Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I’m on a few mailing lists for what I suppose could be called inspiriational e-mails.  One of them I just joined recently, after having found it via the essay at the end of this post that spoke to me in in a way and at a time I really needed it to.  A lot of what they’ve sent me has been fine, and mildly interesting, but today the one awaiting me when I got up this morning touched me more deeply.

Any and all forms of separation - disconnects, divides, partings, breakups, and goodbyes - are temporary. Very. You’ll be together far, far longer than you will ever be apart.

Forever and ever -
    The Universe

This is the thought that has gotten me this far.  It is the beacon that has shone for me in my darkest hours:  That we all really are all one, that life really is short, no matter how long the passing months feel, and that the bonds of love cannot be broken, even by something so seemingly final as death.  It’s all temporary; only the learning and the love last. 

I think I can live with that.  It is because of that that I am living.

It’s been pretty good for the last week or so.  With the passing of time I can feel myself settling into the new normal, and it feels more and more normal and less and less new. I have mixed feelings about that, but I know even so that it is for the good.  I always am a little surprised when I discover that the sediment of my life has settled a little more, compacted into stable strata and interesting patterns, leaving clearer water where there was such muddy turbulence for so long and until so recently.  Such accidental lives we lead, despite all our planning, dreaming, and scheming.

I am grateful for having survived such pain when it seemed an impossible thing to do.  I hardly know what to think about that.  You think for so long that you will not make it.  You think it with every breath, then every minute, then every five minutes, then every hour, then every day, and then one day, you realize you’re making it in spite of yourself.  And then it’s, "Well, shit, now what?"

At lunch when I was in San Francisco, the subject of grief came up; I wasn’t the only relatively recently bereaved person at the table, and I don’t think I was the one to bring it up.  And then one of our group told us a story about how, some years ago, she had been very, very ill and was told that she would probably not make it.  She used her time to quickly get her affairs in order, and made peace with the fact that the end for her was nigh.  She said her goodbyes, and then she waited for the inevitable in relative calmness.

Against all expectations, she got better.  She survived, and then found herself at a loss.  She had tied up all her loose ends and had completed her life in all the ways she knew how; she had made ready to depart this world.  And she didn’t know what to do with herself.  She said that it took her several years, great portions of which she spent days staring at walls, to find any kind of motivation to start what amounted to a new, second life.  She had thought she was done; she hadn’t given any thought to the future because she wasn’t having one.  And when she got one, she had to start all over again and figure out what she meant to do with it.

Her story resonated with me.  You slog through grief for the longest time, fully expecting you will be shattered for the duration, and you may as well have thrown yourself on the funeral pyre, and then one day you realize with a start that you are not, in fact, a dead woman.  You are alive.  And you have this time, though the amount is unknown, that you have to fill now.  My attitude, once I realized that the pain of loss was not going to kill me after all, became, "Well, I’m here.  I may as well amuse myself."  Those who descend to the underworld and return to life see things a little differently than those who have not.

I think that is still my attitude; however, I am pleased to report that there is less bitter resignation accompanying it now.  Instead, there are new, green shoots of enthusiasm for this life, a springtime of soul.  Like any springtime, the nights can sometimes still be sharp and cold, but in the warmer days, I find I’m grateful for every "robin" I can count.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently had to wipe my computer and start over again.  I’m still cleaning up that mess, slowly adding software back to my computer and reinstating files from the back-up hard drive as I find I need them.

A frantic e-mail from a dear friend, also a widow, who had just lost an important recording, exhorted me to back up immediately anything I had outstanding that was not yet backed up.  I had all my e-mails from A on my computer, downloaded via Outlook, and they were lost in the purge, but as they were stored on web mail, I still had them.  I knew I needed to back them up, but hadn’t yet gotten around to it.  I got around to it late Saturday night, and all of Sunday.  I would be sick if I lost them.

There was a grand total of 8,719 individual e-mails between us, in just over 2 years.  I could hardly believe it.  As I worked through the downloading process, some of them would catch my eye, and I’d open them and read them, and I’m glad I did.  I found several pictures he had sent me that I didn’t have in my permanent collection and had forgotten he’d ever given to me.  It’s an amazing gift to get “new” pictures of someone who is no longer here to be photographed.  I was delighted, and I realized that I may find more treasures when I have reread all the e-mails.  I don’t know when that will be; it’s on my “some day” list.  I have to make them last the rest of my life, after all.

