I'm trying to go to a different level in this grieving process. It's not working very well. It's like the children's game Chutes and Ladders (or Snakes and Ladders). I climb up and then get a wrong turn of the dice and slide back down. I don't slide all the way down to the bottom of the board any more. That's not true. Sometimes I do. But not as often. In many ways I have a magical life. In many ways I still feel this dark bleak loneliness. Back and forth. Up and down. As many times as I slide down it is up to me to climb back up.
I was wondering if I was obsessed with my dead husband. I think about him all the time. I love him more every day. I miss him. I want to be with him; not with someone new. I asked a friend whose son, her only child, died 12 years ago. "Am I obsessed?" I thought she'd say, "Of course not." Instead she said, "Of course you are. We all are." It made me wonder some more. When my husband was alive, even though we were very independent people, we were the center of each other's world. I always say he held my kite string so I could soar. He was who I came home to. He was home. He is home. I thought about him a lot. I made decisions with him and because of him. In his dying time I gave up everything to be there to take care of him. It was a privilege to do so. That wasn't obsession - it was a marriage. It was love. So my feelings really haven't changed. It is just that the person I have these unchangeable feelings about and for is dead...no longer living. Maybe that's what people who tell you to move on don't understand. Just because someone you love dies doesn't mean your feelings for them change. My husband isn't here physically for me to interact with on a daily basis - but he is spiritually. My feelings of loyalty and faithfulness and love and respect haven't changed. You don't stop loving someone when they die...sometimes you even love them more.
Understanding. I saw someone yesterday who lives in a different city. I only see him once a year. His only child, a son, died around the same time my husband died. When he saw me his eyes were full of kindness and he gave me a big hug. There was an understanding, a being present with each other because we both know grief. We know it doesn't end. We know the tears are always near the surface if not actually spilling over. We can be heart to heart honest with each other. I write this blog, I do the Facebook page...people I know read them and still I get hurt because I don't have that kind of understanding with them. How can they know me and not know me at the same time? Especially when I bang my drum so loud.
I want to take better care of myself. I want to eat better. I'm so proud of my daughter who is losing weight and looks wonderful. I will feel better if I eat better and move more. Is that news? It is to me when laying in bed watching TV and eating ice cream does such a good job of numbing me out. It seems like it is time to take better care of myself. How do I do it without my husband? The seductively vicious question that grief always throws at me - Why bother doing it without my husband?
I also want to accomplish more. I have a lot of things I could be doing. A lot of things I want to be doing. I lack emotional stamina. I was thinking that my heart is closed. It isn't. It is so open and hurt and vulnerable that I feel overexposed and in need of hiding myself away. Sometimes doing one more thing - even a simple one seems like too much.
Today. I've gotten a lot done. I've set goals and accomplished most of them. But there's movement followed by crashing loneliness and wanting to be still. I want to eat now. I want not to feel. I feel joy and happiness and gratitude. But all that doesn't light the darkness when it comes. Someone said when her husband died it was like being a bird with one wing. Rowing a boat with one oar. It seems easier to go around in circle than it is to actually get somewhere. d
I've been complaining a lot lately. Everything irritates me. I want to stop complaining again. At my daughter's house there is a jar. Every time I complained I'd put a $20 bill in. I said we should start it again...but with $1. I can't afford a $20 a complaint any more. Too many complaints. None of them serious - except for the big one...I'm alive and my husband isn't.
I never thought of that. Is he still even my husband? He is to me, for eternity. But my legal word is widow - not wife. I hate the word widow.
It will be five years in July. i am exhausted with missing him. I want to move forward. I want to be more fully alive. I want to do all the things that would make him proud. I also want to stay perfectly still and let my grief swallow me up.
Ease. I would like to do things with ease. Anger and hurt are all mixed up together. Yet, I push ease away. I know the things that will help me and so often I choose not to do them.
My granddaughter, pretending to be a butterfly, says: "When my chrysalis is done, I can fly." Sometimes I feel like I am a butterfly turning into a very hungry caterpillar instead of the other way around.
All I can do is keep restarting myself. I can keep showing up. Keep trying fill the time I have left with joy and work and help for others - and play. I don't thing any of this matters in terms of all the people in the world. It matters, though, in terms of me.
Sometimes it's clear what I want to write. Sometimes it's all a muddle. That's how I am these days all a muddle. I don't have the stages of grief over time (not that I believe anyone does) but lately they seem to spring up in different forms every five minutes.
Peace and contentment. I know so many people who claim to have them. Serenity. My husband used to say serenity was just a rumor. When people said they had it - he'd ask them to define it and tell him how they got it. I have met people who are deeply spiritual and connected with themselves and with others - and yet retain a certain equanimity - a certain slight ripple rather than crashing waves. Too many people say they have it but you can feel the lie. You can feel the pain and fear and insecurity bubbling underneath. I'd rather be honest about all my different feelings.
So - what is taking care of myself? There are simple answers like washing and cleaning up and eating well and exercising and getting enough sleep. But what it taking care of myself emotionally and spiritually? I'm throwing a child's temper tantrum again. I want my husband to take care of me
That's where I am today. Disjointed. Uncertain. But still trying. Still doing. Still showing up. Brendan Behan said, "Every cripple has his own way of walking." Even after five years I'm still trying to figure out mine. With love. xo
Monday, April 7, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Grief: Is Life Precious or Just Annoying?
Shouldn't my husband's death make each day of my life even more precious to me? If so, why did I not even consider this a possibility until four years and eight months after his death? I get caught up in how lonely I am for him and how much I want to be with him I forget to consider the possibility that being here on Earth is not a punishment but a gift. For some strange reason that's not even easy to write.
Let's be honest. I've never been one of those perky waking up joyful kind of people. However when Artie was alive we were a comfort to each other. Our love was something that we found sustaining. I always talk about his love for life - and he had it. He didn't want to die. Yet neither of us walked easy on the earth. It was just when he was alive we walked uneasy on the earth together, holding hands and that made it better. We laughed together and understood each other in a way that was very special to us because for each of us it was the only time in our lives we had someone that we could totally trust and share things with in that deeply intimate way. I miss being cherished by him. Do I want to be cherished by another man? I don't know.
Mary Oliver asks, "Listen. Are you just breathing a little and calling it a life?" Sometimes I am. I am hiding away annihilating myself with sleep and TV and food to escape from coming home to silence. I truly believe Artie is holding me and protecting me the best way he can. But he's not here in the way I was so accustomed to him being here. I don't seem to ever totally make peace with that.
Sometimes I have a life full of adventures. I have greatly increased the amount of adventures I have since that first year of sobbing and desperately seeking. There is so much I would have missed if I had died when my husband died - as I wanted to and thought I should.
I wrote about this on my Facebook page Grief Speaks Out. My granddaughter Gwendy blue eyes who is two years and three month has been saying, "Don't talk in the dark. Don't talk in the woods. The animals will hear us. It is scary." It must have come from a story she heard. When I was babysitting her we put on our coats and hats and scarves to go out into the dark night and have an adventure. We held each other's hands. Walking down the front steps she slipped and I held her up. In the field in front of the house it was muddier than I thought and I slipped - but I didn't fall. We held hands and walked one careful step at a time. We started to venture into a very dark place and an automatic light came on as if by magic and illuminated our way. We went back into the dark and walked around in the tall trees (the dark wood), seeing our shadows - tall and big and how they walked in front of us.. Then we went back in to the dark space and made the light come on again. When we went back into the house we realized that when we held hands we could talk in the dark and not be scared; we could talk in the woods and not be scared. When my daughter came home Gwendy told her, "I had an adventure with Gammy!" Before she went to sleep I told her a story about a little girl named Gwendy who went into the dark wood. She met all kinds of creatures - owls, and mice and many others. They all said hello and asked if she wanted to see their sleeping babies. She went into the woods scared and came home safe with the memories of an adventure and the thought of peacefully sleeping woodland babies and friendly animals and birds. While I was telling the story Gwendy was listening intently with a little smile. If I had died when my husband died as I so wanted to...I would have missed that moment. I would have missed the lesson of how we can go into our own dark wood and not be scared if we only hold each other's hands.
There are many other things I would have missed. Each day is precious? That is a stretch for me still. I'm not an ungrateful person. I have a very long gratitude list. My heart just hurts. What would I do differently if I could see the preciousness of my life while I still have it? If I have to look back on my life after I die what will I see left undone, unfelt because of the choices I made.
I get tired. I think I will always be someone who needs down time. I am imperfectly me. It is a big shift for me to try to even think of each moment as precious instead of something to be gotten through. I always talk to people about being surprised by happiness. Why not get better at creating it? I have often thought with such short lives it is sad that we are so skilled at hurting. Let us become skilled instead at finding contentment; even in small things.
