Longing

Oh, for the joy of your

presence

again.

But there is only 

the sorrow of your

absence.

Desert Rain

     Maybe it's not just the desert that needs this grey-skyed, rain-drenched day.  As I sat sipping my coffee, watching rain soak the thirsty, drought-stricken world outside, these words surfaced from within me:

                                                         Rain

                                                         pours out of me

                                                         into the soft ground

                                                         where what is left

                                                         of you

                                                         lies now for all eternity.

                                                         In my heart--

                                                         where the rain begins--

                                                         love enfolds us

                                                         and keeps us

                                                         close.

Well, Of Course. It's Tuesday.

     Today, during yoga class, I had an "aha" moment.  It had been a sad morning, one in which I cried a bit while trying to get ready and even while eating breakfast.  There were no particular thoughts or events that precipitated the tears, and I pushed myself to go to class because I always feel good afterward.  So there I was, balancing in "tree pose" while my mind asked, "what is it about Tuesdays, anyway?"  And without any hesitation at all, my mind answered itself, "Bob died on a Tuesday."

     Standing there in that balance pose, I encountered the reason for my sense of imbalance today. It was a first-hand experience of what I have read--that, in grief, it is possible to be affected by an anniversary, or other reminder of our loss, even when we aren't conscious of it.  Thanks to this insight, maybe I'll be a bit more prepared when Tuesday rolls around next week. 

Second Year Blues

     When the first anniversary of Bob's death arrived two weeks ago, I was busy with fun things in Santa Fe with friend Carol and grand daughter Hope.  That didn't mean I wasn't aware of the day's significance, but I was distracted.  However, once the day passed, Carol had flown home, and I was back to getting through the days, the reality settled in.

     It's been more than a year now since I've seen Bob's face and the twinkle in his eye when he smiled, more than a year since I heard his voice and laugh, felt his warm hug and loving kiss.  It's been a year of doing things related to living solo--changing names on accounts, canceling accounts, hiring a handyman once in a while.  The year has included three trips to be with family.  In this year, I have made three photo books, one for each grand child, to help them hold onto their memories of their Grandpa.  I have planned an open house to thank the friends, support group and health care staff who helped Bob and me through our last months.  I have also planned two memorials--one with my family in Illinois last summer and one for the day we buried his ashes just last month.  I have gone to yoga classes, to doctor's appointments, to school as a volunteer.  I have read books about grief and daily meditations, and numerous novels late into the night. I've enjoyed learning to play Mahjong with friends on an almost weekly basis.  I have been to support group meetings, joined a choir, and reached out to a new friend.  The year has been very full.  Somehow in all that, I guess I had started to think that at the end of the first year, things would "feel better" inside me.  

      But not only do I not feel better, these past two weeks, I've been feeling as if I've started the whole process over again.  Deep, painful grief has overwhelmed me, even immobilized me.  I've spent days wondering what to do with myself to get from breakfast to bedtime, and then congratulated myself when I managed to make it to the end of the day.  I've ached with loneliness deeper and more intense than I have ever felt before.  I've faced thoughts of my own aging and eventual death, and noted that numerous persons listed in obituaries are in my same decade.  Last night I even googled "second year of grieving" to see if others might have experienced this "back-sliding" that seems to have overtaken me.  Sure enough.  I'm not the first nor the only one to have found the second year at least as hard as the first.

     Perhaps the necessary busy-ness of the first year, combined with a certain degree of numbness, cushioned me from the full force of my loss.  Perhaps putting that year behind me heightens the sense of distance from Bob's presence in my life.  Perhaps the finality of burying his ashes brought my feelings of loss more to the surface again.  Perhaps there is no explanation at all, it's just the ongoing effect of losing my best friend and dearest love.  Perhaps.  What I know is that when the grief breaks through, as it has so often these two weeks, it feels as familiar and exhausting and painful as ever.  The "softening" of grief I've been told will come doesn't seem to have begun yet.  Similar to an old song bridge, "second verse same as the first," it still takes a lot of energy to grieve and a lot of energy to get through the days.  

The One-Year Mark

     Today, two days after the first anniversary of Bob's death, I happened upon this quote I copied from a novel I was reading last March:
   
                                 "It's easy to believe for several months 
                                  that someone who died is just out of town.
                                  But the one-year mark brings certainty."

That captures so well how I've been feeling this week, beginning with our tender ceremony of remembrance and scattering of ashes last Saturday.  It's as if a blanket of reality has been laid over my heart, sort of like the rose petals we laid over the burial site.  The truth is settling in.

