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
Friday, January 17, 2014
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
Grief: It's Been Lovely But I Have To Scream Now
That is one of my favorite bumper stickers. I have had it on my car, on my bathroom mirror, and other places. When Artie was alive I had a bumper sticker on our bedroom door that said "Do Not Disturb: Occupant Is Disturbed Enough Already."
It's been lovely but I have to scream now is what the holidays have felt like to me. I had some lovely times (again - apologies to those of you who have had children and/or grandchildren die) with my daughter Erin and granddaughter Gwendy. My granddaughter is two already and our holiday was her birthday. She had a small party with myself and my daughter on Dec. 20th and then her big birthday party on Dec. 21st. My daughter had "Curious Creatures" come. They bring animals to children's parties. There was a chinchilla, a skunk , a hedgehog, a flying squirrel and many others. There is a picture of me holding a python. I love holding pythons - the first time I held one was in the Amazon rainforest. They are very strong and it makes me feel powerful as long as there is a trainer near me! Gwendy got a child's trampoline and loves to bounce on it while I play her toy drum. We had a small holiday tree with her picture on the top. My idea - because she is an angel (when she's not being VERY two). After her birthday she walked around for a day saying - Everyone ate MY cake. We explained that birthday party cakes were for sharing - but she kept saying - It was MY cake. You ate MY cake. :) We bought her a big girl bed and it arrived the day I left so I could see her bounce on it too. She even slept in it that night. My daughter was also lovely. Our relationship improves all the time.
I was having such a good time. I was also having a stomach ache that wouldn't go away. My daughter and my husband (she is not his child) both liked to have me to themselves so when my daughter began living on her own I spent Thanksgiving with her and Christmas with my husband. I didn't have a stomach ache during Thanksgiving. I asked on my Facebook page Grief Speaks Out if grief causes people to be sick. A lot of people said yes - they talked about colds and headaches and stomach aches. I had never thought of that as a connection.
When I was in the car on the way to the train station Gwendy kept saying - "I don't wan to leave Gammy." I held her hand. I always feel so sad when I leave her. At the same time I am always glad to be back in my own space. My husband said I was a malcontent and I disagreed with him. He was right. He was such a wonderful buffer between me and things in life I find difficult.
I have the same feelings when I go out with friends and have a good time. Afterwards sometimes I have great memories to take with me - but sometimes I just feel like screaming: "My husband is still dead. Don't you get it? Why doesn't anyone understand me?" I think Gwendy and I get along so well because I am so good at being two!
I always talk about transforming grief into joy - about being inspired by Artie's love of life to love it myself. They call them grief bursts or grief attacks and I know they are normal. I am still surprised by them sometimes. What do I do with times that I cherished with my husband now that he is no longer physically here? How do I get the lovely part without the painful screaming part? Haven't figured that out for all the times. Sometimes I am present in the happy moments but I am also always glad to get back to my solitude. Then when I am back in my solitude I feel lonely because it is not easy to adjust to having a dead husband (no matter how alive his spirit is) instead of live one. See... a malcontent!
I have gone out on New Year's Eve since he died but I have chosen this year to spend it alone - with him - which is alone and not alone. He never really liked New Year's Eve so we always spent it together at home. One year I covered all the clocks and we watched Monty Python movies. When I uncovered the clocks it was after 1 am. We laughed and kissed and wished each other Happy New Year. We often watched the ball come down in Times Square on the television. Our last New Year's Eve together boxing or something he wanted to watch was on. When he came down after it was over and asked me if I wanted to watch the ball come down I said no. I was angry that he didn't want to spend the entire night with me. Of course, I didn't know it was our last New Year's Eve together. I didn't even know the cancer was probably already spreading throughout his body. All the precious moments wasted...and all the precious moments shared. I like to remember it all. I like to remember it as it was. It makes the love mean more to me that it wasn't always perfect - that we were often bad at expressing it. I wish I could have a do over though. I want to go back to all those moments that we threw away and make them something different. A perfect love...an imperfect relationship. Yet we kept our promise - Nobody leaves. A love that was truly for better, for worse, in sickness and in health. And even death won't part us now.
Maybe that's part of the screaming part. There is so much I want that is impossible. I want him to come back. I want to relive moments and change history. I want to live to an old age so my family and friends never have to grieve for me - and I want to be with my husband as soon as possible.
At least I have more moments of "It's been lovely" than I used to. The screaming is quieter. The grief has gentled down.
What is it about holidays and dates that make the celebrations often have an undercurrent of stronger pain? My husband is just as dead today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow. It's how I feel about his death that changes. I have my birthday/anniversary (Artie married me for my birthday present) and Valentine's Day coming up. I try to ignore that. It's not being in the present to think of February while it is still December. But like some people are waiting for January 2nd - part of me is waiting for March.
I have a lot of fun things scheduled in January and February. They are things I am looking forward to. I know they will be lovely...but then will I have to scream? I usually don't actually scream - but I do sometimes cry or curse. I am impatient with life and with people. I went out yesterday and was annoyed it was a beautiful day. I wasn't in the mood for a beautiful day. How silly is that?
