Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I have to admit, I’ve been one of those people…one of those people who tried to cajole others into seeing the bright side, and not being so negative, and for chrissakes, can’t you just see the good in the moment for once instead of the bad???  In all fairness, I gave myself the same obnoxious peptalk on countless occasions, as if I could talk myself out of my depression du jour. 

Because that’s what we’re supposed to do, right?  Being in a dark emotional place is merely a sign of weakness, a flashing neon "Failure" across our foreheads.  What you need to do is pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and be happy, dammit!  What’s wrong with you? 

During one deep (and unprecedented) depression some years back, I gave myself that talk for 6-9 months; it never quite took, though eventually depression released me.  And that depression taught me that sometimes you can’t help it, and that no matter how much sense you talk to yourself, it makes no difference.  But as soon as my soul moved out of the eclipse, I went right back to expecting that happiness was the norm, and if I wasn’t happy, I was wrong, somehow, and needed to take action to get right as soon as possible. 

Soon after being freed from that depression, I had a long period of unprecedented happiness, self-satisfaction, and contentedness with the world and my place in it that only reinforced that expectation.  Clearly I was living right, for things to be going so unbelievably well.

And then A died, and I got a real emotional education the likes of which I don’t think I ever could’ve conjured up on my own, no matter how many self-help books I read or how many hours of navel-gazing I engaged in.  In these last 19 months, I have learned the power and intelligence of emotions, even when they left me feeling weak and befuddled.  I have learned to feel everything, every little thing, at the moment I’m feeling it, because there was a fair stretch of time where I had little choice.  All those years of training in good, solid Midwestern and Scandinavian suppression of feelings were out the window.  I wasn’t in control of my feelings; my feelings were in control of me.  Sometimes I’d be laughing, and the laughter would turn without warning into tears and deep sobs.  Sometimes I’d be weeping, and something would strike me as funny and I would start laughing hysterically.  Sometimes I felt the pain of my loss with a physical sharpness that ached in a way I’d never hurt before.  Other times, I was numb, and wondering as I lay curled up on a ball on my bed how many steps there were between where I was and catatonia.  I tried to think my way around it; oh, how I tried.  And failed.  And over many, many lessons I learned that I had only one option in the darkness:  I had to feel my way.

Among the voices guiding me in grief, the ones that said "Lean into it" and "There’s no going around–only through" were the ones that spoke above the fray.  And so that’s what I did, and I think it served me well.  And now, when the newly bereaved arrive at my online grief group, the best advice I can offer them is to feel their feelings–all of them.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.  We come from a culture of stiff upper lips and self-control and the elevation of intellect over emotion.   Reason rates higher than passion, and I suspect it may be because we fear passion is stronger.  So we denigrate the expression of emotion beyond the norm. 

They cage tigers, don’t they? 

Add to that the peculiarly American attitude that among our inalienable rights is "happiness," and that there is something very seriously wrong if we’re not consistently happy.  Clearly, we need a new drug, a new boyfriend, a new car, new boobs, and new shoes:  the consumer culture is built upon this premise.  We forget that we are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, along with life and liberty, and that’s it.  There is no fine print.  And I think that attitude does many, if not all, of us a disservice, because when you believe that you are supposed to be happy all the time, and find that you are not, you really have only two possibilities to consider:  either you’re a failure at life, or life has failed you.  The acceptance of either of these is unlikely to improve your happiness quotient.

So you have the expectation of happiness, and few safe outlets with which to express and deal with the emotions that are not happy, which ultimately results in a lot of hurting, lonely, isolated people.  I believe that the explosion of blogging is a response to this–people want a place where they can speak from the deepest places in their souls, even if they must do it anonymously, as I do. Other than that, we treat unhappiness, discontent, anger, sadness, grief, shame, and a whole host of emotions as "negative" at best, and as disease at worst, disease that must be cured at all costs.  Which makes it pretty damn difficult to be sad in this culture.  No one will let you. 

Despite our insistence that the status quo is "happy," surely we’ve all experienced the folks who are also made uncomfortable by the expression of too much joy, and will make you uncomfortable if you persist in telling the world how happy you are.  They will bring you down any way they can.  But it’s the same issue, really.  Make no mistake:  to insist on authentically experiencing of all your emotions is a rebellious act that, were enough folks to do it, would be nothing less than revolution. 

