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