Of course - I am trying to eat healthy food again. Not medicating myself with sugar. That makes me a lot more temperamental. How normal and how self destructive improperly medicating ourselves is.
I am wandering off into a ramble. Maybe finally writing this blog post is lovely but I am getting to the I have to scream now. I do feel badly that I am not posting as often. I am more productive than I used to be...but nowhere near where I could be.
I wish us all moments of pure loveliness and joy that are not colored with our grief. I have those too. I found myself wandering home after seeing a play with a friend and wound up in front of the giant Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. I didn't feel sorry for myself. I thought about my granddaughter and how much she loved some of the adventures she had in New York City with Gammy and Mommy. I smiled a real smile.
Here's to those real smiles - the ones that go all the way through. Here's to noticing them when they happen and training ourselves to have more of them. With love. xo
It's been lovely but I have to scream now is what the holidays have felt like to me. I had some lovely times (again - apologies to those of you who have had children and/or grandchildren die) with my daughter Erin and granddaughter Gwendy. My granddaughter is two already and our holiday was her birthday. She had a small party with myself and my daughter on Dec. 20th and then her big birthday party on Dec. 21st. My daughter had "Curious Creatures" come. They bring animals to children's parties. There was a chinchilla, a skunk , a hedgehog, a flying squirrel and many others. There is a picture of me holding a python. I love holding pythons - the first time I held one was in the Amazon rainforest. They are very strong and it makes me feel powerful as long as there is a trainer near me! Gwendy got a child's trampoline and loves to bounce on it while I play her toy drum. We had a small holiday tree with her picture on the top. My idea - because she is an angel (when she's not being VERY two). After her birthday she walked around for a day saying - Everyone ate MY cake. We explained that birthday party cakes were for sharing - but she kept saying - It was MY cake. You ate MY cake. :) We bought her a big girl bed and it arrived the day I left so I could see her bounce on it too. She even slept in it that night. My daughter was also lovely. Our relationship improves all the time.
I was having such a good time. I was also having a stomach ache that wouldn't go away. My daughter and my husband (she is not his child) both liked to have me to themselves so when my daughter began living on her own I spent Thanksgiving with her and Christmas with my husband. I didn't have a stomach ache during Thanksgiving. I asked on my Facebook page Grief Speaks Out if grief causes people to be sick. A lot of people said yes - they talked about colds and headaches and stomach aches. I had never thought of that as a connection.
When I was in the car on the way to the train station Gwendy kept saying - "I don't wan to leave Gammy." I held her hand. I always feel so sad when I leave her. At the same time I am always glad to be back in my own space. My husband said I was a malcontent and I disagreed with him. He was right. He was such a wonderful buffer between me and things in life I find difficult.
I have the same feelings when I go out with friends and have a good time. Afterwards sometimes I have great memories to take with me - but sometimes I just feel like screaming: "My husband is still dead. Don't you get it? Why doesn't anyone understand me?" I think Gwendy and I get along so well because I am so good at being two!
I always talk about transforming grief into joy - about being inspired by Artie's love of life to love it myself. They call them grief bursts or grief attacks and I know they are normal. I am still surprised by them sometimes. What do I do with times that I cherished with my husband now that he is no longer physically here? How do I get the lovely part without the painful screaming part? Haven't figured that out for all the times. Sometimes I am present in the happy moments but I am also always glad to get back to my solitude. Then when I am back in my solitude I feel lonely because it is not easy to adjust to having a dead husband (no matter how alive his spirit is) instead of live one. See... a malcontent!
I have gone out on New Year's Eve since he died but I have chosen this year to spend it alone - with him - which is alone and not alone. He never really liked New Year's Eve so we always spent it together at home. One year I covered all the clocks and we watched Monty Python movies. When I uncovered the clocks it was after 1 am. We laughed and kissed and wished each other Happy New Year. We often watched the ball come down in Times Square on the television. Our last New Year's Eve together boxing or something he wanted to watch was on. When he came down after it was over and asked me if I wanted to watch the ball come down I said no. I was angry that he didn't want to spend the entire night with me. Of course, I didn't know it was our last New Year's Eve together. I didn't even know the cancer was probably already spreading throughout his body. All the precious moments wasted...and all the precious moments shared. I like to remember it all. I like to remember it as it was. It makes the love mean more to me that it wasn't always perfect - that we were often bad at expressing it. I wish I could have a do over though. I want to go back to all those moments that we threw away and make them something different. A perfect love...an imperfect relationship. Yet we kept our promise - Nobody leaves. A love that was truly for better, for worse, in sickness and in health. And even death won't part us now.
Maybe that's part of the screaming part. There is so much I want that is impossible. I want him to come back. I want to relive moments and change history. I want to live to an old age so my family and friends never have to grieve for me - and I want to be with my husband as soon as possible.
At least I have more moments of "It's been lovely" than I used to. The screaming is quieter. The grief has gentled down.
What is it about holidays and dates that make the celebrations often have an undercurrent of stronger pain? My husband is just as dead today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow. It's how I feel about his death that changes. I have my birthday/anniversary (Artie married me for my birthday present) and Valentine's Day coming up. I try to ignore that. It's not being in the present to think of February while it is still December. But like some people are waiting for January 2nd - part of me is waiting for March.
