Shepherd's Pie & Keeping Grief Company

by Amy

“Clara had put the shepherd’s pie and apple crisp in the fridge. They’d been her own comfort food, after Peter had gone. She’d followed the casseroles back to sanity. Thanks to the kindness of neighbors who kept baking them, and kept bringing them. And who’d kept her company.

And now it was Clara’s turn to return the comfort and the casseroles and the company.”

Keeping company to someone in pain or grief or discomfort isn’t easy.

Empathic listening demands a willingness to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Some of us are more talented at it than others. It takes sensibility, I think. A good imagination helps. And there’s that elusive ability: a knack for extrapolating feelings from experiences you’ve had and applying them to a new context.

I’ve always thought that that is what good actors did. Maybe good writers, too. They don’t have to have lived the exact situation that a character they’re playing or portraying does. They do have to dig into their own emotional history and repertoire to empathize and represent the character they are giving voice to.

The same skill is necessary in order to be a good listener, an understanding friend, a counselor, a psychologist…

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” Clara said, cradling the dishes. “But I know how much energy it takes to get out of bed in the morning, never mind shop and cook. There’re a couple bags of groceries in the trunk. They’re from Monsieur Béliveau. And Sarah sent some croissants and baguettes from her boulangerie. She says you can freeze them. I wouldn’t know. They never last that long in my house.

Clara saw a hint of a genuine smile. And with it a slight relief, a loosening of the tight bands holding Evie Lepage in, and the world out.”

I know.

Clara wasn’t relying only on imagination in order to understand Evie’s feelings. She knew. She had recently been in very similar circumstances. Clara thought she was welcome in the Lapage’s home because she had suffered a loss of her own. She thought she understood because they were in the same boat, so to speak.

“How’re you doing?”“It feels like my bones are dissolving,” said Evelyn. And Clara nodded. She knew that feeling.”[…]“Al won’t come in here,” she explained. “I have to keep the door closed. He doesn’t want to see anything to do with Laurent. But I come up, when he’s outside.”She swung the door open and stepped inside. The bed was as Laurent had left it, unmade. And his clothes were scattered about, where he’d tossed them.The two women sat side by side on Laurent’s bed.The old farmhouse creaked and groaned, as though the whole home was in mourning, trying to settle around the gaping hole in its foundation.“I’m afraid,” said Evie, at last.“Tell me,” said Clara. She didn’t ask, “Of what?” Clara knew what she was afraid of. And she knew the only reason Evelyn had allowed her past the threshold wasn’t because of the casseroles she carried in her arms, but because of something else Clara carried. The hole in her own heart.Clara knew.

We talked before of Clara’s willingness to confront her own brokenness and her cracks (HERE). Her strength and her talent for seeing into people’s souls lies in her courage in facing and admitting her own vulnerability.

I think that is the true reason why Evie opened up to Clara.

Loss, heart-wrenching grief, sorrow, and a gaping hole where her heart was all made it easier for Clara to understand. It wasn’t the only determining factor, though. There are those who go through grief and still do not know how to reach out to others who suffer similar pain. There are those who turn their sorrow into bitterness and self-centeredness and cannot see that everyone in the world has a burden of their own and that maybe, just maybe, in sharing, we can lighten each other’s load.

Clara has a talent for seeing others. She hears the unsaid and reads between the lines.

I think Evie let her in because she was willing to say, “Tell me”.

That attitude explains why Clara had let Myrna, Gabri, Olivier, the Gamache’s in her own home when dealing with her own grief.

Maybe, if Clara had walked in, know-it-all attitude, telling Evie what to expect and how to grieve and what to do, Evie wouldn’t have been as comfortable to share.

Maybe, if Clara had interrupted Al’s solitary vigil in the backyard, forced him to confront Laurent’s room… Maybe she would have been kicked out.

Maybe, if Clara had expressed, in so many words that she knew exactly how they felt, Evie would have felt judged, labeled, and unheard.

Clara didn’t do any of those things.

She knew grief, yes. But she also knew people.