What if when I feel sorry for myself (one of my excellent skills!) I think about all that I have and have had instead of all I have lost? There is so much suffering in the world. Can I bear witness to it and honor it while at the same time not forgetting that there is so much beauty and love in the world? In my own life?
Grief and pain are seductive. We give them names and some people want to medicalize them. We make little boxes out of them and put ourselves inside and close the lid. Here I am, I am a suffering person. Can't you see, there is no way out. Perhaps I am the one who must change how I define myself. I must change how I define my relationship to the world. it is my job to take off the lid of the box I have put myself in. It is my job to step out to see what there is to see. I can always go back in when I need to. All that hurts, all that is vulnerable is real. It needs time and care. However, in the same breath, isn't all that is precious, all that is loving real as well? Why not climb into those boxes some times and close those lids. Maybe that's it. Each moment is new box. Which box will it be? When I look into the corner of my day if I have had too many dark and desperate boxes perhaps the next day will be one of searching - and finding - the precious ones. My life is becomes a search for many different boxes - to see how many there are I can fit into - not just one.
My life is precious AND annoying and many other things. I wish us all the ability to put our grief in a box or a bag and take it with us into the dark wood to show it we don't have to be scared. Our grief can come with us on adventures. Our grief can teach us that our life is precious because if we lived a life without grief it would mean we lived a life without love - and that would be truly grievous.
Come...let us hold hands and see the light flickering in the shadow instead of the shadow flickering in the light. With love. xo
Let's be honest. I've never been one of those perky waking up joyful kind of people. However when Artie was alive we were a comfort to each other. Our love was something that we found sustaining. I always talk about his love for life - and he had it. He didn't want to die. Yet neither of us walked easy on the earth. It was just when he was alive we walked uneasy on the earth together, holding hands and that made it better. We laughed together and understood each other in a way that was very special to us because for each of us it was the only time in our lives we had someone that we could totally trust and share things with in that deeply intimate way. I miss being cherished by him. Do I want to be cherished by another man? I don't know.
Mary Oliver asks, "Listen. Are you just breathing a little and calling it a life?" Sometimes I am. I am hiding away annihilating myself with sleep and TV and food to escape from coming home to silence. I truly believe Artie is holding me and protecting me the best way he can. But he's not here in the way I was so accustomed to him being here. I don't seem to ever totally make peace with that.
Sometimes I have a life full of adventures. I have greatly increased the amount of adventures I have since that first year of sobbing and desperately seeking. There is so much I would have missed if I had died when my husband died - as I wanted to and thought I should.
I wrote about this on my Facebook page Grief Speaks Out. My granddaughter Gwendy blue eyes who is two years and three month has been saying, "Don't talk in the dark. Don't talk in the woods. The animals will hear us. It is scary." It must have come from a story she heard. When I was babysitting her we put on our coats and hats and scarves to go out into the dark night and have an adventure. We held each other's hands. Walking down the front steps she slipped and I held her up. In the field in front of the house it was muddier than I thought and I slipped - but I didn't fall. We held hands and walked one careful step at a time. We started to venture into a very dark place and an automatic light came on as if by magic and illuminated our way. We went back into the dark and walked around in the tall trees (the dark wood), seeing our shadows - tall and big and how they walked in front of us.. Then we went back in to the dark space and made the light come on again. When we went back into the house we realized that when we held hands we could talk in the dark and not be scared; we could talk in the woods and not be scared. When my daughter came home Gwendy told her, "I had an adventure with Gammy!" Before she went to sleep I told her a story about a little girl named Gwendy who went into the dark wood. She met all kinds of creatures - owls, and mice and many others. They all said hello and asked if she wanted to see their sleeping babies. She went into the woods scared and came home safe with the memories of an adventure and the thought of peacefully sleeping woodland babies and friendly animals and birds. While I was telling the story Gwendy was listening intently with a little smile. If I had died when my husband died as I so wanted to...I would have missed that moment. I would have missed the lesson of how we can go into our own dark wood and not be scared if we only hold each other's hands.
There are many other things I would have missed. Each day is precious? That is a stretch for me still. I'm not an ungrateful person. I have a very long gratitude list. My heart just hurts. What would I do differently if I could see the preciousness of my life while I still have it? If I have to look back on my life after I die what will I see left undone, unfelt because of the choices I made.
I get tired. I think I will always be someone who needs down time. I am imperfectly me. It is a big shift for me to try to even think of each moment as precious instead of something to be gotten through. I always talk to people about being surprised by happiness. Why not get better at creating it? I have often thought with such short lives it is sad that we are so skilled at hurting. Let us become skilled instead at finding contentment; even in small things.
What if when I feel sorry for myself (one of my excellent skills!) I think about all that I have and have had instead of all I have lost? There is so much suffering in the world. Can I bear witness to it and honor it while at the same time not forgetting that there is so much beauty and love in the world? In my own life?
Grief and pain are seductive. We give them names and some people want to medicalize them. We make little boxes out of them and put ourselves inside and close the lid. Here I am, I am a suffering person. Can't you see, there is no way out. Perhaps I am the one who must change how I define myself. I must change how I define my relationship to the world. it is my job to take off the lid of the box I have put myself in. It is my job to step out to see what there is to see. I can always go back in when I need to. All that hurts, all that is vulnerable is real. It needs time and care. However, in the same breath, isn't all that is precious, all that is loving real as well? Why not climb into those boxes some times and close those lids. Maybe that's it. Each moment is new box. Which box will it be? When I look into the corner of my day if I have had too many dark and desperate boxes perhaps the next day will be one of searching - and finding - the precious ones. My life is becomes a search for many different boxes - to see how many there are I can fit into - not just one.
My life is precious AND annoying and many other things. I wish us all the ability to put our grief in a box or a bag and take it with us into the dark wood to show it we don't have to be scared. Our grief can come with us on adventures. Our grief can teach us that our life is precious because if we lived a life without grief it would mean we lived a life without love - and that would be truly grievous.
Come...let us hold hands and see the light flickering in the shadow instead of the shadow flickering in the light. With love. xo
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Grief: Why Do I Keep Falling Into This Hole In My Life?
I could make this a six word blog post. Because I am grieving, that's why.
I don't love a generic person. I love someone who was the center of my world whether we were getting along splendidly or fighting in that way when we were done we said, "Who were those people and how did they get into our house?" The fights were never physical, just verbal. I can see now how we could have been more accepting of each other's quirks and had less fights - but nothing we did made the love less. I think how special it is when someone loves you when you are at your worst. It is easy to be loved when you are at your best. This person I love is still the center of my world. The problem is - he is dead. So I miss him. So I grieve. I don't mind that. I can't imagine not grieving. In fact I am grateful that I was so loved that I so grieve. I would like everyone, including me sometimes, to accept that.
Sometimes it is difficult to get used to the rhythm of it. Am I better after 4 years and almost eight months? I always say I hate the word better. I figured out that I am resistant to it because it only describes part of me. The part of me that desperately wants to feel my husband's arms around me again and share things with him and see his smile and is desperately not really satisfied with him being with me in spirit is never better. That's the hole. It is an Artie shaped hole. Nothing can fill it. When he was alive and I was having a hard day I would say, "I wish somebody loved me." He would raise an eyebrow and say with a twinkling eye - "Somebody?" Because what I wanted was for him to love me - not just somebody. He did. I knew he did and know he does. It was my way of looking for reassurance. So "somebody" - even if some day I am less stubborn and look for another love relationship and find one - will never fit the shape of the Artie hole.
The part of me that is better is the part all around that hole. I am trying to get used to the truly lovely friends I have made. (Sometimes I also have that hole of thinking I don't deserve good things. I do.) There was a time when I was young when I didn't know how people made good friends. I have less and less time to spend alone - and I like being alone - as I have more and more people I want to spend time with. People who love me. I can't get away with saying nobody loves me anymore. Some of these people I have met through showing up places after my husband died. That is one of the most important things I do - and have done - since my husband died - show up. I show up whether I want to or not. I make plans and I often wish I hadn't. I make myself go. I show up and - surprise! - I enjoy myself. At the beginning when it was almost impossible to have a good time because my grief was so overwhelming - I showed up anyway - not as often - but I showed up. I waited for some of that life out there to seep back into me.
I am lucky to have my daughter and my granddaughter. The time I spend with them is very special. To be a grandmother to Gwendy blue eyes as well as being fun is also an honor and an obligation to be present. To see life through her eyes instead of my own is a gift.
