How One Widower Decides (?) What's Next

     The question that is never far from my consciousness is "What would you do if you were me?" Another way of phrasing it is "What is next for me?". For the bereaved it is a question of great importance, as well as being possibly the most difficult question to answer. I have been asking it to myself, to family and to friends for months now.  I get many helpful suggestions, much good advice, but cannot seem to arrive at a suitable answer as of yet.

     I am generally a very decisive person.  In the 32 years I have run my own business I have made any number of crucial decisions: some good, some not so good, but always made without dithering. Now I am dithering.

     There is a good reason to dither. During the first year after losing my loved one, which is approaching its end this month, I have determined that it is unwise to make major life decisions while grieving and mourning. I have passed through periods of depression, periods of contentment, periods of joy, encouragement, and sadness.  Attempting to overlay that circus wheel of emotions with any kind of life altering decisions seems to me to be the height of folly.

     As a purely practical matter, I am in good shape. I am still working, which I enjoy. I have a few bucks put away, have just gone onto Medicare and am in reasonably good health.  I have an incredible group of friends, family and customers who are unwaveringly supportive and helpful.  So there are no compelling reasons why I need to figure out what is next right now.

     So I guess the conclusion I have come to, at least for the moment is this: "what would I do if I were me?". I would sit tight, and consign the problem to my subconscious and let it work itself out over as much time as is needed.  In the meantime, keep watching the horizon for as much light and hope as can be realized.

Cheers, everyone.

MPC:11-01-2015

Gratitude and Other Thoughts...

     I am deep into the 'anniversary season'. A year ago my beloved wife's health was deteriorating as I watched, powerless to halt the march of the disease.  And all those images are still relatively fresh in my mind, making this season somewhat difficult.  I miss Susan terribly, and that will not change, but oddly enough, there are other factors at work that I must acknowledge if I am to be honest with myself.

     The first is gratitude. In spite of the tragedy of losing my wonderful Susan, I have a support system so rich and deep and varied as to make me dizzy. Family, adult stepkids and their incredible spouses, friends, customers, neighbors.  Wonderful, kind, supportive, amazing.  The members of my grief group, with whom I still get together regularly are an example. Incredible people.  I cannot overstate the gratitude I have for everyone.  Secondly, one of the reasons the loss of Susan hurts as much as it does is that we had a deep connection on many, many levels and to lose that is profoundly hurtful.  However, as it occurred to me this week (again): I got to have the honor and privilege of being her husband for 20 years.  To walk the earth hand in hand with a soul so stunning, so magnificent as to take my breath away.  The gratitude for that makes some of the sharp edges of loss somewhat less sharp.

     In addition to the dimension of gratitude is an odd and building interaction with the bathroom mirror.  The image in the mirror says to me, "Wait a moment.  I am not the one who has died.  I am not the one whose problems have all been solved permanently.  I am the one who must figure out how to live in this plane of existence.". I have had (in my mind, of course) a number of interactions like this. Do I need an aluminum foil hat and a prescription for lithium? Probably not. What I need is to start trying to move forward with my life.  Part of my resistance to that whole idea is the fear that doing so would somehow be disrespectful to the memory of Susan.  But especially in the past few weeks I have had a couple of incidents where I almost felt like Susan was telling me to get a move on.  Recommit yourself to your business! Be happy that so many people care about you!

Wow.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
who's the most broken hearted
man of all...
 Hmm...

Not me.
Sad for sure, sometimes lonely
missing her with all my heart

But I got to be her guy
had that honor for 20 years
and that must be enough....