I have a lot of fun things scheduled in January and February. They are things I am looking forward to. I know they will be lovely...but then will I have to scream? I usually don't actually scream - but I do sometimes cry or curse. I am impatient with life and with people. I went out yesterday and was annoyed it was a beautiful day. I wasn't in the mood for a beautiful day. How silly is that?
Of course - I am trying to eat healthy food again. Not medicating myself with sugar. That makes me a lot more temperamental. How normal and how self destructive improperly medicating ourselves is.
I am wandering off into a ramble. Maybe finally writing this blog post is lovely but I am getting to the I have to scream now. I do feel badly that I am not posting as often. I am more productive than I used to be...but nowhere near where I could be.
I wish us all moments of pure loveliness and joy that are not colored with our grief. I have those too. I found myself wandering home after seeing a play with a friend and wound up in front of the giant Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. I didn't feel sorry for myself. I thought about my granddaughter and how much she loved some of the adventures she had in New York City with Gammy and Mommy. I smiled a real smile.
Here's to those real smiles - the ones that go all the way through. Here's to noticing them when they happen and training ourselves to have more of them. With love. xo
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Grief: I Wish I Didn't Know The Code
I couldn't sleep so at 3 o'clock in the morning I turned on one of my favorite British murder mysteries - Inspector George Gently. George is played by the intense and lovely actor Martin Shaw. It started with him (an older gentleman) getting a doctor's exam. The doctor tells him he is very fit. Then the doctor says, "When does it hurt most? In the morning or the last thing at night?" They cut away to a totally different setting: his partner being called to the scene of a murder. I'm thinking...if George is healthy why is the doctor asking him when it hurts? Two seconds, it takes me. Oh. The doctor is asking him about his wife's death. When does that hurt most.
They cut back to the doctor's office. The doctor says, "How long has it been?" George says, "4 years, 3 months and two weeks. I don't miss her less, I miss her differently. I think what gets at me is the never again."
I got the code. What else hurts first thing in the morning and last thing at night? Someone you love has died. I open my eyes and I remember. My husband is still dead. I turn over to go to sleep and, by choice I guess, I'm alone. I'm sleeping with ashes and a Yankee jacket. Still. That's when I usually say, "Come back. I know you can't but please come back." It's the silence at the end of the day. It's the time when we would be holding each other and sharing all our stories of what happened to us.
It's a 4 and half years for me. I know Martin Shaw is and actor and George Gently is a character but there is a writer writing this that knows grief. A writer who knows 4 years isn't such a long time and yet it is forever. A writer who knows that you don't miss someone less but you miss them differently - that never again is impossible to accept and yet we have to accept it every minute of every day.
December 11th was my husband's birthday. I did the usual post on Facebook asking people to do something kind for themselves or for someone else in his memory - to keep his smile alive. I heard from some of his friends I don't usually hear from. I went out with my daughter and granddaughter and had a good time. Then I had a bang up fight with my daughter about something to stupid to even mention. It continued the next morning and she said i was "too easily wounded."
Damn straight. I am too easily wounded. I always have been. When my husband was alive I would say "I can't do it, it's too hard." and he would hold me. He was my buffer against the world. He was my anchor. He was my safe place. I want to change all the "was" to "is" but I have been feeling too easily wounded for a long time now. Part of me stopped breathing when he died. I have to keep pounding my heart to keep it going.
I bore myself sometimes with the repetition. I tell other people to accept themselves where they are. I know that people deeply miss the ones they love 40, 50 years after they die. Yet part of me now asks, "Still?" I don't miss him less, I miss him differently. There is a trajectory from the night he died until today. I haven't stood still. Yet some days it is just too much to bear. Then I bear it. But there's a certain tiredness that goes along with it.
There are still days of falling backwards with no one to catch me except myself. I have so many friends and so many good things in my life. Yet I am drawn back to the malcontented part. My granddaughter is going to be 2 already. She is so smart. She makes me laugh and love. We took her to a Rod Stewart concert at Madison Square Garden and she danced and jumped and danced. I have work that satisfies me. I have done a lot to make my husband proud.
But when does it hurt more - first thing in the morning or last thing at night?
Dates and holidays and memories and hope for reunion some day and being present in my present and creating meaning and round and round.
Grief and I walk hand in hand. Sometimes I can dance with it, sometimes it still thwacks me upside the head and I lie down rather dazed.
I have a cold. Colds are miserable. Not serious but miserable. Once I had a cold and I asked Artie to buy me some chicken soup. He went to the store and came back and said he couldn't find any. When I got better I bought about different kinds of chicken soup and didn't say a word - just piled the cans up on the kitchen counter. I miss stuff like that. All the little private jokes that no one else can really understand. We had a code too. I liked that code - the one where we understood each other the way no one else ever could. Where being too easily wounded was okay because he could be my protector.
I wish you ways of creating new traditions and memories to carry you along through the holidays. I wish us all the ability to remember the smiling part of us - the laughing part of us. Now that we know the code...maybe we can be extra tender to ourselves so that even if the hurt doesn't go away we are able to be fully alive with it as a part of us - not the whole of us. Don't make the hole the whole. I guess I wish us silliness as well and the ability to look at the world through the eyes of a small child - with wonder.
