Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I got a very nice Christmas present from a friend this year, a friend I didn’t get so much as a Christmas card for.  Why the mismatch?  Because although he doesn’t know it yet, I have written him off.  Were he the perceptive type, he might suspect that’s what’s going on.  But were he the perceptive type, he wouldn’t be top o’ the ex-friends list.

The fact of the matter is, like so many, he just wasn’t there for me in my grief.  But in his case, I have been there for him through every crisis large and small, to cheer him on when need be, to kick his ass when that was more appropriate, to hear all his fears and hopes with understanding instead of judgment, to provide such assistance as my talents and skills could offer when he needed them. 

And when I needed him, he wasn’t there.  And when I told him explicitly what I needed, (which amounted to regular e-mails and genuine caring), he wasn’t there.  And when I told him again, he still couldn’t step up to the plate.  And all that deferred judgment came due, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I got angry.  And then I got quiet.  I was there for him, over and over again, and he abandoned me when I needed friends most.  He recognized that I was grieving because I told him, but there seemed to be nothing anywhere in his heart and soul that allowed him to recognize that his friend, the one who’d been there and talked him off many, many ledges, was drowning in grief and needed real support.  It is not the first time he has disappointed me, but never has he has done so quite so spectacularly, and at the worst possible time.  That is not what a true friend does.  And these days, I’m not sure I can afford anything but.  If we want to be the “exchange news and pleasantries” kind of friends, I can do that, but don’t come asking me for more than you yourself can, or are willing to, give.  It just doesn’t work that way anymore.

In as many words, he told me he couldn’t read my blog posts about my grief because they made him uncomfortable and brought him down.  Gee, sorry about that.  Imagine what it’s like to live with it first-hand, not safely on the page as a record of someone else’s experience.  That’ll bring one down a little, too.  But I hope YOU feel better. 

So what I don’t get is, whence comes this Christmas gift?  Guilt?  Hopes that it will cheer me up?  Something he thinks he could do since he was incapable of  being emotionally available for me?  I haven’t the foggiest.  But my ability to be grateful to be given things I didn’t ask for in lieu of the things I did ask for is pretty limited in the best of times.  What I needed from him was free.  It cannot be bought.  And he couldn’t do it.

What do I do with this “friend”?  I’m just going to slip away.  It’s already begun.  I don’t initiate contact.  I sent a thank you note for the gift, with no explanation or apology or regret expressed regarding the fact that I didn’t send him one.  And we will just fade to black.  I’ve been told that just slipping away isn’t the best way to deal with problems in a friendship, that you need to tell them what you need, give them a chance.  But when you’ve done that, and nothing’s come of it, what else can you do? 

It never fails. As soon as I put up a post talking about how I have a moment of perspective, I fall apart. Like last night’s post. Within half an hour after I finished it, I was sitting there, trying to journal but mostly crying and creating a pile of used Kleenex in between sentences until I put my face in my hands and just let go. I can’t even recall what set me off. I mean, I knew it was related to A, and to missing him, but that’s a constant in my life now, and I’m not sure what the specific trigger to this meltdown was. Maybe reading an old chat from the day after Christmas last year was the pebble in my pond that just kept getting bigger. Suddenly, there were tears in my eyes, and then there was sobbing and shaking and putting down of pen. I was literally crying out to him, the ache in my heart physical as well as metaphorical.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some connection between the writing of philosophical posts about the lessons of grief, as if somewhere in my mind/heart/soul something says “There. You’ve been all wise and big-picture and crap about it now; it’s clear you’ve got it. Now go ahead and lose it.”

At first it seemed like irony; but now I wonder if it just isn’t reality, the behavioral evidence of the mind that knows, the heart that feels, and the soul that accepts what cannot be understood as the bridge between the two.

It’s thunder and lightning playing outside my window as I write this, strange weather.  The annual neighborhood holiday hayride just got rained out, and I don’t think anyone was expecting that.  I haven’t heard thunder since September.  The monsoon was unusually long and heavy this year, both matching and exacerbating my mood and my tears this summer.