MPC:10-19-2015

The Year of Thinking Dangerously

     I am now deep into the season of anniversaries from last year. One year ago today, after having learned that the cancer had incurred into to my beloved's brain, she elected to come home and into hospice care.  I then in what I can only now imagine was a delusional state, determined that if I made a superhuman effort to see that she was properly medicated, properly fed and hydrated and made to feel loved beyond all measure, that I could keep her alive indefinitely.
     I am experiencing some seriously bad flashbacks to that time, and am also having some deeply felt moments of uselessness (see the poem below), failure (she died on my watch damn it!), and guilt (why her and not me? She was surely more valuable to humanity than I??).
     So for those who are grieving, the approach to the first anniversary is a very difficult time, and all I can advise is that it is best not to spend too much time in your head.  I have a hard time avoiding that (i.e. following my own advice), because I live and work at home and am alone 90% of the time.  I am blessed with a magnificent support system of friends and family, which is of immeasurable help, but this will be a difficult stretch to navigate.
    So stay busy, stay grounded as much as possible, and try to avoid such darkness as is illustrated by this poem:

USELESS 

I wake each autumn day

This question on my lips

Just what is it that I should do

Just what is it that is

Next for me

Now that all has been lost?

I used to have a purpose

To husband Susan, my labor of love

To love to honor to support her life

Was my privilege to fulfill

But she is gone, my task complete

And who am I, what am I to do?

I have survived chaos, turmoil

And the heartbreak of loss

Disease, coma and clinical death

But nothing compares with

This emptiness, this sense of loss

And of uselessness, like half myself

Is vanished to thin air

Susan! Oh Susan!

Would that you could

Take me with you

Take me away to your darkness

To whatever abyss you belong

Please do not leave me here alone

To wither slowly and waste away

There is nothing left for me

There is no light ahead

Save the drudgery of

Every passing day

And of all the words

We left unsaid.

I awake each new morning

And ask myself

What it is I want

What it is I need

To force away the gray

And now I know what I can say!

Oh let me be in the ground!

Please

Let me be in the ground

And go to sleep.

MPC:09-29-2015

   

What Does Healing Look Like?

     Just like healing from a physical injury or disease is seldom a straight line, so too is the process of healing from a loss.  But over the last few weeks, with the help of some intense self examination and awareness, I have managed to receive some insights into healing as well as to experience some actual healing.

     I took a long road trip out to Washington state last month and as part of that, spent six long days in the car driving through state after state.  Such an experience gives one a lot of time to think.  During those long and often lonely stretches of time, I worked on the grief process, listened to music that would make me sad, and basically spent a good deal of that time in active grieving.  While it is unlikely that we can in any way accelerate the process, I felt as though I had arrived at a new perspective after having arrived home from the trip.

     One dimension of the grieving process is the desire for the pain to abate.  That is a constant. And we really must actively search for ways to make that happen.  One of the very best ways to deal with the pain of grieving is to allow yourself to laugh, an incredible antidote to the pain. And when you find yourself enjoying a moment of laughter, it is helpful to stop and acknowledge that moment to yourself.  Lock it in. Give yourself permission to laugh, and grant that permission over and over.

    Another helpful strategy that I discovered quite by accident is to stop stabbing yourself with the sharp edge of the pain of grief.  Yesterday, as is my Saturday habit, I listened to all my favorite NPR Saturday shows: Car Talk, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life, Ask Me Another and so on. During the shows I caught myself saying over and over to myself "Susan would love this". And I realized that every time I did that, I would feel the prick of the pain of missing her.  I resolved, with some success to stop doing that.  It was really the gratuitous infliction of pain. And apparently it was time to discover this habit and break it.  I enjoyed the rest of the day's programs much more, laughed more and acknowledged to myself that I had a great time.

     There is no magic bullet, no magic potion to get us through the process of grief. But we are active participants in the process, and there are steps we can take to help us get through the process while staying sane.

Be well and at peace.

09-13-2015

 

 

Dealing With Multiple Losses

I have no way to judge whether my situation is exceptional, but I was the last living member of my family of origin when my beloved wife passed away several months ago.  My father, mother, sister and brother have all been lost, and now my beloved.  Sometimes I am simply overwhelmed by the cumulative sense of loss and abandonment. 

My father died at the age of 41 when I was 10. I still miss him.  He was a good human being, kind and gentle, with a razor sharp mind, a sense of humor and a calm demeanor.  My mom passed away in 1999 and my sister followed 4 years later.  My brother had simply vanished several year earlier and attempts to locate him were in vain.

Finally, after a 3 year struggle, my wife of 20 years succumbed to her cancer. And with this devastating loss, it seems as though all the losses have knit themselves together into one horrific disaster, feeding upon one another.  

