We had our first big snow storm of the season last night. I live right off a road called Breezy Hill, but there was nothing breezy about the gales that twisted the birch branches outside my bedroom windows and made my whole second story sway. The fierce wind shook me awake before dawn. Lying under two heavy blankets and a quilt, my mind was on full fear alert as I wondered how strong was strong enough. It felt like something indispensable might collapse--the foundation or the roof. Then I thought of what Al would have said, "Don't worry, Kid. The house can take it. Go back to sleep." And I did.
This morning I woke to twenty-one inches of snow, not unusual for a Columbia County winter. But the silence in the house felt strange to me. When Al was alive, I'd have wakened to the sounds of his industry. He'd be outside literally clearing the decks. I would have heard the thuds of his heavy bootsteps and the quick tapping of Star's paws while Al's shovel scraped snow from the wood planks. Or, if I'd slept through that task, I'd have heard the cabinet doors banging in the kitchen as he made breakfast. He wouldn't have sat down to eat or drink until he'd accomplished at least one activity on his list. "Always do the most difficult task first thing in the morning." he'd say, "Then, the rest of your day will go more easily."
That's what I've decided to do right now as I lie still blanketed in my bed and stare outside at the morning sky reflecting on the snowy slopes and valleys of my home. The most difficult thing is to acknowledge the painful absences of everyone I loved during this most family-focused of holiday seasons. I'd prefer not to think about how much I miss Al and my mother, who together would have taken over the kitchen by the early afternoon. Al would have been peeling Yukon golds for his delicious mashed potatoes and concocting blender drinks for everyone. And my mother would have been baking up a storm, filling the house with smells of cinnamon and apples and roasting meats, while Star hovered underfoot in hopes of a dropped scrap. And my father would have been sitting at the table, reading the newspaper out loud without realizing it, his mutterings a quiet accompaniment to the hustle and bustle of my husband and mother at holiday time. And I would have filled in where needed, happy to have them all together.
But my mind is revising the past, placing everyone at their best moments all together in my kitchen so that I can enjoy their memories in one sweet scene. It wasn't until old age finally calmed my father enough to keep him contentedly seated among us that he was able to concentrate on the news rather than be agitated by it. In contrast, it's been many years since my mother was energetic and focused enough to bake and plan the holiday meals. Her mind had begun to deteriorate by the time my father's spirit had mellowed. And I left out my sister and her family, who would have added immensely to the laughter and warmth, but the children have grown and moved away, and the girl I grew up with is a stranger to me now.
And really, were my best moments the times when I filled in where needed? What about the tensions that arose at almost every family gathering? I miss them too, but I can see that my fantasy needs a good edit. I'm not the little sister anymore or the baby of the family, for that matter. I'm no longer "Kid" to my husband, who was eleven years older than I and a mentor to me in the ways of the world, just as I mentored him in the ways of the heart. "Always do the most difficult task first thing in the morning." Which is that--facing the world or the heart. . .or a little of both?
This morning my most difficult task when I woke to my empty house was to start my day with action. How I wanted to stay in bed reading a magazine with the television on mute, my most effective distraction and escape. But that would have led to a day-long dark mood. My most difficult task was to get up at all, go into my office, and write. Soon I'll have the rest of the day to myself, and I think Al was right. It will go more easily. Although I made myself coffee before I wrote.
And here is how I foresee the rest of my day. First, I'll fill my living room and dining room with music from the radio. I'll leave it on all day, whether I'm in those rooms or not. That way, even when I'm just passing through, I'll hear a kind of fullness in my house. The sound will spill into the kitchen, where I'm going to go next. I plan to bake a poppy seed cake to bring to my friends' house for dinner tomorrow night. It isn't my mother's recipe, but its fragrance will remind me of her poppy seed hamantaschen. I'll build a fire too. Then I'll decide what I want to do next. It might even be reading a magazine in front of that fire instead of a television on mute. I'll no longer need that distraction. By the end of a satisfying day, I'll want to relax.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
These Are the Tears of Things
"These are the tears of things" is part of a line in the Aeneid, which continues "and our mortality cuts to the heart." The second half meant nothing to me, a college sophomore, when I first read those words. My experience with mortality had been limited to the death of distant grandparents. But somehow, without fully understanding why, I was struck by the thought that things (such a vague and yet all-encompassing word) cried tears.
