Dawn's Notes
Meaning Of Success - August 2023
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
As a young boy, his life was saturated with losses. His younger siblings, Phebe, John Clark, and Mary Caroline, died during childhood. The boy’s father died of stomach cancer when the lad was almost eight. His two brothers, Edward and Charles, lived until adulthood but died in their twenties of tuberculosis.My heart goes out to the young boy, but also to his mother who lost a husband, three younger children and later two adult sons. Her grief must have been almost unbearable!
About a year after his father’s death, at the age of 9, the young boy began his formal schooling at the Boston Latin School. He was a brilliant child who was accepted to Harvard at the age of 14. He worked to pay his way through school and graduated at 18. After graduating from Harvard, he fell in love with a young girl named Ellen Tucker. They waited until she was eighteen before they were married. Two years later, Ellen also died of tuberculosis, the major killer of those times. The young man was devastated and visited her grave daily.
A few years later, he married a young woman named Lidian, and they had three children. Their oldest son Waldo died of scarlet fever at the age of five. The father expressed his grief over the death of his son in a poem “Threnody,” and said, “For this losing is true dying.”
The young man’s name was Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1803. He was an extremely bright, hard-working man who became a well-known speaker and writer who was held in high esteem in the U.S. and Europe where he mingled with royalty and many learned people of his time.
He was friends with Henry David Thoreau and was a pall bearer for Nathaniel Hawthorne. He spoke at a memorial service for Abraham Lincoln at Concord after Lincoln’s assassination and made 1,500 speeches throughout the United States. In his later years, his speaking engagements were curtailed when he struggled with his memory and had trouble speaking—more losses for him. Emerson died of pneumonia on April, 1882, in Concord, Massachusetts, at the age of 78. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.
Emerson did not let his losses define him, and he never seemed to grow bitter. He made his life count, and became well known as a teacher, a pastor, a philosopher, an abolitionist, and a writer. He valued many things—nature, his friends, family, and education. He loved books and supported libraries. His writing was filled with wisdom.
He believed in God and said “I believe in the ‘still small voice.’” He believed that all things are connected to God, so perhaps his faith helped him deal with his losses and shaped him into the man he was. Emerson defined success as the following:
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people
And the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty;
to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived.
This is to have succeeded.
I believe Emerson intentionally lived his life fully because of the things he had gone through. He attended Harvard, but I also believe her went through the School of Hard Knocks,” and maybe that’s where he learned the most about life. Perhaps through his losses he learned empathy so he could walk alongside those who were grieving. And maybe he held those he loved just a little tighter, in gratitude that his life had been spared.
Emerson defined his meaning of success—“to leave the world a bit better,” and “to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived.” Those are goals that anyone can reach toward any time in our lives—regardless of our circumstances, even after a loss. Mr. Emerson, in spite of your grief, you left this world a better place—you were a success! Over 140 years later, your words of wisdom still inspire us, and we still remember you!
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice
709 Liberty, Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator