Finding truth in a flat tire

MAXINE COHEN

Coast Highway was jammed. No surprise there. By the time I’d inched

up to Marigold, I’d had it.

I cut off, heading inland. I zipped past the gas station on the

corner and saw that the fire truck was in the driveway of the fire

station, manned, and ... was it ready to go?

I couldn’t tell. I reflexively pulled over to the side of the

street. But the sirens weren’t on and the lights weren’t flashing, so

I pulled out to scoot by when on came the sirens and lights as that

huge truck came barreling out of the driveway right at my little

sports car.

I jammed it into reverse and flew back against the curb. I heard

this horrible crunching sound. My heart sank.

I held my breath. When it was over and I wasn’t flattened into a

pancake, I got out to inspect the damage. There was a hole the size

of a large quarter in the sidewall of my front tire, and the wheel

was scraped and mashed.

Shock and denial: Oh no! How can this be? How could this have

happened? Well, maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe they can

just fill in the hole and that’ll take care of it.

Anger: What’s the matter with those firemen anyway? How dare they

barrel down on me without any warning? How about turning on the

lights and sirens before pulling out?

I put it out of my mind. It was just too much to think about for

the moment. I’d take care of it later. More denial.

The next morning, I went straight to Grand Prix Performance on

Newport Boulevard. It’s kind of crazy over there, people running all

over, shouting, a real New York fire drill, but they do a good job at

a reasonable price.

The owner took one look at my tire and promptly decreed, “Lady,

you’ve cut through the radial bands. See them sticking out here? You

need a new tire and you need a new wheel. The wheel is all mangled.”

Bargaining and ambivalence: Oh no. That can’t be. Wheels cost a

small fortune. Even I knew that.

“Show me,” I said, hoping against hope that this wasn’t true.

I bent down and stuck my face right next to the hole and yup, I

could see them, the little cut bands. One tire’s history.

More bargaining: “What if I don’t care what the wheel looks like

if it’s still serviceable?” I asked.

Reluctantly he agreed that if it wasn’t bent, we wouldn’t have to

replace it but “Lady, are you sure you want to drive around with your

wheel looking like this?”

I lucked out. The wheel wasn’t bent.

Depression: But I still have to buy a new tire so it’s going to

cost me $279.79 to fix this little misadventure.

Ouch.

Acceptance: OK, so it could’ve been much worse. I could’ve had to

buy a wheel too. Or worse yet, mangled the body of the car. Just pay

for it and get on with your day.

Shock and denial, anger, bargaining and ambivalence, depression,

and acceptance are the stages people go through when they are

grieving a loss. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a small loss, like my

tire, or a big loss, like death or divorce. The stages are always the

same. It’s the length of time it takes to work through them that

changes.

In the case of death and divorce, it can take years to grieve the

loss. In death, it’s the depression, the working through of the loss,

that takes the longest. In divorce, it’s the ambivalence, vacillating

between wanting to get back together and wanting to terminate the

marriage, that lasts the longest, often even after the dissolution is

final.

You can cycle between stages and be in more than one stage at the

same time. The rule of thumb is to give yourself permission to grieve

for a full two years. Emotions are old fashioned; they take time.

Emotional pain runs deep. It can flatten you wholly, so much so

that you feel as if you, too, have died and that you will never come

out the other side and be whole again.

But loss after loss, and living into it, confers the experience

and the knowledge that there is new life to be lived and that you

will once again feel whole.

Yes, there is an afterlife, right here on Earth, and it is within

us, and within our own power to create.

Resilience.

* MAXINE COHEN is a Corona del Mar resident and marriage and

family therapist practicing in Newport Beach. She can be reached at

[email protected] or at (949) 644-6435.