I knew I was feeling overwhelmed and confused but I didn't realize it had been so long since I had written. I can't get in sync with my life. At the beginning I cried all the time and I spent hours in bed watching DVDs or just staring at the wall. Then I started doing a little more. I made myself go out with no expectation of feeling anything or being present. Then life crept back in and I started accomplishing more, having more happy moments. But I still took a lot of down time. Grief was a full time job for me. I needed to shut off from everything and numb myself out to go back into the world again and do things. My husband is dead. It hurts all the time. It just does.
Now I have created this very magical life. I have friends who are good and loving people. I have my blog and my Facebook page - Grief Speaks Out. I have several book ideas - one on grief of course - some children's stories - and maybe other writing. No - I haven't written a word. I have movies I am consulting on. I have started traveling again. I have the time I spend with my daughter and granddaughter. I am exhausted. I don't know how to function as a full time person. I never did, really. But my husband was there to hold me up when I fell down. He was there to tell me he loved me just the way I was. I could curl in his arms and feel safe and loved. I always write about him being with me in spirit - in every way he can - and I believe that. It doesn't stop me from feeling that I am doing this all alone.
It is my daughter's 40th birthday and she is having a grand party in California. My room is on the beach. There are 26 adults and 13 children. Everyone is having a great time. On one side of me is a couple I really like who have been married many years - on the other side is a couple I really like who met late in life and feel so grateful to have each other. Hello self pity!!
I thought about it last night. I have never been an overly social person. I remember one summer Artie and I rented a place on the beach. He met a couple who invited us over to their place. I asked him why he wanted to go. He was my person. He understood me. I went out in the world, I had friends, I travelled but Artie was my person. He was who I wanted to be with. He is who I want to be with. When I isolated myself I isolated myself with him. He knew me. He understood me. He got my bad jokes. Our love was forever - we used to say all the time - nobody leaves. He called it buying the whole package. Nothing either one of us could do would ever separate us. Then came cancer. He died. He left. He didn't want to but he was too sick to stay.
I so often stand outside of myself watching myself knowing I am having a really fun moment - a really beautiful moment - but I can't feel it. I'm there but not there. I'm smiling. I'm laughing. Sometimes when I go out, while I'm on my way I say to myself - Please let me look and sound like a person - as if a person is something I have forgotten how to be. There is a gap between how others see me and how I feel myself.
It's not true that I never have fun. My husband used to say that all we have are moments. I have a lot of fun moments. I have enjoyed some things very much on these special days. I am so proud of my daughter and the woman she has become. To see her surrounded by friends of all ages from all around the country makes my heart glad.
So why, this morning, am I sitting in my room - not even outside my room - by myself. Why do I want to cry? Why does the loneliness come up and strangle me? Why did I come in last night so early when everyone would have loved me to stay?
It's funny really. I was all settled in for the day - thinking I would hide out and read and catch up on things on the computer. My daughter just came by and said she wants me on the beach with them - she doesn't want me to wait until the barbecue at six. I said - give me an hour to get more social.
That's the thing isn't it. Life keeps calling. We are alive. When life calls what are we going to do...go back into our rooms and slam the door shut or go out to meet it?
My answer is still a bit of both. A lot more going out to meet it than at the beginning - but still too much slamming the door shut.
But the door won't stay shut.
The door keeps opening.
I think my husband is opening it. I think he is saying, "I am holding you. Go get 'em Panache." Or as my granddaughter says, "You can do it, Gammy."
That is my work, my challenge, every day. To take this enormous dark cloud of grief and put it to the side for enough time to be alive - to have fun - to be present for my life until it is time for me also not to be alive.
I still have my solitary hour. Then I will go out into the sunshine and try to feel my husband's smile shining all around me warming the coldness of my heart into one that can authentically laugh, love and have fun.
Wish me luck! xo
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Grief: Still Trying To Figure It Out After Almost Five Years
Five years? How can my husband be dead for five years on July 17th? How is that possible? How is it possible I survived, some may argue even thrived? Every day I still cry "Come back. Please come back. I know you can't, but please come back." Some days I do say it out loud. Some days I do cry or get angry. Even when I don't think it at all it feels like I still cry it out somewhere in my psyche.
I remember those first days and nights. I would cry and reach my arm to the ceiling as if by doing so my husband would grab on to it and pull me up. I got my images mixed up and pictured him with angel wings gathering me into a swan boat kind of flying thing. Then I had to laugh because I realized I was on the 2nd floor of an apartment building. I pictured him with his feathers in his feathered air boat saying as he came down through all the ceilings and floors, "Excuse me. Don't pay any attention to me...I'm just going to get my wife."