But the best gift I got from rereading those e-mails was the realization that I HAD told him how much I loved him, how much he meant to me, and how much better my life was for having met him.  Like all bereaved folks, I beat myself up after for not having done enough, been enough, shown enough love while he was here.  But I think that maybe I did, and frequently, too.  I told him over and over, in short notes, and haikus and limericks, and long, gushy love letters.  He could not have missed the fact that I loved him truly and deeply.  I would’ve told him more often, if I had it to do over again.  But I don’t think I was remiss in telling him over all.  There’s a lot of peace in that for me; I could let myself off the hook on that score.

As I wrote to him in my journal last night, I let him know that I was kind of disappointed he’d not come back to me in honor of the Easter holiday, because that’s the whole point of it.  I have no qualms about joshing the dead, especially this one.  But I think, in a way, he did.

Yesterday, a name came up at work that seemed to nag at my memory as something significant, somehow related to California and A.  I never did solve the mystery of the name, but in my investigation I ended up reading some e-mails from those horrible days right after he died, e-mails I sent to and received from his family.

What’s strange about the e-mails is how very calm, how eminently understanding, how conciliatory they were to people I hadn’t actually offended in the first place.  I felt so keenly my status as a stranger among these people he loved, and was desperate not to upset the apple cart in what was a terrible and uncharted situation we were all dealing with.  I wanted to be able to hold on to these people for dear life, for support, for their connection to him now that he was gone, and, frankly, for the things of his that he wanted me to have, and I went out of my way to be helpful and, I hoped, kind.  

I wonder now if I made a mistake in doing so.  Because I read those e-mails now, and see that while I was bending over backwards to be considerate of everyone else’s feelings, in doing so I may have kicked my own to the curb.  For all my understanding words, for all my apparent calmness, I was dying inside.  I was sick with grief and loss and aching for him, and on top of that I felt every thoughtless word, every thoughtless act, like a knife in my heart (or what was left of it).  But still I tried to be understanding, to put myself in their shoes, to be patient, because I didn’t want to hurt or discomfit the people A loved most in the world.  I knew I was one of them, but I set that aside for the time being because of the circumstances, and I chose to hold my tongue and bide my time, rather than impose on them.  I told them I understood, over and over again.  I understood why they’d left me out of the memorial service.  And in the numbness of the moment, and on some intellectual level, I suppose I did.  What I didn’t tell them that was that I thought they were cold and cruel to do it and that I’ll never forgive them for it.  What I didn’t say is “How dare you?  How could you?”  I didn’t say those things on several occasions, as decisions were made without regard to me, but I felt like saying them.  Maybe I should’ve, but I don’t know what it would’ve gained me.  Not that it would’ve lost me much, either (though I couldn’t know that then).  It merely would’ve hastened the reality that is anyway; everything I wanted to avoid has come to pass:  they have shut me out, and I never got the bracelet or the cards I sent him, or anything else he wanted me to have.

Given how things turned out, I regularly second-guess my actions in regard to them, even now.  Why did I try so hard?  Why did I bother to try to earn their good opinion?  My feelings and needs weren’t really considered in any of the post-mortem activities:  the memorial, the cleaning out of his apartment, the scattering of his ashes.  Promises and offers made to me by both friends and family became excuses and then were forgotten entirely.  And there was no lasting relationship, despite my efforts to interact with them as sensitively and considerately as I knew how.  I’ve not heard from any of them unprompted since his birthday a year ago.   I haven’t heard from family or friend in response to my initiating contact since last fall; I haven’t bothered to write since.  I’ve wanted to, but I’ve held back; I couldn’t take the rising and then dashed hopes anymore.  The holding back bothers me a bit less.  At least this way it’s my choice.

I know this doesn’t make me unusual.  There are 150 stories on any given day at the widow board of people who have not heard from their own families since they lost their loved ones, let alone their in-laws.  And we were not even in-laws.  We weren’t even acquainted until he died.

But what’s nagging at me now, having read those old e-mails, and old blog posts as well regarding that time, is this:  Was I too calm?  Too collected?  Too understanding?  Did I seem unbothered?  Is that why they found it so easy to disregard me and my feelings?  Did I somehow encourage their lack of consideration by trying so hard to keep it together when I conversed with them?  Did I do this to myself?

