Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

Yesterday was a pretty craptastic day.  Today was no winner, either, and the high point of it was a medicinal Peanut Buster Parfait I got at DQ after dinner tonight.  But yesterday was worse, and I wonder how long I’m going to be in this particular trough.  It seems to have staying power.

It was a shitty day at work, where a coworker who counts on me to do her favors on a regular basis pitched an unwarranted fit over a minor problem via an e-mail to her boss, my bosses, and anyone else she could think to rile up over a minor and solvable issue.  She will find her favorite problem-solver unavailable until such time as I’ve decided she’s been punished enough; perhaps then she’ll learn to think before she acts (stupidly).  I am kind, loyal, and helpful, but do not cross me or that will end so fast your head will spin.  

But while that might’ve been enough to ruin my day, the fun did not stop there.  My day started with an 8:30 a.m. e-mail from someone who is now an ex-friend, I guess.  I got dumped, by a widow friend whom I met at my first online grief support group.  I was just thinking the other day that we have been corresponding well over a year now, and had shared a lot of secrets, support, and love.  This came out of the blue, and her e-mail gave me no clues as to why this has come to pass.  I don’t know if it’s something I did, or didn’t do.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m not a Christian, and never will be.  I don’t know if she’s planning to end it all and was saying goodbye so I don’t worry when I don’t hear from her.  (I don’t think so, but one never knows.)  I don’t know anything.  She said that I helped her, and was there for her as a support when no one else was, and sends me love, as always, but goodbye.  She would no longer be reading my blog or e-mailing with me.  No explanation of why; just the "what" she’s decided.

She asked me not to be sad or angry.  I was sad this morning.  I’m angry this afternoon, because I don’t understand.  She said I wouldn’t understand, and that she cannot explain.

I just don’t get it.

One of the cruelest aspects of death, for me at least, has been the unanswered questions it leaves in its wake.  I have found that the hardest part of my grief work.  But now I realize that unanswered questions are one of the cruelest aspects of life, too.

Just when I think I understand people, I realize I don’t understand anything at all.  So I debated whether I let her have her way, or call her and say "What the hell was that?"  Somehow, I suspected neither course of action would result in a satisfactory outcome.   My suspicion was correct.  I did end up calling her.  And while she would say that it is not because I’m not a Christian, and it was nothing I did or didn’t do (negatively, she said), and that she knew she was being unfair, and she hated doing it, she wasn’t going to tell me anything else and that was that.  She also said she wouldn’t hurt herself.  And I hung up, sad, but knowing at least I did all I could.  Clearly, there is something about me she chooses not to deal with.  Whatever it is, it is apparently none of my business.

It bothers me.  A lot.  E says I’m well rid of someone who would behave that way, but doesn’t seem to understand that it hurts anyway, however right he may be.

So the e-mail and the phone call bookended the rotten work day in the middle, and I could not wait for Monday to end.

Hello, Universe:  Yeah, I get that I’m not in control, and I have to live with the unanswered questions.  It was made abundantly clear when A died; I don’t need any more lessons, thanks.

I journaled last night, and told A all about my day, and finished up by making a list of the good things that happened, just to cheer myself up.  I came up with a list of 17, which I thought was pretty good, all things considered.  By the time I finished, it was bedtime, and I was going to take the dogs out one more time and add #18 to my list with a little star-gazing.  We have light abatement laws here, owing to the many observatories around here that take advantage of our clear desert skies, so even in town you can see lots of stars.  The Big Dipper was overhead, and as I took in the night, I talked to A, and asked him if maybe he could send me a shooting star to let me know he was there, and to buck me up after such a day.  

I stared into the darkness a long time, but nothing happened, and I told him I understood that it was probably a lot of work, but I figured I’d ask, because he’s so good with the hummingbirds.  Then I had to yell at one of the pups to stop eating poop.  (It was the poop de grace of an already bad day, let me tell you.)  And when I looked up again, I saw it, streaking briefly across the sky:  a shooting star.  And I smiled with tears in my eyes.

He always counseled patience.

