Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I was going to take myself out to the movies tonight, and see this one, which looks to be excellent.  Great cast, touching, significant story.  I want to see it.  And I don’t mind going to movies alone.  But I got home, and I was tired from a long day that seems hot even in air conditioning, and the puppies were cute, plus they’d all been locked up all day, and going out again once I’m home is always iffy.  Home is a comfort vortex; once I’m here, I want to stay here.  So it could’ve been all that.  Or maybe it could’ve been that I decided I was not yet ready to voluntarily blow $10 on an opening night movie where the lead character is dying.  A weekly hour of ER has been hard on me; 2 hours in a public place with strangers…could it be too much?

It’s hard to know which was the heaviest factor in my decision to stay home tonight.  I suppose it’s a good sign that I actually HAVE more reasons than just the latter to want to stay home.  I feel like I’m at a point in my grief where I’m pretty okay most of the time; but I also know that I still have a hair trigger emotionally, and am well served to not go courting trouble.  And this movie is a guaranteed multi-Kleenex production, I’m sure.  There may be a part of me, too, that wants exactly that.  A catalyst to bring on the tears, so I can feel the relief I always feel after.  Or maybe I just want a reason to cry other than my own.

I used to pride myself on the fact that I really worked to figure out my own "stuff."  And I suppose I still do, to some extent, but since A passed, and I’ve learned to deal in a world that can stop making sense in a heartbeat, where the answers to the questions that matter to us most are not available, no matter how desperately we ask them, I no longer require definitive answers, because I now know that in many cases there just aren’t any. 

So I’m staying home tonight, because I just don’t feel like going out.  That’s all the explanation I need.

The day after I posted about things still being where they were, though A is no longer there, a funny thing happened.  They’re shutting down Terminal C and eventually are going to tear it down.  That was the airport he first picked me up in, and we saw it quite a few times thereafter.  We had our first touch, our first hug, and our first kiss in Terminal C.  It was in Terminal C that he first wore "the airport shirt," a favorite polo of his that I often saw when he came to pick me up.  He looked good in earth tones.  He looked good in everything.  And nothing.  I always beamed when I arrived at that terminal, and cried as I left it.  The last two times I was there, I cried both upon arrival and departure; there was no handsome man waiting there for me to make me smile.

In an undefined way, I find myself kind of glad, because it IS weird to me that the scenery is still there, but the leading man in this love story is not.  It’s silly.  It’s selfish.  It makes no sense.  I know that.  But the terminal is going, and any pleasure/relief/comfort I take from that fact hurts no one.

It’s just short of a year since he passed.  And I have healed a lot in this year.  But those little insanities I detailed in August, at a month and a half from when he left?  Evidently, they do not go away entirely.  No one’s sane all the time anyway; we all just pretend.
 

I spent some time looking at aerial photograph maps of your shop today, and your apartment.  I could see the paths we walked at the park, Effie’s and the gas station on your corner, and your apartment building where I’d walk up the stairs ahead of you and wiggle my tush for your always-appreciative benefit.  I could see your parking spot, and the pool I swam in and your willow tree.

It’s all still there.  Every bit of it.  And I really don’t know how that can be.  How can it still be there if you’re not?  It’s nonsensical of me to ask, I know, but that’s what went through my mind.  That world existed for me only because of you.  Therefore, shouldn’t it have disappeared with you?  Shouldn’t the entire state of California have just sunk into the ocean the day you died?

I was looking at pictures from the LGBT Pride Parade in The Fucking City today, too, seeing landscapes that were not necessarily ones I’d been through before, but familiar because it’s San Francisco, and it looks the part.  And I felt a twinge, and some nostalgia. I love that city.  But I learned to love it at your side, so forever after it will be a wistful love.  We’ll never walk the Golden Gate.  We’ll never take the Barbary Coast walking tour like we planned.  And yet I will never see a photo, or read a story, or hear a reference to TFC without thinking of you, and all you showed me there.  I will always hear James Taylor and Billie Myers as the soundtrack to my memories.  I left my heart in, and a little south of, San Francisco.  And it stays there, lost and lonesome for you.

Tonight I read a blog with a link to a blogger who had just lost his son, a pool accident.  The little boy drowned.  There was a video there, of him and his son, and they were so cute together.  It is terribly sad.

It’s a strange thing, now, to witness the losses of others.  There is a strange calm I feel, even with the sadness.  I think it comes of a deep knowing of what this father and mother are going to go through, pain-wise, if not the particulars.  And all I can do is sigh with understanding, and send out a prayer to them, because they’re going to need it.

Unexpectedly, it doesn’t trigger more pain for me, reading about others’ losses.  It doesn’t highlight my loss in sharp, jagged, painful relief.  Rather, it triggers deep compassion for those who have just joined this most horrific of clubs.  They have a long road ahead of them; I know, because I have been traveling it, walking in the footsteps of those who have traveled it before me.  The sad thing about this world is that we will have many opportunities to reach back to those who follow us down this lonely road; but perhaps that is a form of grace, to be a beacon of hope to others and find healing therein.  The light we shine may be through windows that are still cracked and smoky, and not entirely repaired yet, but the light shines nonetheless.  

My wishes for the grieving, now that I’ve been there:

• I wish you peace, in small moments, in special signs, and eventually in your memories.
• I wish you understanding loved ones, who will be there for you to help you through this.  I wish you better than most of us receive on this point.
• I wish you time to deal, instead of having to rush right back into the world and pretend to be okay when you are so very not okay.
• I wish you a long and strong memory of the good, even the smallest bits.  Those are often the sweetest.
• I wish you the strength to relinquish that which threatens to crush you with guilt.  All is forgiven.  All is forgiven.  Forgive yourself.
• I wish you fuel for the eternal flame of hope in your soul, which will be so grievously dimmed for a time.
• I wish you peace.  I wish us all peace.

I was looking at my calendar today, checking to see when my haircut was, and the window displayed through the next few weeks, including July 15th.  It took my breath away, seeing that date.  In fact, even as I write this, I’m still feeling the punch.  It’s not that I’m not aware that the anniversary is coming up.  I’ve been feeling it approach since June hit, really.  I’ve been feeling it keenly.  I’ve been monitoring myself to see how I’m feeling.  (Okay, but with a few more downs lately, probably because of the anniversary coming.)  I’ve been planning a tribute for the day.  (I want to record the song I wrote for him and share it with his gang and those in my gang who knew him and have been supportive.)  I’ve been pondering my progress over the last year, and am somewhat shocked that almost a year has passed already.  My perception of time, never very rigid, has become fluid, like quicksilver—I can see it, but I cannot grasp it.

It surprises me that seeing that date on the calendar, now marked with his name (an unnecessary reminder—like I could ever forget?), I should have such a literally visceral response to it.  Its potency is undeniable, though.  There are so many reminders, all the time, and at this point, most of them bring a smile to my face, even if it’s soon joined by tears in my eyes.  But not this; this hit me right in the solar plexus with unexpected force.  And maybe it’s because the memories that make me smile were ones we created naturally in the course of our relationship, whereas until he died there was nothing special about the middle of July.  And now it is memorable for horrible things:  not being able to get ahold of him, worrying, desperately investigating, fear of the worst, and ultimately finding out the worst.  There is absolutely nothing good associated with the memories of mid-July 2006, no smile to accompany the tears.  I think that the best I can hope for is that the punch I feel as that date approaches and arrives loses steam over the years.