What I really wish is that I had a magic wand that could bring all our people back even for a day. The planet would be very crowded that day but what a precious day that would be. With love. xo
They cut back to the doctor's office. The doctor says, "How long has it been?" George says, "4 years, 3 months and two weeks. I don't miss her less, I miss her differently. I think what gets at me is the never again."
I got the code. What else hurts first thing in the morning and last thing at night? Someone you love has died. I open my eyes and I remember. My husband is still dead. I turn over to go to sleep and, by choice I guess, I'm alone. I'm sleeping with ashes and a Yankee jacket. Still. That's when I usually say, "Come back. I know you can't but please come back." It's the silence at the end of the day. It's the time when we would be holding each other and sharing all our stories of what happened to us.
It's a 4 and half years for me. I know Martin Shaw is and actor and George Gently is a character but there is a writer writing this that knows grief. A writer who knows 4 years isn't such a long time and yet it is forever. A writer who knows that you don't miss someone less but you miss them differently - that never again is impossible to accept and yet we have to accept it every minute of every day.
December 11th was my husband's birthday. I did the usual post on Facebook asking people to do something kind for themselves or for someone else in his memory - to keep his smile alive. I heard from some of his friends I don't usually hear from. I went out with my daughter and granddaughter and had a good time. Then I had a bang up fight with my daughter about something to stupid to even mention. It continued the next morning and she said i was "too easily wounded."
Damn straight. I am too easily wounded. I always have been. When my husband was alive I would say "I can't do it, it's too hard." and he would hold me. He was my buffer against the world. He was my anchor. He was my safe place. I want to change all the "was" to "is" but I have been feeling too easily wounded for a long time now. Part of me stopped breathing when he died. I have to keep pounding my heart to keep it going.
I bore myself sometimes with the repetition. I tell other people to accept themselves where they are. I know that people deeply miss the ones they love 40, 50 years after they die. Yet part of me now asks, "Still?" I don't miss him less, I miss him differently. There is a trajectory from the night he died until today. I haven't stood still. Yet some days it is just too much to bear. Then I bear it. But there's a certain tiredness that goes along with it.
There are still days of falling backwards with no one to catch me except myself. I have so many friends and so many good things in my life. Yet I am drawn back to the malcontented part. My granddaughter is going to be 2 already. She is so smart. She makes me laugh and love. We took her to a Rod Stewart concert at Madison Square Garden and she danced and jumped and danced. I have work that satisfies me. I have done a lot to make my husband proud.
But when does it hurt more - first thing in the morning or last thing at night?
Dates and holidays and memories and hope for reunion some day and being present in my present and creating meaning and round and round.
Grief and I walk hand in hand. Sometimes I can dance with it, sometimes it still thwacks me upside the head and I lie down rather dazed.
I have a cold. Colds are miserable. Not serious but miserable. Once I had a cold and I asked Artie to buy me some chicken soup. He went to the store and came back and said he couldn't find any. When I got better I bought about different kinds of chicken soup and didn't say a word - just piled the cans up on the kitchen counter. I miss stuff like that. All the little private jokes that no one else can really understand. We had a code too. I liked that code - the one where we understood each other the way no one else ever could. Where being too easily wounded was okay because he could be my protector.
I wish you ways of creating new traditions and memories to carry you along through the holidays. I wish us all the ability to remember the smiling part of us - the laughing part of us. Now that we know the code...maybe we can be extra tender to ourselves so that even if the hurt doesn't go away we are able to be fully alive with it as a part of us - not the whole of us. Don't make the hole the whole. I guess I wish us silliness as well and the ability to look at the world through the eyes of a small child - with wonder.
What I really wish is that I had a magic wand that could bring all our people back even for a day. The planet would be very crowded that day but what a precious day that would be. With love. xo
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Grief: The Word Is Vulnerable
I like to write more during the holidays because I know they are difficult for so many people. I have spent the last 10 days not quite getting around to doing that. I have spend the last however much time not quite getting around to doing a lot of things. That sounds worse than it is. I have had many lovely times. I have been with my daughter and granddaughter and many friends. I have been trying to think of how to describe how I feel. The word I came up with today is vulnerable.
It is as if my physical immune system isn't bad...but my emotional immune system is almost non-existent. I know it is a combination of the holidays and New Year's Eve and Artie's birthday on December 11th. I know that I say grief has no timeline. I know that people hurt for years. I know I tell people to be gentle with themselves but somehow I am feeling enough. It's enough. It's time for Artie to come back. Wait: that's impossible. It's time for me to stop caring so much. Wait: that seems to be impossible. I've been writing and doing so much work around this why am I spending time still staring into space trying to motivate myself to do things? Why does it still hurt so much? Because it does.
People might say I need to join the living. I have. I do quite a lot. In fact I am busy almost every day. Sometimes. a lot of times. I have a good time. But then I fold up again. I hit the same wall and it doesn't matter how much protective gear I have on; when I hit the wall - the wall wins.