As a human being, I’m sure I’ve spent the usual amount of time pondering the mysteries of the universe and honestly, and foolishly, expecting actual answers.  Of course, they rarely come, and so I’m left to read and consider and live and speculate as to the nature of this universe we’re all living in, what it all means, and why seemingly bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and what happens to us after all this is over. 

Of course, this seeking and philosophizing of mine has only been put into high gear since A died.  It’s like if someone you love decides to move to Peru.  Suddenly, you want to know all about Peru, what it’s like there, how one lives there, and what will they do all day in Peru?  Can you visit?  How will you get there?  How long a trip will it be?   The thing is, I KNOW where Peru is, and I know I could get there with a few phone calls, the internet, and a credit card.  Not so the next life; I cannot find it on any map.  I’ve read a lot of travelogues, but they’re always a little suspect; I don’t believe everything people tell me about this life is true.  Like Columbus, I can only go forward and trust that my instincts are right.

A lot of what I’ve read shows a strong belief, across cultures and religions and traditions, the result of both faith and direct supernatural experiences, that we lived long before this life, and we will live long after this life, and this interlude is just one aspect of that.  This belief is usually accompanied by one that says we chose to come here, to accomplish some sort of experience, or mission, or learning, or teaching, or all of the above, and that everything we experience, in one way or another, is in service to that.  Not that we are predestined for everything, or that there is deep metaphysical purpose inherent in the event of my knocking the knob of my ankle on the wooden slat on my bed this morning beyond my saying "Ouch…shit," and throwing myself onto the mattress until it stopped throbbing.  There may not be a reason for every little thing that happens, but I feel there is a reason that we happen, and at some point, we knew what it was even if it eludes us since we were born into this life.  And I think that a lot of little things collude to guide us in the direction of that reason.  As I’ve mentioned many times before, I don’t believe in coincidences. 

As I was driving to work the other day, I wondered again why anyone would choose to come into this life, with all its confusion and noise, with all its pain and sorrow.  Why would we leave an environment where there is only love and understanding (according to all the brochures) to come to this one where there seems to be such persistent darkness everywhere we turn?  Why would we dare to trust only to be betrayed?  Why would we dare to love someone, only to have them die and leave us behind?  Why would we dare to build what someone or something else could destroy?  Why would we dare to plan a future we have no guarantee of experiencing?  Why would we do any of these things?  Is choosing to do them even remotely the sign of a sane person, let alone the sign of a higher consciousness?

And then I thought about the people who climb Mt. Everest.  Every year many attempt this monster of a mountain, and many years, someone dies.  A girl I went to high school with lost her father to Everest.  Everyone knows this is no daytrip one does as a lark.  Every single one of these people knows it’s possible that they might not make it back down alive.  But still they go.  They set a goal to reach the summit and they train and they train, and they endure great hardship as they climb, losing gear, and toes, and perhaps friends.   Some parts of the way are so treacherous that when people die there, their bodies are left where they fall, and they can be seen from the more popular routes.  I can only imagine the chilling effect it has on those who presume they are made of stuff tough enough to reach the top; I dare say everyone who has made the attempt thought likewise.  Climbers push their bodies to the maximum, and some of them never make it to the top, because it’s just too hard and they must turn back, or the mountain claims them.  And the rest of us marvel at the adventurous spirit that drives them to attempt such an arduous journey, both physically and emotionally.

I’m sure they get frustrated sometimes.  I’m sure they cry, and wonder how they can go on.   Or they are exhausted, but beat themselves up, wondering how they can quit now, having come so far.  As I understand it, they can only spend maybe half an hour at the “top of the world,” because there is so little oxygen, and it is so cold, and there’s still a long trip back to the base camp before dark.  Half an hour spent in a place they probably spent a year, or maybe a lifetime, preparing for.   But somehow, despite all the difficulties, getting to the top makes it all worth it, as they look around and see the world in 360 degrees. 

And the people keep coming, despite the risks and the hardships they know will befall them.  It’s grueling, unpredictable, and frequently unsafe, and yet it is not without its rewards.  The learning, the sense of accomplishment, the teammates that make it possible to continue and to succeed, the beauty of the views along the way, the feeling of being alive on the edge.
 