One Year Ago

 One year ago tonight, 

Bob and I said our last "goodnight."  

We didn't know it at the time, 

though I realized our days together were limited.  

The next day, we said our last "goodbye."  

It seems like yesterday.

The calendar disagrees.

Forever Ours

     And so we did it.  We buried Bob's ashes.  Our daughter, two grand-kids, and five dear friends gathered in our living room last Saturday.  We sang songs.  We shared memories, readings and laughter.  Then we gathered at the site that had been prepared to receive Bob's ashes and we raked them into the already loosened soil.  We scattered rose petals over the site--where we'll also plant a crab apple tree in November, sometime around Bob's birthday.  And then we all returned home to share a meal.

     It was beautiful, tender, touching, deeply emotional and very spiritual.  It was all I'd hoped it might be.  Yet when it was all over, I felt the reality more deeply than ever:  Bob is really gone.  Until last Saturday, his ashes sat on the dresser in my room.  I paid little attention to them, but I knew they were there.  I also knew, and still know, that those ashes are not Bob.  But somehow, they became what they truly are--the precious, sacred last physical remnants of the man I love.  After our ceremony of celebration and remembrance of his life, after carrying home the empty urn, I felt more deeply the stark truth of his absence.  

     Which is why I find comfort now in words from a poem I asked a friend to read at the burial site:

                                     What I know is that

                                     The song once sung cannot be unsung,

                                     And the life once lived cannot be unlived,

                                     And the love once loved cannot be unloved.

Bob's physical presence is no more, but his song, his life, and his love are with me--and with all of us he loved--forever.

               

One of Those Days

     Sometimes it's a relief to have a day when I have nowhere I have to be, nothing I have to do.  Then I know that if my grief breaks through and slides down my cheeks, I don't need to cut it short and pull myself together; I can just let it be.  Today is looking like it may be one of those uncommitted days.  And it's as if the grief knows I'm free to let it out because it keeps washing over me--and it's only 9:00 AM!

     On days like this, I try to just "let it be" and not squelch my heart with thoughts like "Still?"  or "When is this going to be over?"  Somewhere along the line of my life, I must have absorbed the cultural taboos that set limits on grieving because even though I believe it's normal and healthy, I face those internal judgments from time to time.  

     Another hurdle in the process is how much energy grieving takes.  Letting the tears flow, especially if they come from deep within, can be exhausting.  And if it happens several times in a day?  Well, not much else gets done that day!

      Whether grief comes on a day that is busy or on one that stretches out ahead of me in unclaimed hours, it helps to remember these words from the writings of a grief counselor I've been reading this year:

     "It's hard to understand until we ourselves experience our first Great Grief, but grief takes 

time.  It takes a LOT of time.  It consumes whole chunks of our days and weeks.  And as time 

spools forward, it takes months and years for us to express, accommodate, and learn to live with.

     But let's remind ourselves that grieving and mourning are two of the most meaningful 

ways we can spend our time....Like its counterpart, love, grief requires time to dream, remember, reach for the infinite, and simply be.  So let's not feel bad or guilty when grief consumes our days."

"Grief spikes are normal.  Sometimes you can identify the trigger--a song, aroma, place etc.

 Other times, there seems to be no immediate cause at all.  Grief spikes don't need a trigger.  

 The grief resides in your heart, and is finding its way out, bit-by-bit....Every grief spike says, 

 'I loved you.  I love you still.'  The scar is a gift--a reminder of the blessing you had."

      

At Nine Months, A Vision

     Nine months ago today we were keeping vigil with Bob as he lay dying. (It was also a Tuesday.)  By late afternoon, the vigil was over.  Bob had taken his last breath and I was left to go on without him.
     Last night as I was coming down Llama Road, finishing my walk, I "saw Bob."  He was about a third of a mile ahead of me, striding along Millicent Rogers Road.  My head knew the man I was watching walk away from me was not Bob, but my eyes and my heart saw Bob anyway.  He was wearing his tan hat--the one he always called his "pork pie"--and his tan long-sleeve polo shirt.  The sight of him caught at my heart.  I froze in my tracks and stood watching "Bob" grow smaller and smaller as he continued walking north, away from me.  And then I cried.  I just cried.