I look and sound strong. I look and sound happy -most of the time. I talk about being alive with grief. I talk about tasting the sweetness of life. I talk about wanting Artie to be proud of me. I have a long list of accomplishments and happy moments. But I feel weak and vulnerable. I feel like I am still an easy target for the dark side of grief.
I went to see a play today. It was an impossible ticket to get and my source got me a single ticket. I sat there wanting to be happy I was there and I was in so much pain. I couldn't share being there with Artie. I couldn't call him up when it was over and talk about it. I remembered seeing plays with Artie and holding hands and snuggling up. I remembered seeing plays by myself and if they were good I would buy two copies of the script and take them back to California where we lived and we would read them out loud. He would take all the male parts and I would take all the female parts.
This was a Beckett play. A sad play. There are two simple lines: "It's a fine day for the races." "But will it hold?" It didn't hold - by the end it was pouring rain. It's a metaphor for life - but for me - a metaphor for grief. Nothing seems to hold. It's always sunny with a thunderstorm or blizzard about to hit. I have succeeded in becoming more productive and generally happier but it doesn't hold. I have a lovely time and come home to what I haven't done in a long time - that simple crying out of wanting the impossible.
In the theater I used the technique of feeling the pain and then looking around at what was there to bring myself into the present. It worked a little. The clutching in my chest went away. I counted the lights. I noticed what people were wearing. There was a woman with a red jacket sitting a row behind a man with a red baseball cap as if they had decided to match. The women behind me were having a funny conversation. But then I kept almost falling asleep during the play. Why? I think it was because it was an elderly couple together. Miserable - it's Beckett - but together. To see them laugh together - and cry together - was more than I could absorb. I'm vulnerable. I wanted that. I don't like laughing and crying without Artie.
Other people understand me - to a point. He understood me completely. He adored me. I was his raison d'être (reason for being) and he was mine. But almost 5 years. Enough already. I want to die and be with him. I want to live and be there for my granddaughter who if you say, "Where does Gammy live?" She says, "New York." I don't ever want that little girl to be said. I don't want Gammy to be living in Heaven. Gammy always comes back. If I'm in Heaven or wherever you go... I can't come back. I don't want my daughter and friends to be sad. I don't want to miss things here.
So I'm caught in this vulnerable place. I've made a space for myself where it is impossible to be happy because I want two things that can't happen at the same time.
I want the pain to go away - but I don't want the pain to go away. The pain is part of loving a man who died. I could take the wedding rings off again but I don't want to.
So that's how I've been feeling. Vulnerable and devastated while all the while I go about doing fun things and having a good time. Erin and Gwendy are coming in tomorrow and we are going to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, and the Nutcracker Ballet, and Rod Stewart at Madison Square Garden because Gwendy has to go to at least one rock concert before she's two. It's going to be a good week while they are here.
But I'm still going to be vulnerable. I am going to see some married couple holding hands or kissing and I am going to forget the happy part of me. I am going to wake up in the morning or turn over to go to sleep and wonder again what the reason is that I'm still here. I know the reason...I am a mother and grandmother and a friend. I write this blog and I do a Facebook page. There are some other good works I have been doing lately.
Nothing is Artie. I still haven't learned how not to be vulnerable to what some people call grief bursts. You are walking along singing Tra la la and all of a sudden it's like you are shot in the heart - again - and you just have to pull out the bullet and go back to singing.
This is starting to sound like something Artie would laugh at. He would tell me to get away from my self pity - get out of my head. He would call me a malcontent. The glass seems half empty and poisoned when actually the glass is overflowing with sweet nectar.
I wish for you this holiday season that you don't feel vulnerable. I wish you to be inspired by all the love and laughter you have had and that still exists around you. I wish you the ability to be present with all that is good in your lives. I wish it for me. Here it is - oops there it goes - here it is again.
Maybe that's just the way it is. Appreciate the openness to the delight - and have the dark be a backdrop. Don't stop trying. Celebrate when you can and weep when you can't.
Tomorrow I am having lunch with two wonderful women and then we are seeing a play - Waiting for Godot. It is a Beckett weekend. Then I am meeting my daughter and granddaughter. What better day could there be for a Sunday? (the ones when Artie was still alive) Leave out the parentheses and let me present for the joy that will be there for me tomorrow if I am willing to feel it. With love. xo
It is as if my physical immune system isn't bad...but my emotional immune system is almost non-existent. I know it is a combination of the holidays and New Year's Eve and Artie's birthday on December 11th. I know that I say grief has no timeline. I know that people hurt for years. I know I tell people to be gentle with themselves but somehow I am feeling enough. It's enough. It's time for Artie to come back. Wait: that's impossible. It's time for me to stop caring so much. Wait: that seems to be impossible. I've been writing and doing so much work around this why am I spending time still staring into space trying to motivate myself to do things? Why does it still hurt so much? Because it does.
People might say I need to join the living. I have. I do quite a lot. In fact I am busy almost every day. Sometimes. a lot of times. I have a good time. But then I fold up again. I hit the same wall and it doesn't matter how much protective gear I have on; when I hit the wall - the wall wins.