And it made me wonder:  What if this earthly life is the Mt. Everest of the soul? 

If this mindset is common in the human mind, at least among the most adventurous of us who climb mountains and do extreme sports just to feel the pure energy of being alive, does it not seem possible that a higher mind, our own higher mind, might choose this life as a Mt. Everest of sorts?

I mean, it is certainly an adventure, filled with love and passion and hate and misery.  Ecstatic highs and lows so low you feel certain there is no returning from them, and the miracle when you realize you have survived the fire after all.  Physical agony, and the indescribable bliss of orgasm visited upon the same body.  Miracles every day, everywhere you look.  Beauty to make you weep, and ugliness to make you numb.  Amazements that all the poets in all times still have not managed to catalogue completely, and possibly never will. 

Life is littered with bodies, symbolic and actual, left in the ice where they are, but all of us who pass them will carry them with us to the top of the mountain, back down it, and forever after.  And I think that although I will never climb Mt. Everest, perhaps I know what those who do go through.  This life is tough enough climb for me.

That said, what if the same adventurous, confident spirit that drives climbers to climb Mt. Everest is what drives every last one of us to come to this world and climb our individual mountains?  What if we come into this life quite aware of the risks…and the rewards?  Quite aware of the potential pain and the possible joy?  And yet we still come, just to feel the pure energy of being alive.

What if that is who we truly are?

I have been ruminating on the draft for this post for days, and somehow I have found myself loath to settle down and finish it.  And I think it’s because if I credit this perspective with any merit at all, it requires of something of me.  It makes me responsible, and paradoxically free, in deeper and vaster ways than I’ve imagined before, and I guess I wasn’t sure if I was ready to receive that memo.  I thought I was responsible and free before, but this is a whole other thing.  But if I consider the possibility that this life is just such an adventure, undertaken with clear-minded intent, knowing the inherent risks, including the reality that there will be some I never planned for and will not be prepared to deal with until I’m in the middle of it and have no choice but to do so, and I chose to be born anyway, what does that mean for my life?  And if I truly believe that death is a doorway and not an ending, what does that mean for my life, now?

I think it means that there is nothing to fear.  That there is nothing to hate.  There is nothing to curse.  There is nothing to blame.  There is nothing but to bundle myself against the cold, hold on to the ropes as I climb (with tired bloody hands, if necessary), to endure the icy winds, to say a prayer when I pass those who climbed as far as they could but were unable to go on, and to make use of good guides when they present themselves, because I knew it was going to be this way.  Because I knew I would also encounter beauty and love that would take my breath away. 

The question is not, “Is this true?”; I don’t presume to understand the universe.  The question is, “Can I live as if this is true?”  I don’t know.  Would it make me feel stronger and more patient?  It very well could.  If I believed that in me lived the soul of an intrepid explorer and collector of experiences who foresaw the challenges possible in this life and said, “Sure, I get that, but I’m still going,” what could I possibly fear?

That’ll keep you up nights.

A year ago today, I had to put my first-born dogter to sleep, as she was suffering terribly from congestive heart failure, a disease that probably would’ve taken her in a matter of a few more days at most.  Those days would’ve been brutal, filled with even more pain and suffering for her, as the ones leading up to them had increasingly been, and we just couldn’t do that to her.  I miss her. 

I lost her just 9 months after I lost A, and it seemed too cruel.  I was distraught, and cried a lot in those last few days, knowing the end was nigh.  I would lie on the floor with her and cry into her fur; she seemed not to notice, as breathing took all her energy and concentration.  Her last night, after the vet had been called for the next day, I spent the night upside down on the bed so I could be near where she sat upright, trying to breathe.  She couldn’t rest because lying down was too painful for her.  Neither of us slept much that night, and I pet her all night.  And I wonder if the trouble sleeping I’ve been having the last couple of nights is because of this milestone.  I’ve been pretty emotional, too.

