A Phoenix from the ashes
I spread my wings and
Rise above the rubble
Of my shattered life
To soar among the stars.
Dust and tears fall away
Give way to rising light
His face – his voice – his touch
Dwell within my healing soul
As rainbows catch colors in the sun.
(Originally written by me in Jan. 2003 and revised August 2005)
Rising from the ashes of the fire, the Phoenix (firebird) symbolizes immortality, resurrection and life after death. How appropriate is that bird in looking back at my own resurrection from the dark ashes of Jim’s death.
Can there be more than one Phoenix moment? For me that answer is “yes.”
The first was a time frame in which I grew to know that I would be OK; that the present and hope of a future with joy and laughter again had more to offer than living in the memories of a life that once was.
It came time to let Jim’s spirit soar and make my human life have meaning even in the aloneness of it. Within that I began to reach outside myself and look to the world of the living once more.
For both the memory of the man who shared his life, laughter and love with me and my own mental health I had make a choice in how I would spend the rest of my life. I could choose to find joy in my life and remember his presence with love; or I could choose to live with a deadened soul on memories and what could have been. I chose to find peace in this life.
It was not necessarily easy nor was it quick. Interests of the past were no longer what I sought as they were tied within the package of my old life. What reached out to me were things that began to burgeon in my soul as light and color crossed my vision. That, in part, was thanks to a lovely rainbow crystal sent to me in a moment of darkness and need. (Thank you, Dawn…your gift touches me every day) As the spectrum filled my room each morning and afternoon, the myriad of tiny rainbows drew me ever forward to a world where light and color had meaning. And, so, with time, the Phoenix rose and I began to truly heal.
Yet, while the healing began and grew, I continued to drag one foot in the past while having one also in the present giving rise to still complicated days of longing for that which could not be. I moved forward, but still had a part of my soul anchored securely to a life that, albeit unwillingly, was no longer.
When I met my Handyman in 2004 and we embarked, as partners, upon the next adventure of our life I brought with me the sorrow that had not yet quite healed. As another widowed soul he understands my tears. Yet, as a man who processes things differently than me, he has often been at a loss as to what it is I need when those times have come. We made an agreement that I would tell him if I needed solitude or care.
Even so, I have sometimes felt I was being unfair to him in clinging to those things from the past that can still cause me sorrow. Though I did not quite know how at the time, I knew it was important to put Jim’s love and the memories into a special place in what was and raise this wonderful man who loves me into his rightful place into the now.
Fast forward my life to a number of weeks ago and the Phoenix rose again in an unexpected slide from a canoe during which I panicked and nearly drowned myself. Drawn under water and terrified, I knew I did not want to die in the middle of that damned lake. The face and voice I needed at that moment was not that of my Jim, but the man on the surface also waiting for me. At that instant my other foot was planted squarely in now where it needs to be for me to live an emotionally healthy life and to give both that life I had with Jim and my current state honor and meaning.
I will always love Jim and I will always miss him to the depths of my soul. He was a gift beyond compare for which there is no replacement. Yet, I will not close the door to the outside world and dwell deep within my memories. To do so gives lie to the love we shared and the life he loved. In opening my eyes and seeing light and color again I pay forward that which he gave me in unfailing measure.
Please, in reading this, do not think I think I have all the answers. Indeed, I do not. Floundering was a way of life for too long a time. Nor do I believe a relationship is the only road to a happy, emotionally healthy life. I have purposely downplayed that part here trying not to offend those who need and choose something else. It is important only in that it was the catalyst for me for where I need to live.
With this post I have honored an agreement with 4 women whom I have come to love and respect. They have been my encouraging right arms as we’ve traveled this road together. While it was at their urging I posted this; I truly believe each of us, in our own time, can find that “Phoenix” moment, feeling our feet underneath us again and seeking joy in living once more truly in the present and looking forward to the future. What we keep deep inside our hearts can never be diminished nor taken away.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
A Day in the Life
May 25, 2003:
I did not write yesterday. It hurt too much to mark 1 year by putting words to the pain.
Huddling in my cave, snuffling from a miserable cold, peering into the bleak grayness of yet another rainy morning. Wallowing in the abject sorrow of marking a year without you. That’s how I saw yesterday – my life – my future.
Oh, to run away and hide from this life.
(Humbug)
Scrooge and the Grinch are my mentors.
I HATE MY LIFE. (so, go away)
Then…
The sun came out (dammit all) and life rang my doorbell in the form of a chubby cheeked little face from next door.
“Miss Josie. Is Coley home?”