What can I say?  I survived the holidays.  I don’t think they were as bad for me as everyone said they’d be, but they were certainly bad enough.  I was unquestionably down.  Every time someone wished me a “Merry Christmas,” I gave an approximation of what I hoped was a smile, and thought “Merry?  That’s a bit too much to ask.”  I wasn’t trapped in the depths of despair, I’m glad to say, but “merry” I was not.  The worst, I fear, is yet to come.

I’m trying not to psych myself out for this upcoming trip to guitar camp, but have little doubt that it will be much harder on me than all of the holidays put together.  It was our trip, but only I will be taking it this year.  That’s going to hurt.  It hurts just thinking about it, so I don’t too much; when I do, I end up in tears.

I suppose it’s entirely possible that going there might be cathartic, that somehow grace might be bestowed upon me, and more healing than hurting result.  But I don’t know.  I don’t know much of anything these days, and have given my crystal ball to Goodwill.  That is not to say that I don’t think, ponder, mull, and speculate.  I do that as much as ever, but without the certainty I once had that my conclusions were the right ones, or the only possible ones, or even close.

I guess I’m living with it now, living with the grief, living with the myriad emotions that go along with it.  Oddly, I somehow feel that I’m living more authentically, at least on an emotional level, than I ever have in my life.  Because I’m not just focused on the positive emotions, and have little energy or desire to control the so-called negative ones.  It feels like I’m living fully, wholly, human.  I feel what I feel when I feel it, instead of arguing with myself about how I “should” be feeling.  

I got a book of quotations from my mother for Christmas, and on one of the pages I flipped through was this quotation:  “Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)   And I thought that perfectly described my life currently, and perhaps for the duration.  Perhaps it is the secret others have already figured out, and I finally, truly, get.  I mean, what else can we do, at any point in our lives, whether we are wrecked with grief or back in the halcyon days where we just had a crappy day?  (God, wouldn’t we welcome THAT now?)  The sadness is never far from the surface, I’ll admit.  It’s only been 5 months, and I really don’t expect otherwise.  In fact, I’m surprised to be doing as well as I am (knock wood).  I take what I get, enjoying and enduring in turn.

I got a nice Christmas card from the wife of A’s best friend that heartened me immensely, and have been reading another book that’s been encouraging me to be patient, live my life, and know that we’ll meet up again in time.  Some days I can accept that as enough.  Yesterday and today, for example.  The days before that not so much, and I cannot guess what tomorrow will bring.  But I know that every day brings me one day closer to him again.  It may be a strange thing to find comforting, but you take what you can, and it does comfort me.  I’m not going to quibble.

I am doing more than just existing and surviving now.  I am playing out regularly again at open mics, and have a gig tomorrow night.  I’m teaching myself a new hobby.  I have plans for the future, with the bone-deep understanding that that future may not ever come, but I’m okay with that, too.

It doesn’t hurt to smile.  No, what hurts now is not sharing those smiles with him as I once did, and I cannot even say it’s pain.  It’s a deep wistfulness, dipped in sadness and garnished with longing.  I tell him about my day, what’s going on, but the witticisms and the silly stories from work aren’t quite as fun when there’s no response from the other side, so I don’t tell quite so many.

In the book I was reading, it talked about bereavement being a lifetime commitment, quite matter-of-factly.  I appreciated that, that someone SAID it, because it feels like it’s going to be.  There is no going back; I will always have lost him, and that event will be forever recorded in my growth rings, like a year of drought, or a year of endless rain, affecting everything comes after it in some way.  Not all of the effects will be negative; I can see that even now.  In fact, I have to say that I’ve become more and more aware of the profound effect he had on my life, for the better, in ways I couldn’t have guessed, even as I thought I knew that when he was here.  I don’t even know how to explain it.  But I am glad of it.  I am very glad that our love together, our time together, and the man he was all by himself, has so deeply permeated my soul, for he can never be taken away from me again as he has been.   

Merry Christmas, my love.  I miss you more than I can say.

