Closing Time

     It is about time to wrap this up. It has been 20 months since my sweetheart left this life, and while this has been a profoundly miserable twenty months, on the heels of a somewhat miserable 3 years (the length of time Susan was ill), I have learned a great deal about myself, and about the grief process.

     I should say first and foremost, that my friends and family have been integral to my being able to get through this time, and included in that group is my wonderful group of customers.  They have unfailingly been there for me, and I cannot say thank you loud enough or long enough.

     If someone were to ask me for advice on how to get through a trauma like this, I would have to say that the best strategy is to get up each day, muscle your way through the day, watching for moments when you can actually smile, lock each of those in, and go to bed, get up the next day and repeat. Do it often enough and it becomes habit.  In addition, be open. Be open to what happens. Be open to the people who love you, and whom you love.  As much as you may want to, don't close your heart and don't close your mind.

     It is OK to be miserable. It is OK to be angry, to be resentful of what has happened. Too often we fall victim to the 'tyranny of positive thinking'.  I am a realist.  But do remember that emotions are like the passing clouds on a summer day. They come and go. They pass through making way for something else.  Miserable one moment, sad and crying the next, missing your loved one the next, laughing the next, solving a problem the next; that is how it has been for me.

     One of the most difficult things to master during this period is the idea that you CAN give yourself permission for many things. You have been used to consulting with your beloved for however long, and the idea that you can give yourself permission is a novel one. It is hard, but do it. Practice.

     I have learned that I absolutely detest living alone. Of the 44 years of my 'adult' life, I have been in relationship the best part of 39 of those years. I miss Susan to core of my being. We were so much a part of each other, and silence and solitude are a poor substitute for my partner who on her worst days was kind, loving, generous, funny, smart and a huge source of light, in addition to being incredibly good company. But just because she is gone and I am alone does not mean that I/we cannot have some enjoyment in our lives.

     I suspect that for each of us who has lost a beloved spouse, a part of us does not want to heal, does not want things to be 'OK'. I have seen evidence of that in myself. At some level we feel that if we heal, if we make things OK, we are somehow disrespecting the memory of our departed loved one. Just remember, we're here and they are not. Their problems are solved. Yours are not. Allow yourself the latitude to feel OK. You will likely always miss your beloved, as I am sure I will. But you do not have to make that the coat rack upon which you hang your entire life.

     Some months ago, I developed some significant shortness of breath.  Thinking the problem was related to my asthma, I sought help from my primary care physician. She prescribed some strong medicine, but the problem only grew worse. She recommended I see my cardiologist, and lo and behold, the problem turned out to be a significant case of ventricular arrhythmia, which caused my heart to function very inefficiently, resulting in shortness of breath.  I am to have a cardiac procedure at the end of September to hopefully resolve the situation.  But having had to face this situation more or less alone (at least psychologically) has been a new experience. I have found some strength I did not know I had. And once again my friends and family have been there for me. My heart has been broken physically and also metaphorically, but I think I will be fine.

     I am not 100% sure what the future will look like, but once the heart thing is resolved, I will begin to move forward. And be OK.

     One more thought to share with you about the grieving process. I have learned to appreciate what I will call 'rich emotional experiences'. When you allow yourself to feel your emotions, you can learn a great deal about yourself. And in the past couple of years there have been, as I am sure you can imagine, a wealth of these moments. Feel them, Don't stuff them. It's not healthy.

     I will be starting a new blog, perhaps featuring writing (a putative second career?) in the form of poetry, short stories and essays.  I'll keep you posted.

     Be at peace everyone. All my love....

MPC:08-02-2016

   

   

   

     And so today I have a poem for you.  It has occurred to me recently that the focus of grief has shifted, and I dwell less on the pain of loss and more on what a future for myself might look like. I think this is a positive step, remembering that no healing process is ever a straight line.  But for you, my family and friends who have been such a blessing to me, please take comfort that the healing has begun in earnest....

The Land of Loss 

I am a denizen of the land of loss

   A place I have come to know too well.

A place of sorrow, a place of pain

   A horrid place in which to dwell.

Where the fallen leaf is more highly prized

   Than those still brimming with life.