“NO. She’s with her mommy today.” (now, go away)
“Wellllllllll…can I play in the yard for a little while? (sigh)
“Yes.” (humbug)
Soon the yard is writhing with waifs crawling on the gym, sifting sand into the grass and squealing in the swings. (groan)
The sun gleams brightly on their joyous abandon. (bah)
The dogs get into the act. (traitors)
Ball and sticks are thrown. Dark brown and café au lait bundles of fur bound through the tall grass and return to snorts, giggles and more squeals to be repeated again and again until all drop in an exhausted yet exuberant heap in the shade. (BAH AND HUMBUG)
Slowly…insidiously…slithering…something creeps into my heart.
What is this? (I think I'm in trouble)
A spark? (nooooooo…stop that)
A bit of joy? (begone)
A smile? (uh oh)
A small chuckle. (aw, shit)
Honest laughter. (oh. I give up)
Out that window life reminded me (again) that it goes on whether I will it so or not. Knowing how much you enjoyed watching the activity in our yard, I smiled again. It is for you and our grand that I continue on in this life I now have without you in it. Somehow I will find a way to stand tall.
Today:
Pain infused with joy. A balance trying to be found. Tears and laughter. Sunshine and sorrow. Perhaps one cannot be appreciated without the other.
He always said that good could be found even in the darkest time. Sometimes it’s inconvenient that he is right.
So many footfalls on this dark and twisted path I was the warrior…either battered, bowed and defeated by the hydra called Grief or victorious in having lopped off enough heads to keep him at bay for a time. Every step to the peace of today was a battle fought as real as any in the history of humans. Squirmishes won and lost. Wounds licked, healed, broken open and healed again.
That there could be days that would start so bleak, that could, at their end, be the cause of laughter was a complete mystery to me…they still are.
Yet, here I am, battle scars well and truly earned, something of a whole person again.
I think there just be a small speck that believes in at least small miracles.
Imagine that.
I did not write yesterday. It hurt too much to mark 1 year by putting words to the pain.
Huddling in my cave, snuffling from a miserable cold, peering into the bleak grayness of yet another rainy morning. Wallowing in the abject sorrow of marking a year without you. That’s how I saw yesterday – my life – my future.
Oh, to run away and hide from this life.
(Humbug)
Scrooge and the Grinch are my mentors.
I HATE MY LIFE. (so, go away)
Then…
The sun came out (dammit all) and life rang my doorbell in the form of a chubby cheeked little face from next door.
“Miss Josie. Is Coley home?”
“NO. She’s with her mommy today.” (now, go away)
“Wellllllllll…can I play in the yard for a little while? (sigh)
“Yes.” (humbug)
Soon the yard is writhing with waifs crawling on the gym, sifting sand into the grass and squealing in the swings. (groan)
The sun gleams brightly on their joyous abandon. (bah)
The dogs get into the act. (traitors)
Ball and sticks are thrown. Dark brown and café au lait bundles of fur bound through the tall grass and return to snorts, giggles and more squeals to be repeated again and again until all drop in an exhausted yet exuberant heap in the shade. (BAH AND HUMBUG)
Slowly…insidiously…slithering…something creeps into my heart.
What is this? (I think I'm in trouble)
A spark? (nooooooo…stop that)
A bit of joy? (begone)
A smile? (uh oh)
A small chuckle. (aw, shit)
Honest laughter. (oh. I give up)
Out that window life reminded me (again) that it goes on whether I will it so or not. Knowing how much you enjoyed watching the activity in our yard, I smiled again. It is for you and our grand that I continue on in this life I now have without you in it. Somehow I will find a way to stand tall.
Today:
Pain infused with joy. A balance trying to be found. Tears and laughter. Sunshine and sorrow. Perhaps one cannot be appreciated without the other.
He always said that good could be found even in the darkest time. Sometimes it’s inconvenient that he is right.
So many footfalls on this dark and twisted path I was the warrior…either battered, bowed and defeated by the hydra called Grief or victorious in having lopped off enough heads to keep him at bay for a time. Every step to the peace of today was a battle fought as real as any in the history of humans. Squirmishes won and lost. Wounds licked, healed, broken open and healed again.
That there could be days that would start so bleak, that could, at their end, be the cause of laughter was a complete mystery to me…they still are.
Yet, here I am, battle scars well and truly earned, something of a whole person again.
I think there just be a small speck that believes in at least small miracles.
Imagine that.
Friday, August 26, 2005
How Can I Help You Say Goodbye?
“Mama whispered softly, time will ease your pain.
Life’s about changing, nothing ever stays the same.
And she said, how can I help you to say goodbye?
It’s ok to hurt, and it’s ok to cry.
Come, let me hold you and I will try.
How can I help you to say goodbye?”
(How Can I Help You Say Goodbye sung by Patty Loveless)
Say good-bye? NO.
How do you say goodbye to a man who touched every corner of your life? A man with whom you grew up and lived for more years than your own parents were married.