I even went and sat on the bench in Central Park with the plaque I bought that says "Artie and Jan Warner, Mr. Dazzle and Mrs. Panache, I love you. You're my heart. Always". I thought. You can get me from here. No ceilings, no floors, just take me straight up. I knew by then he wouldn't.
I thought of going to him. I was his wife - right? So suicide was my obligation. When he was alive we used to joke about my throwing myself on his funeral pyre. I researched suicide for three months. Really researched it. I could't give my family and friends the grief and pain I was feeling. In my fantasy they would let me go - but I knew in real life they would be beyond hurt and lost. Especially my daughter.
So - what was I going to to do with this tattered thing I never really wanted? My life. It took me 10 years to become Mrs. Artie Warner, Mrs. Boss. The people he sponsored in AA in Phoenix called him Boss - so I was Mrs. Boss. Alcoholics Anonymous. It was the center of his life. I would make myself available to other grieving people the way he was always available to other alcoholics and addicts. I would make sure to tell his story; our story. Always. I wouldn't be a waste of space (i never was - but that was how I felt) if I was helping others. I sent my first blog post into cyberspace not knowing if anyone would every read it. I had no idea we would become an international love story.
My Facebook page was a year old on July 10th. My husband's life by touching mine, my life by wanting to do something to honor him means that I, a very ordinary - definitely flawed human being - have been able to reach many people who have in turn reached out to many other people. At the time I write this: the blog Stop Thief Don't Steal My Grief gets over 4,000 hits a month - the Facebook page Grief Speaks Out reaches sometimes two million people from all over the world a week. I am astonished. I exchange messages with a12 year old girl in Pakistan - woman in Bosnia, a man in Namibia. At a Buddhist retreat posting with a Buddhist man in Nepal. All I am doing is saying My husband died and this is what I feel. It turns out that people who have any kind of grief at all need to hear and say that. If it has been a month or 40 years we all need to say - I love my beloved dead. I miss then every day. It never stops hurting. We can support each other simply by listening. I thought when I finally got the courage to share my biggest craziest secret that my husband's ashes are in their original sealed plastic bag in a big decorative pillow on my bed so I still sleep with what I have left of him - that everyone would laugh and run away. Instead I found out that a lot of people sleep with the ashes of the person they love either on their bed or near them
Nothing you do - nothing I do - is crazy. If we are not hurting ourselves or others - it is all a normal part of grieving. The question is - do the actions we take - does what we feel serve us? Does it serve me? Is what I think and feel and how I act something that makes my husband proud? I'm good at falling down - have I also gotten good at standing up?
I am at a retreat. The space that not talking made in my brain when the teacher asked us to look backward - not into our past - but into ourselves - to look into the looker - see into the see-er let a totally new thought come in. This is me, "Hello. I'm Jan. My husband's dead." That's how I identify myself. Usually within the first 10 minutes of meeting someone. With friends - by always talking about him and us. That's a good thing.
Is it a good thing? Why do I not say, "Hi. I'm Jan. I am a writer and and producer and creative consultant on documentaries."? Why do I not say, "Hi. I'm Jan. I'm Erin's mom and this amazing two year old Gwendy blue eyes' grandmother."? That question. Who am I? I am a person who grieves her husband. Yes. I am a person who grieves her husband but who else am I? There are a lot of answers to who else am I?
My husband and I had/have a deep love. We also fought a lot and I felt lonely when I was married. Towards the end I was sad and frustrated. Then I knew he was very ill and his doctor said I was wrong. In Carl Bergstrom's office I was literally screaming at Carl that Artie needed to be in the hospital. Carl looked at Artie; not at me and said, "Don't l listen to her. She's hysterical." I went to NYC and said I wasn't coming home until he went to the emergency room. I had learned during our 23 years how to out negotiate my negotiator. I believed Carl enough that I thought when Artie got to the hospital they would fix him up and he would be fine. He had stage 4 cancer that was in almost every organ. His blood pressure was low (Carl told him to drink Gatorade) not because he needed more fluids but because he was bleeding internally. He was hallucinating not because he was taking too much valium (he was taking it to try to cope with the pain) but because he had tumors in his brain. He died only six weeks after he was correctly diagnosed. Yet - it was a loving dying time. People visiting. Jazz always playing. He told me he was sorry for all the ways in which he had failed me. I said I was too and in that moment all the anger and sadness fell away so that deep and pure love could re-emerge. We held hands and listened to music and talked of many things. We were like teenagers in the midst of first love. I watchedl husband finally understand that he was loved and that he had done good in this world. Those were lovely moments.