Today, someone at the widow board posted a link to this article.  I read it, and I felt like I’d found a friend.  This doctor has addressed this issue head on.  I’ve felt that I’ve had to fight for my right to feel bad against all the well-meaning people in the world who really, really wanted me to feel better, sometimes for me, sometimes for them.  The author being interviewed speaks in favor of not judging what she calls "dark" emotions as "negative" or "wrong."  She suspects that the inability to express, acknowledge, and productively "metabolize" our dark emotions is the root of the increase of antisocial behavior we see on the news every night; that makes sense to me.  She suggests that the universality of such emotions indicates they serve a purpose, and perhaps we harm ourselves and everyone else when we try to stuff them down.  Granted, there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of dealing with emotions, but to experience your pain, to experience your anger, to experience your sadness in a conscious way is not the same thing as wallowing.  I’ll leave it at that, as the author can explain her points better than I can hope to; I heartily recommend reading it.  When I got to the end of it, I thought, "Amen."

It was Carl Jung who said "I’d rather be whole than good."  I think of that often as I come up against various taboos, spoken and tacit, about what is okay to feel and do and say.  I’ve come to the point where I refuse to believe that the point of human existence is to learn how to adamantly deny half of ourselves, half of the very experience we are here to partake of.  I am going to laugh too loudly in public, and I am going to grieve until I don’t need to anymore.  I am going to feel.  Sometimes I’m going to feel bad.  Really bad.  Worse than I ever imagined anyone could feel, let alone myself.  I know that now; I’ve been there.  But I’ll feel, because when I don’t allow myself to, my chest gets tight, and my body gets antsy and I can’t breathe and my skin breaks out and my guts churn.  Bottling it up is only a short-term and temporary solution, and the side effects are nasty. 

How many of us have been betrayed by the myth that "happy" is the baseline?  How many times have we judged ourselves lacking because we just couldn’t cheer up?  How many of us have been thrilled to be, finally, having an "okay" day, only to have someone else ask us "Just okay?" and make us question ourselves?  How many of us would find living in this world a little easier if we didn’t have to live up to the expectation that life is just one big Crest-smile-inducing bonanza of joy?  Wouldn’t it be a relief to know that sometimes life sucks, and we’re okay, and still sane, if we think so?  How much pressure would we remove along with our masks?  And isn’t it possible that if we could let ourselves off the hook, and stop insisting on happiness, there might be a greater chance of actually getting it?

For the record, I’m doing pretty well right now.  But I reserve the right to feel otherwise at any point in the future.  And it doesn’t make me weak.  It only makes me human.

Saturday I have plans to have coffee with a woman who recruited me to potentially create an acoustic trio with another guy.  I have always wanted to be in a band, but it hasn’t worked out thus far, so I’m kind of excited about the possibility.

Whenever I have good news, especially of the musical kind, of course I have to share it with my sweetheart, who was also my guitar guru, and I was journaling last night to A about it.  I know he’d be excited for me, and maybe he is, in fact.  When I was giving E the scoop yesterday when we left for lunch, a hummingbird that usually perches on the electric lines high above the wash that runs past the parking lot was instead in the tree right next to the car, and I commented to E that he was listening in on the good news, too.

I told A that while we had a date for "coffee," of course it would be hot cocoa for me because I don’t do coffee.  And then suddenly I had a moment, a memory that I’d forgotten I’d forgotten.

A had a cup of coffee every night before he went to bed.  One cup, no more, and it never kept him awake.  He was usually asleep within a minute of his head hitting the pillow, the lucky bastard.  We would be talking and I’d ask him if he’d made coffee, because he’d forget sometimes and then be caffeine-short the next day.  More often, he’d made it but forgot to pour it.  I didn’t mind reminding him; I enjoyed the intimacy of knowing his routines and being a part of them.

He knew I didn’t drink coffee, though, and he always made sure that he had hot cocoa mix in the apartment for me.  And he would even make it for me, using two packets of cocoa per cup for extra chocolate goodness.  That was his own plan; I had never been so extravagant to use two in any cup of cocoa I’d ever made. 