I am lucky to have found meaning in doing this blog and the Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/GriefSpeaksOut. The difference is that the blog posts are more of a monologue. The Facebook page is an international community that is compassionate and understanding. People have made friends outside of Grief Speaks Out. Someone posted that they are international now, they have a friend in Liberia and one in Australia. I am humbled by this (as of today it has 330,000 likes) but also very proud of it.
My desire to travel is coming back. I am reading a little more.
When Artie first died I wept constantly. I could not understand why he wouldn't take me with him. I considered suicide. I got help from many places in an attempt to save my own life. I am not that desperate hopeless woman any more. I am better. The hole isn't better - it still HURTS.
Some days, some nights the hole seems like the only place worth being. The quicksand comes back and nothing seems to matter. Sometimes I make friends with the hole. I give myself time to descend into it - to stare at the wall - to be in the center of it. Sometimes I am impatient with it. Sometimes I am exhausted. I think grief warriors are the bravest people alive. We wake up every morning and live our day without what we want most. Even if all we do is keep breathing - that is an accomplishment. We bear the unbearable. Yet bearing this burden we can still climb to great heights.
The reason I force myself to do the things I do is partly for me but also to honor my husband. He can't live on earth any more - but I can. I do it for myself and for him. His nickname for me was Panache. I want to still be Panache. Not to deny the sadness - the pain - the longing - but to grieve with a certain sense of style.
The entire time I have been writing this I have spelled the word hole with a w - whole - and had to go back and change it. Maybe that's me telling me what I often ignore - and what professionals and friends and family who tell us to move on or get over - don't or won't understand. I am whole with the hole. The hole is as much a part of me as the parts that are learning how to be filled up with love, new experiences, emotion, and adventure. My challenge isn't to make the hole go away - or fill it up. My challenge is to make the parts of me that aren't the hole happier, more productive, fully alive.
That's the hole story. We are whole. We can be fully alive with grief. It's just that some days it's easier to figure out how to do that than others. With much love. xo
I don't love a generic person. I love someone who was the center of my world whether we were getting along splendidly or fighting in that way when we were done we said, "Who were those people and how did they get into our house?" The fights were never physical, just verbal. I can see now how we could have been more accepting of each other's quirks and had less fights - but nothing we did made the love less. I think how special it is when someone loves you when you are at your worst. It is easy to be loved when you are at your best. This person I love is still the center of my world. The problem is - he is dead. So I miss him. So I grieve. I don't mind that. I can't imagine not grieving. In fact I am grateful that I was so loved that I so grieve. I would like everyone, including me sometimes, to accept that.
Sometimes it is difficult to get used to the rhythm of it. Am I better after 4 years and almost eight months? I always say I hate the word better. I figured out that I am resistant to it because it only describes part of me. The part of me that desperately wants to feel my husband's arms around me again and share things with him and see his smile and is desperately not really satisfied with him being with me in spirit is never better. That's the hole. It is an Artie shaped hole. Nothing can fill it. When he was alive and I was having a hard day I would say, "I wish somebody loved me." He would raise an eyebrow and say with a twinkling eye - "Somebody?" Because what I wanted was for him to love me - not just somebody. He did. I knew he did and know he does. It was my way of looking for reassurance. So "somebody" - even if some day I am less stubborn and look for another love relationship and find one - will never fit the shape of the Artie hole.
The part of me that is better is the part all around that hole. I am trying to get used to the truly lovely friends I have made. (Sometimes I also have that hole of thinking I don't deserve good things. I do.) There was a time when I was young when I didn't know how people made good friends. I have less and less time to spend alone - and I like being alone - as I have more and more people I want to spend time with. People who love me. I can't get away with saying nobody loves me anymore. Some of these people I have met through showing up places after my husband died. That is one of the most important things I do - and have done - since my husband died - show up. I show up whether I want to or not. I make plans and I often wish I hadn't. I make myself go. I show up and - surprise! - I enjoy myself. At the beginning when it was almost impossible to have a good time because my grief was so overwhelming - I showed up anyway - not as often - but I showed up. I waited for some of that life out there to seep back into me.
I am lucky to have my daughter and my granddaughter. The time I spend with them is very special. To be a grandmother to Gwendy blue eyes as well as being fun is also an honor and an obligation to be present. To see life through her eyes instead of my own is a gift.
I am lucky to have found meaning in doing this blog and the Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/GriefSpeaksOut. The difference is that the blog posts are more of a monologue. The Facebook page is an international community that is compassionate and understanding. People have made friends outside of Grief Speaks Out. Someone posted that they are international now, they have a friend in Liberia and one in Australia. I am humbled by this (as of today it has 330,000 likes) but also very proud of it.
My desire to travel is coming back. I am reading a little more.
When Artie first died I wept constantly. I could not understand why he wouldn't take me with him. I considered suicide. I got help from many places in an attempt to save my own life. I am not that desperate hopeless woman any more. I am better. The hole isn't better - it still HURTS.
Some days, some nights the hole seems like the only place worth being. The quicksand comes back and nothing seems to matter. Sometimes I make friends with the hole. I give myself time to descend into it - to stare at the wall - to be in the center of it. Sometimes I am impatient with it. Sometimes I am exhausted. I think grief warriors are the bravest people alive. We wake up every morning and live our day without what we want most. Even if all we do is keep breathing - that is an accomplishment. We bear the unbearable. Yet bearing this burden we can still climb to great heights.
The reason I force myself to do the things I do is partly for me but also to honor my husband. He can't live on earth any more - but I can. I do it for myself and for him. His nickname for me was Panache. I want to still be Panache. Not to deny the sadness - the pain - the longing - but to grieve with a certain sense of style.
The entire time I have been writing this I have spelled the word hole with a w - whole - and had to go back and change it. Maybe that's me telling me what I often ignore - and what professionals and friends and family who tell us to move on or get over - don't or won't understand. I am whole with the hole. The hole is as much a part of me as the parts that are learning how to be filled up with love, new experiences, emotion, and adventure. My challenge isn't to make the hole go away - or fill it up. My challenge is to make the parts of me that aren't the hole happier, more productive, fully alive.
That's the hole story. We are whole. We can be fully alive with grief. It's just that some days it's easier to figure out how to do that than others. With much love. xo
Friday, February 14, 2014
Grief: It Can't Be Valentine's Day Again
It's been almost a month since I've written a blog post. It feels very unfair. I miss writing to you. You are all very important to me and I need to be attentive to you. My Facebook page Grief Speaks Out is taking up a lot of my time. I answer everyone who posts as well as posting myself every day. I never said when I was a little girl that when I grew up I wanted to be someone who made herself available to other grieving people and yet that is what happened. Of course, without my special Valentine, as always, my husband Artie, I wouldn't be grieving and I wouldn't think that the way to give meaning to that and to my life is to write this blog and do the Facebook page. I am so grateful for him in so many ways. I love him more every day and I continue to learn from him. That is why I am so determined to believe that he is proud of me - caring for me - and waiting - as I am for the day when we can both be in the same form.
This is my day to be depressed and sad. I am. And I'm not. I was supposed to fly to Tucson yesterday with my daughter and granddaughter. We were one of the people whose flight got cancelled. 6500 flights got cancelled. It occurred to me that at least I wasn't on the way to be reunited with someone I love. Not spending Valentine's Day with my husband and yet with my husband is the way it is now. All flights are permanently cancelled to where he is...until the day when they aren't any more. It as though he can come be with me but being earthbound I don't know how to be where he is. Which, I suppose is good. It's not my time yet. I know that.
Before I came to stay with my daughter and granddaughter I went to the drugstore to pick up some things. I bought little Gwendy a pink elephant with pink hearts on its white elephant ears and pink hearts on its white elephant tail. Artie would have loved it. Perhaps he does. I couldn't have done that even last year. I walk through Feb. with my eyes closed. Feb. 3rd was my birthday/wedding anniversary. Someone dear to my heart reminded me to celebrate on that day how lucky I am to have the love I have with Artie. It's not easy to celebrate a day when you want so badly for someone to be alive and they are not. I did try though - to remember so many good times. I tried to remember that the kind of love we have is what a lot of people hope for and dream of. I am just tired of being in love with someone who is dead. Well - that popped out honest! The only thing is - I feel married to him still. I was reading a book about someone knowing someone was lying about their husband being dead because they weren't wearing his wedding ring along with theirs - as is the tradition. I wear Artie's wedding ring (he had been married before but never wore a wedding ring before) which says Artie loves Jan loves Artie loves Jan in a perfect circle inside the band - and mine. I didn't know it was a tradition.
I had my eyes closed so well - not to see the hearts and flowers - not to hear all the stories about people who are happily married or in happy relationships - or finding someone new - that I didn't know how long it had been since I had written a blog post. This is my year of being numb; of running away from waking up every morning knowing my husband has gone away - not willingly - but still away. Oh - we hold on to each other still. I believe that. I feel that.
