. My melancholy turned from something diffuse and chronic to something specific and acute: anxiety and hope, anger and prayer. I welcomed someone to focus on besides myself.

Then yesterday I was scrolling through my emails when I  saw this headline from Denver Business Journal: “Remembering Noel Cunningham“, and my heart skipped. Not in a good way.  Why would they use the word “remembering”? That didn’t make any sense. So I clicked on the story, and then it made sense…but not really.

How can it make sense that this man – this kind, giving, hopeful, enterprising, charitable, inspirational example of all that’s good in men – is suddenly gone?  How can it make sense for his wife Tammy, who together with Noel, has changed the lives, fortunes, and futures of thousands, to be faced with this sudden loss of the very person who helped rescue her from the depths of another terrible loss many, many years ago.

Although I met Noel just one time…I will never forget that dinner I had with him and Tammy sitting outside of Strings, on a warm May evening.  This well-known entrepreneur, successful restauranteur, and selfless philanthropist, served the meal himself, and then sat and asked about my family.  He invited me to bring my children to visit the kitchen and cook with him.  He talked about his last trip to Ethiopia, and the Foundation’s plans for more libraries there.  He doted on his wife with his eyes, his words, and his deeds. Noel wore his love for Tammy and  for his fellow human being right on his sleeve… an exquisite adornment, and one rarely seen.

As I went out to shovel the walk this morning, I  put on my Dad’s old hat and as I pushed the snow, I thought about him, and about Noel, and about the nature of sadness. My heart is breaking for Tammy, and aching for my mom, and clenching for my friend, and I am grateful for my explicable sorrow. When we stop having reason to cry, we stop having reason to be, as the  absence of sorrow must mean the absence of love. A bittersweet epiphany, but  much preferable to self-centered melancholy. There’s comfort knowing that while life is fleeting, love is not…

May we all be graced by an experience of everlasting love … and humbled by its power to buckle our knees and break our hearts.