And as I relished the memory (albeit with a touch of melancholy), I pondered how often we fail to fully recognize love.  I had totally forgotten about the cocoa until that moment; it certainly hadn’t fixed itself in my memory as a demonstration of love on his part, but now I can see clearly that that’s exactly what it was. 

More than once in this journey, I have been able to see seemingly mundane memories with entirely different eyes, and understand that he loved me more than I (and my insecurities) had ever been willing to allow myself to believe.  And when you’ve lost your beloved, that is a gift beyond measure.  When everything else has turned to ash in the fire of grief, if you open your eyes, eventually you can see that love remains.

I watched this video today, and there was a lot of good stuff in it, but one bit that really stuck with me was a piece of advice the speaker offered to women who love men.  A mentor of his, a woman, had told him, having taking many years to figure it out herself.  He said, "Ignore everything men say and only pay attention to what they do."  As soon as I heard it, I recognized it as a bit of brilliant advice and true wisdom, one I can apply backwards and going forward as well.

It always saddened me, when he was here and especially after he’d gone, that he didn’t spontaneously tell me he loved me more.  But if I ignore everything he said (or didn’t say) and pay attention to what he did, I can see that he DID "tell" me, every day.  Hot cocoa speaks volumes. 

I was just journaling, listening to our songs, writing about the events of the day and stuff going on in my life–nothing heavy–when suddenly I was overwhelmed with this feeling of "Where are you?  How can you be gone?"  It’s Carole King’s fault, I think.  It still hits me as a surprise I cannot comprehend.  I’m talking to you, all by myself with no response, here in my journal.  Clearly, I know you’re not here as you were.  And yet it’ll hit me like a bolt out of the blue, and the head-shaking will start.  I know the reality, but I do not understand the reality.  It is incomprehensible to me, even now.

Shit.

I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have to understand this life to live it, or I’d be so fucked. 

Among the vacation reading I brought to Mexico with me was a collection of poems by Mark Doty.  I started and finished it in the Cozumel airport, waiting for my inevitably delayed flight to board.  Doty is a widower, having lost his partner to AIDS some years ago.  He wrote a memoir of that struggle, of his partner’s declining health and eventual death.  It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for maybe 9 months.  At the time I bought it, shortly before the 1-year-milestone of A’s passing, I really wanted to read it.  I’ve found that the greatest comfort I received in my grief was from reading the memoirs of others who’d suffered a similar loss.

But it seemed that when I was really, really down, I didn’t have the heart to read it.  And when I was feeling better, I didn’t read it because I was afraid of sabotaging myself.  That fear remains.  There comes a point in the grief journey (at least in my experience) when you have more choice, more control over yourself and whether you give in to your emotions and see how deeply you can wallow in them, or you acknowledge them, but try to keep busy so that the vague sadness that is permeating your day does not become a meltdown, the hangover of which lingers for weeks. 

I felt like I was on the cusp of a meltdown prior to my trip, but I put it off.  I didn’t need to go there, and figured I’d have myself a good cry on the plane or at night when everyone else was asleep and I was alone.  It didn’t happen that way, though.  The melancholy hung on, just barely beneath the surface, occasionally flaring into moments that pierced my heart so familiarly now that I couldn’t call it pain; just an intensity of feeling, as if the volume of the sad song that plays continuously, quietly, in the background of my thoughts was cranked to 11.  This is how it is now.

Anyway, the collection of poems I was reading in the airport, Sweet Machine, touched frequently upon the themes of love and loss and the fragile, ephemeral beauty of this world.  There was one poem in particular, the second in a triad of connected pieces, that touched me.  I often feel that if A were really and truly ended, I would feel an emptiness, a muffled and unyielding blankness, where he should be.  And I don’t.  Despite my loneliness for him, he is as much a part of my thoughts, my memories, my life, (insofar as my life happens in my head), as ever.  He is not dead to me.  He is everywhere.  My life and world, as Doty says in the poem below, are imbued with him.  I hope that always feels true.  Because it is what has allowed me to make it this far.