I have a phone call with a trusted friend who does medium work only for me and few others - as her life is more devoted to spiritual teaching and practice. I do this only once a year. In the phone call Artie told me if I need arms to hold me and a body I should find someone living to be with. That we will always be together and what I need for comfort and happiness in this life cannot break our love or that holding on. Then later when I was walking down the street I heard tell me that he only said that because he knew that was what he was supposed to say. He was ashamed to say in front my friend that he wanted me still all to himself. He wanted me to be faithful to him always. It made me laugh because it came through like a little boy confessing to stealing a piece of pie. He is supposed to be more evolved now...and when it comes to me - isn't. Did I make all that up because it is what I want to hear. I don't know. Many people believe in these things. I just saw that they are even called ADC - after death communications.
It doesn't really matter if it is real or not - it is how I feel in my heart. I don't mind living in the question. I will find out when I die myself - or not.
But this year my Valentine is a little girl who I gave a pink elephant to - who says, "I love you, Gammy." Who wants to play with me. Who I never want to hurt by not coming back...even though some day I will be the one who won't be able to come back.
When our flight was cancelled my daughter said it was the Valentine's Day curse. She isn't kidding. She has been dumped on Valentine's Day. She is a woodworker and severed her thumb on Valentine's Day (it was reattached but she doesn't have a joint in it). She talked today about missing her best friend Jon who died of cancer when he was only 36. He understood the Valentine's Day curse and didn't try to cheer up. He'd say, "Stay in bed!! Don't go out!!"
That's what we miss. Those people who understood/understand us so well. The shared history. I can have a wonderful new relationship - maybe - with another man - but what I want is my old relationship. I can't have a 23 year old journey of private jokes and little and big understandings and misunderstandings both.
A lot of people share their story on Grief Speaks Out (the Facebook page). This is true of any death. A grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, a friend, especially a child, a grandchild. I've left out pets and aunts and uncles so - whoever I've left out - please forgive me. We miss them and the special role they play in our life. We miss THEM. I don't understand what is so confusing about that to people who ask us to move on or get over it. It is normal and right to miss someone and long for them when they have been - are - such an important part of who we are.
However, life does go on. A little girl who got a pink elephant today just opened my door to say, "I went swimming all by myself!" If I had killed myself when Artie died as I thought I should - to get to him sooner I would have missed so much.
So...I hope this Valentine's Day you have time to spend with memory and story and thoughts and wishes about your beloved dead. It is okay to be sad and lonely. But I hope also that you have some life waiting for you somewhere. If you don't yet...I didn't for a long a while...that you may find some or some will find you.
I hope I start to write blog posts more often again. i miss you. I love you. I even trust you enough not to proofread this so I can go play. I never thought I would be willing to play on dreaded Valentine's Day. Maybe it's time to open my eyes more often - to see what there is to see. I can always close them again when I want to. With much love. xo
This is my day to be depressed and sad. I am. And I'm not. I was supposed to fly to Tucson yesterday with my daughter and granddaughter. We were one of the people whose flight got cancelled. 6500 flights got cancelled. It occurred to me that at least I wasn't on the way to be reunited with someone I love. Not spending Valentine's Day with my husband and yet with my husband is the way it is now. All flights are permanently cancelled to where he is...until the day when they aren't any more. It as though he can come be with me but being earthbound I don't know how to be where he is. Which, I suppose is good. It's not my time yet. I know that.
Before I came to stay with my daughter and granddaughter I went to the drugstore to pick up some things. I bought little Gwendy a pink elephant with pink hearts on its white elephant ears and pink hearts on its white elephant tail. Artie would have loved it. Perhaps he does. I couldn't have done that even last year. I walk through Feb. with my eyes closed. Feb. 3rd was my birthday/wedding anniversary. Someone dear to my heart reminded me to celebrate on that day how lucky I am to have the love I have with Artie. It's not easy to celebrate a day when you want so badly for someone to be alive and they are not. I did try though - to remember so many good times. I tried to remember that the kind of love we have is what a lot of people hope for and dream of. I am just tired of being in love with someone who is dead. Well - that popped out honest! The only thing is - I feel married to him still. I was reading a book about someone knowing someone was lying about their husband being dead because they weren't wearing his wedding ring along with theirs - as is the tradition. I wear Artie's wedding ring (he had been married before but never wore a wedding ring before) which says Artie loves Jan loves Artie loves Jan in a perfect circle inside the band - and mine. I didn't know it was a tradition.
I had my eyes closed so well - not to see the hearts and flowers - not to hear all the stories about people who are happily married or in happy relationships - or finding someone new - that I didn't know how long it had been since I had written a blog post. This is my year of being numb; of running away from waking up every morning knowing my husband has gone away - not willingly - but still away. Oh - we hold on to each other still. I believe that. I feel that.
I have a phone call with a trusted friend who does medium work only for me and few others - as her life is more devoted to spiritual teaching and practice. I do this only once a year. In the phone call Artie told me if I need arms to hold me and a body I should find someone living to be with. That we will always be together and what I need for comfort and happiness in this life cannot break our love or that holding on. Then later when I was walking down the street I heard tell me that he only said that because he knew that was what he was supposed to say. He was ashamed to say in front my friend that he wanted me still all to himself. He wanted me to be faithful to him always. It made me laugh because it came through like a little boy confessing to stealing a piece of pie. He is supposed to be more evolved now...and when it comes to me - isn't. Did I make all that up because it is what I want to hear. I don't know. Many people believe in these things. I just saw that they are even called ADC - after death communications.
It doesn't really matter if it is real or not - it is how I feel in my heart. I don't mind living in the question. I will find out when I die myself - or not.
But this year my Valentine is a little girl who I gave a pink elephant to - who says, "I love you, Gammy." Who wants to play with me. Who I never want to hurt by not coming back...even though some day I will be the one who won't be able to come back.
When our flight was cancelled my daughter said it was the Valentine's Day curse. She isn't kidding. She has been dumped on Valentine's Day. She is a woodworker and severed her thumb on Valentine's Day (it was reattached but she doesn't have a joint in it). She talked today about missing her best friend Jon who died of cancer when he was only 36. He understood the Valentine's Day curse and didn't try to cheer up. He'd say, "Stay in bed!! Don't go out!!"
That's what we miss. Those people who understood/understand us so well. The shared history. I can have a wonderful new relationship - maybe - with another man - but what I want is my old relationship. I can't have a 23 year old journey of private jokes and little and big understandings and misunderstandings both.
A lot of people share their story on Grief Speaks Out (the Facebook page). This is true of any death. A grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, a friend, especially a child, a grandchild. I've left out pets and aunts and uncles so - whoever I've left out - please forgive me. We miss them and the special role they play in our life. We miss THEM. I don't understand what is so confusing about that to people who ask us to move on or get over it. It is normal and right to miss someone and long for them when they have been - are - such an important part of who we are.
However, life does go on. A little girl who got a pink elephant today just opened my door to say, "I went swimming all by myself!" If I had killed myself when Artie died as I thought I should - to get to him sooner I would have missed so much.
So...I hope this Valentine's Day you have time to spend with memory and story and thoughts and wishes about your beloved dead. It is okay to be sad and lonely. But I hope also that you have some life waiting for you somewhere. If you don't yet...I didn't for a long a while...that you may find some or some will find you.
I hope I start to write blog posts more often again. i miss you. I love you. I even trust you enough not to proofread this so I can go play. I never thought I would be willing to play on dreaded Valentine's Day. Maybe it's time to open my eyes more often - to see what there is to see. I can always close them again when I want to. With much love. xo
Friday, January 17, 2014
Grief: Loneliness
When my husband was alive I had a quote about how one could be married and still feel lonely. Sometimes when we fought about things or I wanted him to behave a certain way and he didn't I felt lonely. I had no idea what loneliness really was. We are both damaged people. Friends of his often told me I was a saint for putting up with him. I wasn't. He put up with me too. It was part of the beauty of our relationship that we loved each other not only at our very best but also at our very worst. He called it buying the whole package. We had a pact - and we said it often, "Nobody Leaves". I would say, "Don't leave me, okay?" He would say, "I could never leave you. Loving you is like breathing." Then he stopped breathing. He left not because he wanted to but because his body was too sick to stay. I gave him permission to go. Then I learned what real loneliness is.
I don't feel guilty but I can see more clearly now the ways in which I could have done things differently. Our journey of teaching each other about love and life isn't over. It is part of the reason that I so want it to continue. I feel that as much as I learned about him while he was alive - I have learned even more since he died. I believe that in his new form he is also learning. I don't know if there is reincarnation - but I want there to be so that we can love again - marry again - and this time have a new starting place. In his dying time he looked at me and said, "I am sorry for all the ways in which I failed you." I replied, "I am too. I am sorry for all the ways in which I failed you." That exchange stripped away all the things that had come between us over the years. We got back to the very alive essential core of our genuine and strong love.