Then he was dead and I was saying goodbye to his body before they took it away.
Hello. I'm Jan. My husband's dead. He's dying right now. He died almost five years ago but it feels like it's happening right now and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
But I didn't die. I used to say - and still do sometimes by mistake - We died instead of He died. But I didn't die. People say all the time - I can't breathe. But I am breathing. Is it time to acknowledge what he has known and I haven't seen - there is a Jan without Artie? He is always with me - but I am alone without him. I have down dark days. I collapse sometimes - but I have created a rather magical life for myself.
When I described what I do with the blog and the FB page - Grief Speaks Out - the teacher at the retreat said I do heavy lifting. I have never thought of it that way. I am here with two dear women friends. A lot of my friends I have made since he died. I live a life of service in his honor. I have a lot of fun with different people. I have a granddaughter who says we hold each other up. When my daughter yelled at me - my granddaughter ran after her saying - "Don't yell at my Gammy. It's not nice to yell at my Gammy." She says sometimes, "I love you my Gammy Gammy." What could be sweeter than that?
Having my husband back would be sweeter. Five years and I still can't believe that face I'm looking at on the pictures on my bed in this smallish dormitory room doesn't exist - hasn't existed for five years. That voice on the recordings - it's gone. They are gone forever. When I die my physical self will be gone too. Will we get to be together? I hope so. I believe in it because it keeps me able to function - believing that even though he died almost five years ago - our journey has continued - will continue for eternity.
The universe has pushed the pause button. I keep hitting play and it won't play. I am in love with a dead guy. i wear his wedding ring with mine because he has no finger to put his on. Do I continue to choose loneliness for myself or do I look for a live guy? I have the love of family and friends. Is that enough? Am I supposed to be faithful until I die or do I get new arms to cuddle up with? Is looking for new arms to hold me a betrayal? I don't know. I know many widows who have found new arms even though they love and miss their husbands who died.
I just have this seed of a new idea. I can be Jan. Not Jan and Artie. Not Mrs. Artie, Mrs. Boss. I am uncomfortable even writing it. My chest hurts. Yet...it is possible that this is my next step. Letting the interdependence (not co-dependence) not even go - I can't picture that without falling down on the floor and staying there for a long while -but letting the interdependence fall away to another level. Hi. I'm Jan. A whole conversation without mentioning my husband. It seems harder than climbing Mt. Everest.
I have no desire to climb Mt. Everest but maybe the me that is inside me want to come out as her own person. Hi. I'm Jan. Who are you - each of you - if you identify yourself without talking or thinking about your beloved dead - even for only five minutes? Yes you are grieving. But...who else are you? What happens if you let your name stand alone?
I wonder. I'm Jan. Who are you? With love. xo
I remember those first days and nights. I would cry and reach my arm to the ceiling as if by doing so my husband would grab on to it and pull me up. I got my images mixed up and pictured him with angel wings gathering me into a swan boat kind of flying thing. Then I had to laugh because I realized I was on the 2nd floor of an apartment building. I pictured him with his feathers in his feathered air boat saying as he came down through all the ceilings and floors, "Excuse me. Don't pay any attention to me...I'm just going to get my wife."
I even went and sat on the bench in Central Park with the plaque I bought that says "Artie and Jan Warner, Mr. Dazzle and Mrs. Panache, I love you. You're my heart. Always". I thought. You can get me from here. No ceilings, no floors, just take me straight up. I knew by then he wouldn't.
I thought of going to him. I was his wife - right? So suicide was my obligation. When he was alive we used to joke about my throwing myself on his funeral pyre. I researched suicide for three months. Really researched it. I could't give my family and friends the grief and pain I was feeling. In my fantasy they would let me go - but I knew in real life they would be beyond hurt and lost. Especially my daughter.
So - what was I going to to do with this tattered thing I never really wanted? My life. It took me 10 years to become Mrs. Artie Warner, Mrs. Boss. The people he sponsored in AA in Phoenix called him Boss - so I was Mrs. Boss. Alcoholics Anonymous. It was the center of his life. I would make myself available to other grieving people the way he was always available to other alcoholics and addicts. I would make sure to tell his story; our story. Always. I wouldn't be a waste of space (i never was - but that was how I felt) if I was helping others. I sent my first blog post into cyberspace not knowing if anyone would every read it. I had no idea we would become an international love story.
