The Blog That Speaks: My Connection To Pat Sajak (and it’s not what you might think)
The brightness of the TV screen lighting the room contrasted with the murkiness surrounding my heart.
Thanks to Wheel Of Fortune Clipart@nicepng.com
The picture from Culver City was sparkling with smiles, radiance, and celebration while my heart was being overrun with melancholy. As the friendly host uttered his final words of goodbye, I was saying hello to emotions of grief. Yet, my solemn mood was not so much about the departure of Pat Sajak from Wheel of Fortune as it was about the deaths of my parents, particularly my dad.
I was first introduced to Pat and Vanna by way of my parents. I am uncertain when they became such dedicated fans of the word puzzle game show. My mom had enjoyed watching television while my dad had seemed to detest the “boob tube” (his description). His aversion to TV meant our household was not counted among the viewers in the Nielsen ratings since we did not own one for most of my elementary school years. Thus, when my classmates jabbered about “Gilligan’s Island,” “Laverne and Shirley,” or “Happy Days,” I was silent. On such popular subjects, I was an outsider.
I recall distinctly when my family bought our first television. My dad announced in the fall of 1976 that he wanted to buy a TV set. A local preacher, who he knew personally, was airing a Christmas special, and he wanted to see it. Needless to say, I was both surprised and thrilled by this new acquisition. It was a used, color TV, purchased for one hundred dollars from Walter’s Furniture Store in the tiny rural town of Iroquois. Granted, it was not the latest technology, but for me, our family was finally moving out of the Dark Ages into the Modern Era.
Despite my dad’s change of heart, his negative outlook concerning television did not change. There was a clear divide in our family between the watchers (Mom and me) and the non-watcher (Dad). My mom and I relished in the stories of John-Boy (“The Waltons”), the Ingalls (“Little House on the Prairie”), and the Bradfords (“Eight is Enough”) while Dad persisted with his farming and hunting magazines.
But as the years passed, Dad’s attitude softened. Maybe it was his retirement and the reduced mobility of my mom that contributed to his altered perspective. Somewhere along the line, my parents’ television viewing increased and that included watching Wheel of Fortune. It is possible that they accidently fell into becoming avid Wheel fans since it aired immediately after the local news during their suppertime. I distinctly recall doing my part by helping them sign up for their Wheel of Fortune member IDs and posting them on the refrigerator in case either of their initials were part of the winning number.
After the love of his life died (just eight days shy of 57 years of marriage), television became more of a companion to my dad, and I began to call him everyday.
I quickly learned not to phone him during Wheel of Fortune. To put it simply: he was unavailable. That is to say, the phone would go unanswered. The ideal time to call him turned out to be 7:00 PM CST, just after my dad had heard Pat and Vanna say their good-byes.
“Hello,” I heard his familiar voice say.
“Hi Dad. This is your youngest.”
“Hi youngest. This is your father.”
“Did you watch Wheel of Fortune,” I asked, even though I knew his answer.
“Yes, I did. Did you?”
America’s Game was at the center of our little game. Wheel of Fortune was providing me with a much-desired connection to my dad. I had to work hard to find something about which we could discuss during those daily phone calls. We shared very few common interests. I had a graduate education, and he had to give up finishing the ninth grade to work on the farm. I had lived overseas and in multiple locations in the US, and he had lived all but two months of his 80-some years at the end of the same driveway. Some of our conversations were quite brief as he was often a man of very few words. But Wheel of Fortune remained our place of connection.
While most conversations spoke little of the popular primetime game show, once in a while Dad remarked on whether the person won the final prize puzzle or when two out of three of the contestants were men rather than women. My dad’s brief commentary on such an unusual phenomenon amounted to two words: That’s different.
On our visits to the farm, we paused our competitive game of Moon (which was played with dominoes) to watch three contestants solve word puzzles. As letters appeared, each of us tried to outguess the other (as well as the contestants). We shouted at the screen, “Call the H” or “Buy a vowel.” And we groaned if a contestant guessed incorrectly when the answer was so apparent to us in the comfort of the farmhouse.
But as Dad aged (and Pat and Vanna, too), my dad’s cognitive skills declined. The evidence became more obvious one night when he informed me that he saw something quite different on Wheel: there were only three contestants rather than the game show’s typical four (?????).
When my dad died (seven years ago now), I momentarily stopped watching Pat and Vanna. I simply could not bring myself to view the popular family show. I had watched because of my dad. It had linked us across the miles. At the time, watching Wheel of Fortune intensified the pain of his absence, making the loss too overwhelming. Thus, I set it aside until a time when I was further along on my grief journey.
And one day that happened. As a new season began, we tuned in to the smiling faces of the famous pair. Tears freely flowed as Jim Thornton’s voice rang out, “And now here are the stars of our show: Pat Sajak and Vanna White.” Then, like Pavlov’s dogs, I once again felt the urge to call my dad after Pat and Vanna said their goodbyes. However, the presence of such a yearning was interrupted by the reminder of his absence.