I recalled those words when I heard that my sister-in-law's house was flooded the week she was widowed. When Al died, the ceiling in my house collapsed from a water leak. By the time my recently-widowed cousin reported the damage to her basement from a malfunctioning sump pump, I simply nodded to myself. The three of us had been literally flooded with the tears of things when death ripped our loved ones from us.
Of course there are technical reasons for these floods--overflowing washing machines, clogged drain pipes, and failed sump pumps--but it does seem a fitting focus for the newly bereaved, who has to get her house dried out immediately or risk permanent mold and mildew seeping into the foundation. All that water must be dispatched with efficient haste. The three of us had no choice but to spring into action.
A practical crisis demanded our attention, and we had to abandon our stunned emotional state for a time. Having different personalities and needs, we followed different paths once the water was staunched. Both my sister-in-law and my cousin have always endorsed staying busy and active, so they kept their momentum going. I'm the more reflective type and went back to sorting out my emotions in my own time. For all three of us work, family, and the companionship of friends has kept us in the flow of life.
There is no formula for one and all to follow. There is no sequence to the stages of grief, and here I'm referring to Kubler-Ross as well as all the religious and cultural models that prescribe a set amount of time for grief before one is expected to move on. In my first days of widowhood, I looked in books for how to feel because I was afraid I'd drown in all that grief and agony. But I stopped seeking answers from how-to books as I've learned to let my feelings seep through little by little. Sometimes a feeling comes to the surface and recedes, but I'm beginning to recognize the ebb and flow of deep mourning. Just as I can't remember its beginning, I don't expect its absolute end. It's become a part of me.
I recalled those words when I heard that my sister-in-law's house was flooded the week she was widowed. When Al died, the ceiling in my house collapsed from a water leak. By the time my recently-widowed cousin reported the damage to her basement from a malfunctioning sump pump, I simply nodded to myself. The three of us had been literally flooded with the tears of things when death ripped our loved ones from us.
Of course there are technical reasons for these floods--overflowing washing machines, clogged drain pipes, and failed sump pumps--but it does seem a fitting focus for the newly bereaved, who has to get her house dried out immediately or risk permanent mold and mildew seeping into the foundation. All that water must be dispatched with efficient haste. The three of us had no choice but to spring into action.
A practical crisis demanded our attention, and we had to abandon our stunned emotional state for a time. Having different personalities and needs, we followed different paths once the water was staunched. Both my sister-in-law and my cousin have always endorsed staying busy and active, so they kept their momentum going. I'm the more reflective type and went back to sorting out my emotions in my own time. For all three of us work, family, and the companionship of friends has kept us in the flow of life.
There is no formula for one and all to follow. There is no sequence to the stages of grief, and here I'm referring to Kubler-Ross as well as all the religious and cultural models that prescribe a set amount of time for grief before one is expected to move on. In my first days of widowhood, I looked in books for how to feel because I was afraid I'd drown in all that grief and agony. But I stopped seeking answers from how-to books as I've learned to let my feelings seep through little by little. Sometimes a feeling comes to the surface and recedes, but I'm beginning to recognize the ebb and flow of deep mourning. Just as I can't remember its beginning, I don't expect its absolute end. It's become a part of me.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Workmen
Although I'm trying to be positive as I forge my new life as a widow, I'm frustrated with certain undeveloped aspects of my personality. No one taught me how to be a force in the world, but professionally I've done alright. It's another story when I need to be a force in my own home, particularly when my home is invaded by the world, that is, by unfamiliar workmen. From my mother and the culture of the '50s and '60s, I learned the skills and benefits of being a good hostess and helpmate, but what I learned was for a different time and circumstance.