One may not travel to this dark land

   But that the transit must be paid

With broken heart and yearning soul

   And anguished mind thus made

By a departing loved one

   Snatched away by life’s indifference.

We come to know this wretched place

   and we learn to speak its tongue.

Down the ladder we descend

   To its very bottom rung.

To ascend again may ne’re come to be

   Consigned we are to its darkness.

But time does pass and truth does out

   As we grieve our love’s demise.

And we slowly learn each passing day

   That our spirits will slowly rise.

We cannot dwell in darkness till

   Our time on earth is done.

There is a piece of each of us

   That will forever bear the hurt

The stain of loss a scarlet symbol

    That we cannot then avert

But may we each learn to make

   Our own wreckage into art.

And send it back to those we love

   whose lives we may still touch

and in doing so our time down here

   we can come to value such

that we may help those new ones

    who come here after us.

The Installation of Hope

I have been a widower for just over 17 months.  I stood over the still form of my beloved Susan in the early hours of November 28^th of 2014, as her breathing became increasingly ragged and finally ceased at 5:45 AM.  Heartbroken, then as now, I knew to the depths of my soul that from that day forward my very best day possible would never be even 10% as good as my very worst day when Susan was alive. And nothing has happened since then to convince me otherwise, and thus that fact has become one of the underlying assumptions by which I live.

Susan and I had a unique and incredibly sustaining relationship that spanned our personal and work lives. We worked together, made bad jokes together, were creative together and much more. I could not then, nor can I now imagine life without her at my side.  A large part of me became very badly broken when she died.

They say that time heals all wounds, but I still feel very incomplete. But, given my intensely questioning nature, I am forced to consider the idea that for some reason, I do not want to heal.  Is that possible?  And if it is, why would that be?  Here are some ideas that have occurred to me. One possibility is that I fear that if I stop being heartbroken that I am somehow being disloyal, or failing to properly honor Susan’s memory. This is certainly worth consideration.  Another real possibility is just good old-fashioned human resistance to change.  If I remain in the twilight land of the lost, I am not moving on, living the same life I did when Susan was here, and thus not changing. Also worth some thought.  Or maybe I simply don’t have a clue how to proceed.  Or it could be a combination of all of the above.

It is indeed a daunting task to disassemble a comfortable life of multiple decades and then try to envision and construct a new life out of whatever pieces of the old one seem worth hanging on to.  That cannot be minimized. Also not to be minimized is the idea expressed above that life has been diminished almost in its entirety by the loss of my beloved partner. I have yet to find a way around that being the first and last thought I have each day.  However, I find that I spend an increasing amount of time trying to analyze whether or not I might be ‘stuck’, and how to become 'unstuck'.  And I spend an increasing amount of time trying hard to envision some sort of future that is in some way satisfying. And sometimes I actually can.

My Susan was a healer. And she often told me that her job centered around a very simple concept: the “installation of hope”.  And she was a miracle worker when it came to that particular talent. One need not be a person of faith (as indeed I am not) to have hope. Hope is one of those elemental things that makes us human. We can envision, we can daydream. And I know that one of my most important tasks at hand is to overcome the inertia created by my loss and start dreaming of a future. The “installation of hope” begins with the glimmer of belief that somehow, someday, some way, the hurt will lessen, the darkness will brighten, the sadness and heartbreak will be alleviated to at least some degree, and some reasons to go on will present themselves. This is what I am working very hard to try to accomplish.

Time to put out the second installment of the Soundtrack of a Life Rebuilding.  Here you go:

• By Way of Sorrow - Cry Cry Cry (Written by Julie and Buddy Miller - see below)
• Love Will Find You Again - Pierce Pettis
• So Says the Whippoorwill - Richard Shindell
• I think It's Going to Rain Today - Norah Jones (Written by Randy Newman)
• Rain - Rose Cousins (Written by Patty Griffin)
• Arrow - Cheryl Wheeler
• Ghost in This House - Michael Johnson (Written by Hugh Prestwood)
• Come With Me - Tania Maria
• Joan of Arc - Jennifer Warnes and Leonard Cohen
• Walls - Tommy Emmanuel (Written by Pam Rose and Mary Anne Kennedy)

1. The #1 song above is almost a hymn about the installation of hope after a massive heartbreak/trauma. Here are the lyrics:

BY WAY OF SORROW – Julie & Buddy Miller

You've been taken by the wind
You have known the kiss of sorrow
Doors that would not take you in
Outcast and a stranger

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

You have drunk a bitter wine
With none to be your comfort
You who once were left behind
Will be welcome at love's table

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

...