Over these last seven years, I have continued to watch America’s Game. The tradition remains alive as my spouse and I compete in our solving of the puzzles. We shout at the contestants, “Call a N” or “Buy a vowel.” We groan loudly if a contestant guesses incorrectly. And once in a while I experience the urge to call my dad after Pat and Vanna close the show.
But on Friday, June 7, as I listened to Pat bid his final adieu, I realized that for me the television game show was more than just entertainment. Wheel of Fortune has been my linking object to my dad. Night after night as I listened to Pat’s jokes, I felt a connection to Dad. As I watched Vanna cross the stage, it seemed I was carrying on my dad’s tradition. “Can I buy a vowel” was not just a contestant’s phrase, but it implicitly brought Dad’s presence near amidst Dad’s absence.
As Pat retired, I knew my linking object was also gone. While Ryan Seacrest will be a capable host, Dad did not know Ryan; therefore, Wheel of Fortune will not create the same sense of connection for me. The link to my mom and dad via Wheel of Fortune was a package deal that included both Pat and Vanna.
One may wonder if I am crazy for having a linking object, which connects me to my parents. I may wonder it myself if I did not realize that linking objects represent our attachment to the person who died.
Many of us may recall having a linking (or transitional) object when we were young children. It may have been a pacifier, a stuffed animal, or a blanket (think of Linus in the Peanuts cartoon). Such an object was a necessary part of our childhood development much like a linking object may be a necessary part of our grief journey.
Recall our reaction as little children when we experienced an unsafe situation such as a stranger, a big dog, or a thunderstorm. We cried out in fear as we no longer felt safe and secure. However, after our primary caregiver (our attachment figure) calmed our fears, creating a secure base for us, we became ready to explore the world again. Transitional objects in childhood play a corresponding role. They help us transition from needing to see our attachment figures to not seeing them in order to feel secure enough to explore the world. They provide a sense of presence in the absence of our primary caregivers, particularly when we feel unsafe such as during naps, staying with grandma, or visiting a new place. With the help of these transitional or linking objects, we are able to develop a sense of security amidst our attachment figures’ absence.
Likewise, when a person with whom we have a strong attachment dies, our world may seem a bit unsafe and beyond our control. We experience a deep longing to be in our person’s presence once again. This causes many of us to be drawn to objects that the deceased owned. These objects may be a watch, a photo, a cane, or a shirt to help us transition to the permanent physical absence of our person. The linking object is a way to provide a sense of the person’s presence amidst the person’s absence. While the object cannot replace the physical presence of the person, it demonstrates the bereaved’s deep yearning to be with that person. That is, it indicates our profound love for the person who has died.
To put it simply: We grieve because we love.
Thus, instead of our linking objects suggesting that we are going crazy, they are representative of our love. Our expressions of mourning demonstrate our love for the person. Our tears of grief are actually tears of love. Therefore, when we outwardly express our grief (mourning) to others through tears, we are outwardly proclaiming our love. When we show our linking objects to friends and family, we are showing them our love for the one who died.
If our grief is an expression of love, it suggests that our grief will not end because our love will not end. While the intensity of our grief may lessen, our grief will continue throughout our lives because our love continues. This is why seven years after my dad’s death I find myself sharing about my grief through this blog. It is an expression of my love for my dad and my mom, too.
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As a practical theologian, I seek to discover how my faith intersects with my experiences, including my experiences of pain. When it comes to grief and loss, many American Christians find it easier to spring forward to the subject of the joys of heaven rather than sit down in the muck of the pain of death. I was reminded of this as I conversed with an 80-year-old Christian man who sincerely asked, “I don’t understand why Christians cry after someone dies. We are going to see them again.” I responded by turning to a story I knew that he knew from John 11. The story is the death of Lazarus, a man whom Jesus loved.
If we were ever to doubt that Jesus loved Lazarus, the story reminds us more than once of this fact:
Verse 3: So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, look, the one you love is sick.”
Verse 5: (Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.)
Verses 33-36: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved in spirit and greatly distressed. He asked, “Where have you laid him?” They replied, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. Thus the people who had come to mourn said, “Look how much he loved him!”
I take comfort that Jesus loved Lazarus and that Jesus wept. I think it is significant that Jesus knew he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, but he still cries. His tears normalize our tears in the face of death. It mirrors for us how the one who is “the resurrection and the life” also weeps when someone dies. It validates our being deeply moved by the death of a friend who is loved. It bears witness to tears of grief being an expression of love. This story, then, connects our expressions of grief with our love. It reminds us that we grieve because we love.
Jesus wept. Two simple words which teach us what it is to be truly human: We weep when we love.
May it also be said of us that we love with those who love by weeping with those who weep.
[For more on linking objects and grief, see What Does a Swan Have to Do with Grief?.]