His impact was tremendous. Here was a man who loved me unconditionally, who teased me wickedly, who loved our kids in a way my own father never did my sister and me. A man who treated family like friends and friends like family. A man who left the lid up, the cap off the toothpaste and his socks in the floor. A man who could make me laugh and cry all in the same instant.
Say good-bye to more than 30 years of that? NO WAY.
He is the reason that I am who I am today.
Did I set his spirit free? YES.
It would be selfish of me to tie his spirit to me when we travel different paths now. It took time to get there...I was afraid of what would happen if I did. Letting go of those things brought fear that if I lost the pain I also lost the love…that I would lose the essence of HIM.
Yet, in looking back through the filter of hindsight, I now understand that there IS a time for the pain, for the grief and for hanging on. There is a time to recluse yourself and swaddle yourself in thoughts of the life that was.
Obsessed with every scrap of memory that made us…US, for nearly a year I lived cloaked in the past of our burgeoning love, early marriage and the honeymoon years of settling into the life we planned. Writing madly, often in the dead of night, I filled pages of journals with the anguish of loss as well as the joys of memories of our life together. I gathered pictures, poetry (some my own), music and books and immersed myself in dwelling not in this world. I retreated from reality and firmly planted myself into a space and time that no longer was.
Even so I clung to my grief like a shield; the innermost part of me knew I could not continue to live my life in memories…that HE would not want me to close the door and never step foot in the present again. Mrs. Haversham from Great Expectations I would not be. I could not allow myself to become like a dear aunt, who after 11 years, is still as fresh in her grief as was I at the beginning. I could not do that to myself, my children nor the spirit of the man who loved me. 2 years passed before I gained the courage and the strength to do that which I knew I must.
Gathering a portion of his ashes, a few strands of the pony tail he’d cut only a handful of months before he died and a scrap of the hair ribbon he had saved from our first date, I took myself to the secluded mountain top cemetery in Tennessee where his ancestors dwell.
Honoring the native line that runs his blood, sage, juniper and cedar smudge cleansed my own soul and calmed the spirits that walk those mountains. Repeating the words of a poem I wrote him as his ashes sifted to the four winds and the ground around the wild rose growing on his beloved grandfather’s plot, sealed with the salt of my tears, I set his spirit loose.
My Jim no longer walks upon this planet, yet, his spirit soars the universe and his love resides in my heart forever. All I need do is look to our children and our grand to know a true piece of him lives still.
I am not cured, as my friend Josefus would say, but I am OK.
Life’s about changing, nothing ever stays the same.
And she said, how can I help you to say goodbye?
It’s ok to hurt, and it’s ok to cry.
Come, let me hold you and I will try.
How can I help you to say goodbye?”
(How Can I Help You Say Goodbye sung by Patty Loveless)
Say good-bye? NO.
How do you say goodbye to a man who touched every corner of your life? A man with whom you grew up and lived for more years than your own parents were married.
His impact was tremendous. Here was a man who loved me unconditionally, who teased me wickedly, who loved our kids in a way my own father never did my sister and me. A man who treated family like friends and friends like family. A man who left the lid up, the cap off the toothpaste and his socks in the floor. A man who could make me laugh and cry all in the same instant.
Say good-bye to more than 30 years of that? NO WAY.
He is the reason that I am who I am today.
Did I set his spirit free? YES.
It would be selfish of me to tie his spirit to me when we travel different paths now. It took time to get there...I was afraid of what would happen if I did. Letting go of those things brought fear that if I lost the pain I also lost the love…that I would lose the essence of HIM.
Yet, in looking back through the filter of hindsight, I now understand that there IS a time for the pain, for the grief and for hanging on. There is a time to recluse yourself and swaddle yourself in thoughts of the life that was.
Obsessed with every scrap of memory that made us…US, for nearly a year I lived cloaked in the past of our burgeoning love, early marriage and the honeymoon years of settling into the life we planned. Writing madly, often in the dead of night, I filled pages of journals with the anguish of loss as well as the joys of memories of our life together. I gathered pictures, poetry (some my own), music and books and immersed myself in dwelling not in this world. I retreated from reality and firmly planted myself into a space and time that no longer was.
Even so I clung to my grief like a shield; the innermost part of me knew I could not continue to live my life in memories…that HE would not want me to close the door and never step foot in the present again. Mrs. Haversham from Great Expectations I would not be. I could not allow myself to become like a dear aunt, who after 11 years, is still as fresh in her grief as was I at the beginning. I could not do that to myself, my children nor the spirit of the man who loved me. 2 years passed before I gained the courage and the strength to do that which I knew I must.
