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."

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.

Please Rewind

     I want my Bob back.  I want to wake up in the morning and to end every day wrapped in each other's arms.  I want to see the smile on his face, the brightness in his eyes.  I want to watch him glide across snow again, or stride blissfully up a mountain trail.  I want to feel his quiet, loving presence in our home. I want all our togetherness again, everything we shared.  I want it all back.  My head knows it's not going to happen, but, oh, how my heart aches for my head to be wrong.

A Poem

Today

Only a periphery of blue

outlines the cloud-heavy sky

matching

the sorrow-laden quilt 

over my heart--

edged with hope

and sweet memories of my Love.

Loss within Loss

     After Bob's death, a dear friend sent me a book of daily readings, Healing After Loss.  The reflection I read today touched me deeply, especially this part:

    

  "We know full well that our loved one has died.  Do we recognize that in that death a part

of us has died too?

     The part of us that lived in our relationship to that person alive in the world has died.

     The part of us that lived in expectation of a future on earth together has died.

     The part of us that enjoyed the commonality of shared memories has died.

     This is a lot to lose, and perhaps it will be easier to accept the effect of our loved one's dying if we acknowledge the profound event this is in our life, too."

     These words clarified for me what I have been experiencing without realizing it.  It's not just the loss of Bob, which is hard enough, but also the loss of a huge part of myself--the "me" in relationship to him, sharing life, grand kids, plans, hikes, trips, family news and events, friendships--sharing everything. The person I have been for the past 30+ years has been in partnership with Bob.  As one friend wrote, we were "Bob and Caryl"; that was our couple identity.  But that couple died with Bob. Now I am only Caryl again, solo--no longer a couple, a team, a partnership.  For me, the effect of this is much more profound than my words can convey.  No wonder I feel like I am "at a loss" for a sense of direction at times.  I am lost in a very real way.  I have lost my identity along with losing Bob, and losing my sense of self means I need to re-find, re-discover, maybe even re-create who I am.  

     Somehow it's comforting to recognize this loss.  It helps me understand a bit better that there is more to this grief that comes from losing my life's partner, my best friend. The couple we were has vanished just as surely as Bob himself is gone.  Now even though I am in many ways the same person, I am also no longer that person.  It helps a little to reflect back on our life together, to remember that when we were newly-weds, each of us had to become someone new, then, too.  Just as it took time to let go of being self-contained individuals in order to "marry" our lives, so it will take time to let go of the person who was "Bob's other half" in order to become comfortable as a person "flying solo" again.  In the meantime, I hope that my new awareness of this additional loss will somehow make it easier to ride the waves of grief when they come.  Who knew that at 70 years old one might need to once again answer the question "Who am I?"