I count myself very lucky that my family and friends have been incredibly supportive, kind and generous with their time and support.  In addition, I have availed myself of more than one support group dealing with loss; have read a number of books that I have found somewhat helpful, and have tried very hard to stay open to everything offered. This seems to be the best way to get through this absolute madness. 

The other thing I have done is resolved not to make any major decisions until at least one year has passed from the time my beloved passed away. Emotions rush by like so much freeway traffic, and I find myself laughing one minute and crying the next.  One cannot make important decisions under such circumstances, or in any event, should not. 

Operating from the position of having no earthly idea what the rest of my life should look like, I get up every day, drag myself through the day doing what is expected of me, leading the life I led when my wife was alive, but without her.  I hate it; detest this colorless, joyless existence that has no Susan in it. But now is not the time to change it. I must be patient with myself and with life in general.  I do invest some measure of hope in the old adage, "This too shall pass".

09-01-2015    

  

Elegy for My Departed Sweetheart on the Occasion of Her Birthday - Matt Cantillon

I met her on a Friday evening

Having dinner at a friends

Her voice, her speech, her acuteness of mind

Robbed me of my breath

As I made my way home that night

Head and heart set awhirl

I knew my life would be changed forever

And I knew she would be a major part…

Friendship followed and it slowly grew

As we took each other’s measure

I helped her and she helped me

And love and respect became our way

She became a healer of those troubled souls

And deftly made her way in life

A stunning mother and parent still

Her children growing loved and true.

And then we became man and wife

Sworn to honor and respect

Standing before the holy person

Professing our I Do’s

And I was made by those very vows

The happiest man alive

She told me she’s been so afraid that

Marriage would upset the scene

But no she said, it only improved

A life already so full of joy

One day soon after sickness came

A tumor in my heart

I at the door of death stood

Ready to depart from my dear love

But I came back from death’s cruel portal

Unwilling to leave my love

Who sang to me and healed my heart

And helped me through that mortal wound.

And so time passed, the children grew

And we moved from place to place

We prospered, traveled and made our jokes

And grew fonder by each day

Until one came a grim grey guest

Unbidden and unseen

A cancer vile and angry moved

Into our lives to stay

A ransom asked, a ransom paid

It brooked no disrespect

We became its servants

Its feudal serfs

And suffered in its wake

My Susan suffered the most of all

From pain from drugs from uncertainty

And I from the thought of loss

And so it was for three long years

We lived in its shadow

Our jokes were stilled

The fires of our joy banked low

I cared for her as best I could

Cursing my inability to cause a miracle

Holding vigil in a darkened room

As the light of my life grew dim

I held her in that darkened room

And whispered her my love

I promised she’d be forever my wife

She asked if I would be all right

For sure I lied for sure

And then she died, the world robbed

A healer wife and mother gone away

A beacon of light gone out that day

And we who loved her are left

To wonder about what plan

Could possibly work this way

No logic applies

In this awful loss

No reason to help us grasp

Why we must live in this dark

Our wife, our mother gone from us.

So must we stay in this crappy world

Devoid of love’s warm touch?

In an empty house

In an empty life

With an empty heart

Susan, the brightest light

The most radiant smile

Lit no more….

MPC For your birthday princess. 08-2015

How Do We Remember?

     When Susan's mom passed away back in 2005, we established a 'remembrance tradition' that we have observed in each year since.  We called it 'Bubbie Day' in honor of Susan's mom, who was 'Bubbie' to all her grandchildren.  On that day, the anniversary of her birthday, we all eat ice cream in her memory.  Bubbie (Ruth) was somewhat of an ice cream fanatic, and so many of us felt this would be a fitting tribute.  And so it is.

      So I am now entering this dreaded "anniversary season', which will last from now until the end of holiday season in January.  Susan's birthday is in August.  Her health really started to decline in August of last year. September marks the anniversaries of the deaths of my father and my younger sister, as well as Susan's and my anniversary. The high Jewish Holidays occur in this time frame, and Susan and I always celebrated them together. My birthday falls in October, followed then by late October and November during which time Susan's health deteriorated horrifically. And then she passed away 11-28 of last year (Thanksgiving), followed by Hanukkah, Christmas and New Years and the anniversary of my mom's passing on January 9.  Pretty relentless, I would say.  