My Facebook page was a year old on July 10th. My husband's life by touching mine, my life by wanting to do something to honor him means that I, a very ordinary - definitely flawed human being - have been able to reach many people who have in turn reached out to many other people. At the time I write this: the blog Stop Thief Don't Steal My Grief gets over 4,000 hits a month - the Facebook page Grief Speaks Out reaches sometimes two million people from all over the world a week. I am astonished. I exchange messages with a12 year old girl in Pakistan - woman in Bosnia, a man in Namibia. At a Buddhist retreat posting with a Buddhist man in Nepal. All I am doing is saying My husband died and this is what I feel. It turns out that people who have any kind of grief at all need to hear and say that. If it has been a month or 40 years we all need to say - I love my beloved dead. I miss then every day. It never stops hurting. We can support each other simply by listening. I thought when I finally got the courage to share my biggest craziest secret that my husband's ashes are in their original sealed plastic bag in a big decorative pillow on my bed so I still sleep with what I have left of him - that everyone would laugh and run away. Instead I found out that a lot of people sleep with the ashes of the person they love either on their bed or near them
Nothing you do - nothing I do - is crazy. If we are not hurting ourselves or others - it is all a normal part of grieving. The question is - do the actions we take - does what we feel serve us? Does it serve me? Is what I think and feel and how I act something that makes my husband proud? I'm good at falling down - have I also gotten good at standing up?
I am at a retreat. The space that not talking made in my brain when the teacher asked us to look backward - not into our past - but into ourselves - to look into the looker - see into the see-er let a totally new thought come in. This is me, "Hello. I'm Jan. My husband's dead." That's how I identify myself. Usually within the first 10 minutes of meeting someone. With friends - by always talking about him and us. That's a good thing.
Is it a good thing? Why do I not say, "Hi. I'm Jan. I am a writer and and producer and creative consultant on documentaries."? Why do I not say, "Hi. I'm Jan. I'm Erin's mom and this amazing two year old Gwendy blue eyes' grandmother."? That question. Who am I? I am a person who grieves her husband. Yes. I am a person who grieves her husband but who else am I? There are a lot of answers to who else am I?
My husband and I had/have a deep love. We also fought a lot and I felt lonely when I was married. Towards the end I was sad and frustrated. Then I knew he was very ill and his doctor said I was wrong. In Carl Bergstrom's office I was literally screaming at Carl that Artie needed to be in the hospital. Carl looked at Artie; not at me and said, "Don't l listen to her. She's hysterical." I went to NYC and said I wasn't coming home until he went to the emergency room. I had learned during our 23 years how to out negotiate my negotiator. I believed Carl enough that I thought when Artie got to the hospital they would fix him up and he would be fine. He had stage 4 cancer that was in almost every organ. His blood pressure was low (Carl told him to drink Gatorade) not because he needed more fluids but because he was bleeding internally. He was hallucinating not because he was taking too much valium (he was taking it to try to cope with the pain) but because he had tumors in his brain. He died only six weeks after he was correctly diagnosed. Yet - it was a loving dying time. People visiting. Jazz always playing. He told me he was sorry for all the ways in which he had failed me. I said I was too and in that moment all the anger and sadness fell away so that deep and pure love could re-emerge. We held hands and listened to music and talked of many things. We were like teenagers in the midst of first love. I watchedl husband finally understand that he was loved and that he had done good in this world. Those were lovely moments.
Then he was dead and I was saying goodbye to his body before they took it away.
Hello. I'm Jan. My husband's dead. He's dying right now. He died almost five years ago but it feels like it's happening right now and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
But I didn't die. I used to say - and still do sometimes by mistake - We died instead of He died. But I didn't die. People say all the time - I can't breathe. But I am breathing. Is it time to acknowledge what he has known and I haven't seen - there is a Jan without Artie? He is always with me - but I am alone without him. I have down dark days. I collapse sometimes - but I have created a rather magical life for myself.
When I described what I do with the blog and the FB page - Grief Speaks Out - the teacher at the retreat said I do heavy lifting. I have never thought of it that way. I am here with two dear women friends. A lot of my friends I have made since he died. I live a life of service in his honor. I have a lot of fun with different people. I have a granddaughter who says we hold each other up. When my daughter yelled at me - my granddaughter ran after her saying - "Don't yell at my Gammy. It's not nice to yell at my Gammy." She says sometimes, "I love you my Gammy Gammy." What could be sweeter than that?
Having my husband back would be sweeter. Five years and I still can't believe that face I'm looking at on the pictures on my bed in this smallish dormitory room doesn't exist - hasn't existed for five years. That voice on the recordings - it's gone. They are gone forever. When I die my physical self will be gone too. Will we get to be together? I hope so. I believe in it because it keeps me able to function - believing that even though he died almost five years ago - our journey has continued - will continue for eternity.