I look and sound strong. I look and sound happy -most of the time. I talk about being alive with grief. I talk about tasting the sweetness of life. I talk about wanting Artie to be proud of me. I have a long list of accomplishments and happy moments. But I feel weak and vulnerable. I feel like I am still an easy target for the dark side of grief.
I went to see a play today. It was an impossible ticket to get and my source got me a single ticket. I sat there wanting to be happy I was there and I was in so much pain. I couldn't share being there with Artie. I couldn't call him up when it was over and talk about it. I remembered seeing plays with Artie and holding hands and snuggling up. I remembered seeing plays by myself and if they were good I would buy two copies of the script and take them back to California where we lived and we would read them out loud. He would take all the male parts and I would take all the female parts.
This was a Beckett play. A sad play. There are two simple lines: "It's a fine day for the races." "But will it hold?" It didn't hold - by the end it was pouring rain. It's a metaphor for life - but for me - a metaphor for grief. Nothing seems to hold. It's always sunny with a thunderstorm or blizzard about to hit. I have succeeded in becoming more productive and generally happier but it doesn't hold. I have a lovely time and come home to what I haven't done in a long time - that simple crying out of wanting the impossible.
In the theater I used the technique of feeling the pain and then looking around at what was there to bring myself into the present. It worked a little. The clutching in my chest went away. I counted the lights. I noticed what people were wearing. There was a woman with a red jacket sitting a row behind a man with a red baseball cap as if they had decided to match. The women behind me were having a funny conversation. But then I kept almost falling asleep during the play. Why? I think it was because it was an elderly couple together. Miserable - it's Beckett - but together. To see them laugh together - and cry together - was more than I could absorb. I'm vulnerable. I wanted that. I don't like laughing and crying without Artie.
Other people understand me - to a point. He understood me completely. He adored me. I was his raison d'être (reason for being) and he was mine. But almost 5 years. Enough already. I want to die and be with him. I want to live and be there for my granddaughter who if you say, "Where does Gammy live?" She says, "New York." I don't ever want that little girl to be said. I don't want Gammy to be living in Heaven. Gammy always comes back. If I'm in Heaven or wherever you go... I can't come back. I don't want my daughter and friends to be sad. I don't want to miss things here.
So I'm caught in this vulnerable place. I've made a space for myself where it is impossible to be happy because I want two things that can't happen at the same time.
I want the pain to go away - but I don't want the pain to go away. The pain is part of loving a man who died. I could take the wedding rings off again but I don't want to.
So that's how I've been feeling. Vulnerable and devastated while all the while I go about doing fun things and having a good time. Erin and Gwendy are coming in tomorrow and we are going to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, and the Nutcracker Ballet, and Rod Stewart at Madison Square Garden because Gwendy has to go to at least one rock concert before she's two. It's going to be a good week while they are here.
But I'm still going to be vulnerable. I am going to see some married couple holding hands or kissing and I am going to forget the happy part of me. I am going to wake up in the morning or turn over to go to sleep and wonder again what the reason is that I'm still here. I know the reason...I am a mother and grandmother and a friend. I write this blog and I do a Facebook page. There are some other good works I have been doing lately.
Nothing is Artie. I still haven't learned how not to be vulnerable to what some people call grief bursts. You are walking along singing Tra la la and all of a sudden it's like you are shot in the heart - again - and you just have to pull out the bullet and go back to singing.
This is starting to sound like something Artie would laugh at. He would tell me to get away from my self pity - get out of my head. He would call me a malcontent. The glass seems half empty and poisoned when actually the glass is overflowing with sweet nectar.
I wish for you this holiday season that you don't feel vulnerable. I wish you to be inspired by all the love and laughter you have had and that still exists around you. I wish you the ability to be present with all that is good in your lives. I wish it for me. Here it is - oops there it goes - here it is again.
Maybe that's just the way it is. Appreciate the openness to the delight - and have the dark be a backdrop. Don't stop trying. Celebrate when you can and weep when you can't.
Tomorrow I am having lunch with two wonderful women and then we are seeing a play - Waiting for Godot. It is a Beckett weekend. Then I am meeting my daughter and granddaughter. What better day could there be for a Sunday? (the ones when Artie was still alive) Leave out the parentheses and let me present for the joy that will be there for me tomorrow if I am willing to feel it. With love. xo
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Grief: Holidays Again?
I feel like 2014 is coming before 2013 even happened. How can it be another Thanksgiving coming around without my husband somehow miraculously returned to life to sit in his chair? One year I was eating Thanksgiving dinner with just my husband and my daughter. I said, "Let's we say what we are thankful for before we eat." Going first, I gave a long and thoughtful list of things I was thankful. They looked at each other and then at me and then said, unplanned, but together, "We're thankful for everything. Let's eat." What could I do but laugh?
What can I do but laugh at that memory? I am thankful that most of memories are no longer tainted by the knowledge of my husband's death. I can remember them with only the emotions I had when they happened. I was once in Dallas, Texas, on a short trip, studying John F. Kennedy's assassination. One of the things we did was eerie. We rode the route that he took through Dallas. He was smiling and waving; maybe even enjoying the enthusiasm of the crowds. He didn't know that these were the last minutes of his life. We did. As we got ever closer to the place where he died the tension grew. So it can be with our memories. We don't remember them with the purity they had at the time. We remember them with the tension and the pain that the person we shared them with has died. So many memories in their true, original form are beautiful, and funny, and full of joy and comfort. Remember them as they were. Go back in time to those lovely moments and then bring the good feelings forward into the present. I've practiced that a lot - and I am thankful that I can laugh at that memory. Perhaps I will get a chance to tell that story this year during Thanksgiving dinner.
