Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

Friday night I was doing some reading about someone having saved answering machine messages of their loved ones who died, and I was feeling envious.  I had saved a message from A at one point, but when I went to find it after he passed, it was gone.  My phone had eaten it; apparently there are limits as to how long cell phone companies are willing to store that data.  Other people talked about videos they had of their loved ones, but I don’t have any of those, either.

But then I began to wonder if such a thing didn’t exist, whether his daughter had, like so many do these days, videotaped her wedding in 2003, which was before he and I met.  If so, no doubt the father of the bride would’ve made an appearance in it.  And I debated writing his sister and asking about it.  This could be my chance, and I would give a lot to see him alive and well, and to hear his voice again.  The week after he died, I often thought very seriously about calling him on the phone, just so I could hear his voicemail pick up, but I never did.  By then, his family had the phones, and I didn’t want them to have to pick up each of the hundred times I would’ve called to hear his voice just “one more time.”  It seemed cruel to do that to them, plus I wasn’t entirely sure what it would do to me.

After much thought, I’ve decided against asking about a video, because nothing I have asked for up ’til now has come to me.  Nothing.  Not even the things that were offered freely.  And I just don’t think I could take being disappointed again.  If I don’t ask, I have made a choice, rather than been the victim of someone else’s.  I’m a bit angry, though, still, at the selfishness.  It doesn’t eat me alive anymore, but when I do think of it (and I try not to), I shake my head.

Related to the above issue is my prayer wheel.  A liked Tibetan prayer wheels, and had told me he wanted one, so I searched high and low to get him one.  I ended up getting him one at eBay that was perfect.  And while he was an agnostic, every time he passed that wheel, he spun it.  When I was there visiting, he would announce it, “Oh!  Gotta pray!”  And then he’d give the wheel a spin.

I would’ve liked to have had his, touched by his fingers so many times with the mixture of humor, reverence, and appreciation that was so very him, but, as I’ve mentioned, it was not to be.  I desperately have wanted things that were touched by him, that he wore against his body, but I am one of those things, and I find that I don’t actually give myself that much comfort.  And I’m with me all the time, whether I want to be or not.

In any case, it became clear fairly soon that I had no chance at his prayer wheel, so I ordered an identical one from the same vendor for myself.  When it arrived, I carefully hand-wrote onto a long strip of paper various prayers I had for him, for his peace and his new adventures and oaths of my continuing love and loyalty.  I can’t remember all that I put there; I don’t remember much from that time, honestly, and it seems wrong to disturb it now.  But I know it was heartfelt and loving.  It could not have been otherwise.  I then taped the strip of paper to the prayer wheel.  The Tibetan Buddhists write or carve prayers into the wheels, or fill them with prayers, and believe that each spin of the wheel has the same effect as reciting the prayer.  The more you spin it, the more the prayer goes out into the universe.  Being spiritual, rather than religious, this appealed to me.  I kept the wheel on my desk as a part of a little shrine to him, one of several in the room, really.

The problem with my wheel, though, is that it was defective.  The spindle was a little off, and while it would spin, it wouldn’t spin long.  I’d have to stand there awhile to send off all the prayers I wanted to.  But he was worth it, and I put up with it.

Recently, I was rearranging my office at home, which, in and of itself, was a big deal.  Just few months ago, moving any of his pictures or anything related to him would’ve been unthinkable.  I had to pick the stuff up, and set it aside while I moved the furniture it had been sitting on, (and I didn’t break out in hives, which is progress, I think.)  I don’t even know what possessed me, but when I picked up the prayer wheel from the top, I turned it on its “ear” and spun the wheel.  And wouldn’t you know, but that thing spun like it was supposed to!  I determined to mount it sideways somewhere so that I could spin it like it was supposed to be spun. 

A little drilling and screwing later, it was mounted in the doorway of my office, so that I can reach up and spin it every time I go through the door.  I like that.  He should feel the prayers rolling in by the dozens now, every day.  I know he must know how much I love him.  But I’m going to keep telling him, just to make sure.

Last night a person who seems to be becoming a friend came over after work.  She is also a budding guitarist, and while she has a nice guitar, all of her friends who’ve played it have complained to her that the action is too high, and she isn’t playing it much.  That not one of them could help her out with that surprises me; they must’ve been men.  Anyway, when she told me, I told her she probably needed to adjust the neck, and I could show her how to do it herself.  It’s a putzy business, but easy enough to do if you’ve got the tools.  

So we ate pizza and talked and then went to mess with guitars, talking and playing our songs to each other, and since I’m little further along the guitar path than she is, I shared with her the minimal knowledge I’ve managed to glean to this point when the moment called for it.

As I did, I realized how many of the things I was saying had come to me through A, my guitar guru on top of everything else he was to me.  He taught me so much, and now I was teaching it to someone else.  I really think he’d be pleased.  Is pleased.  And the truth of the matter is, I’m pleased, too.  It is comforting for me to have so much of him still in play in my everyday, and whether anyone else knows it or not, I know he’s still very much a force in this world, if only through those of us whose lives he blessed, (though I am convinced that he is more active than that in my life; I see it all the time.)  When I share what he taught me, his hand is still in this world, however unseen.  

Right after he died, I wasn’t sure I could ever pick up a guitar again.  Those 6 strings are the warp to his weft, inextricably intertwined in my heart and mind.  And that caused me a lot of pain at first, and some from time to time after.  But now I’m glad for it.  The fact that I have these guitars, that I play at all is only because of him, and every time I play, I’m playing for him.  I’m as sure as I can be that he hears me.