Do I offer them coffee and stand by, ready to hand them their wrenches upon request, as I used to do for my father and then for Al? Do I leave them to their work and check in from time to time to see how they're doing? And here's the most difficult for me--how do I tell them when something is wrong or not to my liking? Internally I have to tune up and adjust my tone before my voice actually hits the air. Too angry. Too apologetic. Too placating. Too macho. I swerve from one extreme to the other until I manage to find just the right note.
It's a question of feeling my own will and power in relation to a stranger in my house. Tone is just a part of it. I don't know how to keep my vision of a project, pay a fair price, and command respect. Smile and accommodate--that's my instinct. And yet I can sense a clearer, stronger part of me trapped inside the fake mannerisms, watching in shocked silence while I'm moved to please instead of be pleased.
Take last night when my yoga teacher's son called me to see about doing some chores for me. It wasn't that late, but I was in bed reading and had let down my guard for the day. I had never met him, but reacted immediately to his gruff voice on the telephone. When he said he had some time the next day, I scurried downstairs to get my calendar, even though I knew mornings were supposed to be devoted to writing, and in the afternoon I had a doctor's appointment. I was also meeting a friend for dinner near the town where I had my appointment. But I hurried to check on the exact time. Why? To see if I could squeeze him in, rushing back from my busy day to accommodate his schedule.
He's a 19-year old college student, whose mother told me he could use the money while he's home on break. I'm a college professor. But when that apparent relationship went unrecognized by the boy, who had initiated the call, my impulse was to find another way to connect with him on his terms.
His disembodied voice sounded deep and surprisingly mature. I guess that's what tipped me over into the grateful, flexible damsel in distress. I tried to gain some poise as I read my calendar, which confirmed what I already knew. Tomorrow was not possible, but the next three days were entirely free.
Back upstairs I paused to catch my breath before I picked up the phone again. The cord was all tangled. "I can't do tomorrow. I have a doctor's appointment. How about Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday?" I sniffed. (Somewhere along the way, my nose had started running.) "Sorry," I added, not sure if I meant about the time or the sniffing.
"Well, I'm busy," he started, sounding more annoyed than before. "On Wednesday I have to bring my car in to have my tires rotated." He hesitated. "I can come on Wednesday afternoon."
That's how long it took me to get it--that I was talking to a sulking boy whose mother had told him to take a job when all he wanted to do was relax and have fun during his winter break. I was hearing a petulant kid whose voice was in a lower key, but that deep male voice on the telephone knocked me back through the years. It wasn't even Al's voice I was reacting to. It was my stern father's.
I have to laugh at myself. The lessons just keep on coming. As does life, which comes at me, whether I want it to or not, beckoning me to live and learn while I'm still here. I've been ignoring it long enough. So now that I get the picture and remember who I am and what I need to accomplish this week, I'll make a plan. I'll put together a list of chores. And when he calls on Wednesday to confirm, as he said he would, I'll ask him for his hourly rate, which I forgot to do. And I'll be ready--as ready as a woman raised to accede to men can be. If his rate is too high, I'll...what? Say so and negotiate? Pay him what he asks and then not hire him again? Pay exactly for time worked and not round off to the higher hour?
These were all of the strategies I observed Al using over the years. Shielded by him, I had the luxury of being far more nit picky than he was. He compromised quality to quickness more than suited my taste. But what did I know? I compromised quality to freedom. Even when he'd talk to me about his negotiations, I'd tune him out. (Although I remember once he handed a workman half of a twenty-dollar bill he'd just ripped, and said, "You'll get the other half when you finish the job right and on time.")
I no longer have the luxury of judging the workmanship while keeping the workman at a distance. When I need work done, I have to do it myself or hire someone to do it. And I can no longer expect that hiring someone means that the work will be done well, in a timely manner, or at all. In fact, I should expect just the opposite. Maybe once in a while I'll be pleasantly surprised.
It's aggravating, but necessary, and it surely aggravated Al at times too. In fact, I know it did. He'd tell me so, and I'd get that glazed look in my eyes, and he'd change the subject.