A lot of people would bash me for even mentioning the loss of a dog in the same breath as the loss of a true love, but given that they happened in close proximity for me, the comparison was inevitable.  It WAS different, of course, but I don’t know how much of that was because she was a dog and how much of that was where I was at that time.  I truly suspect it was more of the latter.

Grief wasn’t anything I was plunged into with her death, because I was already there.  Grief had become a familiar companion, and I suppose there was some kind of bleak, black comfort to be had by not being surprised by the emotions of grief.  I cried, but E raged.  For me, it was more of the same.

I learned, watching her die slowly over 2 years, and holding her in my arms that windy April afternoon in the back yard until she ceased to breathe, that there was no deliverance from any fraction of pain for those who know the end is coming.  It loomed and tormented me, only getting worse from the moment I called the vet to let him know it was time.  I felt like I’d signed my child’s death warrant; I guess I had.  For all the questioning I did, asking a taciturn universe why A was taken from me without any warning, I knew it was her last night alive, and it didn’t make it one iota easier.  It was terrible.

She taught me that, as awful as A’s sudden death was, there was no reduction of the pain and sadness for those who had warning, settling that debate for me once and for all.  Holding her as she died was horrible, and yet I would not have done otherwise.  It would’ve been cowardly, to my mind, and I didn’t want my baby to be alone at such a moment; we do things out of love that we never would do out of choice.  I whispered in her little furry ear the whole time that she would be okay now, that she wouldn’t hurt anymore, that mommy loved her, and that A would be waiting for her.  It was the second hardest thing I’ve ever had to do; the first was to survive A’s death.    

I still talk about her; she’s still my dog, as much as my others are.  Her urn is on the fireplace hearth, and her picture sits on the little ofrenda with A’s picture.  I touch both as I blow out the candle that burns for them each night.  Mommy loves you, Baby.  I hope you and A are keeping each other good company.

Well.  That was a day. 

I am feeling a bit melancholy, for the usual reason, but nothing too intense or overwhelming.  (It’s astonishing what you can get used to.)  Neither is it anything too specific, but I recognize the symptoms well enough by now.  I seem short of breath, like I can’t get enough air, and am having mild heart palpitations, which I haven’t had for awhile.  I’ve got zero attention span, and am constantly distracted.  I’m spending a ton of time surfing the web and reading the widow board instead of working and can’t really find it in myself to worry about that.  I am writing this post instead of reviewing the data they pay me to review.  I am irritable and spoiling for a fight, and my hair trigger surprises even me.   Snappish remarks fly out of my mouth, and as they do, I think, "Why did I say that?  That was unnecessary and unprovoked."  And the cherry on top is that widow-brain is in full force.  I have to admit, I’m a little embarrassed about how many times in the last 3 days I’ve spaced what someone said, forgotten a conversation we just had, or had a complete lack of comprehension of what people are saying to me.  I see their lips move, but my brain is totally disengaged from my part in the communication process. My ears are on, but my mind is elsewhere and did not leave a forwarding address, even for me.  Evidently, my mind is in the witness protection program.  Perhaps that’s a more apt description than I’d intended.

I don’t know if the ides of April triggered this particular bout of low-intensity grief, and the more mental aspects thereof.  It’s been awhile since the 15th has been anything more than a milepost that reminds me to adjust my count of the months he’s been gone.

Times like these, I wonder at this other life that my mind and soul seem to be living beyond the grasp of my conscious mind, which can merely stand by and observe as I feel things, physically and emotionally, that arise spontaneously as far as my analytical mind can tell.  I recently watched this great video of a talk a neuroscientist gave describing her real-time experiencing of a stroke, and how very disparate in approach, job description, and interaction with the universe at large, the two hemispheres of the brain are.   Is that what happens when I slip into this place?  Is my right brain experiencing what it is to be me on an intuitive, energetic basis, and my left brain is looking on, wondering what the hell the right side is doing?

I haven’t the foggiest.  I shrug and go with it, because I’ve given up figuring everything out, and it will pass soon enough. 

…did we never get the chance to say goodbye because there was no need?