The universe has pushed the pause button. I keep hitting play and it won't play. I am in love with a dead guy. i wear his wedding ring with mine because he has no finger to put his on. Do I continue to choose loneliness for myself or do I look for a live guy? I have the love of family and friends. Is that enough? Am I supposed to be faithful until I die or do I get new arms to cuddle up with? Is looking for new arms to hold me a betrayal? I don't know. I know many widows who have found new arms even though they love and miss their husbands who died.
I just have this seed of a new idea. I can be Jan. Not Jan and Artie. Not Mrs. Artie, Mrs. Boss. I am uncomfortable even writing it. My chest hurts. Yet...it is possible that this is my next step. Letting the interdependence (not co-dependence) not even go - I can't picture that without falling down on the floor and staying there for a long while -but letting the interdependence fall away to another level. Hi. I'm Jan. A whole conversation without mentioning my husband. It seems harder than climbing Mt. Everest.
I have no desire to climb Mt. Everest but maybe the me that is inside me want to come out as her own person. Hi. I'm Jan. Who are you - each of you - if you identify yourself without talking or thinking about your beloved dead - even for only five minutes? Yes you are grieving. But...who else are you? What happens if you let your name stand alone?
I wonder. I'm Jan. Who are you? With love. xo
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Grief: I Never Get Used To...
I never get used to...so much.
I was warned. The fifth year is tough.
I am trying to change how I feel by changing my language. I have a good time now - often - when I do something I've planned but I never look forward to anything. I miss out the fun of anticipating things. My brain is not easy to train. Or my heart. I am sitting in a hotel room waiting for my daughter to pick me up to take me to her house. (I didn't sleep there because they are remodeling things and I am allergic to dust etc...) We are taking Gwendy blue eyes (my granddaughter) with us to London. She is so excited. She loves a cartoon character called Peppa Pig and we are going to Peppa Pig World. A friend of mine guides at Hampton Court - the palace that Henry VIII built for Anne Boleyn. She is going to make a treasure hunt for Gwendy there - and has a little costume for her to wear. There's the zoo and much more. For me - when they leave I'm going with another friend to see the Monty Python reunion and Bill Nighy in a play. Then flying back to Boston for the fourth of July with Erin and Gwendy.
So why am I sitting here with a knotted ball of fear in my chest? I got in yesterday thinking I would like a little time by myself I couldn't stand it. Artie wasn't here - of course not - I mean - he's been dead for almost five years. When I travelled by myself the first thing I did when I got to a hotel room was call him to tell him I was okay - and to make sure he had my phone number and room number. Love before cell phones! Five years of not being able to do a simple thing like call him and hear his voice. I turned on the TV and ate through the mini-bar.
I could have gone for a walk - I could have written about my feeling - I could have meditated - I could have made so many other choices. My whole being just went - I can't stand this - I have to go numb.
Those stupid grief triggers - grief bursts - grief attacks - assassin grief. Whatever you want to call it. Ouch.
When my daughter and granddaughter came over for dinner I had a lovely pillow fight with my granddaughter. She brought me a stuffed animal to sleep with. She told me a story about how we love each other and we miss each other and that if I didn't dream about frogs I would get a time out!! So much fun.
But now - in the in between time - I am frightened of nothing. They used to call it free floating anxiety. I don't know what they call it now. I'm not in my familiar place. I've left all my "Artie" things at home. I took a picture of his picture. Can't take a picture of him any more - so took the picture of his picture. Self pity...a skill I really don't need.
If it was someone else I would have all kinds of good things to suggest. Dark and light. Sadness and joy. Take tender care of yourself. Sometimes it all feels like blah blah blah.
I will have a good time. Somehow that doesn't help in the in between time. There is that time when the layer of sadness and loss and ache and stumbling around rises to the top and covers everything else. I wish I handled it better when that happens. I do. Some times. Some times I don't.
So...off I go...taking my grief with me on more adventures.
Nothing fills that missing piece. The place where my husband used to be. He has moved out of town and I have to wait to join him. He didn't move away because he wanted to. He is still with me in a lot of ways.
It is not enough. Some moments I just can't handle it. Maybe that is okay. Maybe next time I can handle it without the chocolate chip cookies! or not. I can remind myself what I am reminding myself of now...soon I will have another layer of me taking a turn. The waiting lasts forever (or so it seems) but my sadness doesn't have to. By the time you finish reading this I may be somewhere smiling or laughing.