But the arrangement suited us because he liked the control more than he minded the aggravation, whereas I was happy to give up both. When, occasionally, I complained about the quality of the work, he'd say, "Then you take over." That was all it would take to stop that train of thought.
Now I'm the only game in town, and my pickiness has free reign. I suspect I'll begin having some respect for compromise as the projects continue, as they must do. I'm being forced to grow up and learn how to deal. I'll have to develop and train new instincts, and do what works best for me--prepare in advance. Al's way was on-site inspiration. I'm not made that way. It's prepared lists and voice adjustments for me. But I have to admit, there's something exciting about developing new life skills at this stage in my life.
Do I offer them coffee and stand by, ready to hand them their wrenches upon request, as I used to do for my father and then for Al? Do I leave them to their work and check in from time to time to see how they're doing? And here's the most difficult for me--how do I tell them when something is wrong or not to my liking? Internally I have to tune up and adjust my tone before my voice actually hits the air. Too angry. Too apologetic. Too placating. Too macho. I swerve from one extreme to the other until I manage to find just the right note.
It's a question of feeling my own will and power in relation to a stranger in my house. Tone is just a part of it. I don't know how to keep my vision of a project, pay a fair price, and command respect. Smile and accommodate--that's my instinct. And yet I can sense a clearer, stronger part of me trapped inside the fake mannerisms, watching in shocked silence while I'm moved to please instead of be pleased.
Take last night when my yoga teacher's son called me to see about doing some chores for me. It wasn't that late, but I was in bed reading and had let down my guard for the day. I had never met him, but reacted immediately to his gruff voice on the telephone. When he said he had some time the next day, I scurried downstairs to get my calendar, even though I knew mornings were supposed to be devoted to writing, and in the afternoon I had a doctor's appointment. I was also meeting a friend for dinner near the town where I had my appointment. But I hurried to check on the exact time. Why? To see if I could squeeze him in, rushing back from my busy day to accommodate his schedule.
He's a 19-year old college student, whose mother told me he could use the money while he's home on break. I'm a college professor. But when that apparent relationship went unrecognized by the boy, who had initiated the call, my impulse was to find another way to connect with him on his terms.
His disembodied voice sounded deep and surprisingly mature. I guess that's what tipped me over into the grateful, flexible damsel in distress. I tried to gain some poise as I read my calendar, which confirmed what I already knew. Tomorrow was not possible, but the next three days were entirely free.
Back upstairs I paused to catch my breath before I picked up the phone again. The cord was all tangled. "I can't do tomorrow. I have a doctor's appointment. How about Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday?" I sniffed. (Somewhere along the way, my nose had started running.) "Sorry," I added, not sure if I meant about the time or the sniffing.
"Well, I'm busy," he started, sounding more annoyed than before. "On Wednesday I have to bring my car in to have my tires rotated." He hesitated. "I can come on Wednesday afternoon."
That's how long it took me to get it--that I was talking to a sulking boy whose mother had told him to take a job when all he wanted to do was relax and have fun during his winter break. I was hearing a petulant kid whose voice was in a lower key, but that deep male voice on the telephone knocked me back through the years. It wasn't even Al's voice I was reacting to. It was my stern father's.
I have to laugh at myself. The lessons just keep on coming. As does life, which comes at me, whether I want it to or not, beckoning me to live and learn while I'm still here. I've been ignoring it long enough. So now that I get the picture and remember who I am and what I need to accomplish this week, I'll make a plan. I'll put together a list of chores. And when he calls on Wednesday to confirm, as he said he would, I'll ask him for his hourly rate, which I forgot to do. And I'll be ready--as ready as a woman raised to accede to men can be. If his rate is too high, I'll...what? Say so and negotiate? Pay him what he asks and then not hire him again? Pay exactly for time worked and not round off to the higher hour?
These were all of the strategies I observed Al using over the years. Shielded by him, I had the luxury of being far more nit picky than he was. He compromised quality to quickness more than suited my taste. But what did I know? I compromised quality to freedom. Even when he'd talk to me about his negotiations, I'd tune him out. (Although I remember once he handed a workman half of a twenty-dollar bill he'd just ripped, and said, "You'll get the other half when you finish the job right and on time.")
