Slices of Life
Pearl of great price
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
As a kid, I loved collecting shells on the beach - still do. There is something calming about walking on the sand, listening to the waves and looking for small treasures the tide washes up.
I never found a pearl - not many of us do on the beach. You usually have to take a deep dive to find a pearl, but I was always enamored of them.
Pearls come from humble beginnings - from a errant grain of sand or some other irritant that finds its way inside the shell of a clam (or mollusk or other shelled ocean creature.) The clam detects the pearl, which at this point can probably be described as a thorn in its side. It hurts, probably intensely so, but the clam has no way expelling the irritant. It has to learn to live with it.
So the clam produces a product to soften the hard edges of the sand grain. Gradually the clam surrounds the irritant sand with a substance that rounds out the edges and lessens the pain caused by the unwanted and uninvited guest.
Over time, the unwelcome irritant becomes almost a part of the clam. Still felt, still present, but no longer painful. For the clam, it is a presence that is infinite and never-ending.
In many ways, grief is like a pearl.
It enters, unwanted and uninvited but once inside the shell, there is no going back. There is no expelling grief once it has entered your life.
At first, grief is excruciating, akin to being poked with a thousand sharp needles. But you have no choice but to endure its wrath - no way to expel its presence. So you find work-arounds. You learn new habits that lessen the intensity of the sorrow and regrets and goodbyes you never got the chance to say.
You find means to soften the edges of grief and create a sort of buffer around it to shield you from its intensity. You learn to live with grief. It becomes a part of you - infinite and never-ending, yet defining in ways you never could have imagined.
And over time, over days and weeks and years, you begin to create your pearl.
Another reference to pearls I’ve always loved was from the book “The Scarlet Letter.” In it, the protagonist, Hester Prynn, who is emblazoned with the scarlet “A” for her transgressions as an “adulteress” (and refusing to name the father) names her only child Pearl.
“Pearl of great price - purchased with all she had - her mother’s only treasure!”
Here, pearl provides another analogy to grief. Pearl of great price - purchased with all that she had: I love thinking about grief that way.
We pay a great price for a grief that seems uninvited, unlivable and devastating, but when we make it through, when we pay our own great price and create our own pearl, we do truly come upon a treasure.
It’s a treasure of understanding and perspective - all built on love.
Always, always infinite love. Purchased with all that we had - quite literally.
In that, I claim pride in my grief. Much like a clam, and much like Hester Prynn can claim pride for their own pearls.
All started out completely unwanted. All caused unforeseen growth and the overcoming of the insurmountable by the creation of our own pearls.
Which for me have become the ultimate definition of beauty - not to mention survival.
Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright and author. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.