Gathering a portion of his ashes, a few strands of the pony tail he’d cut only a handful of months before he died and a scrap of the hair ribbon he had saved from our first date, I took myself to the secluded mountain top cemetery in Tennessee where his ancestors dwell.
Honoring the native line that runs his blood, sage, juniper and cedar smudge cleansed my own soul and calmed the spirits that walk those mountains. Repeating the words of a poem I wrote him as his ashes sifted to the four winds and the ground around the wild rose growing on his beloved grandfather’s plot, sealed with the salt of my tears, I set his spirit loose.
My Jim no longer walks upon this planet, yet, his spirit soars the universe and his love resides in my heart forever. All I need do is look to our children and our grand to know a true piece of him lives still.
I am not cured, as my friend Josefus would say, but I am OK.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
The Other
The Other
For every thing that is, there is the Other
We form it with the thoughts and moods we share.
The more we move, move into one another
Then greater is the Soul for which we care.
As outward from ourselves we go exploring
And weigh it with the knowledge of within.
Through the all, forever we are soaring
perfect love and trust are free from sin.
Rick Allen (c) 1993
[Discovered in his papers on Valentine’s Day 2003 and used with permission of author’s widow]
When my friend, mentor and fellow traveler, Artio, first shared this poem my soul resonated like a violin string.
The Other. Twin flame. Soul mate. Bashert. Meant to be.
Yes.
I knew him the instant I saw him: a stranger who was not a stranger. Everything about him was familiar: the ice blue eyes that sent currents of electricity coursing through my body; the low rumble of his voice that thrummed inside my brain; the tender touch of his hand on mine; the first heady intake of his scent. All were known to me the moment I pulled opened the front door of my parent’s home that bright California Thanksgiving morning in 1969. As if I had just escaped the depth of my mother’s womb and taken my first gasping breath, my true life began in that infinitesimal wink in time.
He was a conjure. A spirit vision. A dream on nights when I felt unloved as a child. Not his true face….a patchwork of his essence…dark hair, twinkling electric blue eyes, tall and lithe, calloused yet gentle hands, long slim fingers….even his basso voce and lopsided grin.
“Who will You Love?” A teen-age girl’s sleep-over game. “I don’t know, but I’ll recognize him when I see him.” was always my answer.
Karma. Synchronicity. A dream come true.
Stunned and breathless I welcomed this unknown yet known soul into my house, my life, my heart…and never had the dream again.
I was not then the Outlaw of now…that came with time, growing together and finding our place in this world. We were both shy and unsure…the verbal exchange on our first date consisted of no more than 2 dozen words shared over a 4 hour period.
Tentatively divining a path through the miasma of emotions and nuances of our relationship, it took him a month to kiss me. (And what a birthday present THAT was.) We were not quite 19, both backward to the dating world…what the hell did we know??
We were graced with over 30 years to sort it out.
It was not long enough.
For every thing that is, there is the Other
We form it with the thoughts and moods we share.
The more we move, move into one another
Then greater is the Soul for which we care.
As outward from ourselves we go exploring
And weigh it with the knowledge of within.
Through the all, forever we are soaring
perfect love and trust are free from sin.
Rick Allen (c) 1993
[Discovered in his papers on Valentine’s Day 2003 and used with permission of author’s widow]
When my friend, mentor and fellow traveler, Artio, first shared this poem my soul resonated like a violin string.
The Other. Twin flame. Soul mate. Bashert. Meant to be.
Yes.
I knew him the instant I saw him: a stranger who was not a stranger. Everything about him was familiar: the ice blue eyes that sent currents of electricity coursing through my body; the low rumble of his voice that thrummed inside my brain; the tender touch of his hand on mine; the first heady intake of his scent. All were known to me the moment I pulled opened the front door of my parent’s home that bright California Thanksgiving morning in 1969. As if I had just escaped the depth of my mother’s womb and taken my first gasping breath, my true life began in that infinitesimal wink in time.
He was a conjure. A spirit vision. A dream on nights when I felt unloved as a child. Not his true face….a patchwork of his essence…dark hair, twinkling electric blue eyes, tall and lithe, calloused yet gentle hands, long slim fingers….even his basso voce and lopsided grin.
“Who will You Love?” A teen-age girl’s sleep-over game. “I don’t know, but I’ll recognize him when I see him.” was always my answer.
Karma. Synchronicity. A dream come true.
Stunned and breathless I welcomed this unknown yet known soul into my house, my life, my heart…and never had the dream again.
I was not then the Outlaw of now…that came with time, growing together and finding our place in this world. We were both shy and unsure…the verbal exchange on our first date consisted of no more than 2 dozen words shared over a 4 hour period.