All the nights that joy has slept
Will awake to days of laughter
Gone the tears that you have wept
You'll dance in freedom ever after

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these... You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

I work hard daily to find reasons to hope…

Cheers all!

MPC:05-05-2016 

Soundtrack for a Life Rebuilding

    Hawaiians have a wonderful expression for what many of us call "shooting the breeze". Hawaiians are fond of saying that they sit around "talking story". And that expression captures the essence of what is to be human. After all, what do we have, what is it that we actually possess as we weave our way through the journey of life?

    All we really have is our story, and our connections with those for whom we have feelings. Everything else is "stuff". And believe me, stuff, regardless of how much, how big, or how valuable, is inconsequential.

   When unfortunately we are called upon to learn the language of loss, in my opinion the most difficult language there is to learn, it is my experience that we come to understand better the value of our story, the stories of those we know, and our connections with others.  I have written down much of my story, some in the form of these essays, some in short story or poetry format, and some in the form of a couple of novella-length stories. In doing so, I have also undertaken to understand the stories of my friends and family who have been kind enough to rally around me during my time of grieving. In doing so, I have discovered that I truly love to hear peoples' stories. There is something valuable to learn in each and every one. So I really want to hear your stories, if I have not already, and again if I have.

    While I have been grieving, there have been 3 things that have sustained me.  The first and foremost, of course is the wonderful (damn, now I am getting weepy), people who have stayed close:friends and family, from whom I have learned the love of story and the immense value of conversation. The second is my love of music, which has helped me through some of the worst minefields of grief. And a third is a new and interesting fondness for cooking and food. I guess we could call this a hobby. But these are the things that keep me wanting to get up in the morning, even in the darkest frames of mind.

   So to my friends, my family and all those who have helped me traverse this time of sadness and periodic despair, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  And to the universe I thank you for all the beauty you provide: the art, the music, the literature, the architecture, the ideas....

   I am instituting a new feature today on this blog.  I will call it "The Soundtrack of a Life Rebuilding".  Every so often I will list 10 songs that have provided inspiration, solace, needed tears, and much more.  So here it is, and cheers: have a wonderful week!

The Soundtrack of a Life Rebuilding - Set 1

1) Sittin' on Top of the World - Richard Shindell - South of Delia
2) Take it Down (John Hiatt) - The Wailin' Jennies - 40 Days
3) Symphony #2 - The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughan Williams
4) Don't Go - Tania Maria - The Best of Tania Maria
5) If You Were For Me - Rose Cousins - If You Were For Me
6) Dimming of the Day - Alison Krauss and Union Station - Paper Airplane
7) Paper Aeroplane - Kasey Chambers - Wayward Angel
8) I Don't Know Why - Shawn Colvin - Fat City
9) Street Life - The Crusaders - Street Life
10) Build Me Up From Bones - Sarah Jarosz - Build Me Up from Bones

MPC:04-24-2016

Solitude or Isolation?

     When my father died, I was ten years of age and my siblings and I lived under some rather odd circumstances. My mom was, in addition to being grief stricken, also an alcoholic, and I felt during that part of my upbringing a kind of terror that cuts deep pathways into the brain. It is the kind of terror that only solitude and isolation can create, and usually only in a child.  It is the feeling that there is no one around you that can help you, or understand your situation.  That feeling of terror lasted into my adulthood, when it certainly was no longer useful, if indeed it ever had been.

     Over time I learned to deal with solitude, to make sure it never became isolation (at least the self-imposed kind), and was in a much better place in that respect when I met Susan.  Then, for over two decades, not a moment went by that I felt alone in any way. Now, of course, she is gone. And while I certainly do not feel anything like the childhood terror I felt at age 10, there are many aspects of this involuntary solitude that are very difficult.