This Time Last Year

     February.  I've been using it as a kind of "marker" for about a year now.  February, twelve months ago, was when things got so hard for Bob, and for me, that I finally put out a call for more help.  First, to our next door friend, Donna, and then to Bob's sister Barb who came as soon as she could get a flight and stayed with us a full month.  And then I wrote about it in this blog, and my youngest sister Ginny rallied my siblings and friends. The next thing I knew, Bob and I had almost nonstop live-in help through the middle of May.
     Now it's February again, and I've been overtaken by "this time last year" thoughts and memories.  In those memories Bob was still here.  He still laughed with us, ate with us, was glad to get out for walks with us.  He still went shopping with us and enjoyed ice cream for dessert every night. He could still play with and enjoy the grand kids. In those memories he was still here, but this February he is not.  The memories are filled with so many ways we were blessed with love and kindness, and with support that we needed more than we'd realized.  At the same time, those memories are stark reminders of how different my life is now without Bob, and how much I miss him.
     In the early days after Bob died, I read in some book about grief that "it gets worse before it gets better."  The past few days, I've been wondering if the "worse" is upon me.  I had two weeks of respite being with family in Florida.  In that time, I was blessedly distracted by many contrasts to my usual days at home.  There was a long weekend of partying with family as we celebrated a nephew's wedding.  That was followed by visiting my Bournique and Risen sisters and some of their families.  We walked through lush botanical gardens, enjoyed sand and sun and ocean, and the antics of younger family members.  I loved it all and am grateful for the "infusion" of family, as one sister put it.
     Yet since I've been home, my heart has felt again the depth of my loss.  It crept up on me first driving home from Santa Fe, as I traveled through the beautiful canyon where Bob always delighted in spotting the rafters cruising on the Rio Grande River.  It burst upon me as I turned onto the road to our home, and continued to break over me in waves as I unloaded the car, put away groceries, and unpacked. I couldn't have named what triggered these feelings, there was nothing specific, other than what Hope once said when I commented I didn't know why I was feeling the way I did: "Grandpa died."  Simply put, that is the reason for so much of my emotion:  Bob died.
     Since my return from Florida, it feels as if I had two weeks off from those feelings being at the forefront of my awareness and so they've had a chance to accumulate.  The accumulation spilled over briefly in the midst of yoga class today, as it had on Saturday when I was having coffee with a friend.  It washed over me on Sunday when I spent some time re-reading this blog and was stunned by how much I'd forgotten of Bob's struggles, and my own.  Later that day, more than once, it spilled out during a catch-up phone conversation with another good friend.
     I'm not complaining about these experiences, only being aware of them, observing them, maybe learning from them.  I think I am also somewhat surprised by them.  This grief is unlike any other I have known.  It is all-encompassing and ever-present, even when I am not aware of it.  I've lost my "Other Half" which very literally means I've lost a big part of myself.  Just as one has to adapt after losing a limb, I am adapting to living without Bob, the part of me I will never have again, except in precious memories.

Touching Exchanges

     Today Hope and David were here from after school through dinner.  As Hope sat down to eat, she wondered aloud to David, "I wonder where she sits when we aren't here."  I told her that I sit right where she was at the moment.  Then she asked me, "What do you think about?"  Before I could answer, she went on.  "I know what you think about.  You think about Grandpa."  I assured her that yes, I do think about him a lot while I'm eating.  I told her I also think about her, about her brothers, and her mom.
     About 30 minutes later, Mom arrived from work to take the kids home.  As Hope was putting on her shoes, she asked me, "What happens here?"  For a moment I was stumped.  I asked if she were wondering what I do in the evening after supper.  When she responded that that was her question, I told her I would clean up the kitchen, maybe read, maybe watch TV or write an email.  Then I asked her the same question:  What happens at your house when you get home?  "Oh, watch TV, take baths, do homework, get ready for bed."
     What touched me about these exchanges was Hope's sensitivity to me, her concern for me.  At six years old, she seems to have a capacity for reflection and caring that I hope will only continue to grow as she does.

Hesitant Start

     It wasn't rational, and I knew it.  Yet, as the new year approached, I felt reluctant to let the old one go.  Leaving 2017 felt somehow like leaving Bob behind--I was walking into a year Bob would never see, never be part of.  It hasn't taken long for me to realize that although Bob won't see 2018, he is very much a part of it because he is such a part of me.  The poet W. S. Merwin wrote: 
                               
                                 Your absence has gone through me
                                 like thread through a needle.
                                 Everything I do
                                 is stitched with its color.

