Why do we always want know what is normal? Perhaps that is completely the wrong question. The medical profession and the helping professions are taking normal and making it such a narrow category that very few people meet their definition any more. When my daughter was little she often didn't behave the way people wanted her to. Now she would have oppositional-defiant disorder. I have good moments and bad moments. I once had a psychiatrist prescribe lithium for me. I read about it and quickly threw it away. Having normal mood swings is not bipolar - as anyone who genuinely is bipolar would know. Now they have made grief into a mental disorder called "Complicated or Morbid" grief. The measuring stick they use to determine this is ridiculous. How long should grief last - 6 months? When i know and you know that it lasts as long as it lasts - often forever. Grief can lead to depression and PTSD but grief is not depression or PTSD - it is...well, it is grief. When you love someone and they die - it hurts. It hurts every day for the rest of your life. The question is not how long does this hurt last - but whether or not you are capable of turning it - as someone wrote on my Facebook page - from your enemy into your companion. My grief for my husband - my missing him - my longing for his physical presence - will be with me always. Will I use that grief to enrich my life or let it oppress me?
We don't even acknowledge that what is normal is different for different people. Normal for a small child is different than normal for a teenager which is different from normal for an adult which is different from normal for an elderly person. Normal for a healthy person is different than normal for a person with a chronic illness. Normal for a person who has never experienced deep grief is different for someone who has. What I find now that I have so much contact with grieving people of different ages, religions, nationalities is that everything we think is not normal - is. Do you feel angry - sad - numb - lost - like you can't breathe - like you are going crazy - having trouble sleeping? - feeling good one day then hit with an unexpected wave of grief - and on and on - guess what. That is all normal. People all over the world are feeling the same things. Maybe in different ways and different proportions - but whatever you are experiencing - someone else is too. The people who tell you to move on or that you are stuck - or that what you are experiencing isn't healthy or normal are in the dark themselves. They don't know that grieving people take to lying about how they really feel in order not to hear things that are hurtful - in order not to be rejected - or medicated - or fixed. Ask the person who thinks you are grieving too much if they got a phone call in five minutes that their child was killed in a car accident - or their husband or wife - when they would get over it. I did that once to a man I know - he started to cry. I had to comfort him for something that hadn't even happened. He stopped trying to make me feel better.
The question isn't whether or not what I am doing is normal. The question is whether or not what I am doing is allowing me to live the life I want. The past almost five years have been a continuous spiral up and down of learning how to be more productive - how to have more and more happy moments - how to be more fully alive with grief. Staying in bed and staring at the wall (this fifth year - as I had been warned - is full of a lot of despair - although since I have tools now to deal with it a little better) actually works for me in small increments. I find it helpful to spend time with my grief. It doesn't work for me if I do it all day every day. I have never lost the feeling of great sadness every time I return home knowing that my husband will not be waiting for me. It occurred to me that maybe this is something I can change. I'm not sure how yet. I have the ability to change things - I have done it with other things. Most of my memories now make me smile instead of cry. Most places I walk past that we were together make me think about our happy moments. When I see an advertisement for boxing or tennis I remember how much joy my husband got from watching then instead of cursing things for going on without him. My eating is still weird. My sleeping gets off track. I get confused between wanting to die to be with him and wanting to live to do everything else. I remind myself that what is a long time to me on Earth is a blink of the eye in terms of eternity.
I don't want to be fixed. I don't want to be happy all the time. I don't care if I am "normal". When i see what normal is - sometimes I laugh and wonder why anyone would want that! It is like wanting to be ordinary when we are all really extraordinary - in our own ways.
I was watching a soap opera of all things and someone said something like we disrespect the life of our loved one if we let their death mean more to us than their life. It made me stop and think. It is not so much what my husband would want for me - or even what I want for myself. It was - yeah - that's it. Do I not somehow do a disservice to all the happy times and fighting times and loving times if I remember them with pain instead of joy? Can I not look at our love - constant - enduring - splendid - even if our relationship was sometimes troubled and less than it might have been - with clear eyes not shadowed by grief? That's wrong. In some ways grief sharpens the way I remember Artie. I don't take anything for granted any more. I can treasure our moments together even more than I did when he was alive. The fact that there are no more of them in the same form makes them more precious. I was given - am still being given so much by my husband - am I rejecting those gifts if all I do is feel sorry for myself rather than feeling blessed and grateful? My husband's life mattered - it still matters - more than his death. How can I embody that? How can I live that?
