WandaVision: Is Grief Love Persevering?
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me
–From “Warning” by Jenny Joseph
Mom would have been 90 today. Images of purple irises, flowers that bloomed outside our kitchen window every year despite the 110-degree heat, flooded my head this morning. Purple irises, whimsical with a fanciful form, always remind me of her. Eleven years ago, my nine siblings and I said goodbye to this spunky, stubborn, facetious, good-natured Irish woman. Patricia, Patty or Pat: the one with the wit and contagious giggle that caused her whole body to shake. She was always glad to see you and hated to say goodbye. Far from perfect, Mom was no saint. Yet, she loved and willingly gave her heart to us without hesitation.
Do you know loss that leaves a void? Have you experienced grief? Since the pandemic began in 2020, many have lost family, friends, co-workers and members of communities. At times, there was no chance to say goodbye. In an interview in November 2021, psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor explained that grief looks different from person to person. We are all having to learn how to live without someone and this can be harder when you are not present when a person dies. Our sense of who we are is bound up with the other person. All of this changes over time. I know that losing a mother revealed a vulnerability I had never experienced. Maybe you experienced losing a beloved relative, saying goodbye to a pet you could never replace, a betrayal of friendship, the end of a marriage, or a job ending unexpectedly. How do we navigate the emotions or surrender to things out of our control? More importantly, how can we find hope in the midst of grief?
WandaVision and Grief
You don’t need to know anything about the popular MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies and series to appreciate the following reflection on WandaVision and my own grief journey. Of course, Mom would more likely watch M*A*S*H or Hill Street Blues rather than keep track of superheroes and villains. My son and daughter, now 19, both introduced my husband and me to the MCU, of which WandaVision caught my attention in an engaging way. My son would normally have to re-explain the plots and characters in each movie. Yet, I found that I didn’t need to know everything about Wanda or the Vision, the main characters in WandaVision, in order to appreciate this creative and provocative series. Through the comical and real take on Wanda’s journey of grief, I recognized some of my own experience. Interestingly, Jac Schaeffer, WandaVision’s showrunner, shaped the series after Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). While most experts today agree that these stages are more fluid and less structured, these basic components of grief still ring true. It makes for an unexpected Marvel story, to say the least.
Here’s Wanda’s story. Wanda had witnessed the deaths of both her beloved parents in a bombing in fictional Sokovia when young, then later grieved the death of her twin brother, Pietro. He died tragically while protecting the Avenger, Hawkeye, at the hands of the villain, Ultron. Living with a grief that paralyzed her, Wanda connected with the Vision, a personal and magnanimous non-human synthezoid made of vibranium and energized by the Mind Stone. Capable of a loving relationship, Vision gave Wanda the support she needed to begin to put words to her anguish. Wanda described her distress in Episode 8: “It’s just like this wave washing over me again and again. It knocks me down and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can’t…it’s gonna drown me.”
Later on, Wanda must destroy Vision in order to destroy the Mind Stone and save the world. She witnessed his death a second time when Thanos rewinds time. Then, after attempting to resurrect him to live in her made-up world in WandaVision, Wanda said goodbye to Vision a third time. Grief upon grief upon grief.
I remember that feeling of almost drowning. Losing Mom in May of 2011 hit me like a 12-foot wave and all I could do was keep from falling to my knees. She had just visited my family two weeks before her fall in a parking lot at her assisted living facility. The shunt in her brain, inserted years before because of hydrocephalus, could no longer handle the fluid pressure in her brain. She was 79.
Perseverance
“If it wasn’t for my faith in God, Jane, none of this would be worth it.” I was in high school when my mom said these words to me. Known as Pat or Patty to her good friends, my mom said what she meant though, often, she hid it behind sarcasm. This blue-eyed ‘40s and ‘50s girl grew up to be a nurse, wife and mother to 5 girls and 5 boys. She never stopped wearing colorful scarves or hats, popular in her young adult life. She was pragmatic but usually expected the best out of people, including her children. A Catholic all her life, she never stopped holding fast to the Church, even when the advice of her priests in the 1950s and 1960s kept her in a marriage that often left her desperate and alone.
Yet, who am I to say that my mom made a wrong decision to stay? For, if she’d left, I would never have been born. And yet, ironically, I was angry at her for a time because she stayed and risked everything to keep us all together. In my 16-year-old mind, she had given up and settled for a difficult marriage. We lived in two worlds. One world at home included Mom and all the kids. And then there was the tense “other” world where my father came home and turned everything upside down. Our home was either at peace or in tumult. At peace when, during the daytime, it was filled with music and the hum of the old Singer sewing machine, the sound of Mom singing, “Good morning to you,” music of Kenny Rogers or Neil Diamond, the smell and sound of pan fried chicken or stovetop popcorn with a stash of Snickers bars in the kitchen drawer, summer picnics, Dewar’s peppermint ice cream, and children. So many children, running here and there, chasing each other until my mom told us to go outside and get some sunshine so she could have her “peace and quiet.” She was a firm believer in the 14th century idiom, many hands make light work. We all were expected to pitch in. During quieter moments, I used to sit in the room where my mom sewed, cooked or napped in between her hospital shifts, laundry loads and dinner preparation.