Show up. Take a chance. Don't let the dark side of my grief win...take it out to explore the world. Off I go...if not right now...soon.. xo
I was warned. The fifth year is tough.
I am trying to change how I feel by changing my language. I have a good time now - often - when I do something I've planned but I never look forward to anything. I miss out the fun of anticipating things. My brain is not easy to train. Or my heart. I am sitting in a hotel room waiting for my daughter to pick me up to take me to her house. (I didn't sleep there because they are remodeling things and I am allergic to dust etc...) We are taking Gwendy blue eyes (my granddaughter) with us to London. She is so excited. She loves a cartoon character called Peppa Pig and we are going to Peppa Pig World. A friend of mine guides at Hampton Court - the palace that Henry VIII built for Anne Boleyn. She is going to make a treasure hunt for Gwendy there - and has a little costume for her to wear. There's the zoo and much more. For me - when they leave I'm going with another friend to see the Monty Python reunion and Bill Nighy in a play. Then flying back to Boston for the fourth of July with Erin and Gwendy.
So why am I sitting here with a knotted ball of fear in my chest? I got in yesterday thinking I would like a little time by myself I couldn't stand it. Artie wasn't here - of course not - I mean - he's been dead for almost five years. When I travelled by myself the first thing I did when I got to a hotel room was call him to tell him I was okay - and to make sure he had my phone number and room number. Love before cell phones! Five years of not being able to do a simple thing like call him and hear his voice. I turned on the TV and ate through the mini-bar.
I could have gone for a walk - I could have written about my feeling - I could have meditated - I could have made so many other choices. My whole being just went - I can't stand this - I have to go numb.
Those stupid grief triggers - grief bursts - grief attacks - assassin grief. Whatever you want to call it. Ouch.
When my daughter and granddaughter came over for dinner I had a lovely pillow fight with my granddaughter. She brought me a stuffed animal to sleep with. She told me a story about how we love each other and we miss each other and that if I didn't dream about frogs I would get a time out!! So much fun.
But now - in the in between time - I am frightened of nothing. They used to call it free floating anxiety. I don't know what they call it now. I'm not in my familiar place. I've left all my "Artie" things at home. I took a picture of his picture. Can't take a picture of him any more - so took the picture of his picture. Self pity...a skill I really don't need.
If it was someone else I would have all kinds of good things to suggest. Dark and light. Sadness and joy. Take tender care of yourself. Sometimes it all feels like blah blah blah.
I will have a good time. Somehow that doesn't help in the in between time. There is that time when the layer of sadness and loss and ache and stumbling around rises to the top and covers everything else. I wish I handled it better when that happens. I do. Some times. Some times I don't.
So...off I go...taking my grief with me on more adventures.
Nothing fills that missing piece. The place where my husband used to be. He has moved out of town and I have to wait to join him. He didn't move away because he wanted to. He is still with me in a lot of ways.
It is not enough. Some moments I just can't handle it. Maybe that is okay. Maybe next time I can handle it without the chocolate chip cookies! or not. I can remind myself what I am reminding myself of now...soon I will have another layer of me taking a turn. The waiting lasts forever (or so it seems) but my sadness doesn't have to. By the time you finish reading this I may be somewhere smiling or laughing.
Show up. Take a chance. Don't let the dark side of my grief win...take it out to explore the world. Off I go...if not right now...soon.. xo
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Grief: Still Crazy After All These Years
I am sitting here on Father's Day trying to get many different things done. The news is on in the background. I am not really listening but every once in a while I hear yet another tale of grief or someone saying, "Happy Father's Day" without giving a thought to anyone who that simple phrase might feel more like a sharp blade through the heart than a cheery wish. I don't know why I don't play music. It would be so much better. Or those hypnosis CDs (I am so old I still write tapes and have to correct it) that I have been meaning to listen to for about three months now.
I'm coming up on the fifth anniversary of my husband's death. I cannot believe I have lived so long after the day of his death. I thought in the beginning surely he would come get me. How much I would have missed if he had. I wouldn't have known Gwendy blue eyes, my granddaughter, I wouldn't have made so many memories with my daughter and new friends that came in to replace those who disappeared. I wouldn't have been here with old friends who stayed. There are so many things I wouldn't have experienced. There are so many people that would not have experienced me. No blog. No Grief Speaks Out. It is confusing.
What is confusing? How I want more than anything to just lie down and join my husband. How I want more than anything to never have my daughter have to tell my granddaughter that Gammy isn't coming back. I never want to make that little girl cry.