The loneliness during our marriage came - I think - from simple things. I would be writing at the computer and he would come downstairs and want a kiss. I would think he wasn't respecting my work. Now I know nothing was more important that that kiss. He would go upstairs to his man cave and watch sports or movies. I wanted him to be downstairs with me. Now I know I could have made more of an effort to join him where he was. We so often have expectations of how people should treat us we miss what is most precious. We also had, of course, many wonderful moments together. Holding hands at the back door looking at the roses bloom. Walking on the beach. Our love of bad puns. Too many things to list. I like to remember it all as best I can.
What we didn't appreciate (like most people) when he was alive was how precious every moment was. As he got older I did make sure that whenever he left the house we gave each other a big hug and kiss and told each other how much we loved each other. I was on some level conscious of the possibility of death - but not conscious enough. My sense of loneliness while I was married would have been less if I had seen things more from his point of view than mine. It is so normal to be that way. When I see couples now I want to shake them and say - cherish every moment. But when people are alive it isn't always easy. With my daughter now it is the same thing. We are human so as much as we love each other - we also irritate each other. I try to remember what I learned from my husband dying - that our relationship is more important that what I am feeling at the moment - but sometimes I get hurt and angry. Sometimes we both say things we don't mean. Why is difficult to treasure every moment when someone is still alive? I think it is for most people.
When I found out that Artie didn't have very long to live I thought, "Well, we really messed that up." We did and we didn't. From where we started - we came very far. I wish we had had more time to go even farther - deeper - into knowing how to express that deep love we had for each other.
The loneliness now is a different kind. In some ways I feel that I have not relaxed since the day he died. Each kiss is precious. How can there be no more kisses? How can there be no more hugs? How is it I will never see his smile again, never have the love going back and forth between us as we gaze into each other's eyes. It creates such unease in the middle of the happiest moment to know he won't be waiting at home for me to share it with him. Simple things make me lonely. Seeing a t-shirt he would like, finding a new TV program or movie to share, hearing a story I can't wait to tell him. The loneliest part is that we truly understood each other. I am lucky to have good and loving friends and family. Loneliness is not being alone. Loneliness is for the relationship between myself and my husband. I miss that relationship. He is not replaceable. No one will every look in my eyes just the way he did. No one will understand me the way he did. No one will every think I am special the way he did. I won't have history with anyone the way I have history with him. He is the only person who ever took care of me - and I am the only person who ever took care of him in that very special kind of way. I live in a city with millions of people. None of them is Artie. I am important to many people - but there is no longer anyone alive to whom I am the most important person in the world.
We were both independent people. We liked missing each other and having time alone - so I would travel and then come home and tell him all my adventures. I was the only woman who never bored him. Our minds as well as our hearts were joined. How can it be that he is not here when I come home? I can search the whole world over and never find him. I can feel his spirit and his love. I believe in that. I believe our relationship continues but I am still encased in this earthly body and he is not. Little me on earth needs flesh and bones and I can only have spirit. To be blunt - it's not easy being in love with a dead guy. Yet I am. I continue to miss him more; love him more every day.
What does he look like now? With that last exhale - where did he go? Is he a ball of energy? I still picture him looking like he did when he was alive - but what is left of his body and face are ashes now. I'm not delusional. I know he is dead, I know his body is ashes, yet it is difficult to accept that all that energy between us - all that love - has shifted shape in ways I cannot begin to understand.
Loneliness is part of the daily trauma of someone we love dying. When people want to know why we aren't over it yet it's not because it hurt the day they died - a year ago - 50 years ago - it's because we live with the loneliness of missing them every day. All day, every day. There is something exhausting about that. It doesn't mean we can be fully alive; that we can't fill the years we have left with wonderful times and meaningful action. I have started to think of my life each day as an empty basket. I can leave the basket empty or I can go into the world and find glittering jewels and pine cones and roses or whatever I want and need to fill it up. I have to fill up my own basket now. There will be no more physical presents from my husband's presence - just spiritual presents from his presence.
My big question, as some of you know, for 2014 is if I want to try to have a new relationship. I still feel so married. If I fall in love again in one way I will feel less lonely because I will have someone to share things with in a new way...I won't always come home to an empty house. In another way I will still be lonely for my husband. I know people who are quite happily remarried and yet sill miss their spouses who have died. I can imagine being happy - I am often happy - I can't imagine every not being lonely.
Loneliness is one of the challenges of grief. Not to drown in it. Not to be smothered by it. I wish for all of us that we have the love of family and friends - and if we do not - we seek it - so that love can be a cushion for the loneliness we feel because we are still alive and the person/people/pets we love so much have died.
I am getting close to my birthday which is also my wedding anniversary on February 3rd. I feel like I am rocketing back into the past. As much fun as I have - and I am doing quite a lot these days - every road seems to lead to an Artie story. It does make me less lonely to know that there are so many people who understand how I feel. So many people whose memories are a strong force in their life and who know that a relationship and love do not end because of death. I wish us all laughter and comfort in the midst of this repetitive throbbing loneliness. With love. xo
I don't feel guilty but I can see more clearly now the ways in which I could have done things differently. Our journey of teaching each other about love and life isn't over. It is part of the reason that I so want it to continue. I feel that as much as I learned about him while he was alive - I have learned even more since he died. I believe that in his new form he is also learning. I don't know if there is reincarnation - but I want there to be so that we can love again - marry again - and this time have a new starting place. In his dying time he looked at me and said, "I am sorry for all the ways in which I failed you." I replied, "I am too. I am sorry for all the ways in which I failed you." That exchange stripped away all the things that had come between us over the years. We got back to the very alive essential core of our genuine and strong love.
The loneliness during our marriage came - I think - from simple things. I would be writing at the computer and he would come downstairs and want a kiss. I would think he wasn't respecting my work. Now I know nothing was more important that that kiss. He would go upstairs to his man cave and watch sports or movies. I wanted him to be downstairs with me. Now I know I could have made more of an effort to join him where he was. We so often have expectations of how people should treat us we miss what is most precious. We also had, of course, many wonderful moments together. Holding hands at the back door looking at the roses bloom. Walking on the beach. Our love of bad puns. Too many things to list. I like to remember it all as best I can.
What we didn't appreciate (like most people) when he was alive was how precious every moment was. As he got older I did make sure that whenever he left the house we gave each other a big hug and kiss and told each other how much we loved each other. I was on some level conscious of the possibility of death - but not conscious enough. My sense of loneliness while I was married would have been less if I had seen things more from his point of view than mine. It is so normal to be that way. When I see couples now I want to shake them and say - cherish every moment. But when people are alive it isn't always easy. With my daughter now it is the same thing. We are human so as much as we love each other - we also irritate each other. I try to remember what I learned from my husband dying - that our relationship is more important that what I am feeling at the moment - but sometimes I get hurt and angry. Sometimes we both say things we don't mean. Why is difficult to treasure every moment when someone is still alive? I think it is for most people.
When I found out that Artie didn't have very long to live I thought, "Well, we really messed that up." We did and we didn't. From where we started - we came very far. I wish we had had more time to go even farther - deeper - into knowing how to express that deep love we had for each other.
The loneliness now is a different kind. In some ways I feel that I have not relaxed since the day he died. Each kiss is precious. How can there be no more kisses? How can there be no more hugs? How is it I will never see his smile again, never have the love going back and forth between us as we gaze into each other's eyes. It creates such unease in the middle of the happiest moment to know he won't be waiting at home for me to share it with him. Simple things make me lonely. Seeing a t-shirt he would like, finding a new TV program or movie to share, hearing a story I can't wait to tell him. The loneliest part is that we truly understood each other. I am lucky to have good and loving friends and family. Loneliness is not being alone. Loneliness is for the relationship between myself and my husband. I miss that relationship. He is not replaceable. No one will every look in my eyes just the way he did. No one will understand me the way he did. No one will every think I am special the way he did. I won't have history with anyone the way I have history with him. He is the only person who ever took care of me - and I am the only person who ever took care of him in that very special kind of way. I live in a city with millions of people. None of them is Artie. I am important to many people - but there is no longer anyone alive to whom I am the most important person in the world.
We were both independent people. We liked missing each other and having time alone - so I would travel and then come home and tell him all my adventures. I was the only woman who never bored him. Our minds as well as our hearts were joined. How can it be that he is not here when I come home? I can search the whole world over and never find him. I can feel his spirit and his love. I believe in that. I believe our relationship continues but I am still encased in this earthly body and he is not. Little me on earth needs flesh and bones and I can only have spirit. To be blunt - it's not easy being in love with a dead guy. Yet I am. I continue to miss him more; love him more every day.