I am not there. I will never be there. I don't even know where there is. However - I can continue every day to do the best I can to take this monster grief and tame it so that I ride on its back to many magical places I would not have gone without it. Missing Artie, loving Artie, feeling somehow not whole without him - yet at the same time never letting the darkness dim the light - never letting my grief diminish the power of what we had and have.
If you figure out how to do this easily...let me know. Until then - I described it as driving a car on a multi-lane highway. One lane will always be grief - but may we all have ever more lanes - and when we drift or drive deliberately back into the grief lane - may we learn how to just put on our signal light and turn the wheel so we can move again into which ever lane is best for us.
Almost five years later I have a rather magical life. I don't talk about it that much because I write about grief. It is a life I have worked hard to create. I am ordinary in many ways...so anything I can create - you can too. Do I always feel the magic - no. Do I feel it more often. Yes. Did grief gentle down - yes. Most days. Throw out normal. Oscar Wilde said - "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken." It's been quite an effort to even imagine a Jan without her Artie (he says I am never without him - but you know what I mean) but there is one. I'm learning more about her every day. She is the woman my husband loves. Here's to you being you again - not a "normal" you - but a newly discovered ever growing you. Not being there yet maybe...but finding moments of life and happiness breaking through - finding the unbearable bearable - breathing when you cannot breathe - doing it all because you would not be grieving if you had lived your life without experiencing love - as far too many people do. With love. xo
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
Grief: Skating on Thin Ice
Just to prove I'm perfectly human - if you read the last post - Yes, folks, I did manage to leave my laptop on the train. So...I am winging it in so many ways. Learning that I am more dependent on it than I thought. I am working now on a computer I don't know how to use. Trying to figure it out. Kind of like grief. Nothing familiar any more but still typing away.
So...late at night when I should be doing other things - like sleeping!! This is what I wanted to write about and haven't for many many days and nights.
I was in London a while ago and was lucky to see Dancing on Ice with Torvill and Dean. Torvill and Dean won Olympic Gold in 1984 ice dancing to Bolero. It is amazing. You can find it on You Tube. I can't give you the link because...well - unfamiliar computer. They have been sponsoring Dancing on Ice for, I think, 9 years. It is like Dancing with the Stars. Amateur ice skaters learning from professionals and then competing.
I always feel like I'm skating on thin ice with grief. I think I'm doing fine, even balancing, trying a new move, and then the ice breaks under me and I'm flailing around again - gasping for air.
When people ice dance or ice skate as a couple they have to be in perfect unison. You can do beautiful and exciting things as a solo ice dancer - but you cannot do alone what you can do with a partner. One of the judges said it is all about placing. The professional skaters go too fast to see it. With the other ones you can see them signaling each other. You can watch how carefully the man places the woman exactly where she should be. If the woman falls, it is not her fault. It is both their faults. He may not have placed her gently exactly where she should land in order to go to the next move. There is also this incredible trust as the man lifts the woman - twirls her - sometimes her head just inches from the ice - sometime her body spinning high about his head as he holds her up with one arm. There is a move called the death spiral because of how close the woman's head is to the ice. We grieving people know all about the death spiral, don't we? I remembered - not physically of course - my husband never would have let me come near him if I had sharp blades on my feet or anywhere!! - how I was lifted. How I was held. How I was placed. How together we could do things we couldn't do separately. I had welcome tears running down my face as I thought about that.
I also had smiles. And more tears at lyrics to some of the love songs. And more smiles.
I saw Torvill and Dean many years ago when they were still young. I have never seen anything quite as brilliant. Then they came to where my husband and I lived. I couldn't go - I had to be out of town. So I told my husband how brilliant they were and got him two excellent seats so he could go with a friend.. When I came home he said to me, "The women I gave the tickets to had a very good time." I almost killed him. I couldn't believe I had given him such a special present and he gave it away. I didn't kill him. I forgave him. We did that a lot - hurt each other, disappointed each other, forgave each other. The love lasted through everything.