I am discovering that even in his absence, Bob's love is a rich presence.  It is stitched into so many memories, so many perspectives, even into many ordinary moments and remembered "private jokes." We have moved into this new year together, and I couldn't be more relieved nor more grateful.

December 27

6 months ago today.

Our last hello and our last goodbye.

The end of us,

the beginning of just me.

The Chair

The Chair

You should be sitting in that chair,

your cup of coffee in hand,

smiling at the antics of the birds,
announcing the coming of the neighbors' cat.

You should be,

but you're not.

I should be sitting here with you,

commenting on the day ahead,

filling you in with our plans.

I should be,

but I can't.

Now my coffee grows cold

while I get lost 

somewhere between those birds

scrambling for seed

and my heart

facing the future

without you.

You should be sitting in that chair.

Everything would be better.

So much better.

Single Woman Humor or Where's Bob When I Need Him?

     I am reminded often that living alone has its dilemmas, as well as advantages.  This morning, I experienced one of those dilemmas.  As I was getting dressed, the clasp on my bracelet--the one made with Bob's wedding ring--found a stray stitch on my underwear, in the back, and refused to let go.  Effectively, my right arm was, more-or-less, handcuffed to my backside.  Eventually, I managed to undo the clasp and my right arm's confinement, freeing myself and the bracelet again--but not before having to wonder who I could call to come release me from the grasp of my underwear!!

The Ornament

The Ornament

“First Christmas Together”
the wooden, red-tasseled circle reminds
from its perch on the tree.
“1985.”
My fingers savor the smooth grain
and my heart is transported in memory.
Our “engagement ring”
we called the ornament
with a woven heart at its center.
That December,
Rome had “dispensed” me 
from my vows,
gifting both of us with freedom
to proclaim our love.
That Christmas season,
you dispatched a scrawny pine
from its place on our property.
You were laughing as you dragged it indoors,
your eyes twinkling, your smile broad.
You transformed that pine sapling
when you strung it with lights
and added the blue glass ornaments.
We sat in the descending darkness
holding hands, 
enjoying the lights, the tree,
our first Christmas together--
dreaming of our future.

Thirty-two years later,
my first Christmas without you, 
our “engagement ring”
stirs this sweet memory 
of the beginning of “Us.”

I hold the memory close
and in it, you are here
again.

                      December 12, 2017

Christmas Conundrum

     In early November I happened to spot a good deal on boxed Christmas cards and purchased them on the spot since I found some I liked.  I put them away when I got home and didn't think about them again.  A week ago, when I got down my box of Christmas wrapping for the first time, I discovered I had already bought a supply of cards--probably at the end of last Christmas season.  While they looked a bit familiar, I really couldn't recall having bought them.  Then, as I continued to look through the box, I discovered at least 20 cards (I didn't actually count them) that I had addressed but never wrote nor sent.  These included some addressed to family members and close friends.  I don't have any explanation for why these never got sent, nor do I know in what year I neglected to finish these.  Was it last year?  And if so, what was going on that led to this incompleteness?  If it were THIS year, I would certainly think it was related to the loss of Bob and my lack of desire to write cards--but that is not the case.  I am actually about to begin my cards later this evening.
     So was life more hectic, was I more frazzled than I recall in one of the last couple of Christmas seasons?  I know that Bob was in the hospital in December of 2014--was that the year I didn't finish this project?  At this point, it certainly doesn't really matter, although I have been mildly bothered by my lack of any memory of how this could have happened.  One friend laughingly remarked that this is how "old folks" end up with lots of unused, unneeded items in their homes which their families may discover when helping them move or cleaning out their homes after they've died.  At any rate, my heartfelt apologies to any family or friends who didn't receive our card some recent Christmas.  I have written on the November and December pages in my 2018 calendar:  DO NOT buy Christmas cards!  Hopefully, that will help, come this time next year.

First Christmas

     It's Christmas time again; this year we celebrate for the first time without Bob.  It's time for me to write Christmas cards, and there are a number of people on our list, mostly his friends, who have not yet heard of his death.  In order not to have to write about it over and over, I have made an insert for their cards.  This is the insert:

(The photos in the insert run across the top of the page, but I can't figure out how to do that here.)

Christmas 2017.  Our first without our beloved Bob, Dad, Grandpa.  He entered hospice in March and died June 27 with all of us surrounding him.  After struggling with Alzheimer's disease at least six years, he is at peace.

The photos above are of his last birthday with us, #81, in November 2016; his last Christmas with us; and our last photo together at home in May of this year.