One person wrote me and said he was afraid that the sadness he was feeling would ruin the holidays for others, especially the children. I hadn't thought of something so simple. I suggested the technique that I have said before - that he look down for a minute and acknowledge the sadness and then look up and really put himself in the present moment...noticing all the colors, the smells, the sound of chatter. This isn't simple - this takes practice. The simple thing is that you can always excuse yourself from the table for the moment to use the bathroom. Everyone has to use the bathroom. If you need to - you can always go into the bathroom, have a good cry, splash water on your face and come out again.
It is difficult to believe the world goes on when the person we love so much has died. How can that be? How can this be the 5th Thanksgiving since my husband died? I just counted on my fingers 3 times. It is. Impossible and yet true. The world has gone on and so have I. I have stumbled and wept. I have cursed and hidden myself away. I have also gotten up and laughed. I have acknowledged blessings and made myself part of the world. I learned this year to even be grateful for my grief. The biggest gift I ever could give my husband is to grieve for him so he does have anguish of grieving for me. I never would have imagined I would learn that this year. Doesn't mean I still don't feel the burden of it...I do. When people say I inspire them I am grateful - but also glad you all don't see me still in my pajamas at noon eating ice cream and watching bad TV. I have those days too. I still cry sometimes. I miss my husband every day in so many ways. However, if I am to be honest, my grief has gentled down. I am more productive. I do laugh more. I have transformed my grief so that I more alive with it. My husband alive in my heart and soul inspires me more often now that my husband dead in reality makes me want only death.
I have had some of the fifth year blues. I have felt exhausted and disinterested. I have gotten help. I have - I think - accepted that this is how my life is. Moments of loveliness where life is - dare I say it - good. Moments where the idea of going through one more day again - one more holiday again - without my husband sitting in the chair next to me seems devastating. Devastating. When I went for my therapy tune-up I was asked how my husband's death makes me feel. I said, "Devastated." I surprised myself. I thought I didn't feel that way anymore. I do. There is a part of me that will always stay devastated. The question is - what will I build around the devastated part? Like a house that is turned to sticks by a tornado - or burned to the ground - and another is built in its place. Like the World Trade Center destroyed by terrorists - which has both a memorial and a shining new building rising toward the sky.
So...here I go with this part of my year. Thanksgiving. Chanukah. My husband's birthday. Christmas. New Year's Eve. My birthday and my wedding anniversary on the same day, Valentine's Day. I must take them one at a time. I will celebrate them and make a space for tears as well.
Thanksgiving is first. I am thankful for each and every grief warrior. I wish I had super powers and I could bring all our people back. I wish we had met because of another reason than grief. Yet, I am glad that we understand and support each other. I am glad we can be honest with each other. In 25 years if I am still alive I will probably be writing some of the same things. A stranger asked me if I was trapped in the past. I said, "Absolutely not." I love my husband - his spirit is very much alive. It is my love for him and his for me that I am most grateful. This love enriches my present and my future. What a silly thing it would be for me to forget about it or make it less important that it is. It isn't my prison; it is my open door. If I let it be, my grief is my angel wings that allows me to fly.
I am thankful for my little family - my daughter and granddaughter. I am thankful for loving friends. I am thankful for good books and good theater. I am thankful for kind and funny strangers. i am grateful for ice cream and elephants and indoor plumbing. I am thankful for warm clothes and the way stars look at night. This is a good what else question. Ask yourself what you are thankful for and say or write it down. When you run out of things - ask yourself again - What am I thankful for? Think of more things. If your answer is I am so angry or sad I'm not thankful for anything - say..."Yes, I am so angry...I am so sad...I feel like I am not thankful for anything. But what else? What small thing can I be thankful for." I know you are thankful for the time you had with person you are grieving for. That's one. You can find more.
In the United States Thanksgiving seems to have become very small this year. Many countries do not celebrate it - or celebrate it on a different day. What ever is happening each day....find something to celebrate. Find something to be thankful for. I hope for you that during this holiday season you are surprised by many moments in which you find yourself smiling instead of crying.
I just realized. I have been longing for my husband to sit beside me again. I have forgotten. He always is. Nobody leaves is what we used to say. Death is final in so many ways. However, if I do not feel him sitting beside me, perhaps that is my fault - not his.