Torvill and Dean are now each close to 60. They don't ice dance like they did when they were young. They don't do Bolero like they did when they were young. But they are willing to do it imperfectly - as they can now - for themselves and for us. British people don't give standing ovations as often as Americans do - but when Torvill and Dean did Bolero at Wembley Arena (which is a huge stadium) everyone stood and cheered and cheered and cheered. Christopher Dean said it would be sad when they performed it for the last time - but they would always have it in their hearts. Being willing to do something differently, imperfectly. Knowing that some things do eventually end - but they live in our hearts. We can be sad that they can't be done any more, but we can be oh so happy that they once were.
When Christopher Dean was making his way around the ice I was one of the people whose hand he shook. For a while I had ice dancer DNA on my hand!!
One of the amateur skaters fell. She made a funny face as if to say - Oops - but she didn't stay down - she got right back up and finished her routine. Isn't that what it's all about. Getting back up.
I wanted so much to share all this with my husband. I can't - not the way I want to. But I went by myself. I had such a good time. I showed up and allowed myself to be delighted.
It was raining. I can't walk and think at the same time. So after it was over I was thinking of each splendid moment as I walked out into the rain. I fell down. My umbrella went flying. It was London so people came up to see if I was okay. I kept saying so they would know I was all right, "It's okay. I don't know how to ice dance but I know how to fall!" I do. I know how to fall physically and not hurt myself. Partly from doing comedy improv and doing pratfalls - partly just from being klutzy and having my body react to protect itself. Since my husband died I've fallen a lot emotionally. Sometimes it takes a long time to get back up - sometimes a short time. I know how to fall.
When one of the ice dancers was about to go on the ice he said, "Let's go make shapes!!" The blades make patterns in the ice. Isn't that what life is all about? Each day - no - each moment - gives us clean ice. We need to go make shapes. We can't make the shapes we used to make. The shapes will different. But they can still be beautiful. That's it, folks. That was what I took away from the night - Go make shapes!! xo
So...late at night when I should be doing other things - like sleeping!! This is what I wanted to write about and haven't for many many days and nights.
I was in London a while ago and was lucky to see Dancing on Ice with Torvill and Dean. Torvill and Dean won Olympic Gold in 1984 ice dancing to Bolero. It is amazing. You can find it on You Tube. I can't give you the link because...well - unfamiliar computer. They have been sponsoring Dancing on Ice for, I think, 9 years. It is like Dancing with the Stars. Amateur ice skaters learning from professionals and then competing.
I always feel like I'm skating on thin ice with grief. I think I'm doing fine, even balancing, trying a new move, and then the ice breaks under me and I'm flailing around again - gasping for air.
When people ice dance or ice skate as a couple they have to be in perfect unison. You can do beautiful and exciting things as a solo ice dancer - but you cannot do alone what you can do with a partner. One of the judges said it is all about placing. The professional skaters go too fast to see it. With the other ones you can see them signaling each other. You can watch how carefully the man places the woman exactly where she should be. If the woman falls, it is not her fault. It is both their faults. He may not have placed her gently exactly where she should land in order to go to the next move. There is also this incredible trust as the man lifts the woman - twirls her - sometimes her head just inches from the ice - sometime her body spinning high about his head as he holds her up with one arm. There is a move called the death spiral because of how close the woman's head is to the ice. We grieving people know all about the death spiral, don't we? I remembered - not physically of course - my husband never would have let me come near him if I had sharp blades on my feet or anywhere!! - how I was lifted. How I was held. How I was placed. How together we could do things we couldn't do separately. I had welcome tears running down my face as I thought about that.
I also had smiles. And more tears at lyrics to some of the love songs. And more smiles.
I saw Torvill and Dean many years ago when they were still young. I have never seen anything quite as brilliant. Then they came to where my husband and I lived. I couldn't go - I had to be out of town. So I told my husband how brilliant they were and got him two excellent seats so he could go with a friend.. When I came home he said to me, "The women I gave the tickets to had a very good time." I almost killed him. I couldn't believe I had given him such a special present and he gave it away. I didn't kill him. I forgave him. We did that a lot - hurt each other, disappointed each other, forgave each other. The love lasted through everything.
