There are these two chairs tucked into the corner next to the blood pressure machine at our local pharmacy. This is the waiting place for those about to get their flu shots or have just gotten a flu shot, or any other of the myriad of vaccines that folks are encouraged to get these days. That’s where I was sitting, waiting my turn, when a woman in a black hat and black t-shirt took a seat next to me. Her shirt read: Science is like magic but real.

“I like your shirt,” I said.

You can tell a lot about a person by the t-shirts they wear. I have a couple of favorites. One simply says VOTE. Another reads: Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be like Trump. And another: I am the Foching Queen. Those three tees pretty much encapsulate who I am and what I care about. Not everything but enough that when I wear them I find my people, and avoid those who disdain the things I care about. By the same token, if you wear a tee with F#*k Biden or an AR-15 emblazoned across it, I will make all sorts of unpleasant assumptions about you and what you don’t care about – kids for one.

The woman in the Science tee never bothered with her name, but in the short time we were together I learned that she was a veteran (Air Force), that she is a retired nurse, that she volunteered as a vet tech, that she’s had shingles twice and three subsequent vaccines for shingles (because they kept improving the vaccine), that of all the vaccines she’s had the worst were the ones she had for rabies (because it’s not really a vaccine, she explained).

She and her husband, also a veteran, moved to Deschutes County about the same time Tim and I did. They, too, came to be near family, specifically their only grandchild. But the circumstances that led them here was far more traumatic than those that brought us to Central Oregon.

“Our daughter and her husband were killed in a car crash,” she said. “They were hit from behind by someone going 108 miles per hour. He was having a mental health crisis. Our grandson was thrown from the car but he lived. Our daughter and son-in-law were killed.”

Only four at the time, the boy was strapped into his car seat in the middle of the back seat. That car seat likely saved his life. The orphaned boy was taken in by family members who live in the area. The grandparents moved to be near him, to help with his raising.

Her daughter believed in Science, too, she told me. She was a physicist. There is nothing comparable to losing a child, her mother said. As a nurse, she had witnessed loss before, dealt with the grieving. “It’s hard to lose a parent but I’m not sure that compares to the loss of a child.”

“I can’t imagine,” I said. “I never want to imagine it.”

As she spoke, I was reminded again that grief isn’t like a cup of vinegar – You get a quarter cup; I get half. For most, it’s simply a bitter cup to drink from.

It was the Christmas season. Their daughter had been visiting family here in Deschutes County but was headed back to spend Christmas with her parents when the crash occurred. The fact that this young family was headed to Portland to spend time with the grandparents left them feeling guilty, as if somehow it was their fault the crash occurred.

“Guilt is the one emotion of grief that gets very little attention,” I said. It’s a common emotion. In the veteran community it’s known as survivor’s guilt. I don’t know what the civilians call it, if they refer to it at all.

Even as a young child, I felt like it had been my fault Dad will killed in Vietnam. Ridiculous, right? Those responsible for the deaths of all those soldiers, those politicians who waged the war, I doubt they felt any guilt. That’s how it is too often with the real guilty parties of any wrongs, especially the wrongs of war.

“Yes,” said the woman. “I felt so guilty but what could I have done? Nothing. Still, it’s hard because they were on their way to come see us.”

The thing about the guilt that comes with grief is that it can bind a person up as tight as the grave clothes of ancient Egypt. A person just can’t live life bound up in guilt for something that was always beyond their control.

When our daughter Konnie and her husband Jon married on this very day fourteen years ago, Konnie broke with tradition: She wanted a mother-daughter dance, so she and I took to the dance floor to the Mary, Mary song Shackles. The song represented so much of my life at that point. I’d come to a place where I’d learned that guilt rarely serves us well, unless, of course, we’ve broken some natural law, taken advantage of others, lied, cheated, been unkind, inhumane, been selfish, behaved indecently in a theater full of children. Overall those ten commandments sort of things.

I’d learned that grieving isn’t a moral issue, it’s a human condition. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to grieve, but there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. One must work it out as best they can, hopefully, with a ton of love and support from the community that surrounds them. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by a loving community throughout my life, but for far too long misplaced guilt constrained me.

I never did learn the name of the woman who believes in Science. She got called back for her vaccine before we exchanged names. I hope she lives a good long life, long enough to dance at her grandson’s wedding. Thank God and the scientists we live during a time when vaccines enable us to hope for such moments.