What does he look like now? With that last exhale - where did he go? Is he a ball of energy? I still picture him looking like he did when he was alive - but what is left of his body and face are ashes now. I'm not delusional. I know he is dead, I know his body is ashes, yet it is difficult to accept that all that energy between us - all that love - has shifted shape in ways I cannot begin to understand.
Loneliness is part of the daily trauma of someone we love dying. When people want to know why we aren't over it yet it's not because it hurt the day they died - a year ago - 50 years ago - it's because we live with the loneliness of missing them every day. All day, every day. There is something exhausting about that. It doesn't mean we can be fully alive; that we can't fill the years we have left with wonderful times and meaningful action. I have started to think of my life each day as an empty basket. I can leave the basket empty or I can go into the world and find glittering jewels and pine cones and roses or whatever I want and need to fill it up. I have to fill up my own basket now. There will be no more physical presents from my husband's presence - just spiritual presents from his presence.
My big question, as some of you know, for 2014 is if I want to try to have a new relationship. I still feel so married. If I fall in love again in one way I will feel less lonely because I will have someone to share things with in a new way...I won't always come home to an empty house. In another way I will still be lonely for my husband. I know people who are quite happily remarried and yet sill miss their spouses who have died. I can imagine being happy - I am often happy - I can't imagine every not being lonely.
Loneliness is one of the challenges of grief. Not to drown in it. Not to be smothered by it. I wish for all of us that we have the love of family and friends - and if we do not - we seek it - so that love can be a cushion for the loneliness we feel because we are still alive and the person/people/pets we love so much have died.
I am getting close to my birthday which is also my wedding anniversary on February 3rd. I feel like I am rocketing back into the past. As much fun as I have - and I am doing quite a lot these days - every road seems to lead to an Artie story. It does make me less lonely to know that there are so many people who understand how I feel. So many people whose memories are a strong force in their life and who know that a relationship and love do not end because of death. I wish us all laughter and comfort in the midst of this repetitive throbbing loneliness. With love. xo
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Grief: Hey Grief - You Don't Own Me. Bring It On!
I have asked some grieving people about making choices. Sometimes the dark side of grief answers this question with a resounding, "NO!" It says to us, "I am the black hole that will always suck you back in. You can't run, you can't hide - I am coming after you so you might as well lie down sweetie. There's nothing you can do."
I have news for you dear Grief - you are a seductive liar. I'm not going to turn way from you. Sometimes I am going to embrace you. However, guess what? You don't own me. I'm not saying you aren't good at the surprise attack. The one that knocks me back to bed to stare at the wall. I'm not saying you aren't cunning; convincing me that I am more comfortable lying in bed doing nothing than being out in the world living my life. Throw your best punch. I'll crumble, I'll cry but you know what. I'll get back up again. I'll laugh at you because as menacing as you are you are the gift I have been given to remind me that every moment of your pain made feeble by the power of the joy of love. Artie's love is grief's kryptonite. (kryptonite weakened Superman's powers. I am using it here as a metaphor that the love our beloved dead can weaken the power of even the strongest grief.)
I didn't know this when my husband first died. I felt annihilated. I ate only ice cream and watched endless DVDs - when I wasn't crying hysterically in the privacy of my own room and often publicly. But even then I started to bob and weave. I punched back. I went everywhere I could think of for help. Therapy, bereavement groups, comedy classes, on-line resources, Richard Bandler's ridiculously expensive small group, Steven Gilligan's Trance Camp. When I went to places like Nick Kemp's Provocative Change training or the neo-Ericksonian hypnosis conference, I always volunteered to be a subject. I got bored with talking about me and took training with Doug O'Brien in NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and neo-Ericksonian hypnosis. I showed up. At the beginning it wasn't very often. I went to something in New York City called Culture Circle where artists of all kinds (musicians, poets, writers, cooks, pottery makers) shared their work - no criticism unless asked for - only praise. I went to plays and slept through them until I didn't any more. I got angry at the idea that if I didn't stop grieving in 6-12 months I had a mental disorder called complicated or morbid grief and started writing this blog. I think the medicalization of the natural process of grief is dangerous and ridiculous. How foolish would it be for me - for any of us to stop missing and loving these people who are so important to us. The work is not to get over it, let go, move forward - unless you want to (some people want to - and succeed at it). For me the work is to use all the love and life you have to transform your grief not reject it.
I don't grieve for everyone the same way. My parents were cruel in ways I won't explain. I did not grieve for them when they died. My friend Judy was very special to me - as was my daughter's best friend Jon - but they were not the reason for my being. I grieve for them - I miss them - but their deaths did not devastate me. My husband's death was like a tornado that left the house that was myself in sticks. I had to rebuild. I am still rebuilding. This is not complicated or morbid. My husband is the only person who ever took care of me. We understood each other completely. We weren't always good at acting loving - but the love itself was always strong and pure - and we kept our promise - nobody leaves - until Artie's body was so riddled with cancer I gave him permission to leave to go somewhere to be fee of the limitations of his body. The depth of my grief is a measure of the height of our love.
I'm not special. People have called me extraordinary. I'm ordinary in many ways. In the beginning I had a lot of frozen dead time. I still have too much - but I've been able to shift the balance. I show up more, have more happy moments and more productive ones.
In the past I would have said I had no choices. It wasn't true. The first choice I made was - after considering suicide quite seriously - to keep living. The second choice I made was to figure out how to give my life meaning. It was to make myself available to other grieving people the way my husband had made himself available to other addicts and alcoholics. I made a lot of other choices but those - and the choice to find help (and I am not a person that likes to ask for help) were the most important ones.
I don't have a choice about when I will see my husband again. I can say, "Come back, I know you can't, but come back." as many times as I want to and he won't come back because he can't come back. That dearly loved face and body is a small pile of ashes in a plastic bag. How is that possible? A lion of a man reduced to a small pile of ashes. Oh yeah. He's not in those ashes - he's in what my daughter calls The Great Beyond. He's also in my heart and all around me. Because I can't have him back physically I don't have a choice about when the next wave of grief will hit. What I do have a choice about is what I do when it does.
I like to make time for grief. I like to spend time with my dead husband. Sometimes I make the wrong choice. I would have been better off this New Year being with my granddaughter. Being alone left too much room for self pity. But that's okay. If I'm going to make choices sometimes I'm going to make wrong ones. I don't think spending a day in bed every once in a while is a bad choice. I don't think falling down every once in a while because I am still so incredibly sad and pained and exhausted with missing him is a bad choice. The question is - after all these years of unwanted practice - can I sometimes make different choices?
I have chosen to not let his death taint the wonder and joy of my memories - to roll them back to the time they actually happened. i have chosen to sometimes talk about being with him when he died and what it felt like to put his lifeless arm around me for one last hug - but more importantly I have chosen to think of him as alive most of the time. Live Artie makes me happy. Dead Artie often makes me sad.
I have chosen - when I remember - to keep asking who I am besides someone who grieves - what else do I see and hear and smell and touch and taste that give me happiness when I am willing to dnotice it.
If I even say the words - I have a choice - I have empowered myself. I don't have to believe it - I just have to say it. I have a choice.
Every morning when I wake up in the morning I have a choice. If after I post on the Facebook page Grief Speaks Out I feel overwhelmed and go back to sleep until noon - I have a choice at noon. If I spend a day in bed watching DVDs (sorry folks - I love British and Danish television - I will never give that up) the next day I have a choice.
If I don't like the choices I make - I can forgive myself and accept myself the way I am. (That's not always easy for me - but I know it's the best thing to do.) My mother was a super critic. She lives on in my bones. She's the voice that says I will never do anything right. I'm a great believer in the saying, "Kill your critic." Like a horse whisperer or dog whisperer - we can be grief whisperers. No choke chains or beating up ourselves - we are hurt enough already, we don't need to hurt ourselves more. Reward ourselves, be tender to ourselves, give ourselves treats when we do something we are proud of. Even in that turbulent beginning I tried to do one thing a day I could be proud of. Sometimes it was as simple as taking a shower or paying a bill on time.
I hope this year - 2014 - I will choose to do more writing, I will choose to fight in more arenas for the rights of grieving people to be heard and accepted. I hope I will choose to take better physical care of myself, to be kinder to myself and others. (Those of you who think I am always loving - I am a champion user of curse words - and grief sometimes makes me extremely impatient and irritable.) What i hope that I do when I am laying there looking at the wall - feeling only enveloped by the dark devastating cunning black hole of grief is that I remember what I have written on this page - that I have a choice whether to stay there or to reach out to others and ask them them pull me out when I cannot pull myself out.