     Aside from the constant companionship we experienced, our partnership was such that I aspired to be the very best person I could be, and so did she. In addition to that, I experienced a great deal of positive reinforcement from her as my partner. That in turn simply made me want to be better and better.  And that of course, led to the unshakeable notion that I was a useful person. Useful to her, to the kids, to my clients and so on. Much of that vanished when Susan died. I can tell myself until I am blue in the face that I am useful to someone, but it is not the same. I can tell myself I’ve done a good job on some project or other, but it has little or no meaning, certainly not like it had come from her.

     On any given day, it occurs to me somewhat frequently that I am really and truly alone.  I am the only member of my family of origin still alive, and I have lost my partner, spouse, love of my life.  On the one hand, some of the terror I felt as a young child seeps through into my consciousness from time to time, causing me to have a great deal of difficulty seeing any good reason to go on.  On the other hand, I keep thinking (really as hard as I can) that the rest of my life is mine to make the best (or worst of).  I just wish there was an easier way to understand exactly how to proceed to do that.

MPC 04-13-2016

Escape to Nowhere

So today is Easter, which is a ‘holiday’ I have not much celebrated for quite some time, and am not really celebrating today.  Much like so many such days, I am alone, contemplating the whys and wherefores of having had my life burned to the ground 16 months ago tomorrow.

A few days ago, tired, sick and scared, I drove myself to the ER at the instruction of my doctor’s office. I was in pain and had evidence that I had some internal bleeding, which it turns out had occurred but had stopped by the day of the trip to the ER. After much testing and sitting around waiting, they were unable to tell me why I was in pain and urged me to have further testing in order to ascertain the cause of the bleeding, which had come and gone.

In the past, when either I or my beloved wife had any type of medical crisis, we were there for each other, could discuss how best to handle it, and would care for one another until the crisis had passed. And believe me, we had some doozies, including one instance where I had a major heart attack at the precise moment when her cancer recurred for the first time.  A scary narrative, to be sure, but we dealt with it, supported each other, and got through it.

It is impossible to describe the feeling of desolation I had Thursday morning walking into the ER.  The idea that had something more severe or debilitating happened, rendering me incapacitated, there would have been no one to notice until perhaps there was the ripe smell of decomposition coming from the house.  Since then I have tried to think if there is somewhere I could go where I might not feel so isolated, so on my own. There is not.

Make no mistake, I know there are many friends and family members close by that care a great deal, and who would go to extraordinary lengths to be helpful to me in any kind of emergency. But that is significantly different than being in the kind of marriage in which I was for 20+ years.  Never lonely, never isolated, never frightened. My friends and family have their own lives, their own families, and are not responsible for alleviating my sense of dread, my sense of isolation. That is not in their job description, nor should it be.

There is no good answer to this conundrum. It is one of life’s most horrific occurrences. There is nowhere to which to escape. Well, except perhaps one…

03-27-2016:MPC

A Question I've Never Asked Before?

     I was raised by parents who believed strongly in selflessness.  The theme of "not being selfish" was hammered home constantly, not only in words, but in deeds.  On Christmas Day, for example, we always opened up our home to the kids from a small orphanage in our neighborhood, and many of the gifts my sibs and I received would disappear. This was one of the ways in which we were taught to put others first.  It was difficult to grasp at first, but gradually I grew to understand the whole idea. And for me, the idea stuck.

     When I got to high school and college that ethos was further enshrined in the idea that "Your life is all about service to others". That is what the Jesuits taught us. And that dovetailed nicely with what I had learned as a small child.  I fervently hope that for the 65 years I have been on this earth that I have honored what I have been taught.

     However there is a problem inherent in this line of reasoning, especially if the reasoner is a black and white thinker, as I was for so many years. Thus "Your life is all about service to others" can morph into "Any attempt to think about or meet your own needs is selfish and therefore wrong". And that is what happened to me over time. This used to drive my beloved wife crazy. I used to marvel at her ability to know what she wanted and to articulate it. I could not do that. Slowly over time she tried, using some of her therapy skills, to get me to at least admit that I could not be useful to others if I were not useful to myself. In other words, as she used to say so eloquently, "How can you take care of me when you cannot take care of yourself".  I was, slowly and grudgingly able to evolve that far.