Tentatively divining a path through the miasma of emotions and nuances of our relationship, it took him a month to kiss me. (And what a birthday present THAT was.) We were not quite 19, both backward to the dating world…what the hell did we know??
We were graced with over 30 years to sort it out.
It was not long enough.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Language of the Cones
"Sign…Sign…everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery
breaking my mind
Do this…don't do that…
can't you read the sign”
(1970 - Five Man Electric Band)
Big ones…little ones…double ones…single ones…glow in the dark…light up at night…hard to see in the rain…everywhere in this growing Podunk town.
Orange cones…telling me how and where to drive.
Dotting the roads like children playing Builder Bob with Lego’s and Tinker Toys leaving them strewn willy-nilly when the day is done.
Merge Left
Single Lane Ahead
Do Not Block Intersection
Lanes Shift
Shoulder Closed
Flagman Ahead
Watch for Trucks Entering Highway
Road Closed
New Traffic Pattern
A metaphor of this widow’s walk, they pop-up directing me places I don’t want to go.
Cones setting me off on highways I’ve visited more than once in the 3 years I’ve been on this journey:
Tears…sadness…fear…lack of confidence…memories…songs…how do I do this…I can’t do this…dammit, I WILL do this.
I HATE CHANGE…always have. Being a military brat you’d think I’d be used to it. I hated it then…I hate it now. Always moving…always being the “new kid on the block.” Yet, then, as now I stood tough on the outside never letting it show how insecure I was in the changes.
Hang it all…I liked my life the way it was.
But, the way it was ain’t the way it is.
Get up, girl…hitch up yer britches, yank on them boots and keep moving.
“Move down…clean cup…clean cup” says the Madd Hatter to the March Hare at that odd little tea party in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Damned orange cones.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Involuntarily Unspoused*
I did not sign up for this gig. I liked my life the way it was. I liked being a wife and I liked being married to Jim.
Then he died.
I did not choose to walk this path.
July 5, 2002:
Time and the passage of it have no meaning. Great blocks of either pass without knowing or caring. I am hollow.
July 24, 2002:
My grief knows no bounds. I am bereft. I cannot feel you. There is no peace.
July 31, 2002:
31 years we would have had today. Yet, you are not here up on this mountain we came to love and consider our special anniversary place. I am alone…you are not here…and...I am alone.
July 31, 2003:
32 years. 2 anniversaries without you. And, yet…my life goes on and there are things that bring me momentary joy and even laughter…still…bone deep sadness underlies it all.
July 31, 2004:
33 years. 3 anniversaries without you. I set your spirit free today up on that lonely Tennessee mountain where your ancestors dwell safe within their dark cocoons. Ashes spread with Miss Dorothy down in the valley as well. Your love lives eternally within my heart while yet I let your spirit freely roam. You will ever be a part within as well as the universe without.
July 31, 2005:
34 years. 4 anniversaries without you. It’s time to stop counting, you know…we will always be 30 years together.
Do you smile today as do I? The memories have become melancholy sweet...no tears today. Gratitude fills me instead for the life, love and laughter we were gifted to share.
I never thought to come to this particular shore on this rocky journey. And, I am yet amazed to be so. Thank you, love, for this gift.
Today:
I still would not choose this path.
Widows walk in footsteps left by generations of others. In the early days that meant nothing to me. Yet, from this 3 year vantage point I know they walked with me.
What they leave behind of their pain and sorrow lives to help us shoulder the burdens we, too, must bear. Though we think we cannot do this one more minute there is somehow the strength to do just that.
There is a 95 year old lady who was my role model even before we shared widowhood. Widowed for over 50 years, she raised her children and supported herself alone. She has volunteered her life and time to caring about others...knitting caps for newborns until her eye sight failed; teaching Sunday school to who knows how many generations of children in this town; visiting the elderly in nursing homes until this last year and just generally finding reasons to be thankful for her life every single day despite her husband's death, her own failing health and financial issues. Once I could think beyond the next intake of breath I was determined not to be the crazy widow down the street. I was going to stand firm and tall and beat the monster at his own game. Yet, I found the firmer I stood the harder the grief tried to beat me.
On the good days I felt strong and able to handle things. The days I woke up with the monster in the bed I felt I may as well stay there.
There were days I WAS the crazy widow down the street.
Unable to sleep at night, I was often out in the yard by lantern light plucking weeds that didn’t care I splashed them with a million hot tears of pain. Plants that didn’t care if I cursed the heavens I no longer trusted with each anguished yank that pried them from their greedy clutch upon the earth. The yard has not looked so good since.
I roamed the house, dusted and rearranged things that hadn’t been in their current spot long enough to have the first spot on them. I watched television I can’t even remember. I looked at books and magazines I once devoured with a passion only to realize I could not focus on the words let alone their meaning.