It's not easy - but it is easier. It is easier partly due to all the people who have come into my life since Artie died. It is easier partly due to actions I have taken. It is easier partly due to the passage of time. For me - time doesn't heal - but it teaches me new lessons - new ways of looking at things. To look outward instead of inward. To look at someone who triumphs over burdens more severe than mine. To look at something that makes me laugh out loud.
Those men and women who have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with their legs blown off who walk and run and hike. They inspire me.
My husband inspires me. You all inspire me. I wonder what choices I will make tomorrow. Tonight it is time for a healthy dinner and some of these DVDs. When my computer tells me I am running on low battery power it is a sign I should turn it off soon.
I ask you to say - as an experiment - at least once a day - Yes, I have a choice. I may not feel I have a choice about how deep my pain and grief are - but I have a choice about what actions I can take. Say...Yes I am grieving, yes I am stuck, yes I am sad, yes I am devastated, yes I don't know who I am any more but what else am I? Who else am I? I can choose other things to be. I can choose other emotions to feel.
Go ahead - dare to laugh at grief. Dare to find meaning in your life. Dare to get up every time you fall down (even if it's six days later). I didn't know I was going to be so fierce today. I thought I was going to be broken and empty like I felt last night when I was crying - sobbing - like I did at the beginning. All the things I have done today (in addition to all the things I have not done) have brought this feisty powerful woman out. Perhaps it is my husband -my lion of a man husband - using my vocal chords to ROAR once again.
I kind of like this feeling. I hope you catch a bit of it and now feel your life force moving through you in a new way. Say it with me: 2014. Bring it on!! Did you whisper it? Say it only in your mind. Be defiant. Shout it. I am ready. Bring it on!! With love. xo
I have news for you dear Grief - you are a seductive liar. I'm not going to turn way from you. Sometimes I am going to embrace you. However, guess what? You don't own me. I'm not saying you aren't good at the surprise attack. The one that knocks me back to bed to stare at the wall. I'm not saying you aren't cunning; convincing me that I am more comfortable lying in bed doing nothing than being out in the world living my life. Throw your best punch. I'll crumble, I'll cry but you know what. I'll get back up again. I'll laugh at you because as menacing as you are you are the gift I have been given to remind me that every moment of your pain made feeble by the power of the joy of love. Artie's love is grief's kryptonite. (kryptonite weakened Superman's powers. I am using it here as a metaphor that the love our beloved dead can weaken the power of even the strongest grief.)
I didn't know this when my husband first died. I felt annihilated. I ate only ice cream and watched endless DVDs - when I wasn't crying hysterically in the privacy of my own room and often publicly. But even then I started to bob and weave. I punched back. I went everywhere I could think of for help. Therapy, bereavement groups, comedy classes, on-line resources, Richard Bandler's ridiculously expensive small group, Steven Gilligan's Trance Camp. When I went to places like Nick Kemp's Provocative Change training or the neo-Ericksonian hypnosis conference, I always volunteered to be a subject. I got bored with talking about me and took training with Doug O'Brien in NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and neo-Ericksonian hypnosis. I showed up. At the beginning it wasn't very often. I went to something in New York City called Culture Circle where artists of all kinds (musicians, poets, writers, cooks, pottery makers) shared their work - no criticism unless asked for - only praise. I went to plays and slept through them until I didn't any more. I got angry at the idea that if I didn't stop grieving in 6-12 months I had a mental disorder called complicated or morbid grief and started writing this blog. I think the medicalization of the natural process of grief is dangerous and ridiculous. How foolish would it be for me - for any of us to stop missing and loving these people who are so important to us. The work is not to get over it, let go, move forward - unless you want to (some people want to - and succeed at it). For me the work is to use all the love and life you have to transform your grief not reject it.
I don't grieve for everyone the same way. My parents were cruel in ways I won't explain. I did not grieve for them when they died. My friend Judy was very special to me - as was my daughter's best friend Jon - but they were not the reason for my being. I grieve for them - I miss them - but their deaths did not devastate me. My husband's death was like a tornado that left the house that was myself in sticks. I had to rebuild. I am still rebuilding. This is not complicated or morbid. My husband is the only person who ever took care of me. We understood each other completely. We weren't always good at acting loving - but the love itself was always strong and pure - and we kept our promise - nobody leaves - until Artie's body was so riddled with cancer I gave him permission to leave to go somewhere to be fee of the limitations of his body. The depth of my grief is a measure of the height of our love.
I'm not special. People have called me extraordinary. I'm ordinary in many ways. In the beginning I had a lot of frozen dead time. I still have too much - but I've been able to shift the balance. I show up more, have more happy moments and more productive ones.
In the past I would have said I had no choices. It wasn't true. The first choice I made was - after considering suicide quite seriously - to keep living. The second choice I made was to figure out how to give my life meaning. It was to make myself available to other grieving people the way my husband had made himself available to other addicts and alcoholics. I made a lot of other choices but those - and the choice to find help (and I am not a person that likes to ask for help) were the most important ones.
I don't have a choice about when I will see my husband again. I can say, "Come back, I know you can't, but come back." as many times as I want to and he won't come back because he can't come back. That dearly loved face and body is a small pile of ashes in a plastic bag. How is that possible? A lion of a man reduced to a small pile of ashes. Oh yeah. He's not in those ashes - he's in what my daughter calls The Great Beyond. He's also in my heart and all around me. Because I can't have him back physically I don't have a choice about when the next wave of grief will hit. What I do have a choice about is what I do when it does.
I like to make time for grief. I like to spend time with my dead husband. Sometimes I make the wrong choice. I would have been better off this New Year being with my granddaughter. Being alone left too much room for self pity. But that's okay. If I'm going to make choices sometimes I'm going to make wrong ones. I don't think spending a day in bed every once in a while is a bad choice. I don't think falling down every once in a while because I am still so incredibly sad and pained and exhausted with missing him is a bad choice. The question is - after all these years of unwanted practice - can I sometimes make different choices?
I have chosen to not let his death taint the wonder and joy of my memories - to roll them back to the time they actually happened. i have chosen to sometimes talk about being with him when he died and what it felt like to put his lifeless arm around me for one last hug - but more importantly I have chosen to think of him as alive most of the time. Live Artie makes me happy. Dead Artie often makes me sad.
I have chosen - when I remember - to keep asking who I am besides someone who grieves - what else do I see and hear and smell and touch and taste that give me happiness when I am willing to dnotice it.
If I even say the words - I have a choice - I have empowered myself. I don't have to believe it - I just have to say it. I have a choice.
Every morning when I wake up in the morning I have a choice. If after I post on the Facebook page Grief Speaks Out I feel overwhelmed and go back to sleep until noon - I have a choice at noon. If I spend a day in bed watching DVDs (sorry folks - I love British and Danish television - I will never give that up) the next day I have a choice.
If I don't like the choices I make - I can forgive myself and accept myself the way I am. (That's not always easy for me - but I know it's the best thing to do.) My mother was a super critic. She lives on in my bones. She's the voice that says I will never do anything right. I'm a great believer in the saying, "Kill your critic." Like a horse whisperer or dog whisperer - we can be grief whisperers. No choke chains or beating up ourselves - we are hurt enough already, we don't need to hurt ourselves more. Reward ourselves, be tender to ourselves, give ourselves treats when we do something we are proud of. Even in that turbulent beginning I tried to do one thing a day I could be proud of. Sometimes it was as simple as taking a shower or paying a bill on time.
I hope this year - 2014 - I will choose to do more writing, I will choose to fight in more arenas for the rights of grieving people to be heard and accepted. I hope I will choose to take better physical care of myself, to be kinder to myself and others. (Those of you who think I am always loving - I am a champion user of curse words - and grief sometimes makes me extremely impatient and irritable.) What i hope that I do when I am laying there looking at the wall - feeling only enveloped by the dark devastating cunning black hole of grief is that I remember what I have written on this page - that I have a choice whether to stay there or to reach out to others and ask them them pull me out when I cannot pull myself out.
It's not easy - but it is easier. It is easier partly due to all the people who have come into my life since Artie died. It is easier partly due to actions I have taken. It is easier partly due to the passage of time. For me - time doesn't heal - but it teaches me new lessons - new ways of looking at things. To look outward instead of inward. To look at someone who triumphs over burdens more severe than mine. To look at something that makes me laugh out loud.
Those men and women who have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with their legs blown off who walk and run and hike. They inspire me.
My husband inspires me. You all inspire me. I wonder what choices I will make tomorrow. Tonight it is time for a healthy dinner and some of these DVDs. When my computer tells me I am running on low battery power it is a sign I should turn it off soon.
