November-ing

     Tomorrow is the first of November.  In my mind and heart, November is about Bob.  His birthday is the 16th.  As the air turns colder every year, as the leaves turn golden along with the sunlight, I am always instinctively aware that Bob's birthday is coming.  Yes, November is also about Thanksgiving and family gatherings and maybe even first ski or snowshoe outings (first snow-shoveling, too, perhaps.)  But Bob has always been at the heart of those events, too.  So November, for me, is about Bob.  

    This year, November adds new heart-connections for me with Bob.  The local culture is very immersed in celebrating Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead.  Its rituals are even more elaborate and graphic than any All Souls' Day commemorations in the Catholic church.  Reminders of the event will be conspicuous around town for the next several days. I haven't come to terms with how I feel about all the skull and skeletal images used, but there is no denying that this year there is a profound link between me and Bob and this tradition.

    That link will be made again at a memorial celebration being held Sunday, November 5.  It is hosted by the hospice agency that cared for Bob and is for families of those who have died in this past year.  I hope to be able to reconnect with some of those aides, nurses, and therapists who were such gifts to Bob and to me in his final months.  I expect the service and the sharing after will elicit tears, but I have come to know deeply in these past months how healing tears can be. 

    I open my heart to the entrance of November 2017, knowing it will stir poignant memories and feelings.  At the same time, I trust that because, for me, it's all about Bob, it will be a month when his love--our love--gifts me with unexpected grace and deepened peace.   

Helping Me Cry

     A year or so ago, probably on Facebook, I read a sweet vignette about a little boy who'd gone next door to visit an elderly man who had recently lost his wife.  The little guy was gone quite a while and when he came home, his mother asked what he'd been doing all that time.  He told his mother he had just sat with the man and "helped him cry." 

     Today I thought of that story again when I tried out the other grief support group in town.  I had almost talked myself out of going.  Then, when I walked in, I wished I hadn't come.  There were only two women in the room--the obvious leader and another, older woman.  In such a small group, I felt I'd have to talk whether I wanted to or not.  Both women were very welcoming, and I learned the older woman is about to celebrate her 85th birthday and has been a widow for a little over a year, having lost her husband suddenly.

     These two women, strangers originally, invited me to talk.  As I told--in brief--the story of Bob and the Alzheimer's disease we struggled with, and of his death, I cried and cried and cried.  And, like the little boy on the porch swing with his neighbor, these two women "helped me cry."  They just sat and listened, and smiled gently, allowing me to feel my sorrow.  I remarked to them that I had begun to wonder if I was "stuffing" my feelings since I haven't cried at all in a few days.  But because they gave me a space to speak the story again, the tears flowed freely, as I know they need to do.  It occurred to me as I left the session that that is exactly what I needed from a support group--to help me cry.