     How do we get through these times?  How do we maintain some shred of sanity while still doing honor to the memory of our lost loved ones?  In that first year after our big loss, I can only posit that distraction is one of the best solutions to dealing with the extra load of grief at these anniversary times. Fill your calendar with things to do; surround yourself with people.  And establish some sort of tradition that you and your family can perform every year to honor your loved one.  

     My Susan was an wonderfully talented artist and also an Art Therapist who helped people with traumatic brain injuries.  So what I think we should do each year on Susan's birthday is to make some art in her honor.  Talent is not required.  Dig out your crayons and color a page of a coloring book. Make a collage; build a house of cards; compose a piece of music (my art of choice).  Susan put so much incredible beauty out into the universe, not only in the art she did, but more importantly in the healing she did.  And in the incredible children she bore and raised. So those of us in her family can honor her by creating something and letting it float out there to join the wonderful things she created and perpetuated..  

Be well and at peace.    

How Do We Move Forward?

I got home the other night from a get-together with some wonderful friends.  These particular friends are members of a bereavement group in which I participated.  We elected to stay a group after the formal group sessions ended in the spring.  We get together biweekly and have periodic social events.  The other day was one of those events.  At our get-togethers, we always share what is going on with us.

I had been going through a rough patch at our previous get together, and I was pleased to report that I was feeling better, and head set some deadlines for myself to accomplish some things that I felt would help me move forward with my life.  The get together ended and we all went our separate ways.  By the time I got home, I had somehow transitioned from a hopeful and cheerful mood to a dark and scary place.  The confidence I had felt and exuded at the get-together had evaporated, and I was left feeling hopeless, abandoned and had no idea how to move forward.  It was a very rude awakening.

I spent a good part of yesterday trying to figure out why my mood had changed so radically in so short a time.  Nothing had happened at the get-together other than wonderful company, a few laughs with people who really “get it” (i.e. what we have all been through).

My sense is that there are many hidden impediments to moving forward from the grief process.  I can, of course, only speak for myself, but I imagine that the process is somewhat similar for all of us who have lost our spouse.  Emotions come and go and we may pass through a number of different emotional landscapes in even a short period of time.

Imagine that you build a life with your sweetheart over decades.  You come to define yourself as part of the marriage.  You develop a certain way of being.  One day, everything changes in the space of a moment.  You lose your loved one.  You are in your sixties.  Everything you know about your life is now null and void.  Like a ship steaming along at 24 knots that has just been torpedoed you keep steaming ahead as you take on millions of gallons of sea water through the massive hole in your ship.  Part of you just really would prefer to lay down and die. 

You are surrounded by artifacts and reminders of the life that is no longer yours.  You cannot imagine another life.  Do you move from your home?  Do you stay in your home and remake it so as to feel less pain?  Do you try at some point to find a new relationship? 

All of these unknowns are profoundly frightening.  You are lonely and you feel the pain of loss, but it is hard to differentiate those feelings. 

How can we cope with this?  How can we eventually move forward?  These sorts of changes are significantly harder for us who are older.  We have the benefit of knowing just how many things in life can go wrong.  Thus we are more resistant to change.  And often we are loathe to give ourselves permission for change, perhaps because at some level we feel that moving forward is somehow disrespectful to the memory of our lost love. 

But as harsh and unremitting as it is, we must face certain facts.  Our life will never be the same.  Our loved one is gone and will not be coming back in this lifetime. We owe it to ourselves to (in our own good time – we cannot force or hurry this process) to build a new life, whatever that life may be.  The answers are different for each of us. But to sit, frozen with fear, in the midst of our sorrow, does a disservice to ourselves and surely is not what our departed loved ones would want for us.

MPC:  07-29-2015

High Functioning Situational Depressive

I had been with my sweetheart, Susan for 17 years when she was diagnosed with stage IIIc ovarian cancer. Up to that time I had always endeavored to be a thoughtful, attentive and caring husband. And she acknowledged this reasonably often.  And when she was diagnosed, I took on the additional job of caregiver, medical advocate, sometime chauffeur (to take her to see her clients) and cranked the loving, attentiveness and thoughtfulness to the max.