The thing is, in other e-mails I was very open about my feelings:  about A, about losing him, about how I felt about all of them, about my struggles with carrying on with my life so altered, and that kind of naked emotional display did not seem well received either.  We did not bond over it, anyway.

I guess I’m still trying to figure out how people he described as good and loving could behave in a manner so diametrically opposed to my own natural inclination when faced with this tragedy.  My instinct was to reach out and help and offer and love them and give whatever I had to give.  I accepted them into my heart because he loved them; I had done so long before he died.  It never occurred to me to do otherwise.  But evidently there are other ways of being.

I’m angry, and baffled, and hurt, still.  I don’t think they’re evil; I just think they were wrong.  Sometimes I think I should’ve pitched a hairy fit until I got what I wanted; maybe that would’ve worked.  Maybe it would’ve made me feel better to point out their thoughtlessness.  But that is not my way, and I didn’t want to behave in a way that would reflect poorly on A.  Plus, I was ever cognizant of the fact that they had lost the same person I had, and were grieving, too, and how could I make things harder for them?  So I did what I always do:  I suck it up shit; I don’t start it.  

I don’t know.  I didn’t know how to do it any better than I did; I’d never been widowed before.  I’d never known that kind of emotional pain before; never could’ve imagined it.  I don’t claim to have done it well at all; and I’d just as soon not have the opportunity to practice it a second time and see if I can improve upon my initial performance.  I don’t know what his family was thinking, about me or about any of it.  It seems that dealing with the living is as much a mystery as dealing with death. 

In my efforts to get my head on straight and get back to living…really living…I’ve started by trying to get organized and free myself from a lot of annoying tasks that I have been putting off in action but carrying around in my mind.  Last night, I completed my tax returns, started up a new checkbook and register to replace the one I lost (and despair of finding at this point), paid all the bills in my possession through the middle of April, and mailed the earplugs I promised (in mid-February) I’d send my cousin.

The next order of business was to find the actual wooden top of my desk at home.  But in order to find my desk I first needed to put away the jewelry-making stuff that’s been sitting there (for 2+ weeks) on top of the other piles.  And in order to put away the jewelry-making stuff, I needed to find room in my various bead containers for all the new stuff I had out.  And in order to find room in my various bead containers, I basically had to get all of them out and totally reorganize them.

This is how projects go at my house.  I start to do one thing, and it ends up being a massive multi-level, multi-hour extravaganza that makes my room look like it exploded.

At the same time, I happen to like sorting beads.  I find it meditative and calming, putting order to chaos.  It’s on a miniature scale, of course, but I have long since given up imagining that I can put order to the apparent chaos that is life in this universe.  So I soothe my frustration by tidying up the little corners of my life.

The result of this reorganizing of all my beads and findings and such is that I discovered that I have been, and remain, the custodian of about a metric ton of beads.  I’m not quite sure how I managed to acquire so many; they may be breeding.  If I never bought another bead, I still could make new jewelry twice a week for the next 4 years.  At least.

Among the beads were surprise, fear, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.  No!  Actually, among the beads were some that I wanted, and was sure I didn’t have anymore.  These were beads that became important to me because of A.

A few months into our friendship, and not long after our friendship turned into something more, A sent me a pair of necklaces that he’d purchased in Kenya a few years before we met.  He’d worn one of them, and the other had dangled from his backpack, a plaything for his cat.  It was an offering of love, and though the word hadn’t been spoken yet, I knew it for what it was.  I felt the same way.  And it was about the same time that I’d decided I wanted to offer him a token of love and determined to make him a bracelet because I knew he wore them.  Along with his watch, he wore another strand of beads he’d gotten in Africa.

I ended up making the bracelet out of malachite, silver spacers, and black beads.  I wrote him a card explaining the symbolism of all the beads I’d chosen.  I picked the malachite because I had it on hand, and because it was green, for my Irish boy.  But when I looked up the supposed metaphysical properties of malachite, they were so appropriate—transformation, balance, healing, and moving past negative influences and experiences.  He was still in the middle of the practicalities of separating from his wife, though emotionally he was ready to move on.  The black beads were taken from one of the necklaces he’d sent me that I’d shortened, giving him back a little bit of what he’d given me.  The silver might’ve been for his silver hair.  I cannot remember now, but they had meaning, too, and the overall effect of the bracelet was a masculine, earthy one, just like him.  

He loved it, and loved the explanatory card as much.  He put that bracelet on between his African beads and his watch and I don’t think he took it off again.  He is wearing it in picture after picture, and always had it on when I saw him.  I imagine he was wearing it when the police found him.