Five years ago I was desperate and devastated every second of every day. Now that devastation and loneliness and agony is still there - but it is a layer of who I am. I have a rather magical life and sometimes I can even be present to enjoy it. Sometimes both at the same time. I went to see with two woman friends an amazing production of the Shakespearian play Macbeth with Kenneth Branagh. Part of the time I was dazzled - part of the time it was like I wasn't really there. Why? The last time I saw Kenneth Branagh he was playing Hamlet and I was sitting next to my husband holding hands. When the play was over we talked about it all the way back to our hotel. That happens a lot. Me being present having a great time - a genuinely great time - and then the moment of OUCH! or getting sleepy - or wanting to go home and crawl into bed.
I have been feeling overwhelmed lately - doing more things as I wanted to - planned for - on this unwanted grief journey. I posted about that on Facebook.com/GriefSpeaksOut and within 3 seconds I had someone post that they felt the same way. That's it, isn't it. That's why we need to talk about it. That's why I need to keep writing the blog. I'm not the only one still crazy after all these years - most of us are - in one way or another. I have people tell me after 35 years, after 50 years it all comes back. It hurts every day...just in a different way.
I took little Gwendy to a cemetery and when she climbed over the graves I had her say hello to the people buried there. There were two flat stones with red flowers blooming in between them. On the husband's stone it said, "Gone Before." I looked - he had died in 1933 - his wife (with the same name) had died in 1961. Seems like a long time to wait.
It's not really crazy - it's just grieving. Those who call it complicated or morbid are wrong. It's just grief. For some, perhaps, it goes away. For most it gentles down, the contours of it change. But does it end? Not in my life. In my life every morning - and every waking minute - and then every sleeping minute I am conscious of my grief. As much as I feel my husband with me spiritually - even talking with him and hearing what he says (not in his voice - he doesn't have a voice - it isn't an auditory hallucination) he is not HERE - he cannot come back HERE and HERE with me is where I want him.
So my grief - my craziness - is something I walk around - use - get knocked down by - get disoriented by - get challenged by. Some days I transform it beautifully. Other days not so much.
I don't know why I still meet new people with the news my husband is dead. I don't know why I tell people his opinion about things. I don't know why I keep telling his stories. That's not true. I still can't imagine Jan without Artie. I don't want to imagine myself that way. Why is he still so much a part of me. I don't know. He is. When someone is alive you expect their loved one to talk about them and share things with them. Who says this has to stop just because they died?
People ask me more often if I'm dating. I say now if someone I liked asked me out or fixed me up I wouldn't say no. But nothing happens that way. I still wear my husband's wedding ring and mine and I think I must have a neon sign on my head that says "Married to a dead guy." For some reason - no matter how many widows I see who are quite happily remarried - it still feel like cheating to me. I still feel married.
I guess the best thing - if it isn't hurting you too much - and isn't hurting others too much - is to learn to love your crazy. This year I made arrangements to go on a retreat with two women friends in July. I didn't realize I will be there in silence on the fifth anniversary of my husband's death. I am bringing chocolate. I am asking my friends to leave me alone and not worry about me if I stay in my room all day - or be surprised if I show up somewhere. I don't want to be hugged or patted. Almost five years and as i wrote that last sentence tears came to my eyes along with though, "No. He can't be dead."
He is.
I'm alive.
So are you. Alive. Whatever you do that you think is crazy probably isn't - it's probably being felt or done by millions of other people in the world who just aren't telling anyone either.
Mary Oliver asks, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
The first thing is to find a way to actually think of your life as still precious. The second thing is to show up and keep showing up. No that's wrong. The first thing is just to breathe. To accept each breath as having a reason.
Gwendy blue eyes says we hold each other up. She means when we hold hands we don't fall down or maybe she understands that "We hold each other up" has a deeper meaning. I have a lot to learn from that little two year old.
If you are still breathing - what else are you going to do? What else am I going to do so every day my husband will be saying - "You go girl!! I called it right when I nicknamed you Panache!"
What am I going to do with my wild and precious life? Some moments it is still watching too much TV and eating too much or even staring at the wall - but other days it really is quite splendid. Why? Because my husband loves me and being fully alive with grief is the best way to honor that love. xo
I'm coming up on the fifth anniversary of my husband's death. I cannot believe I have lived so long after the day of his death. I thought in the beginning surely he would come get me. How much I would have missed if he had. I wouldn't have known Gwendy blue eyes, my granddaughter, I wouldn't have made so many memories with my daughter and new friends that came in to replace those who disappeared. I wouldn't have been here with old friends who stayed. There are so many things I wouldn't have experienced. There are so many people that would not have experienced me. No blog. No Grief Speaks Out. It is confusing.