     Now I am alone, as all you faithful readers know, and trying to determine what I would like the rest of my life to look like.  I now have some idea as to why I cannot work out the answer to that important question with any degree of certitude. When you have spent a lifetime putting others first, not being concerned with your own needs, or your own comfort, and ignoring your own preferences, ultimately, those concepts become meaningless and you no longer can even determine a preference, or a desire, or even a need, much less ask for one.

     Like so much else in life, black and white thinking is no way to deal with complex concepts like altruism. It cannot be either/or.  It must be either AND.  I can be kind and thoughtful to others, AND be kind and thoughtful to myself. Furthermore when a conflict arises between the needs of others and my needs, I can then make a rational decision as to what to do.  Susan always tried to teach me that there is always a 'third thing'. It is very seldom ever a question of either/or.

     So now the question is floating around in my head, "What would make me happy?". Clearly having Susan back would be my first and unequivocal answer.  But that ain't gonna happen.  So I now I need to start thinking about the real answer.  I need to get a fix on my own preferences.  And where to go from here.

03-14-2016

What Still Remains

     A very dear friend of mine invited me to accompany her to a concert of the Irish musical group, the Chieftans the other night. The concert was amazing, and being about as Irish as they come, I found myself thinking to myself that music is one of the major things that has sustained me through my period of grieving.  Music is so intrinsic to the the culture of Ireland that it is thought of as "blood memory".  Like the wonderful Shawn Colvin song says " And if there were no music, I would not get through". And that, I think, is how I feel as well. There have been many times in the last few years that the only thing that separated me from the thin edge of despair was a beautiful piece of music.

     And thinking about that led me to thinking about some of the other things that have kept me going during a time when I did not necessarily want to keep going at all. Something as simple as a well written book, short story, poem, or even a nicely executed turn of a phrase can bring joy at the right moment.

     And so can mother nature.  I recently had the opportunity to visit my stepson and his wife in his home on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.  In addition, my two most long-term (I have been reminded not to say 'oldest') friends came with me and I have not been so relaxed in perhaps four years. And just sitting and listening to the pounding surf of mother Pacific brought a sense of peace.

    And finally, there are my wonderful friends and family.  The company, the conversation, the assurance that somebody gives a crap whether I show up or not, is immense.  Make no mistake, I still feel my loss deeply, miss my beautiful Susan every single minute of every single day with a sharp edge that seems often never to be dulled and I still exist in utter solitude more often than I would care to. But in that situation more than any other, I think we owe it to ourselves to look for what compensations life can provide. And there are many if you are open to them. As I have said many times to people: turn away no kindness, be open to everything. It may not take the pain away, but it very well may make it hurt less.

     And so I was visited by my poetry muse this week, along the lines of this discussion, and here is the result. Cheers, everyone.

Celebrate

There is much in life in which I can take joy.

The music remains, and still I can feel.

All its colors and shapes; its words and tone

It touches my heart with hope that is real.

Written words of beauty, they still abound

Those words on the page can make me smile

Or cry or laugh; so rich in thought, in style

That take me out of myself for a while.

And the sound of the surf on a Pacific beach

Takes me away to a place of peace

The sounds and smells of the mother sea

Allow me many a moment of surcease.

And friends and family still rally round

Helping me ever to see what is real

Showing me laughter, love and a path

To a place where I can once again feel.

And though my love has been taken away

Leaving a hole so deep wide and black

Much in this life is decent and good

To help me forget what it is that I lack.

MPC:03-08-2016

   

Another Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day Again

Yes, Susan and I were big fans of Valentine’s Day. We would go out to dinner, I would give her roses, and we would write a poem to each other.  We regarded it as just another way to celebrate the magic that was our relationship.  So it is kind of a hard day for me to get through.  I hear all the hype, see all the ads for flowers and chocolates and all the other (Buy Me! Buy Me!) crap that the Great Marketing Mechanism tries to foist off on us, and think to myself, yup, I used to participate in that.

So is a widower on Valentine’s Day like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis?  A little, I think. 