When I found out he was going to be cremated, it was that bracelet I asked for, because I knew if it went with him, that would be the end of it.  I do not know if it did.  I don’t know how that process works, and I’m not sure I want to.  I know it was just his body, but I don’t want to think about it.  It’s pretty horrible to contemplate.  

In what I chalked up to the fog that was those first days and week leading up to the memorial service, his sister forgot that I’d asked, or never even realized I asked, or who knows what, and nothing was ever said in response to my request.  While there were many things of his that I wanted for myself, and things he wanted me to have, when it became clear that the family was not going to offer me anything at all beyond the cards they’d found that I’d sent him, the bracelet was the only thing I decided I would ask for.  It meant nothing to anyone else, but it would have meant the world to me.

I screwed up my courage to ask his sister again for the bracelet, and she said she’d talk to his daughter and his ex, to see if it ended up in his personal effects.  Months would pass before I would ask again, and for the last time, for it and the cards.

I ended up with neither, and nothing else, either.  I have talked at length in other posts about how much this hurt me.  It still does, though I’ve gotten pretty good about not letting it make me crazy anymore.  

For some reason unknown to me, the idea popped into my head this morning that I should just contact his ex directly for it, though she and I have had no contact at all before or after his passing.  I didn’t want to bother her, but suddenly today my thought process was “I don’t care about her feelings. It’s my turn to get what I need.”  It was a selfish, fed-up moment and I’m not sure where it came from today because I wasn’t feeling either, but the thought came up again later in the day, and I pondered it, but dismissed it for the same reasons I’ve always dismissed it, as well as the fact that it’s been 20 months.  I guess I kind of always harbored a futile hope that the light would dawn, and it would occur to his family to do the right thing, the kind thing, late rather than never.  Not so much, as it turns out.

But as I was going through my beads tonight, I realized that I still had more of the malachite beads, as well as the silver ones that I used.  I thought that I’d used them all up on his.  I didn’t have any more of the black ones, and didn’t want to cannibalize the necklace he gave me further, but it was okay, I had other black beads.

I kept sorting as I considered whether, after all this time, I wanted to create a replica of his bracelet.  I have lots of replicas of his things.  We have the same 12-string guitar, plus my most recent electric guitar is the same kind as his, the one he always said would be mine, but I don’t know where it is now.  I bought a prayer wheel like his, and pray for him every time I pass it.   I have many replicas, symbols of the symbols of the man.  This would be one more, but this one mattered more.

As I ruminated, I happened upon some hematite beads I got on my January trip to San Francisco with my friend B.  They were spacers between large pieces of dyed abalone, which were why I bought the strand.  Maybe there were enough?

I lined up the beads, and there were almost exactly enough—I only had 2 left over.  It is a little more feminine in this incarnation, which is appropriate, and it is not exactly the same bracelet, which I think is important.  I cannot have the one I gave him; this will always be a substitute.  But if I’d made it as close as possible to his, I had the sense that I might be trying to fool myself that it was the same one I gave him.  And that didn’t feel right.  But it is close enough, and it makes me happy to see it on my wrist.  

These hematite beads will always remind me, too, of a weekend spent in The City with another beloved friend, of the healing I felt on that trip with her, despite being in a city he and I shared, and of my new life since he left.  And I think that’s important as I try to embrace this life of mine, rather than just plod through it waiting for the credits to roll.  This bracelet is in memory of him, and to appease my angry demons for not having the original; but with the change of just a few pieces of it, it is also inspirational to me.  My past and my future can coexist with honor and harmony close to where I can feel my heart beat.

Hot on the heels of my epiphany yesterday, my horoscope had this to say today:

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): This is one of those rare times when your empathy could undo you unless you adhere to the following guidelines. 1. Squelch any attraction you might have to fascinating ruins, sexy decay, or appalling beauty. 2. If you have been sucked into the sphere of a good-looking monster or seductive tyrant, yank yourself free. 3. Break your gaze the instant you sense you’re falling under the sway of a flaming narcissist.  4. Suppress the temptation to think this thought: "I’m bored with my hell; I want to hang out in *your* hell for a change."

Guess that means I have to lay off the widda board again.    And I have to stop thinking of myself as a ruin, fascinating or otherwise.

Yanking myself free sounds pretty good right about now.  Think I can do it?