What is confusing? How I want more than anything to just lie down and join my husband. How I want more than anything to never have my daughter have to tell my granddaughter that Gammy isn't coming back. I never want to make that little girl cry.
Five years ago I was desperate and devastated every second of every day. Now that devastation and loneliness and agony is still there - but it is a layer of who I am. I have a rather magical life and sometimes I can even be present to enjoy it. Sometimes both at the same time. I went to see with two woman friends an amazing production of the Shakespearian play Macbeth with Kenneth Branagh. Part of the time I was dazzled - part of the time it was like I wasn't really there. Why? The last time I saw Kenneth Branagh he was playing Hamlet and I was sitting next to my husband holding hands. When the play was over we talked about it all the way back to our hotel. That happens a lot. Me being present having a great time - a genuinely great time - and then the moment of OUCH! or getting sleepy - or wanting to go home and crawl into bed.
I have been feeling overwhelmed lately - doing more things as I wanted to - planned for - on this unwanted grief journey. I posted about that on Facebook.com/GriefSpeaksOut and within 3 seconds I had someone post that they felt the same way. That's it, isn't it. That's why we need to talk about it. That's why I need to keep writing the blog. I'm not the only one still crazy after all these years - most of us are - in one way or another. I have people tell me after 35 years, after 50 years it all comes back. It hurts every day...just in a different way.
I took little Gwendy to a cemetery and when she climbed over the graves I had her say hello to the people buried there. There were two flat stones with red flowers blooming in between them. On the husband's stone it said, "Gone Before." I looked - he had died in 1933 - his wife (with the same name) had died in 1961. Seems like a long time to wait.
It's not really crazy - it's just grieving. Those who call it complicated or morbid are wrong. It's just grief. For some, perhaps, it goes away. For most it gentles down, the contours of it change. But does it end? Not in my life. In my life every morning - and every waking minute - and then every sleeping minute I am conscious of my grief. As much as I feel my husband with me spiritually - even talking with him and hearing what he says (not in his voice - he doesn't have a voice - it isn't an auditory hallucination) he is not HERE - he cannot come back HERE and HERE with me is where I want him.
So my grief - my craziness - is something I walk around - use - get knocked down by - get disoriented by - get challenged by. Some days I transform it beautifully. Other days not so much.
I don't know why I still meet new people with the news my husband is dead. I don't know why I tell people his opinion about things. I don't know why I keep telling his stories. That's not true. I still can't imagine Jan without Artie. I don't want to imagine myself that way. Why is he still so much a part of me. I don't know. He is. When someone is alive you expect their loved one to talk about them and share things with them. Who says this has to stop just because they died?
People ask me more often if I'm dating. I say now if someone I liked asked me out or fixed me up I wouldn't say no. But nothing happens that way. I still wear my husband's wedding ring and mine and I think I must have a neon sign on my head that says "Married to a dead guy." For some reason - no matter how many widows I see who are quite happily remarried - it still feel like cheating to me. I still feel married.
I guess the best thing - if it isn't hurting you too much - and isn't hurting others too much - is to learn to love your crazy. This year I made arrangements to go on a retreat with two women friends in July. I didn't realize I will be there in silence on the fifth anniversary of my husband's death. I am bringing chocolate. I am asking my friends to leave me alone and not worry about me if I stay in my room all day - or be surprised if I show up somewhere. I don't want to be hugged or patted. Almost five years and as i wrote that last sentence tears came to my eyes along with though, "No. He can't be dead."
He is.
I'm alive.
So are you. Alive. Whatever you do that you think is crazy probably isn't - it's probably being felt or done by millions of other people in the world who just aren't telling anyone either.
Mary Oliver asks, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
The first thing is to find a way to actually think of your life as still precious. The second thing is to show up and keep showing up. No that's wrong. The first thing is just to breathe. To accept each breath as having a reason.
Gwendy blue eyes says we hold each other up. She means when we hold hands we don't fall down or maybe she understands that "We hold each other up" has a deeper meaning. I have a lot to learn from that little two year old.
If you are still breathing - what else are you going to do? What else am I going to do so every day my husband will be saying - "You go girl!! I called it right when I nicknamed you Panache!"
What am I going to do with my wild and precious life? Some moments it is still watching too much TV and eating too much or even staring at the wall - but other days it really is quite splendid. Why? Because my husband loves me and being fully alive with grief is the best way to honor that love. xo
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Grief: No no no - No More Normal
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
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
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
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