Where You Are—Mark Doty 

2.  Everywhere

I thought I’d lost you.  But you said I’m imbued

in the fabric of things, the way
that wax lost from batik shapes
the pattern where the dye won’t take.
I make the space around you,

that close, where I am:  between
where breath ends, air starts.

I have returned from vacation, a little more sunburned and a little less rested than I would’ve liked, but otherwise it was a good trip.  I’m glad I went.

I learned that that I can be 2000 miles away from anywhere we’d ever been together and still miss him a great deal, regardless of how much fun I’m having.  This was not a particularly shocking realization, I must admit.  Upon my return, I caught up on blogs, and Annie wrote of living and grieving, that the two were not mutually exclusive, or serial, but rather that you can, and do, do both at once.  I think that’s an excellent point.  I think that’s what I’ve been doing, trying to do so consciously whenever the grip of grief let up enough to let me pull just a little bit further away from the pain of my loss of him.

Part of the reason I agreed to go on this trip is that my parents aren’t getting any younger, and I am too, too aware that people can just disappear from your life without warning, leaving you with a heap of regrets to sort into piles of “shoulda,” “woulda,” and “coulda.”  I do not delude myself that I can avoid all regrets when the end comes, but sometimes we have the insight to know there are some we can avoid.  I didn’t want the phone to ring one day and leave me hating myself in hindsight for having skipped the trip.  I would never say so to them, of course; I just add it to the list of things we don’t really talk about.  But I would wager that a great many things in this life are done in service to our knowledge of our mortality, a keener awareness for some than for others.

My parents are in their late 50s, not old, but then again, neither was A, and yet it seems Death was unimpressed by his relative youth and disinclined to spare him for my sake.  I look into their faces and I cannot help but think of A, who was younger than both of them when he died, but is no longer here.  Would I trade?  There is a selfish part of me that would have him back at any cost.  But at the cost of having one of my parents know the pain that they have no idea I carry the scars of?  A pain that must come to one or the other of them sooner or later?  Perhaps I’ll just consider myself blessed that that choice will never be mine to make.  

I cannot help but wonder, “Will they be here a year from now?”  I have no reason to believe they will, or that I will, or that anyone will.  Not anymore.  I assume nothing; actually, that’s not true.  I assume the worst now.  A dozen times a week, I ponder the early death I’m sure is going to be mine.  And then I think about how I have my paternal grandmother’s mouth, and how she and her sisters lived into their late 80s and mid-90s, and if I follow the female side of that line, the bitter laugh will be on me as I live long enough to bury another husband.  I fear that possibility, but am half-resigned to it, because that would just be my luck.  Not much I can do about it, regardless; I know that.

My mother has a heart condition she doesn’t give us all the details of; the episodes are worse and more frequent than she lets on.  The men on my dad’s mother’s side have a tendency to die 20 years before their sisters did, and I don’t know which side of the family my dad will favor.  My brother, because I dared to discuss it with him, suspects that one or both of them will be gone within a decade.  I would not be surprised if he’s right, and I can never decide if I’m being morbid or realistic.  Perhaps they are the same, have always been, and only are differentiated by those who still possess the comfort of their myths.

I missed A there.  I missed E terribly as well.  When you are the only singleton with 3 other couples, you tend to be more aware of all that is missing.  And I noticed that while I’d imagined that this vacation would be a break from my “real life,” it was really only a break from work.  My real life goes with me everywhere; that is the way of things, I suppose.  I had no major epiphanies, no signs that spoke to me of his presence while I was there, no insights into my journey other than that it continues.  All I had was the dual tracks of the external moments and the internal ones that sometimes played in harmony and sometimes clashed, and I just tried to keep time.

My last full day there, I went out late in the hot, humid afternoon with my brother and sister-in-law for coffee and to get a souvenir shirt for E.  I found one, paid for it, and then I found myself strangely drawn to the sleeveless shirts on another rack, and as I flipped through them I realized that E would never wear such a shirt.  But A did, all the time.  I was looking for a souvenir shirt for a man whose strong, beautiful body has been scattered to the winds for well over a year.

These things are only mildly surprising now, these orphaned impulses of love.  And I have never in my life been quite so eager to get home.