18 months
I never know whether to mark the months and years he’s been gone on the 15th, when he died, or on the 17th, when I knew it. I tend to mark both days, and he left this world 18 months ago today. I remember times in my life, not so long ago, when 6 months seemed like forever; and yet 18 months has seemed like no time at all. I tend to take stock at these milestones, as I’m sure many of us do. Seeing how far I’ve come encourages me to keep going. I think it’s important for those of us who are grieving to do that, to congratulate ourselves for getting this far, however far it is. We have been tasked with bringing ourselves back to life; this is no mean feat, and we should accord it, and ourselves, with proper respect and appreciation, I think. Can I get a “Hell yeah!”?
As it happened, I had my first close encounter of the widow kind today, and had lunch with Alicia. We’d had to reschedule a couple times, and I couldn’t help but think that our meeting today, on this “sadiversary,” was significant. There are no coincidences. We ate and laughed and talked about life, and death, and love, and family, and music. Really, what else is there? It was a delightful hour we hope to repeat in the future.
When I got home today, I grabbed the mail out of the box, and it was a bunch of flyers and other junk, but out of it fell an AARP packet, inviting me to join. Though I feel 900 years old, I’m probably not going to send in my application just yet. I haven’t been really been missing A more specifically or poignantly today, just the same everyday missing him, but that AARP envelope did start me thinking. When he turned 55, we joked about how we were going to live high on the hog with his senior discount. He was already planning how much he would save getting fifty-cent coffees at the Jack in the Box near his shop, and promised me he’d show me a good time there. If you knew him, you’d know he was never old; he never lost that child-like wonder, and that kept him young at heart. He loved to learn, and was always interested in…well, everything. However, it was my duty to make jokes about his age, and occasionally he would respond with something mock-condescending ending in “Missy.” He was hilarious, and I miss our banter more than anything. But as things have turned out, he got to be a senior citizen for a mere 4 months. We didn’t even get to break in that discount.
Who am I after 18 months of this journey? Hard to say. I am self-protective in a way I’ve never been before. Grief has made me insular, and particular about where I put my energies. I don’t put myself out there much anymore, being unable to bear being disappointed by people. I think a lot of that has to do with the mass exodus of so-called friends that all widows experience. I focus my love and energy on a very small, select group of people who have been there for me through all this, who understand me and my life, or at least make an effort, and most of all, who reciprocate. I am devoted and loyal like a Labrador; I have no time anymore for black holes. I’ve got to take care of me and mine.
In that sense, I feel I’ve become more selfish since A died. While I still feel compassion for other people’s situations, that’s about as far as it goes for 90% of the population. I’m not really in a good-deed-doing place. I feel like the world has been stripped naked for me to see how things really are, how people really operate, and I feel like I understand, and not everything I understand is good. Right or wrong, I judge it. I think on some level I evaluate some people thusly: “I see you. I see your drama. I don’t want any part of it. Good luck to you.” There was a time once when I would try to help; now I only help if I think I have a snowball’s chance in hell of it doing any good; otherwise, I save my breath and my effort. It occurs to me that maybe I haven’t gotten colder, but rather that aspects of my personality have gone to extremes. If I loved you before, I love you more fiercely and demonstratively now. If I didn’t have time for your bullshit before, I cannot even tolerate you now. Harsh? Yes. But that’s where I am, at least for the time being. Death is harsh, too. Death is a glacier that will scrape your rolling meadows and flowered glens away, leaving nothing but bare, scarred, unyielding rock. It takes the passing of time to erode the rough edges, deposit new soil, and make your lands fertile and beautiful again.
I speak of death now with bluntness that scares the civilians. They like their illusions, and I can’t blame ‘em. But for me, now, death is around every corner. It isn’t menacing; it’s just reality. It can, and does happen, at any time. I know it’s true. I’ve lived the truth of it for 18 months. I know that I live every minute with no guarantee that I will ever see another. It’s not a constant thing that I meditate upon, or repeat like an affirmation; it’s just an understanding deep in my bones now, and some moments I’m more aware of it than others. When I first started my inlay education, there was a fairly hefty outlay of money to buy tools and materials to get started. At that point, A had been gone 5 months or so, and I was in “What is the point of all this? Why do anything when you can just die any minute, and no one can prevent it?” mode. I had to seriously ponder starting the project, and investing in tools and materials, knowing I could die at any moment and leave an E a garage full of unused tools he’d just have to sort through and get rid of later. It sounds a little crazy as I say it here, but I still totally understand my mindset then. Ultimately, I got to a mental place where I can say, “Well, if I die in the middle of whatever it is, I’m not going to care. So as long as I’m here, I may as well amuse myself.” That is the philosophy that has guided my choices to live ever since.
Similarly, I think about preparing for death. A few months after A died, I decided that we needed to get our affairs in order, because I knew his were a disaster for his family to sort through. I bought a book that guided you through the stuff, wrote down and organized everything for E in case something happened to me, and asked him for a few pieces of information. I’m still waiting for them. I recently bought software to draw up new Wills, and started mine, but needed to make some decisions on the disposition of things in case something happened to both of us. I’ve talked to E several times about it, but he doesn’t want to discuss it. Despite living through my loss of A, it wasn’t his loss, and so he still doesn’t know, bless his heart. But I know, and I cannot unknow it. With every breath, we are dying. That has been true since the day we were born, but I understand it now. I understand what it means, and I breathe life and death simultaneously because, truly, there is no way to do otherwise. We think we breathe oxygen to live, but we forget that we breathe in nitrogen, too. Both are always there, just like life and death.
I feel like there’s not much that can wreck me anymore; once you’ve lost someone you love deeply, what could possibly compare? Things that used to make me worry don’t even show up on my radar now. That’s the thing about competing with death—most things just can’t. That is why I’ve become a more confident performing musician since A died; that is not to say I’ve become better, and I still goof regularly. But I don’t care that much. How can it matter? I really think the only thing left that has the capacity to take me down is the death of someone else I love. I can’t be cocky about death, or grief; I know what it can do. I know what it did to me. It still stuns me that this is survivable; it surely felt like it would kill me, and there were many times early on when I wouldn’t have minded. But I have survived, and will thrive in spite of it, along with it, maybe even because of it. Anything’s possible.