You find out when the clock turns over one year since the loss of your loved one that it does not magically get any easier.  You find out that the grief process is anything but a straight line.  And while on one day you are full of ideas about your future, brimming with positive energy and resolve, and ready to take on the world, the next day you just want to dig a hole and crawl in.

So I have neighbors coming over this evening for a reasonably gourmet supper and some good conversation and a bottle or two of good wine.  That will get me through the worst of it. 

And, while at one level my mind keeps wanting to make plan after plan about my future, loaded with details and things I will do, the best strategy remains this: enjoy the ride as best you can.  You will know when it is time to change things.  You will know how.  Now is not the time. 

I wrote this poem as I was contemplating how badly I missed Susan in the run-up to Valentine’s day.

Another Day

Another day in paradise

   My sweetie used to say

Talking about our life together

   And celebrating every day.

And what she meant

   Was in all ways true

But now she’s gone

    And I don’t know what to do.

Every day I pace and pace

     Through the motions of my life

Wondering if 30 morphine pills

     Would help me join my wife.

I know that my ending that way

    Will never ever come to be

But finding meaning in this pacing cage

    Is something I find hard to see.

Another day in paradise

    My sweetie used to say

The irony of those words

     Ringing in my ears every day.

02-12-2016:MPC      

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

And Now....What?

Last time I told you all that I had arrived at a place where I felt hopeful enough and free enough to think about building a new life, a new identity.  That is easier said than done, of course. 

Make no mistake that you will wake up one day and be done grieving and know how to proceed. The process of grieving will be with you for a long time.  You will hear a song, experience a smell, remember a good time.  But I can promise you that you will start remembering more good times and joyous occasions with your loved one than the sad ones.  I am noticing this in myself.   In terms of knowing how to proceed to build a new life, you will find it to be an evolutionary process.  You did not arrive at the place you were in your life when you experienced your loss in an instant.  In most cases much of who you were when the loss occurred took a long time to form.  So it stands to reason that making a new identity for yourself will take time, and require you to be patient and brutally honest with yourself.

It will involve contemplating your life, and may even involve some contemplation of your death.

I was fortunate enough yesterday to run across a TED talk by a New Orleans artist by the name of Candy Chang.  In her talk she explained that she had experienced a devastating loss in her life and wanted to contemplate what that meant in an artistic fashion.  She came up with the idea of creating a public space that asked the question “What do you want to do before you die?”.  She created a public space on an abandoned building in New Orleans where she stenciled the question on a chalkboard wall hundreds of times and left chalk for people to fill in their answers.  By the next morning after installing the piece the wall was full.  This phenomenon has gone around the world.  Such walls exist now in hundreds of places.

So that got me to thinking. Taking stock.  Who am I? What motivates me? What do I want to do before I die?

I was raised and educated to believe that my life is about being of service to others. By and large I have lived that life. I am a grandpa.  I am a stepfather, a friend and neighbor, and for over 33 years of my adult life, a husband. It has been my privilege and honor to be these things, the most significant of these, I believe, was being a husband.  Making what was important to her important to me. Making sure she (and her children) came first no matter what. And when she became ill, making sure that she was cared for and loved with absolutely no reservation. She is gone now, which has the effect of rendering the main ethos of my life somewhat moot. Metaphorically, it is like a garden hose that has lovingly watered the garden for years and then the fitting broke off, causing the water to be sprayed randomly everywhere, putting the garden at risk.

 

So what to make of this? What do I want to do before I die?  I want to be the best grandpa I can be.  I want to be the best friend and neighbor I can be. And yes… at some point, I want the chance to once again love and be loved. (Boy was that hard to say….).

I just want a life full of people, full of companionship, good humor, kindness and serenity.  That will suit me just fine.

01-31-2016 MPC

  

A New Direction

INITIATION

In some cultures, traumatic events are viewed as an initiation, seen as an opportunity to redefine oneself and take life in a new direction.  The traumatic event can be a critical illness, the death of a loved one, a divorce or betrayal.  I learned about this way of thinking when I was recuperating from heart and lung surgery to deal with a tumor in my heart in 1999, surgery that saved my life.  After months of physical therapy and other kinds of rehabilitation, one day I finally came to a place in my life where I was able to say, “I no longer wish to be defined as a sick person”.  At that point, with the help of my beloved wife, Susan, we moved forward and built a new and better life together, after having both suffered the trauma of my illness and near death.