I somehow convinced myself that our love would prevail against the disease. This was of course, a delusion, but not an uncommon one.  I have spoken to others whose families have experienced terminal cancer who felt at the outset they could beat it.  Some do, many do not.

When Susan left this life last November 28th, for a time I was simply numb. It was difficult to grasp what had happened, let alone how I was to cope with it.  I participated in two or three grief groups and learned a skill or two, met some wonderful people, many of whom are now friends and fellow 'bereavers'.

Nearly seven months have passed, and I have experienced significant ups and downs emotionally.  I am surrounded by an incredible array of supportive people:family and friends, customers and business associates. They have been and continue to be wonderful.  But I continue to struggle emotionally. It is very difficult for me to see my life as anything but pointless, having been robbed of the main purpose of that life, having been robbed of my very identity.

In essence I am living the same life I was when Susan was with me.  But without her, it seems a joyless exercise of dragging myself through each day, doing what is expected of me.  Intuitively, it seems to me that I need a major change in order to snap out of the blue funk in which I find myself. But what change? What does it look like?  Sell the house and all my stuff and move somewhere new? Join the French Foreign Legion? Run away and join the circus?

Situational depression cannot be treated with medication.  It passes with time and efforts made to cope and heal. In other words you just have to 'guts' it.  So through all of this one question floats to the surface.  And that question is this: what would you do if you were me?

07-19-2015

The Realities of Widowhood

There are many kinds of marriages. There is no one formula for success in a relationship.  My marriage to Susan was the kind that thrived on closeness, on real, deep partnership.  That is not to say we agreed on everything, or did things the same way all the time. But over the two decades we were together, we not only loved each other, but we also liked and respected each other, made each other laugh, supported each others' goals in life and worked together.

To lose that relationship is to lose a very great deal.  In addition to losing the love of my life, I have also lost who I am.  How is that possible?  I came over time to define myself in terms of the relationship, and if the relationship is lost, so then must there be a loss of self, a loss of many roles I played in the relationship, including caregiver at the end.  All of this is ripped away and the loss is devastating.

To those of us to whom this has happened, we find ourselves faced with a massive set of tasks, and at the beginning of the process, these seem insurmountable.  We must grieve and mourn.  We must absorb the loss, deal with the loneliness and recurring despair. And ultimately we must try to figure out how to rebuild a life, redefine ourselves and move forward. And this is not even to mention the myriad practical tasks to which we must tend, all of which have the potential to cause additional pain and suffering.

When our loved ones were still with us, we would face the various difficulties of life together, most often acting as one.  We would support and encourage each other in dealing with whatever would come our way. In our new circumstance, we must accomplish these tasks alone, without the support and encouragement of our partner.  We must get through the grief process, find a new way to define ourselves, put ourselves back together and find a way to continue with life after our truly devastating loss. And we must do so in a way that honors our previous life and relationship.

I am by no means there yet, but have learned to take advantage of each and every extended hand of help and friendship.  I have learned to accept help when it is offered, be it in the form of companionship, conversation or grief support.  I have learned to be open rather than closed.  To close yourself is to halt the grieving process, which is not healthy.

The process is not a straight line.  Right now, I have been feeling relatively awful for a week or so, missing Susan horribly, having numerous meltdowns, and being at a loss as to what to do.  But it will pass. Or it won't.  Such is the reality of widowhood.

07-12-2015  

The Poetry of Loss

I thought I would share with you all some of the words that have sprung from my experience so far.

These span the last 6 months.  The first poem I write the night before Susan passed away.  It came to me in the middle of the night while sitting up with her in the dark living room.

NIGHT WATCH 11-26-2014

It is four AM

I sit in this darkened room

Silent and mournful

Looking at the still artifact that is my sweetheart

Who for 2 decades

Has held my hand on this journey…

The only sound is the hum of the air filter

Then she stirs, a soft moan, then a bolus of pain meds

This valiant woman, who deftly healed troubled souls

Who brought 3 incredible persons into the world

Equipped them with humor, intelligence

And taught them to love….

