I’ve never been much of a movie buff, although I have attended my fair share, just not recently. It seems no matter where I land in the theater, I’m under the air conditioning vent. So I’m a shivering popsicle by the time the movie ends. And if it’s one of those that has a lot of jumping from dark to light to dark to light, I have a migraine by the time the credits roll. So if it’s something I really want to see (there aren’t a lot of those), I wait for it to come out on DVD or show up on my television. These days that doesn’t take nearly as long as it used to.

One of the all-time classics that I managed to sit through in the old theater downtown was “Gone With the Wind.” All four hours of it. I don’t care how comfortable the seats are (and they weren’t), no one can sit still through four hours of anything, even if there is an intermission. I much preferred Carol Burnett’s Readers’ Digest Condensed spoof, “Went With the Wind”, especially the scene where she descends the not-so-grand staircase wearing the drapes (complete with curtain rod still in place) and, when Rhatt Butler tells her the gown is gorgeous, she replies, “Thank you. I saw it in the window and I just couldn’t resist it” (yes, that’s right, Rhatt – Harvey Korman was Rhatt and Carol was Starlett and Tim Conway was Brashley and special guest Dinah Shore was a sickeningly sweet Melody).

As much as I like their version, there’s one key line missing and that’s the one Scarlett O’Hara utters at the very end of the movie. Rhett has left her (wise man that he finally became) and she is terribly distraught over his departure. Alone for the first time in her life, with no family or friends to manipulate, she determines that she will return home to Tara—that she will find a way to win him back because “after all, tomorrow is another day”. And with that happy, overly optimistic thought, the movie ends.

There are times in life when we sorely wish we could “return to Tara”—to go to a place and a time where everything was simple and right and we were surrounded by those people we loved and things that, by virtue of their familiarity, afforded a feeling of comfort. Knowing that tomorrow is another day can be an optimistic outlook offering the promise of another chance, a new beginning . . . unless you are grieving. In that case, the tomorrows begin to run together, one long expanse of time offering little more than another 24 hours of struggling just to go through the motions of living. There are no new beginnings, no opportunities to approach a problem from a different direction, just an emptiness that will not go away and an ache that will not let go.

Grieving takes time . . . and patience . . . and support from those around you. We must allow those who are suffering the loss of an important part of their lives the time to grieve. We must be patient in that allowance and not demand that they “move on”, and we must support them throughout their journey. And if we are the ones who are grieving, we must be patient with ourselves. Grief does not have a timeline nor does it abide by a clock or a calendar. There will be good days and bad, and in the beginning the bad will far outweigh the good, but as time passes the balance will shift and the fog will gradually lift. Eventually, tomorrow will be a little brighter, a little easier, filled with a little more promise for the future—a day to look forward to rather than one to dread.

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