I wish you extra love and give you many hugs during a time when seeing happy intact families can hurt. I wish you the ability to feel your beloved dead's spirit all around you. I am grateful for each and every one of you. I think you are very special and very brave. Take tender care of yourself. xo
What can I do but laugh at that memory? I am thankful that most of memories are no longer tainted by the knowledge of my husband's death. I can remember them with only the emotions I had when they happened. I was once in Dallas, Texas, on a short trip, studying John F. Kennedy's assassination. One of the things we did was eerie. We rode the route that he took through Dallas. He was smiling and waving; maybe even enjoying the enthusiasm of the crowds. He didn't know that these were the last minutes of his life. We did. As we got ever closer to the place where he died the tension grew. So it can be with our memories. We don't remember them with the purity they had at the time. We remember them with the tension and the pain that the person we shared them with has died. So many memories in their true, original form are beautiful, and funny, and full of joy and comfort. Remember them as they were. Go back in time to those lovely moments and then bring the good feelings forward into the present. I've practiced that a lot - and I am thankful that I can laugh at that memory. Perhaps I will get a chance to tell that story this year during Thanksgiving dinner.
One person wrote me and said he was afraid that the sadness he was feeling would ruin the holidays for others, especially the children. I hadn't thought of something so simple. I suggested the technique that I have said before - that he look down for a minute and acknowledge the sadness and then look up and really put himself in the present moment...noticing all the colors, the smells, the sound of chatter. This isn't simple - this takes practice. The simple thing is that you can always excuse yourself from the table for the moment to use the bathroom. Everyone has to use the bathroom. If you need to - you can always go into the bathroom, have a good cry, splash water on your face and come out again.
It is difficult to believe the world goes on when the person we love so much has died. How can that be? How can this be the 5th Thanksgiving since my husband died? I just counted on my fingers 3 times. It is. Impossible and yet true. The world has gone on and so have I. I have stumbled and wept. I have cursed and hidden myself away. I have also gotten up and laughed. I have acknowledged blessings and made myself part of the world. I learned this year to even be grateful for my grief. The biggest gift I ever could give my husband is to grieve for him so he does have anguish of grieving for me. I never would have imagined I would learn that this year. Doesn't mean I still don't feel the burden of it...I do. When people say I inspire them I am grateful - but also glad you all don't see me still in my pajamas at noon eating ice cream and watching bad TV. I have those days too. I still cry sometimes. I miss my husband every day in so many ways. However, if I am to be honest, my grief has gentled down. I am more productive. I do laugh more. I have transformed my grief so that I more alive with it. My husband alive in my heart and soul inspires me more often now that my husband dead in reality makes me want only death.
I have had some of the fifth year blues. I have felt exhausted and disinterested. I have gotten help. I have - I think - accepted that this is how my life is. Moments of loveliness where life is - dare I say it - good. Moments where the idea of going through one more day again - one more holiday again - without my husband sitting in the chair next to me seems devastating. Devastating. When I went for my therapy tune-up I was asked how my husband's death makes me feel. I said, "Devastated." I surprised myself. I thought I didn't feel that way anymore. I do. There is a part of me that will always stay devastated. The question is - what will I build around the devastated part? Like a house that is turned to sticks by a tornado - or burned to the ground - and another is built in its place. Like the World Trade Center destroyed by terrorists - which has both a memorial and a shining new building rising toward the sky.
So...here I go with this part of my year. Thanksgiving. Chanukah. My husband's birthday. Christmas. New Year's Eve. My birthday and my wedding anniversary on the same day, Valentine's Day. I must take them one at a time. I will celebrate them and make a space for tears as well.
Thanksgiving is first. I am thankful for each and every grief warrior. I wish I had super powers and I could bring all our people back. I wish we had met because of another reason than grief. Yet, I am glad that we understand and support each other. I am glad we can be honest with each other. In 25 years if I am still alive I will probably be writing some of the same things. A stranger asked me if I was trapped in the past. I said, "Absolutely not." I love my husband - his spirit is very much alive. It is my love for him and his for me that I am most grateful. This love enriches my present and my future. What a silly thing it would be for me to forget about it or make it less important that it is. It isn't my prison; it is my open door. If I let it be, my grief is my angel wings that allows me to fly.
I am thankful for my little family - my daughter and granddaughter. I am thankful for loving friends. I am thankful for good books and good theater. I am thankful for kind and funny strangers. i am grateful for ice cream and elephants and indoor plumbing. I am thankful for warm clothes and the way stars look at night. This is a good what else question. Ask yourself what you are thankful for and say or write it down. When you run out of things - ask yourself again - What am I thankful for? Think of more things. If your answer is I am so angry or sad I'm not thankful for anything - say..."Yes, I am so angry...I am so sad...I feel like I am not thankful for anything. But what else? What small thing can I be thankful for." I know you are thankful for the time you had with person you are grieving for. That's one. You can find more.
In the United States Thanksgiving seems to have become very small this year. Many countries do not celebrate it - or celebrate it on a different day. What ever is happening each day....find something to celebrate. Find something to be thankful for. I hope for you that during this holiday season you are surprised by many moments in which you find yourself smiling instead of crying.
I just realized. I have been longing for my husband to sit beside me again. I have forgotten. He always is. Nobody leaves is what we used to say. Death is final in so many ways. However, if I do not feel him sitting beside me, perhaps that is my fault - not his.
I wish you extra love and give you many hugs during a time when seeing happy intact families can hurt. I wish you the ability to feel your beloved dead's spirit all around you. I am grateful for each and every one of you. I think you are very special and very brave. Take tender care of yourself. xo
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