I no longer have the luxury of judging the workmanship while keeping the workman at a distance. When I need work done, I have to do it myself or hire someone to do it. And I can no longer expect that hiring someone means that the work will be done well, in a timely manner, or at all. In fact, I should expect just the opposite. Maybe once in a while I'll be pleasantly surprised.
It's aggravating, but necessary, and it surely aggravated Al at times too. In fact, I know it did. He'd tell me so, and I'd get that glazed look in my eyes, and he'd change the subject.
But the arrangement suited us because he liked the control more than he minded the aggravation, whereas I was happy to give up both. When, occasionally, I complained about the quality of the work, he'd say, "Then you take over." That was all it would take to stop that train of thought.
Now I'm the only game in town, and my pickiness has free reign. I suspect I'll begin having some respect for compromise as the projects continue, as they must do. I'm being forced to grow up and learn how to deal. I'll have to develop and train new instincts, and do what works best for me--prepare in advance. Al's way was on-site inspiration. I'm not made that way. It's prepared lists and voice adjustments for me. But I have to admit, there's something exciting about developing new life skills at this stage in my life.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Shock
How long does a mourner stay in shock? I suppose that my having come up with this question is a sign that perhaps I'm beginning to recover. It wouldn't have occurred to me during the past three years since Al died and the eighteen months before when we where doing everything in our power to save his life that I was in shock.
I distinctly remember the moments of revelation about his diagnosis, each one a blow to my head and heart and stomach. I remember hearing the emergency room doctor at Berkshire County Memorial Hospital listing the places where the cancer had invaded--Al's lungs and heart and liver and bone. Stage IV, the worst stage, the worst prognosis. I remember helping him out of his clothes and into a wrinkled cotton hospital gown, tying the three frayed bindings behind him. I remember writing on a borrowed piece of paper the articles of clothing and toiletries that he dictated for me to pack and bring back to his room at the hospital. Back then he was still strong, focused, and in command, and I was still his sidekick, acceding to his will at times of stress, both of us agreeing that he was the better captain of our ship. Back then I thought around him, found space for my ideas where his thoughts left off, yielded willingly to his stronger will.
I remember driving home in a fog that I'll now call shock to collect the first of his things. I seem to remember that there was actual fog on the road from the hospital to home, not an unusual occurrence in the mountains, but who knows and what does it matter? I remember taking the curves with extreme care, a woman with a mission, or no, a task. It wasn't until later that I found my mission, which was to save him, and threw myself into it with all of my might. I remember falling into our bed, exhausted and numb, sleeping like the dead, and waking to the sun shining through our big picture window. I remember opening my eyes and feeling for my feelings, but all I felt was that I had been emptied out overnight. All I thought was Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. All I thought was What will I do? I didn't, couldn't, move for a brief time, just stared out the window at the sun rising and shining on another day, just another day, and tried to take in the end of the life I'd been contentedly living and the start of a different life that I didn't want to face.
But I couldn't dawdle. Al was waiting. He needed his toothpaste and slippers. He needed me by his side. So I got up and started packing for our different life together. I found an old spiral bound notebook from a former student with only a few filled pages, ripped them out, and added it along with a couple of pens to my bundle. I walked Star and fed her, telling her what a good girl she was, burying my face in the warmth of her curls. My voice sounded thin and teary to me, but she didn't react noticeably to the change or even to Al's unusual absence. I got in the car and drove the forty-five minutes to the hospital and found Al walking the halls, trying to establish an exercise routine to replace his daily run. I saw that overnight fog had settled on him too. His eyes had a newly distant look to them. I needed to bring him back to the linoleum floor and florescent lights of the hospital so he could fight. I said to him, "Don't leave me." I watched his hazel eyes begin to refocus on me and determination form on his face. "I won't," he said in a hollowed-out voice.