And, I cried till I thought I could not possibly have a single tear left only to take a ragged breath and spill even more. (I should have bought stock in Kleenex)
I took dishes from the cabinet and rewashed them just for something to do. There were days I thought the pain and darkness would never pass. Many a night was spent wishing that I could go to sleep and never wake up again. Imagine my dismay to wake each morning to find I was still breathing.
Yet, some survival mode was still intact: I actually made up excuses why I couldn't die yet....the dog needed out, the cats needed feeding, the plants watering, my grandmonkey needed me, my kids already lost Dad how could I also take Mom away? Both of my parents were elderly and my dad in particular in ill health...he needed me. I needed to do laundry, wash the car...anything that kept me in right now.
See, the trouble was that the fog that protected me for a while had truly lifted and reality smashed into me like a freight train loaded with steel. The pain and the feeling of not being able to breathe were very real...I remember writing my high school friend and telling her I truly felt like I was drowning.
Yet...here I am. Three years and I am still standing…often battered, bruised and sore…but standing nonetheless.If you will believe me that time will help I can tell you that it is true. This is truly the hardest work you will ever do.
[* I did not invent Involuntarily Unspoused. The phrase came about from a discussion with other wounded souls like mine who hated (and still hate) the words widow, widower and widowed. Blunt, yet, appropriate.]
Then he died.
I did not choose to walk this path.
July 5, 2002:
Time and the passage of it have no meaning. Great blocks of either pass without knowing or caring. I am hollow.
July 24, 2002:
My grief knows no bounds. I am bereft. I cannot feel you. There is no peace.
July 31, 2002:
31 years we would have had today. Yet, you are not here up on this mountain we came to love and consider our special anniversary place. I am alone…you are not here…and...I am alone.
July 31, 2003:
32 years. 2 anniversaries without you. And, yet…my life goes on and there are things that bring me momentary joy and even laughter…still…bone deep sadness underlies it all.
July 31, 2004:
33 years. 3 anniversaries without you. I set your spirit free today up on that lonely Tennessee mountain where your ancestors dwell safe within their dark cocoons. Ashes spread with Miss Dorothy down in the valley as well. Your love lives eternally within my heart while yet I let your spirit freely roam. You will ever be a part within as well as the universe without.
July 31, 2005:
34 years. 4 anniversaries without you. It’s time to stop counting, you know…we will always be 30 years together.
Do you smile today as do I? The memories have become melancholy sweet...no tears today. Gratitude fills me instead for the life, love and laughter we were gifted to share.
I never thought to come to this particular shore on this rocky journey. And, I am yet amazed to be so. Thank you, love, for this gift.
Today:
I still would not choose this path.
Widows walk in footsteps left by generations of others. In the early days that meant nothing to me. Yet, from this 3 year vantage point I know they walked with me.
What they leave behind of their pain and sorrow lives to help us shoulder the burdens we, too, must bear. Though we think we cannot do this one more minute there is somehow the strength to do just that.
There is a 95 year old lady who was my role model even before we shared widowhood. Widowed for over 50 years, she raised her children and supported herself alone. She has volunteered her life and time to caring about others...knitting caps for newborns until her eye sight failed; teaching Sunday school to who knows how many generations of children in this town; visiting the elderly in nursing homes until this last year and just generally finding reasons to be thankful for her life every single day despite her husband's death, her own failing health and financial issues. Once I could think beyond the next intake of breath I was determined not to be the crazy widow down the street. I was going to stand firm and tall and beat the monster at his own game. Yet, I found the firmer I stood the harder the grief tried to beat me.
On the good days I felt strong and able to handle things. The days I woke up with the monster in the bed I felt I may as well stay there.
There were days I WAS the crazy widow down the street.
Unable to sleep at night, I was often out in the yard by lantern light plucking weeds that didn’t care I splashed them with a million hot tears of pain. Plants that didn’t care if I cursed the heavens I no longer trusted with each anguished yank that pried them from their greedy clutch upon the earth. The yard has not looked so good since.
I roamed the house, dusted and rearranged things that hadn’t been in their current spot long enough to have the first spot on them. I watched television I can’t even remember. I looked at books and magazines I once devoured with a passion only to realize I could not focus on the words let alone their meaning.
And, I cried till I thought I could not possibly have a single tear left only to take a ragged breath and spill even more. (I should have bought stock in Kleenex)
I took dishes from the cabinet and rewashed them just for something to do. There were days I thought the pain and darkness would never pass. Many a night was spent wishing that I could go to sleep and never wake up again. Imagine my dismay to wake each morning to find I was still breathing.