I have to admit, though, that I didn’t wholly appreciate my mom until I became a mother, myself. It was then, after I gave birth to twins, that I longed to see her in the recovery room. And, as if in an instant (but really over the next several months), I gradually forgave her for the mistakes and weaknesses she revealed as a mother to me. I humbly experienced God’s grace as I realized the almost insurmountable task of being a mother. How did she do it? She was either pregnant or breastfeeding for close to 20 years of her life. All the while, my mom was married for over 50 years in an unstable, often loveless marriage. I still cannot fathom it.
Time Stood Still
After my mom’s fall, I flew out to California to be with her in the palliative care unit. She was unresponsive with labored breathing, but looked like she was sleeping. When I sat down by her bedside, I really didn’t know what to say, and I can’t remember what I did say. Words cannot express the wave of gratitude, regret and sadness that began to wash over me. My siblings arrived, one by one, each taking a turn to be with her. All but one of us sat with her in her last hours. We told stories and even sang some songs, thanks to my brother Tom’s guitar music. Time stood still. It was beautiful and peaceful, joyful and sad all at once. The room was full of love and devotion to the woman who sacrificed everything for us. We were immersed in the wave together, helping each other to stay afloat while we watched her breathe and longed for one more interaction.
While we planned her funeral, we sat together, sometimes in silence to revel in the remarkable life of a no-nonsense Irish woman who gave her entire self for her children.
In WandaVision, Vision responded to Wanda’s description of grief by asking, “What is grief, if not love persevering?”** In the scene, Wanda pauses and takes in what he says, remaining silent in the presence of such a revelation of hope. “Love persevering” aptly describes how I’m still processing Mom’s passing from this earth. With each passing day, whether with one of Mom’s recipes, a song she loved, hearing Mom’s words in conversation, glancing at her picture, looking out at our backyard where she loved to spend time, and especially in the annual blooming of irises in my yard, I remember her spirit and I know that she is with me. One day, I will see her again, blue eyes twinkling and a smile just for me. She was imperfectly good and beautiful. She was real.
Hope in Life and Death
I am thankful for the Catholic teaching that all souls that have gone before us stay connected with the living even after their deaths. Death is only the beginning. Out of unfathomable love God created us and out of that same mysterious love God welcomes us home. What happens “on the way” home and for how long only God knows.
And can this be our hope in death? If it’s true that we, too, will be resurrected, that we will be with Christ, that death is just the beginning, then let us be hope-filled. St. Paul reminds us of this hope, using language that calls to mind a woman in labor:
“For I reckon the sufferings of the present time to be of no worth before the coming glory that will be revealed to us…For we know that all creation groans together and labors together in birth pangs, up to this moment; Not only this, but even we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the spirit, groan within ourselves as well, anxiously awaiting adoption, emancipation of our body. For in hope we have been saved but a hope seen is not hope; for why hope for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we anticipate by perseverance.” (Romans 8:18-25)***
Even St. Paul, as rendered in the Greek translation, names perseverance as essential to our hope. Just as Mom persevered, even in the middle of some profound suffering in her lifetime, so must I. To allow her life, her love, her sacrifice and her example to teach me, even now, 11 years after her death, I must remember her. And I must persevere on my own path wherever that leads.
Whatever “stage” of grief you might find yourself, be patient with yourself. Persevere in hope because this is not the end. And if you find yourself suppressing your grief, just as Wanda did in WandaVision, try giving yourself the space to feel and to share your burden.
Call to Action: In the comments below, please share your insights and wisdom about grief you have experienced. Where did you find hope?
Blog Notes:
*Mary-Frances O’Connor’s interview on NPR 11/8/21 can be found on www.npr.org; she wrote : The Grieving Brain:The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss, published in February 2022
**I must give credit to the show’s writer, Laura Donney, who wrote this poignant line.
***Here, I am using the biblical translation based on the literal Greek text by David Bentley Hart (The New Testament, 2017). It is widely accepted that Greek was the original language of much of the New Testament.
Song for Contemplation: You’ll Never Walk Alone by Judy Garland & Lyn Murray
This was one of Mom’s favorite songs growing up. It’s a song about perseverance and hope. To the end of her life, Mom never lost hope in the good and beautiful.