I ask you to say - as an experiment - at least once a day - Yes, I have a choice. I may not feel I have a choice about how deep my pain and grief are - but I have a choice about what actions I can take. Say...Yes I am grieving, yes I am stuck, yes I am sad, yes I am devastated, yes I don't know who I am any more but what else am I? Who else am I? I can choose other things to be. I can choose other emotions to feel.
Go ahead - dare to laugh at grief. Dare to find meaning in your life. Dare to get up every time you fall down (even if it's six days later). I didn't know I was going to be so fierce today. I thought I was going to be broken and empty like I felt last night when I was crying - sobbing - like I did at the beginning. All the things I have done today (in addition to all the things I have not done) have brought this feisty powerful woman out. Perhaps it is my husband -my lion of a man husband - using my vocal chords to ROAR once again.
I kind of like this feeling. I hope you catch a bit of it and now feel your life force moving through you in a new way. Say it with me: 2014. Bring it on!! Did you whisper it? Say it only in your mind. Be defiant. Shout it. I am ready. Bring it on!! With love. xo
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Grief: How To Start A New Year
I don't make New Year's resolutions any more. I see them as a recipe for failure. When my husband first died I bought a plaque that said, "Have An Adequate Day." It made me laugh - but I also felt it was something I could live up to. I don't like setting expectations for myself that I might not meet. A lot of life coaches would disagree with me on this. I find it works better to have a gratitude list and a forgiveness list.
The gratitude list contains the things I am grateful for that happened in 2013. It forces me to look at the good things that happen to me instead of just employing my excellent skill set for self pity. The forgiveness list contains things that I would like to accomplish but haven't yet. They are kind of upside down resolutions. I forgive myself for not achieving goals I might have with the hope that perhaps I will achieve them the next year. But if I don't - they just go back on the forgiveness list. There is no judgement list. Living without my husband is hurtful in so many ways that I try not to hurt myself any more than I already am. That means accepting myself where I am. When I can't do that - I usually talk to someone who will tell me that they love me. I have a friend I met on a grief site that has the uncanny ability to e-mail me and tell me how special I am and how much she loves me just when the dark place has grabbed hold of me and I am thinking that nobody loves me and I am worthless. Her e-mail shatters the dark place and lets the light back in.
I am grateful for family and friends. I am grateful for all of you who are with me on this strange and unwanted journey. I am grateful I seem to be gifted in some way to bring comfort to those who are suffering. When I started writing the blog I said if it only helped one person it would be enough. It has become much more than that. I never thought I would have a Facebook page with over 260,000 likes - that what I write would be able to reach millions of people all one the world. It is still a little startling to me. This year I saw a play where an actor told of a man whose wife of many years died. He was sitting in a chair crying and people came to comfort him in his grief. They did not know he was crying because he had no grief. I am grateful that I learned this year from that story that my grief is a gift. An uncomfortable one - but how much sadder it would have been to be married to someone I did not grieve for. I am grateful always for the deep and abiding love that grief is paired with. I also learned this year from a quote by Victor Frankl to be grateful that I outlived my husband. What greater gift could I have given him than to take care of him all the days of his life and be the one who lives on. (I hope he appreciates it!!)
I am grateful for many more things. Good plays, good TV shows. Newly fallen snow, the color of fall leaves. A good joke, a bad pun. A good political discussion. I try to look every day outward to see what is outside me that I am grateful for instead of inward at my grief and my pain. A new blanket that is soft and warm and makes it even more difficult to get out of bed!! Those questions. What else? Who else? I must keep asking it so my gratitude list grows every longer.
On my forgiveness list? Still haven't written the book - still haven't given myself a healthy fit body. All those moments staring at nothing. All the frozen moments, the unappreciated wishing I was with my husband moments. I would like to be healthier - I would feel better and have more energy. i would like to write a book - maybe. Would I like to have a new relationship? - that one is still firmly in the I don't know place.
I don't know what the new year will bring. I know it won't bring my husband back to me. I will have to keep finding ways to live with that. I hope, though, that the balance will continue to shift so I continue to have more productive moments and more happy moments. I hope that the pain will continue to gentle down and I will feel less vulnerable, less irritated by life. I would like to look at the world more with my granddaughter's eyes. She says "OOOO' and "Wow" a lot. She laughs a lot. But she is two. I kiss her neck and she says, "Stop. That's enough Gammy." She is feisty and feeling very powerful. She also knows that she is loved. I can learn a lot from her.
I don't know what I'll do on New Year's Eve. Maybe I'll read some old love letters. Maybe I'll watch DVDs. Maybe I'll listen to some hypnosis CDs. Maybe I'll cry or laugh or all those things. Then it will be January 1st. Then 2nd. Then 3rd. Each day brings me closer to my husband - but it is up to me not to wish those days away but to live them
Perhaps that is what I would like for all of us this new year - to not wish our days and nights away - but to live them fully. To hold on if we want - and let go if we want. To let love raise us above the pain so that we see things ever in new ways. Not a new year - but a new day - one at a time. A day in which we delight in things past - but also in things present. With love. xo
The gratitude list contains the things I am grateful for that happened in 2013. It forces me to look at the good things that happen to me instead of just employing my excellent skill set for self pity. The forgiveness list contains things that I would like to accomplish but haven't yet. They are kind of upside down resolutions. I forgive myself for not achieving goals I might have with the hope that perhaps I will achieve them the next year. But if I don't - they just go back on the forgiveness list. There is no judgement list. Living without my husband is hurtful in so many ways that I try not to hurt myself any more than I already am. That means accepting myself where I am. When I can't do that - I usually talk to someone who will tell me that they love me. I have a friend I met on a grief site that has the uncanny ability to e-mail me and tell me how special I am and how much she loves me just when the dark place has grabbed hold of me and I am thinking that nobody loves me and I am worthless. Her e-mail shatters the dark place and lets the light back in.
I am grateful for family and friends. I am grateful for all of you who are with me on this strange and unwanted journey. I am grateful I seem to be gifted in some way to bring comfort to those who are suffering. When I started writing the blog I said if it only helped one person it would be enough. It has become much more than that. I never thought I would have a Facebook page with over 260,000 likes - that what I write would be able to reach millions of people all one the world. It is still a little startling to me. This year I saw a play where an actor told of a man whose wife of many years died. He was sitting in a chair crying and people came to comfort him in his grief. They did not know he was crying because he had no grief. I am grateful that I learned this year from that story that my grief is a gift. An uncomfortable one - but how much sadder it would have been to be married to someone I did not grieve for. I am grateful always for the deep and abiding love that grief is paired with. I also learned this year from a quote by Victor Frankl to be grateful that I outlived my husband. What greater gift could I have given him than to take care of him all the days of his life and be the one who lives on. (I hope he appreciates it!!)
I am grateful for many more things. Good plays, good TV shows. Newly fallen snow, the color of fall leaves. A good joke, a bad pun. A good political discussion. I try to look every day outward to see what is outside me that I am grateful for instead of inward at my grief and my pain. A new blanket that is soft and warm and makes it even more difficult to get out of bed!! Those questions. What else? Who else? I must keep asking it so my gratitude list grows every longer.
On my forgiveness list? Still haven't written the book - still haven't given myself a healthy fit body. All those moments staring at nothing. All the frozen moments, the unappreciated wishing I was with my husband moments. I would like to be healthier - I would feel better and have more energy. i would like to write a book - maybe. Would I like to have a new relationship? - that one is still firmly in the I don't know place.
I don't know what the new year will bring. I know it won't bring my husband back to me. I will have to keep finding ways to live with that. I hope, though, that the balance will continue to shift so I continue to have more productive moments and more happy moments. I hope that the pain will continue to gentle down and I will feel less vulnerable, less irritated by life. I would like to look at the world more with my granddaughter's eyes. She says "OOOO' and "Wow" a lot. She laughs a lot. But she is two. I kiss her neck and she says, "Stop. That's enough Gammy." She is feisty and feeling very powerful. She also knows that she is loved. I can learn a lot from her.
I don't know what I'll do on New Year's Eve. Maybe I'll read some old love letters. Maybe I'll watch DVDs. Maybe I'll listen to some hypnosis CDs. Maybe I'll cry or laugh or all those things. Then it will be January 1st. Then 2nd. Then 3rd. Each day brings me closer to my husband - but it is up to me not to wish those days away but to live them
Perhaps that is what I would like for all of us this new year - to not wish our days and nights away - but to live them fully. To hold on if we want - and let go if we want. To let love raise us above the pain so that we see things ever in new ways. Not a new year - but a new day - one at a time. A day in which we delight in things past - but also in things present. With love. xo
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