Yet, some survival mode was still intact: I actually made up excuses why I couldn't die yet....the dog needed out, the cats needed feeding, the plants watering, my grandmonkey needed me, my kids already lost Dad how could I also take Mom away? Both of my parents were elderly and my dad in particular in ill health...he needed me. I needed to do laundry, wash the car...anything that kept me in right now.
See, the trouble was that the fog that protected me for a while had truly lifted and reality smashed into me like a freight train loaded with steel. The pain and the feeling of not being able to breathe were very real...I remember writing my high school friend and telling her I truly felt like I was drowning.
Yet...here I am. Three years and I am still standing…often battered, bruised and sore…but standing nonetheless.If you will believe me that time will help I can tell you that it is true. This is truly the hardest work you will ever do.
[* I did not invent Involuntarily Unspoused. The phrase came about from a discussion with other wounded souls like mine who hated (and still hate) the words widow, widower and widowed. Blunt, yet, appropriate.]
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A Journey Begins
“Have you ever loved someone who meant more to you than your own soul?” (Slightly rewritten from Judy Devereaux’s Wild Orchids.)
I did.
And then he died.
May 24, 2002:
It’s dark as I write this. I should sleep, but the bed is too big and he’s not there to keep me warm. It’s almost summer, yet, I feel chill. I want to cuddle next to his warm body…feel his breath upon my skin.
Don’t think. Don’t feel. Breathe. How do I do this? How do I get through all the tomorrows to come?
Thoughts from earlier in the day: I hate hospitals. ER docs are stupid. Do they think we don’t watch TV…that we don’t know the “ER Speech”. “I’m sorry…your husband didn’t make it. We used…” .
Stop. I know that speech, I don’t need to hear your well practiced words. He was gone by the time the EMT’s showed up….before he got here. You guys were all just going through the motions. Dog and pony show.
Did I say it out loud? He certainly looked stunned, turned on his heel and left fast enough leaving behind the equally stunned and useless chaplain. At least the chaplain had them remove the tubes and clean him up before I went in to see him.
But, he wasn’t there. Not there in those once electric blue eyes that were not quite closed. Not there in the strong, lithe body already cooling to the touch. Not there in the salt and pepper hair I stood and stroked lying that I would be OK. How do you be OK when the light has gone from your life?
Back home: The yard and house are filled with people. Are we having a party and I forgot? Who put on the coffee? My brother-in-law? No…he drove me home. How did they get in? Did I forget to lock the door? I don’t remember. No matter, Jim will be here shortly to sort everyone out.
Oh.
No, he won’t.
I can’t do this. I want them all to go home. But, how can I tell them to go home? They are as stunned as I am. They need to be here.
Why are there so many phone guys? Who did I call? My mother…she picked up the grand. My brother’s in law…they came to the hospital as soon as they could…but, still too late. My daughter’s fiancé. He left work and came, too. Oh. Yes, that’s it. He works with Dean’s son. Allen called his dad and the BellSouth jungle drums did the rest.
Why can’t I cry? I should be hysterical. They should be comforting me.
Yet, here they are…tears in their eyes. “I’m so sorry.” “I can’t believe he’s gone.” “But, I just talked to him this morning.”
“Will you be OK?” How do I know? I am in shock. I am numb. This isn’t real. I just hugged him 2 hours ago. He’ll come home soon and it will all be one of his practical jokes.
Tears from men who don’t cry. Anguish on faces usually too tough to let others see. Yet…today…Jim’s dead…they crumble like children seeking refuge in mom’s hug after falling from a tree.
I comfort the comforters.
Today:
Jim's death was so swift I had no time to think beyond figuring out how I was going to breathe let alone consider life without him. The days, months, years that have followed are both blurred and clear as crystal. I look back into my journals and wonder how I’ve made this journey from the ashes of darkness back into the sunlight.
Yet, I have……All done one baby step, one shallow breath, one single moment at a time.
I did.
And then he died.
May 24, 2002:
It’s dark as I write this. I should sleep, but the bed is too big and he’s not there to keep me warm. It’s almost summer, yet, I feel chill. I want to cuddle next to his warm body…feel his breath upon my skin.
Don’t think. Don’t feel. Breathe. How do I do this? How do I get through all the tomorrows to come?
Thoughts from earlier in the day: I hate hospitals. ER docs are stupid. Do they think we don’t watch TV…that we don’t know the “ER Speech”. “I’m sorry…your husband didn’t make it. We used…” .
Stop. I know that speech, I don’t need to hear your well practiced words. He was gone by the time the EMT’s showed up….before he got here. You guys were all just going through the motions. Dog and pony show.
Did I say it out loud? He certainly looked stunned, turned on his heel and left fast enough leaving behind the equally stunned and useless chaplain. At least the chaplain had them remove the tubes and clean him up before I went in to see him.