I Never Knew

     Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my Mom and what grieving must have been like for her.  She was 57 years old when our Dad died at 59, leaving her with four teenagers still at home.  As I walk through my own experience of losing my spouse, my Bob, I wonder if she ever really was able to mourn the loss of hers.  I can make my own space and time for that every day if I want to or need to.  Mom had to still be "mom" to all of us, especially to the four still at home.  She had to find a job.  She didn't have the "luxury" to surrender to her grief.  No wonder she seemed to live with an undercurrent of depression the  rest of her life.

     I remember trying to be as present to her as I could, coming home from St. Louis as often as possible, calling her regularly--probably every week, if not more often.  I thought then that I was aware of what she needed, I thought I knew what she must be feeling and going through.  But how could I?  At that time, I hadn't been married, hadn't lost my life-partner, my soul-mate, best friend, dance partner, my other half, father of my kids and provider.  I had no idea how all-encompassing such a loss is--not then.  But I do now.  I am learning each day a bit more about how much harder than I ever imagined the loss of our Dad must have been for Mom who, as I recall, was the first in her circle of friends to lose her spouse.

    I realize, too, that no matter how hard I might have tried to understand Mom's grief, it would have been impossible.  It was impossible to have imagined my own grief  before I was in its midst.  Not that I didn't sometimes anticipate what life might be like without Bob's presence--his illness forced those thoughts upon me more than once over the last years.  Yet no amount of imagining it could have prepared me for the actual experience of what one grief counselor I'm reading describes this way:

    "Grief is what we think and feel inside after someone we love dies, and it is an every-day experience.

     That is, when we are grieving a significant loss, we feel our grief every day.  We wake up each morning knowing that today we will experience hurt and an ever-changing mixture of painful thoughts and feelings.

    Grief's very relentlessness is often frustrating, challenging, and exhausting.

    Our hope lies in small, daily doses of mourning.

    Mourning is when we express our grief outside ourselves.  While grief is internal, mourning is external.  Talking about our thoughts and feelings, crying, journaling, participating in a support group--these and other expressive activities help us begin to integrate our grief.

     Yes, our grief is a daily challenge.  But if we actively mourn, each day in grief can also bring a small measure of healing.  Encountering and engaging with our thoughts and feelings softens them.  Mourning one day at a time brings healing one day at a time."  (Alan Wolfelt)

     Thirty-eight years ago when Mom walked this path, she didn't know, I'm sure, and didn't have time or space in her life to find out that "actively mourning" Dad's death would be healing.  Instead, she believed she needed to be strong for all of us, and to keep her feelings inside.  I can only imagine now what that may have cost her.

A Little Child Shall Lead

     Yesterday Hope and David were here for the bulk of the day because there was no school.  When Hope and I sat down to eat breakfast together, I commented that it was nice to have someone to eat with because I usually eat alone now.  Hope looked up and asked, "Grandma, do you pretend that Grandpa is still here?"  I started to address the word "pretend," but then decided just to respond from her perspective.  "Yes, Hope, I do,"  I answered.  She had more questions:  "Do you pretend he is sitting in his chair at the table?"  "Do you pretend Grandpa is sleeping in bed with you?"  To each question, I responded affirmatively.
     Later in the day, as I returned to a game we were playing together, Hope surprised me with another profound question:  "Grandma, if you die, what will happen to all your stuff?"  I laughed a little and said something to the effect that it would mean someone was left with a big mess and a lot of work to do.  Then I said I am hoping not to die for a long, long time because I want to see what she and David and Frankie will be when they grow up.
     Besides being amazed at the maturity and depth of Hope's thought-processes, I am also touched that she reflects on what Bob's death has meant to me as well as what my dying might mean.  Additionally, I find myself reflecting on the timing of her questions--the beginning of the month of November, the month traditionally associated with death--All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, the Day of the Dead, the dying of autumn and coming of winter.  I also feel a bit challenged by her second question--what will happen to all my "stuff"?  I know I need to be down-sizing and simplifying now because moving is definitely in my future.  It's a chore I've been putting off for months.  I know some of that procrastination can be excused because the grieving process itself takes a lot of energy.  But somehow, Hope's inquisitiveness has made me feel perhaps it's time to try to put a little more energy in the direction of down-sizing. Doing that, I also would be putting energy toward the Future.  I can almost hear Bob saying, "Yes.  Go on.  You can.  I am with you."