Oh this cancer, this scourge, this malevolence

There is no mercy in this wretched process

For her, for me, for those who love her

There is only the ticking clock,

The next medicine alarm

And the sorrow and pain

That is bound to follow.

After Susan's Shiva came the holidays, and I was lucky enough not to have to be home alone during that time. But the return home was somewhat of a shock.

RETURN FROM THE ROAD 01-04-2015

Honey I am home!

Oh crap...
greeted by a dark
and cold
and lifeless abode

The new reality
delayed by visits to loved ones
but now
only tick, tick, tick
The home's heart gone
and my heart broken...

And then came the dark times. Winter compounded by loss, loneliness and sometimes despair.

TIRED OF HEARING IT! 01-14-2015

 The songs all talk of heartbreak

About love lost when he or she departs
But they that leave are still around
And one can dwell on what hope imparts

I lost my love to cancer
Watched her wheeled away
Say my good-byes to a silent photo
A box of ashes has nothing to say.

I lost my love to cancer
She cannot be replaced
Her smile her laugh her honest grit
Will nary be erased

A DAY OF DARKNESS 02-07-2015

Oh shuffle me off this mortal coil
Deliver me from all this pointless toil
Please let me join my princess fair
Whose absence I can scarcely bear

Oh shuffle me off this mortal coil
I’ve no desire to be pacing this cage
There’s nothin’ left I need to attend
Just waiting for my time to be at an end…

THE EMPTY ABODE II 02-24-2015

The ticking of the clocks mark
The passage of time
In this museum of loss
This domicile that death has visited

Outside, the grey spume of winter
Lays upon the land as a dirty coat
Its forbidding sneer exhorting all
To keep away, keep away.

I am jabbed from time to time
By the sharpened needle of loss
Reminding me again and again 
What is no longer mine.

This home was once a place of joy
A place where healing came
Where laughter stalked every room
And warmth and love abounded

Save for sleeping, the pain
Of loss is in me, hour upon hour
And I must hide or be crushed
by the weight of what I know

And then finally, as I worked with a grief group full of amazing people, a hint of sunlight began to appear on the horizon...

A RAY OF SUNLIGHT? 04-07-2015

You said, my love
Before you passed
Tell me you’ll be OK
Promise me you’ll be all right

I miss you more today
Than it’s possible to say
You inhabit me and I do grasp
What I lost on that rueful day

But oddly enough I still can laugh
On Saturdays with our radio shows
Albeit wishing you here to share
Each pun, joke and breathless prose

Wounded, limping but standing yet
I move slowly to be sure
And because I had you for my wife
I can pick up the pieces of my broken life

The Lessons of Life

It can sometimes take a lifetime to learn many of the important things there are to learn from life. As horrific as the grieving process is, it offers many an opportunity for learning, if you are open to those opportunities.

I was raised in a significantly chaotic environment, and as a result, became a person who abhorred surprises and a real black and white thinker.  In addition, I always had to have a plan, regardless of the situation.  All of that sprang from being raised in chaos, and for a time those strategies served me well, or so I thought. My wonderful Susan was able to soften the edges of some of those proclivities over time.  I gradually became less rigid, less insistent on trying to know what would be the outcome of any given situation. She gave the gift of spontaneity,  and in addition, and most importantly, she taught me a heightened sense of self awareness, the ability to witness my own behavior and to understand what I was feeling.

Enter the grieving process. Like a physical illness, passing through the grieving process is not linear. In any given day I will experience joy and despair, hope and desolation, loneliness and companionship, confidence and fear.  They roll by like so many frames of a moving picture. And you have to let the process proceed.  Do not try to distract yourself from it, because it is a process that must take place or healing will not happen. It is important, I have learned, to be as open to life as possible during this process. There is much to learn.

For me, one of the most important lessons I have learned is to be grateful for the 2 decades I had with Susan. I had that. It cannot be taken from me.

As I slowly start to understand that there can be a future with some level of satisfaction; as small rays of light start to show through the curtain blackened by grief, I remain open to the moments of sadness and loss, as well as to the moments of pleasure, amusement and joy.  And it is through all those moments that we can heal from our loss.