My beloved Susan was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2011, fought hard for nearly 3 years and died in November of 2014.  As our battle with her cancer progressed, and she suffered recurrence after recurrence, and it became clearer and clearer that we were going to lose, I became numb, became focused on caring for Susan and making absolutely sure that everything that could be done to keep her comfortable was done, and also to let her know how much she was loved and valued.  This I did right up to the moment when she stopped breathing.

 

It has now been fourteen months since Susan passed away, and I can report that it has been a pretty miserable fourteen months, added to the time prior to her death that she was ailing.  However, I have now come to a place where it is time to begin healing.  When you lose your spouse, you lose so much more than just your best friend. A huge chunk of your life and your identity are ripped away, and tossed into the wind.  It is no longer clear who you are.  It is even less clear how to rebuild your life, and often it is not even clear that the desire to go on even exists. That was certainly the case for a time with me.

I made some choices when Susan died, however,  which may have laid the groundwork for me to start healing.  I chose to turn away no kindness, no offer of friendship.  I was blessed with a large and wonderful support system.  I participated in a variety of grief counseling and group therapy situations.

 

And in this last week, it finally came to me. I no longer wish to be identified as a grieving widower. It is time to say goodbye. Not to Susan of course. It is time to say goodbye to the wreckage that was created by her sickness and death. It is time to say goodbye to the trauma.  It is time to say goodbye to the manner in which I have defined myself for 20 some years (Susan’s husband, lover, friend, partner and finally widower).  I wish to find and strike out along a new vector in my life.

It was not easy to get to this place.  I still miss her terribly, and she will always be in my heart and in my memory.  What will gradually fall away is the fear, the numbness, the horror that defined for so long how I went in the world. I can almost feel it slipping away. And I can almost feel Susan cheering me on. She did not marry a man who was numb and fearful.  She married a man who made her laugh, who made her feel loved and cherished; who works hard and gives of himself to others. That is the man she wants me to be. 

My initiation has once again taken place. 

    

Widowhood in Year 2

     Distraction is a useful tool.  During the months of November and December, which are the times of the year when my wife first was diagnosed with cancer and ultimately succumbed, I tried very hard to make the most of every family event, road trip and social event that was presented to me.  I was surrounded by my incredible family and friends for much of the time during those horrible 'anniversaries'.  I was distracted.  And during that time I started to feel better.  I started to see ways to move forward.  I have become less hopeless.  My life began to appear as though it might inherently have some value to myself (more about this idea in a moment).  For me family and friends have provided a metaphorical 'hyperbaric chamber' in which my wounds can start to heal while being distracted.  And by and large it has worked.

     Through much of the first year of my grieving, I could not really see much if any value to myself of continuing to exist.  This sounds harsh and depressing I know, but that is how I felt.  My main purpose in life, as well as a massive chunk of my identity vanished when Susan died.  It takes a massive amount of work to juggle grieving and trying to discern and rebuild an identity.  It requires a great deal of introspection, self awareness and honesty.  Who am I? Who am I outside of my now ended relationship?   I am starting to see some outlines of answers to these questions, some based on what I experienced throughout my relationship with Susan.  If indeed I was a wonderful husband and stepfather, then perhaps I am a decent human being. A good person.  I certainly hope so.  And that would constitute for me, a pretty good start.

     We also must be mindful that healing of any kind (physical, emotional, etc) never proceeds in a straight line.  And yesterday, having returned to my mostly solitary life, the roof came crashing down.  Weeping, loneliness, self-doubt and harsh self criticism, all came roaring through, leaving me feeling run over.  As I write this, it still hurts.  But part of me, the part that has moved somewhat forward, the part that has some understanding of who I really am, knows that this will pass, and that the healing process will continue. It will continue in its slow and circuitous process.  We are the sum of our experiences after all, or as songwriter Lori McKenna puts it, "I am the things inside me".

01-12-2016