Torvill and Dean are now each close to 60. They don't ice dance like they did when they were young. They don't do Bolero like they did when they were young. But they are willing to do it imperfectly - as they can now - for themselves and for us. British people don't give standing ovations as often as Americans do - but when Torvill and Dean did Bolero at Wembley Arena (which is a huge stadium) everyone stood and cheered and cheered and cheered. Christopher Dean said it would be sad when they performed it for the last time - but they would always have it in their hearts. Being willing to do something differently, imperfectly. Knowing that some things do eventually end - but they live in our hearts. We can be sad that they can't be done any more, but we can be oh so happy that they once were.
When Christopher Dean was making his way around the ice I was one of the people whose hand he shook. For a while I had ice dancer DNA on my hand!!
One of the amateur skaters fell. She made a funny face as if to say - Oops - but she didn't stay down - she got right back up and finished her routine. Isn't that what it's all about. Getting back up.
I wanted so much to share all this with my husband. I can't - not the way I want to. But I went by myself. I had such a good time. I showed up and allowed myself to be delighted.
It was raining. I can't walk and think at the same time. So after it was over I was thinking of each splendid moment as I walked out into the rain. I fell down. My umbrella went flying. It was London so people came up to see if I was okay. I kept saying so they would know I was all right, "It's okay. I don't know how to ice dance but I know how to fall!" I do. I know how to fall physically and not hurt myself. Partly from doing comedy improv and doing pratfalls - partly just from being klutzy and having my body react to protect itself. Since my husband died I've fallen a lot emotionally. Sometimes it takes a long time to get back up - sometimes a short time. I know how to fall.
When one of the ice dancers was about to go on the ice he said, "Let's go make shapes!!" The blades make patterns in the ice. Isn't that what life is all about? Each day - no - each moment - gives us clean ice. We need to go make shapes. We can't make the shapes we used to make. The shapes will different. But they can still be beautiful. That's it, folks. That was what I took away from the night - Go make shapes!! xo
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Grief: Mother's Day: Skating On Thin Ice
Here I am wanting to finally write a blog post and I am away from home. When I opened my bag my computer was not in it. Still proving I'm perfectly human. I am on a borrowed computer and will have to wait until late Monday night to write something to you. I don't even have a way to know if my computer is at home or it fell out of my bag on the train. Life.
I haven't stopped writing. My Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/GriefSpeaksOut) is a dialogue with many people and I spend time every day posting and answering people. I think the blog will go down to maybe one post a month. I don't want to stop writing it. I know a lot of people - especially with blogs on grief - do stop after a time. It is important to me to continue. Yet, I often find I lack emotional stamina. Especially with the fifth year blues of my own grief.
The above title is my title. I owe you all so much and a blog post.
I didn't want to let Mother's Day go by without saying I am thinking of you. All the mothers who are still mothers but their children have died. All the children who feel lost because their mothers have died. People always assume that everyone is having a "Happy" Mother's Day. We know many, too many, people are not.
I hope tomorrow no matter your sadness, your longing, your pain - you will find something to celebrate in love and memory. xo
I haven't stopped writing. My Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/GriefSpeaksOut) is a dialogue with many people and I spend time every day posting and answering people. I think the blog will go down to maybe one post a month. I don't want to stop writing it. I know a lot of people - especially with blogs on grief - do stop after a time. It is important to me to continue. Yet, I often find I lack emotional stamina. Especially with the fifth year blues of my own grief.
The above title is my title. I owe you all so much and a blog post.
I didn't want to let Mother's Day go by without saying I am thinking of you. All the mothers who are still mothers but their children have died. All the children who feel lost because their mothers have died. People always assume that everyone is having a "Happy" Mother's Day. We know many, too many, people are not.
I hope tomorrow no matter your sadness, your longing, your pain - you will find something to celebrate in love and memory. xo
Monday, April 7, 2014
Grief: Why Is It So Hard To Take Care of Myself?
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
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
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
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