And as we sat eating cake after the guitar stuff was done, and my friend said again how much she wanted to be able to play “O Holy Night” by Christmas, I looked at her and said with complete conviction, “You will play it.”  He said those same words to me, and they are inscribed on my guitar case.  They meant the world to me then, and they still do.

What a man…  I have written 230 single-spaced pages of blog about him since he left, and another 2000 journal pages, not to mention the reams of paper that would be required to print all of our e-mails and conversations.  And yet I am quite certain I will never have words enough to do him justice.  I’m okay, this week, and getting okayer bit by bit.  But holy hell do I miss him.

While I’m a little (okay, a lot) young to be a grandma, I always thought of A’s granddaughter as mine, too, and he and I talked about how we’d meet one day, and I’d tell her all my jokes, because, as funny as he was, A couldn’t tell regular jokes.  She’s 3 years old today.  I bet she’s talking up a storm now.

He called me on his way down to the hospital where his daughter was being induced that day 3 years ago.  He was so excited, and loved being a grandpa.  He was a natural.  Once, in traffic, he had a bit of road peevishness (not rage, really), and he hollered something about "Get moving, Grandpa!"  I looked at him and grinned.  I didn’t even have to say a word.  He said, "I guess I can’t be saying that anymore, huh?"  He now has a grandson, too, born some months after he passed.  They share a middle name.

Every picture he got of his granddaughter he sent me, and she was a cutie, too.  Adorability ran in his family.  But I have had no pictures and little news since he left, and there’s still a little bit of my heart available to break for that.  It’s so complicated for those outside, and because he’s not here, for me.  But we weren’t complicated.  We were the easiest thing in the world.

Happy Birthday, Princess Smiley.  Someone out here loves you.

I have become a world-class flake since A passed, though I didn’t notice it until I’d healed enough to begin to feel like I had choices beyond feeling like I was bleeding to death.  At first, I didn’t do things because survival was about all I could handle, but the habits of mind have stuck around even as the pain has become less acute.

What’s particularly ironic about this development is that I hate flakiness.  And yet e-mails pile up in my inbox, and I read them, and then just glance at them each time I check my mail after that.  I answer them eventually, but “eventually” can be a really long time in some cases.  I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.  I guess I’m waiting to care.  It’s not that I don’t care about the people whose e-mails I’m not answering; it’s that I don’t seem to care about the e-mailing, which is further ironic, because e-mails from friends always make me feel better about life, but you have to write ‘em to get ‘em.  Some of them require a decision from me, like one sitting there now asking me if I want to play a gig at a new coffee house.  I don’t know; I don’t want to make decisions, so there it sits.  I don’t get back to people on the phone, either, not even my folks.  I don’t get the bills paid on time, though I’m aware that they need to get done.  I’m aware of all of it, but I ignore the doing of it.  “Later,” I tell myself.  Always later.  Nothing seems very urgent these days.

At work I have next to zero concentration.  I don’t much like my job or where I work, but they pay me well, so I stay put.  I didn’t like my job when A was alive, either, and regularly regaled him with stories of the sometimes unbelievable experiences of cubicle life and coworkers that he was missing out on in his one-man shop.  He frequently accused me of making it up.  And he would keep me amused during the day by sending e-mails, and we’d chat at lunch and the end of the day, too.  Since he left, though, my job, something I didn’t really care a lot about in the first place, has sunk further in status, however impossible that may have seemed to me before.  I skate by because I’m very efficient when I do manage to focus for a little while, and I get enough done that it’s not, as far as I know, noticed.  But I know exactly how much time my mind is somewhere else and it astonishes even me.  It’s not even focused constantly on him or my grief.  It’s just anywhere but here.

I remember A telling me that as his marriage was ending and he was dealing with what that all meant, things fell apart for him at work, which is not good when you are the entire company.  It was hard for him to focus on the job when his life was falling apart.  He complained more than once about himself to me, how he still hadn’t gotten back on track after 5 years, back in a “go get ‘em” mode at work, and the lack of focus and efficiency cost him.  And it made sense to me when he told me, but I didn’t really understand until now.  I think now I know exactly what he was feeling.  You see what you’re doing (or not doing), and the worst of the trauma has passed, and yet the inertia seems impossible to overcome.  Oddly, even this makes me feel closer to him, as I personally understand something more about him that I just understood sympathetically before.  But it’s probably not any better for me as he felt it was for him.

I’ve become a recluse, too.   I like my house.  All my stuff is there, and I’ve always been okay with my own company, but since A died, I turn down invitations regularly because I just don’t feel like it.  It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy it, or that I don’t think it’d be good for me.  I just don’t think it would be so good that it’d be worth leaving the house for.  I wonder how much of it is just me enjoying being home, and how much of it is me hiding out.  I don’t honestly know.

Lately, I’ve been feeling compelled to stop trying.  Not giving up, but surrendering to the reality that I am not in control here, and living life as it comes to me, without expectation or even hope, which is a nice way of saying “expectation.”  The more I try to figure things out, the more I spin my wheels, so I have to question the wisdom of even trying.  Maybe living in this world long enough forces you to either be Zen or insane.  I couldn’t tell you which I am becoming.  Maybe I’ll think about that.

Later.

So I checked out a new show tonight called Journeyman, starring Kevin McKidd.  I became a McKidd fan watching Rome.  It was a good show, but I don’t know if I can keep watching it.  It takes place in San Francisco, and there are so many memories there for me.  I was nearly in tears by the end of the show, and it wasn’t because of the show.  I left my heart in San Francisco, and all up and down the northern California coast.  And even now it shakes me.