Happy Fathers' Day
06-21-2015

 

Grief is not something that goes away, but rather is something that you get used to.  As those of us who have experienced the loss of a spouse know, the loss is a devastating experience, and the pain is proportional to the closeness of the relationship.

In my relationship with Susan, my wife and sweetheart for 20 years, we were partners in nearly everything.  Consequently, when she passed away, I was consumed by my grief.  It seemed as though parts of me were missing, and I had absolutely no interest in anything.  I would wake up in the morning and say to myself "What is the &!^*%$ point?" and could find no answer.

I was lucky, though, to have it together enough to know that I needed help dealing with this grief.  I participated in one particular grief group where all the members became bonded and now get together (long after the official group sessions are over) every other week to try to continue the healing process.  It is a wonderful group of people.  They are men and women who understand, who have, like myself, been robbed of the love of their lives.

In addition, my friends, family and business associates have stayed close and been enormously supportive.

With all that support, I began to move in the direction of healing.  I started to see a bit of light on the horizon.  I looked in the mirror and said to myself one day, "Wait a minute! I am not the one who has died.  I am not the one whose problems are all solved.  I have to go on.   I have to make a life.".

I would be lying if I told you it was all better.  It will never be all better.  A future without my Susan is a future diminished, lacking in depth and color.  But it is for me to make that future as rich and colorful as I possibly can.  But the healing process, the process of "getting used to it" will continue. There will be moments of joy, fun and laughter. There will also be moments of longing, sadness and a strong sense of loss.

But is that not the human condition?

A Form of Homelessness

Marriages come in all shapes and sizes. The marriage I had with Susan was such that everything I did was in service of that marriage.  To paraphrase mystery writer Raymond Chandler  about his marriage "She was the light of my life, my whole ambition. Anything else I did was just the fire for her to warm her hands by. That is all there is to say".  Think about your very best high school friend, someone you hung around with all the time, shared your deepest and darkest secrets. your bad jokes, your music and so on.  Now imagine being married to that person, and having all the wonder of that high school relationship wrapped in the intimacy and love of a marriage.  That is what mine was like. 

I was recently away for a couple of weeks, and was constantly reminded of the fact that there was no one at home waiting for me to show up.  It is a daunting thought after 20 years of togetherness. 

Susan and I regarded each other as 'home'.  Home is a state of mind more than it is a place. And we were home to one another.  Susan used to say that we 'did good home' for ourselves and our kids, and indeed for anyone who came by.  It was a place of safety, warmth and love, and everyone could feel it.  

So what are you when that is gone, blown to smithereens by the viciousness of cancer? I would submit that in a very real way, those of us who have been widowed, are homeless. And the challenge is for us to figure out how to rebuild that home and create a safe haven for ourselves. 

I will be exploring that challenge in the next few posts, so stay tuned. 

Suffice it to say that while I have a perfectly serviceable roof over my head and have all the basic necessities of life, not only do I miss Susan with every fiber of my being, but also miss the essence of marriage, which at least for us was that we served as witnesses to each other's lives.  I miss that the most.

 

Mothers' Day

This is my first Mothers' Day without Susan. We are coming up on six months, but this is the first significant "day of celebration" without her.  My sense is that this is a biggie because she was so involved in being a mom. She loved her kids and her kids' sweeties with immense passion and regard. And because of her huge commitment to motherhood, I learned to be a pretty good stepfather, an honor I would not trade for any other thing of value in my life to date.

I am also thinking of my own mother, widowed at the age of 36, and how horrific it must have been for her at a time when little was known about grief and how it works.  She was expected, as were we all (I was told time and again at the age of 10 that 'now I had to be the man of the family') to just pick up and move on. Infinitely easier said than done.

So to Susan, my beautiful princess, mother extraordinaire:Happy Mothers' Day.

And to my own mom, who did the very best she could under awful circumstances:my undying gratitude to you for giving me those things you did. An appreciation of beauty, of art and literature and science; a skeptic's curiosity.  Happy Mothers' Day to you as well.

I will be blogging here from time to time about grief and related issues.  Thanks for reading!