Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I woke up yesterday morning to the news of the Flight 3407 crash in New York.  It was not what I needed to see on the day E was flying home from a business trip, and on Friday the 13th, no less.  I found myself possessed of a vague worry the entire time he was gone, occasionally erupting into full-formed catastrophe scenarios:  What if his plane goes down?  What if he’s in a car accident there?  What if he is victim of some heretofore unknown heart defect that is triggered by thin air, fatigue, and bad food?

None of these things are very likely to happen, of course.  They are merely the symptoms of the persistent visceral fear that I have had since A died:  Is today the day that is our last day, without my even knowing it?  Is my saying goodbye to E today my last words to him, ever?  Will I look back on this seemingly ordinary day some day and mark time from it again as the day my whole life changed?

I was never like this before A died.  But his death, so sudden and so unexpected, made me realize that any day could be the day.  His death wasn’t very likely to happen either, and yet it did; I have no protection from that reality anymore.  And now I wonder if today is it, for me, for E, for my parents, for my friends.  I was so carefree once; I resent this knowing.  For some people, I have seen, it is an inspiration to live lives with greater fearlessness than they ever dared to before.  For me, it’s a burden I cannot seem to set down.  This bell cannot be unrung.

I was walking into work the other day, and it was a beautiful morning.  The birds were chirping.  The sun was warm on my shoulder.  I had a snazzy outfit on and was having a good hair day.  The hum of the traffic seemed cheery.  I was conscious of all of this conspiring to make for one happy Girl.  It should’ve.  There was a time when it would’ve.  And overall, I would have to say that I was taking it in and enjoying it.

But I was also aware of the heaviness of my heart.  Indeed, it was the contrast of everything else being so lovely that finally allowed me to pinpoint the weight I feel in my chest all the time.  It’s a physical sensation.  As good as things may be outside, it never goes away.  Or I should say, it has not.  Will it?

Can I will it?  

It doesn’t seem like I can.  I only seem to be able to work around it, as I feel it whether I’m thinking about him or not.

I have been thinking about him.  Less constantly than I used to, but many times during the day, and more again lately.  As I sat in the airport last night, waiting for E to arrive, I thought of all my arrivals at A’s airport, and the hugs and the kisses of welcome.  Airports are major triggers for me.

I’ve been thinking about how he forgot Valentine’s day that last year.  It had been a rough spring for him, work and mood-wise, and I have often wondered since if that was prologue.

I’ve been thinking that time passes so quickly, and I can’t believe he’ll be 3 years gone before I know it.  July will arrive at a gallop, I know, because I swear it was just Christmas.

I think about my friend Claire, who has said that she didn’t really start feeling positive and hopeful until 3 years had passed, and Candice who is finding more of that for herself these days, having passed 3 years, and I think maybe I just need more time to get there, but that I will get there.

But I don’t know what to expect of myself, what is reasonable to hope for, what, if anything, I might do to move things along.  And I carry this weight in my chest every day.  It barely slows me down now, but it is not imperceptible.  I am scarred and maimed in so many ways that no one but I can see.

I took a big step today.  I traded in a guitar I’ve had for just about 5 years towards a new one.  I’ve been thinking about it awhile. 

This was my first good guitar; I bought it a week after I returned from my very first camp, having been dazzled by the array of beautiful guitars the other women had.  A lot of fine musicians and finer people have played that guitar, including A, and I always feel like guitars carry the energy of everyone who has ever played them.  When I found myself desperately, desolately, lacking in mementos after A died, I comforted myself with the fact that at least I had my guitars that he had played.  There were two of them; now, I only have one that he once held in his hands, though I daresay he liked the one I have better than the one I sold.  I will keep that one.

I was pensive during the process, but when I found out they’d make me an acceptable offer for mine, there really was never any question of backing out for sentimental reasons.  The one I traded in I can’t play; it made my left hand cramp up.  And A wouldn’t have been in favor of my keeping a guitar that hurt me.  Plus, I didn’t need another guitar; so my net guitar gain is zero, which is good.  

I haven’t had any seller’s remorse yet, just the occasional twinge of knowing one more thing has been lost, or let go, however freely.  I hope regret doesn’t find me.

The seal broke as B and I made our way from the gate to baggage claim at SFO, when I saw a sign for Peet’s Coffee, which is the kind he always bought.  He’d stop by the store and have it ground fresh on #4.  Not a coffee drinker myself, I was, and remain, mystified about coffee arcana.  But I remember the #4, and the little shop outside of the Safeway that seemed cuter than the average Starbucks, and the tall man at my side ordering coffee to his specs.

After that, he was everywhere.  He was on the Golden Gate Bridge with me, grinning and amused at my excitement of being on the bridge every time we crossed it.  He was with me down every mile of nausea-inducing road winding through the wine country, and in the darkness of the redwood forest.  He was with me in the late afternoon light as we traveled the last few miles up Highway 1 and pulled into the parking lot.  He was with me as B & I shopped in the little town to the north, our path the same one he and I trod three years ago.  He was with me as I sang my song to my fellow campers, my voice thickening as I choked up.  He was with me as I drove into town past the B&B we stayed at together.  Oddly, seeing that on the last day was the least emotional moment of the trip.   Camp will not be held there next year, and I knew I had to say my goodbyes to the place.