“I’m afraid it won’t stop, and all my bones will disappear and one day I’ll just dissolve. I won’t be able to stand up anymore, or move.” She looked into Clara’s eyes. Clung to Clara’s eyes. “Mostly I’m afraid that it won’t matter. Because I have nowhere to go, and nothing to do. No need of bones.”

And Clara knew then that as great as her own grief was, nothing could compare to this hollow woman and her hollow home.

And because she listened, she understood. She understood that while she could empathize and very likely understand much of what Evie was feeling, Evie’s pain was her own.

There wasn’t just a wound where Laurent had once been. This was a vacuum, into which everything tumbled. A great gaping black hole that sucked all the light, all the matter, all that mattered, into it.

Clara, who knew grief, was suddenly frightened herself. By the magnitude of this woman’s loss.

They sat on Laurent’s bed in silence, except for the moaning house.”

When confronted with another person’s pain, we can, at most empathize and keep them company. We can listen, give them room to vent, and assure them that they are loved and not alone. We can pray for them, encourage them, respect them.

“Tell me about him.” Clara walked back to the bed and sat beside Evie.

And she did. Abruptly, in staccato sentences at first. Until in dibs and dabs and longer strokes, a portrait appeared. Of an unexpected baby, who became an unexpected little boy. Who always did and said the unexpected.”

And we can listen to their story. The sorrow and the joy.

Clara knew that grief took a terrible toll. It was paid at every birthday, every holiday, each Christmas. It was paid when glimpsing the familiar handwriting, or a hat, or a balled-up sock. Or hearing a creak that could have been, should have been, a footstep. Grief took its toll each morning, each evening, every noon hour as those who were left behind struggled forward.

Clara wasn’t sure how she’d have managed if the grief of losing Peter was accompanied not by shepherd’s pie and apple crisp, but by accusations. Not by kindness but by finger-pointing. Not by company and embraces and patience, but by whispers and turned backs.

[…]

“We thought they were friends.”

“You have friends. Lots of them. And we’re defending you,” said Clara.

It was true. But it was possible they could have done a better job. And Clara realized, with some shock, that part of her wondered if the gossip wasn’t perhaps, maybe, just a little… true.

And we can offer them our loyalty and support.

Our friendship.

We can keep in mind that we might not be the person that is chosen to listen to their pain or to share their thoughts. Sometimes they aren’t ready and sometimes we aren't the right person (remember this post? Omelettes & Do you want to talk about it?)

Prayers, support, loyalty, and friendship are always (er… usually) welcome, though.

Shepherd’s Pie

I steered away from this one. I didn’t really know what shepherd’s pie was, but I do know when I first looked it up (about a year ago when we first started blogging) I just saw “meat” and wasn’t interested. Also, pies made me think of crust and of sweet pies (which my husband loves) and I ended up getting side tracked.

It keeps popping up in the books as comfort food. Or “practical” food. You know the kind? The kind of food that’s basically ready and doesn’t need much work or timing once it’s prepped. So you can have it handy to heat up whenever needed. Olivier & Gabri have left it behind more than once. They’ve mentioned to Gamache (or was it Jean-Guy?) that there’s shepherd’s pie in the kitchen (as they walked out of the B&B on their way to a potluck at the Morrow’s).

This week, in trying to figure my schedule out (haven’t managed yet) and trying to find some order in the chaos of little endless tasks that must get done (little success there as well), I started looking for meals that could be prepped ahead of time and/or frozen. To try to make life easier. It doesn’t help that none of us quite like to eat anything even remotely similar. We do find common ground, but we’re all happiest eating “our own way”.

In the midst of freezer friendly ideas, the one that stood out was Shepherd’s Pie. Who would have thought. I made a big batch based on Donna Hay's Shepherd's Pie. It’s a big recipe, so I put it in different sized dishes and froze most of them. I made a tiny one (heavy on the potato topping) and the rest I made in meal-sized dishes and froze. It was lovely to see the freezer filled with four potential main dishes for future dinners. Yey!

My recipe had slightly less meat, way more milk in the potatoes, a bit more of cheese on top, and no mixer, so the potatoes were a bit lumpier (fork and arm strength aren’t the same as a mixer).

All in all, I’d consider it a success.

Unless otherwise stated, all quotes are from Louise Penny's NATURE OF THE BEAST