But, he wasn’t there. Not there in those once electric blue eyes that were not quite closed. Not there in the strong, lithe body already cooling to the touch. Not there in the salt and pepper hair I stood and stroked lying that I would be OK. How do you be OK when the light has gone from your life?
Back home: The yard and house are filled with people. Are we having a party and I forgot? Who put on the coffee? My brother-in-law? No…he drove me home. How did they get in? Did I forget to lock the door? I don’t remember. No matter, Jim will be here shortly to sort everyone out.
Oh.
No, he won’t.
I can’t do this. I want them all to go home. But, how can I tell them to go home? They are as stunned as I am. They need to be here.
Why are there so many phone guys? Who did I call? My mother…she picked up the grand. My brother’s in law…they came to the hospital as soon as they could…but, still too late. My daughter’s fiancé. He left work and came, too. Oh. Yes, that’s it. He works with Dean’s son. Allen called his dad and the BellSouth jungle drums did the rest.
Why can’t I cry? I should be hysterical. They should be comforting me.
Yet, here they are…tears in their eyes. “I’m so sorry.” “I can’t believe he’s gone.” “But, I just talked to him this morning.”
“Will you be OK?” How do I know? I am in shock. I am numb. This isn’t real. I just hugged him 2 hours ago. He’ll come home soon and it will all be one of his practical jokes.
Tears from men who don’t cry. Anguish on faces usually too tough to let others see. Yet…today…Jim’s dead…they crumble like children seeking refuge in mom’s hug after falling from a tree.
I comfort the comforters.
Today:
Jim's death was so swift I had no time to think beyond figuring out how I was going to breathe let alone consider life without him. The days, months, years that have followed are both blurred and clear as crystal. I look back into my journals and wonder how I’ve made this journey from the ashes of darkness back into the sunlight.
Yet, I have……All done one baby step, one shallow breath, one single moment at a time.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
A Blog a Day Keeps Insanity at Bay or The Birth of a Blog
Perhaps not...I believe I’ve been truly insane for at least 3 years. Time previous was a case of Insanity in Training to my way of thinking.
Did you ever feel like you HAD to write…HAD to get the words out on the page before they went away? That’s where I am these days…the committee in my mind is on speed and afraid 3 years worth of stuff bouncing around in my brain to keep it from gathering dust will disappear before they can spit it out.
AND it needs a public voice....somewhere different than my usual cyber hanging out place...a place for the words to be viewed...hence the title Camera Obscura*.
I think it might be important, but, I can’t wait for some-locked-in-his-office publisher to return the blue lined manuscript and say “No…that’s crap…now go away.” I need to know right away if what is coming out is real or just more something no one cares to read. And, I think it needs adding to on a regular basis as my insanity either grows or I learn to keep it under control.
As if. My answer is that I have become absurdly doubtful in my delusion of control over anything other than my own self...not my life...just myself. My current control has an air of impermanence about it. More and more, lately, I find myself unwilling to bind myself to the mundane and instead reach out for those things I put away for fear of failing. After a recent "aha moment" I realise I don't want my life to be about what could have been if I'd not been afraid to step off the edge. Therefore, a certain lack of control would appear to be a necessary piece of the luggage required for this particular part of my journey on the widow’s path.
Thus…a blog is born.
My journey from death to life through a slightly skewed “camera obscura”.*
(*Essentially a darkened room containing a table or screen on which an upside down image of the outside world is projected.)
Did you ever feel like you HAD to write…HAD to get the words out on the page before they went away? That’s where I am these days…the committee in my mind is on speed and afraid 3 years worth of stuff bouncing around in my brain to keep it from gathering dust will disappear before they can spit it out.
AND it needs a public voice....somewhere different than my usual cyber hanging out place...a place for the words to be viewed...hence the title Camera Obscura*.
I think it might be important, but, I can’t wait for some-locked-in-his-office publisher to return the blue lined manuscript and say “No…that’s crap…now go away.” I need to know right away if what is coming out is real or just more something no one cares to read. And, I think it needs adding to on a regular basis as my insanity either grows or I learn to keep it under control.
As if. My answer is that I have become absurdly doubtful in my delusion of control over anything other than my own self...not my life...just myself. My current control has an air of impermanence about it. More and more, lately, I find myself unwilling to bind myself to the mundane and instead reach out for those things I put away for fear of failing. After a recent "aha moment" I realise I don't want my life to be about what could have been if I'd not been afraid to step off the edge. Therefore, a certain lack of control would appear to be a necessary piece of the luggage required for this particular part of my journey on the widow’s path.
Thus…a blog is born.
My journey from death to life through a slightly skewed “camera obscura”.*
(*Essentially a darkened room containing a table or screen on which an upside down image of the outside world is projected.)
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