He was everywhere, and memories came to me fast and clearer than I would’ve been able to consciously conjure them up.  That happens sometimes, and I’m always amazed at the level of detail and emotional accuracy they contain.  It seems the unbidden memories are clearer than the ones I rehearse so as not to lose them.  They are a gift, and I rest a bit easier knowing that those memories are in there, more than I could ever inventory, even if I cannot lay hands on them when I want them.  I do not worry about forgetting him, because my mind has proven over and over again that it was paying attention the whole time we were together.  It doles out memories I didn’t even realize I had, at just the right time.

It isn’t the memories that sadden me, usually.  They are most often good thoughts and special moments that in their remembrance make me fall in love with him again and again, deepening a love that has long since become immeasurable.  And the fact that he’s not here for me to show and express that love is what makes me sad. 

It’s a tough gig, this particular brand of unrequited love.   Losing your beloved is survivable, and life, incredibly, becomes tolerable without him or her, and even good sometimes.  But still I would not wish widowhood on my worst enemy, if only for the fact that I live every day with the knowledge that my life was so much better with him in it, and has been darkened and diminished by his death.  Not so much as to make me despair permanently, but enough to feel the difference.

Camp is in 3 weeks.  I dug my sleeping bag out of the closet and threw it in the washer, because it hadn’t been washed since the first and last time I used it, which was in January 2007, 6 months after A had died.  In 2008, plans changed, my friend B and I stayed in a hotel in San Francisco, and I didn’t need it.

I washed it, and now it’s fluffy and smells good, and then I worked on stuffing it back into its compression sack.  And as I did, I kept up a running monologue towards A’s picture.

“I don’t like this sleeping bag.  I don’t want it.  I want yours, like I’m supposed to have.  Screw that, I want to be spending the weekend with you in a B&B and not need a sleeping bag at all…”

The first year, I borrowed his bag so I didn’t have to schlep one with me.  The second year, we stayed at an inn, and fell asleep together under soft flannel sheets to the sound of the relentless northern California rain.  The third year, I bought this damned sleeping bag, and struggled through the airport by myself, without my love and sometimes caddy, trying to find B who had promised to take care of me if I made the trip.  I was none too sure I could handle it, and by the time she found me at the rental car counter, I was wiping the tears from my eyes with my scarf as I sat on the floor and waited for her.

I love camp and am excited to go.  And I hate this trip, because he is everywhere, and nowhere.  

Bittersweet.  Such is the flavor of my life these days.

This was our trip, and half of “us” isn’t here, but in spirit.  And while other bereaved folks fight the holiday funk, my December funk is due to this being a time of preparation for camp, a time that for two beautiful years was filled with anticipation and excitement of being with him, and of unlimited kisses.  And now that’s all gone.  I can live with it; I have no choice.  But I never really stop hating it.

I’ll be fine on this trip.  But I used to be so much better.

I was chatting with an acquaintance yesterday, and she was regaling me with the details on the recent gifts her new boyfriend had given her.  She dropped brand-names and hints as to their expensiveness, and I imagine I was supposed to be impressed.  I wasn’t; brand-names aren’t that important to me (unless they are "Charmin" and "Oreo"—accept no substitutes), and I’m still Midwestern and middle-class enough to find that sort of thing gauche.  My people tend to brag about how little we spend on things:  "I got this for a nickel on clearance at my neighbor’s garage sale, and it’s almost brand new!"  Paying full price for expensive things is not something to be proud of; it’s indicative of a lack of shopping savvy.

I was thinking about how she missed her mark with me, and I started thinking about one of my most valued possessions, which is a vase filled with these funky, spiky little seed pods.  On the last day of my last trip to visit A, we were walking around his neighborhood and I found them littering the ground.  I was delighted, and started picking them up, collecting them until my hands were full.  And then he picked up more until his hands were full, and then we headed back to his place where I put them in grocery bag and schlepped them home and put them in the vase they live in now.  It sits on a picture ledge between two photos of him.

The gift he gave me that day was to help me pick them up, with infinite patience and care.  He never thought anything I did was silly or trivial, and he never knew how much that meant to me.  And he seemed to appreciate that I could appreciate simple things and small joys.  He once thanked me for being okay with traveling around in his truck.  I don’t know if other people might’ve expected to be driven around in a limo, but it never occurred to me to think about his vehicle and whether it was an appropriate conveyance for me.  It was his; he was in it; what else could I want?

My little seed pods cost us nothing but time, but the time we had together that morning bending down to pick up free treasures from the sidewalk is priceless, and more so because it was our last day together in the same space, though we didn’t know it at the time.  I wouldn’t trade it for all the expensive gifts in the world.

I miss him more than I can say.