I got paid Friday, and for the first time in over 5 months I am finally out of the red for vacation time.  I hardly took any time off when A passed, because I didn’t have it.  I was at work the day I found out, and made it until lunch and then took the afternoon off.   I was in shock, in any case.  I shortened up a few days here and there when it was just too much for me; took the day of his memorial service off, because facing work on top of facing the fact that I’d been left out of the memorial was just too much to bear.   I think I took one more day off, the day I was supposed to be leaving to visit him at the end of July, and other than that, I’ve gritted my teeth, come into the office, and cried at my desk when I could do so quietly, and in the bathroom when I could not, as I needed to.   There were days I did nothing but stare into space, read old e-mails, and cry, but I had my butt in my chair, appearances were upheld, and somehow, I don’t know how, I managed to survive. 

Between the time off I took because of grief, the 2 scheduled days I took for my cousin’s wedding in August, and the unexpected time off I had to take off when E had his surgery at the end of August, I was way in the hole for vacation time.   I haven’t been able to take a mental health day even when I really, really needed one, since two weeks after he died, and even then, it wasn’t a matter of mental health; it was a matter of tenuous mental stability.   And I’ve been paying for it, paying off the vacation and sick time debts, ever since.  It seems extra unfair to have lost my sweetie, to have been worried sick about E’s surgery, and still be dealing with the stupid practicalities of work that allowed me no flexibility with time 5 months later. 

I had wondered if, or when, I’d stop counting the time since he died by weeks, and it seems to have happened around the four-month mark.   I had to stop and count how many weeks it’s been:  23.  I scrolled back in Outlook on my computer, and the closer I got to July 15th, the tighter it felt in my chest, until I found the day marked with his name, and then the tightness exploded and spread through my body as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus.  As if I’d actually gone back in time as the days scrolled by on my screen, hurtling toward the day my life changed forever, and I was plunged into a place I hadn’t even known existed, a place I would never want to be, nor wish on another.

I am 99% sure I will be attending the tribute concert outing in February organized by his sister.  I have my own plans for the day, though.   At this point, my plan is to fly early into the airport I always flew to when I visited him, rent a car, and drive out to the state park where they scattered his ashes.   His friend told me clearly enough where they stopped to do it, and I think I should be able to find it.  That same friend also offered to bring me out there when he told me about the day, if I was ever there and had enough time to go.   But I think I need to go alone.  First, I am clearly meant to mourn him on my own, and not in the bosom of his friends and family.   If it should’ve been otherwise, it would’ve been, and I would’ve been there for the memorial and for the scattering of his ashes the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  And secondly, I don’t think I can do that to his friend.   His friend is a dear, sweet man who, along with his wife, has been kind to me.  If just scrolling back through a calendar brings me right back to that moment of the worst pain of my life, how can I ask him to go back to the day they scattered his ashes 3 months after the fact?   I can’t drag him back to something that’s already almost a month in his rear view now.  It was enough that he offered, I think.   I appreciated it. 

I saw that when I went to visit them all.  For me, that meeting WAS the memorial that had been on hold for me.   For them, it was two months after the fact, and they were in a different place than I was, and so it has been all along.  When I wanted to go by his shop and apartment, I thought it was awkward for his friends who brought me, because they lived there and had been in and out of his shop and his place in the intervening time, trying to clear things out and settle his estate.   I didn’t have that opportunity.

They have each other, and have made whatever progress through their grief they have been able to.  I haven’t had the same support (or what I imagine is support—perhaps I’m wrong), the support of people who knew him intimately in various ways, and have made whatever progress through my grief I’ve been able to, independently.   That’s the way it seems it must be, so I will drive myself to that place and have my moment in a place he had wanted to take me, without worrying about anyone else being uncomfortable or checking their watches, and then I will join them in the evening for the show.  

I thought about not going.  I really did, and had all but decided to bail.   Why?  Because I obviously wasn’t a part of that group, and wasn’t going to be.  Because it seemed a long way to go and a lot of money to spend to be among people who’d just as soon I wasn’t there.   Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know; I just know how it’s felt.  But I’ve decided that they are doing the best they can, just as I am.   They don’t understand what he and I had together, how much we loved each other.  And how could they?  I’ve decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, because I know they are not bad people.   They’re just making this up as they go along, as I am.  And I will go, because this concert is what they could offer me, and while it might not be everything I want, I appreciate it all the same.   And I will go because I belong at any tribute to the man I loved.  I have a right to be there.  And so shall I be.