I wouldn't have called it shock. After all, we acted decisively and efficiently. Or I did. He was too sick. Fluid was building up around the chambers of his heart, an overflow from his lungs. He had expressed a belief that only Sloan Kettering had the resources to save his life, so I set to work getting him to the chief of pulmonology. I called every doctor, friend, and acquaintance to get us an appointment. Then I called friends of friends and acquaintances. I surprised myself, ignoring my usual reserve and breaking through my natural shyness. Transferring from another hospital to Sloan Kettering was very difficult. The best I could do was get an appointment for an office visit in three weeks.
I had just started a semester-long sabbatical with a book contract to fulfill. Would a person in shock have studied and interpreted every nuance of non-small-cell adenocarcinoma she could lay her hands on? Have gathered its devastating statistics and been able to convince her opinionated, fact-driven husband that we would beat the horrible odds? Have honored his refusal to be taken in an ambulance, and driven the two and a half hours to the city with her husband throwing up into one of the plastic bags she'd packed for just that purpose? Would she have researched alternative treatments, found foods that he could bear to eat, spoken with every doctor, and taken charge of his treatment? Could she have (with the help of her understanding co-author and sympathetic publisher) finished her book within three months of the original deadline? Could she have returned to an indifferent work environment, taught a full load of courses, and still have accompanied him to every chemotherapy session and every alternative therapy?
And eighteen months after the diagnosis first hit, could she have taken one last devastating drive down the winding Taconic while her husband held her right hand until he slipped into a coma, straining to honor her promise to him that she would not let him die in a hospital? In the three and a half years since Al died, would a woman in shock have maintained high-level working duties and responsibilities, traversed the political minefields of academia, learned how to run a house on her own, and developed a new social network? I guess so. I'm only beginning to understand shock from the inside out.
I know it's still with me. Like fog, it lifts at times, and I have clarity. At other times it falls, and I function through memory and instinct. That seems to be adequate for most of my dealings with acquaintances. My friends provide a lifeline when I begin to drift. And I suppose that, despite the shockiness, something within me is determined to not just live, but to relish life. That's a struggle. Al and I were very close, and during his illness we grew even closer. We were each others' boosters and best friends. When he went, pieces of me that had melded with pieces of him went too. I hope I'm growing new pieces to take their place, but for now I exist with empty spaces. I refuse to fill them with just anything or anyone.
I distinctly remember the moments of revelation about his diagnosis, each one a blow to my head and heart and stomach. I remember hearing the emergency room doctor at Berkshire County Memorial Hospital listing the places where the cancer had invaded--Al's lungs and heart and liver and bone. Stage IV, the worst stage, the worst prognosis. I remember helping him out of his clothes and into a wrinkled cotton hospital gown, tying the three frayed bindings behind him. I remember writing on a borrowed piece of paper the articles of clothing and toiletries that he dictated for me to pack and bring back to his room at the hospital. Back then he was still strong, focused, and in command, and I was still his sidekick, acceding to his will at times of stress, both of us agreeing that he was the better captain of our ship. Back then I thought around him, found space for my ideas where his thoughts left off, yielded willingly to his stronger will.
I remember driving home in a fog that I'll now call shock to collect the first of his things. I seem to remember that there was actual fog on the road from the hospital to home, not an unusual occurrence in the mountains, but who knows and what does it matter? I remember taking the curves with extreme care, a woman with a mission, or no, a task. It wasn't until later that I found my mission, which was to save him, and threw myself into it with all of my might. I remember falling into our bed, exhausted and numb, sleeping like the dead, and waking to the sun shining through our big picture window. I remember opening my eyes and feeling for my feelings, but all I felt was that I had been emptied out overnight. All I thought was Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. All I thought was What will I do? I didn't, couldn't, move for a brief time, just stared out the window at the sun rising and shining on another day, just another day, and tried to take in the end of the life I'd been contentedly living and the start of a different life that I didn't want to face.
But I couldn't dawdle. Al was waiting. He needed his toothpaste and slippers. He needed me by his side. So I got up and started packing for our different life together. I found an old spiral bound notebook from a former student with only a few filled pages, ripped them out, and added it along with a couple of pens to my bundle. I walked Star and fed her, telling her what a good girl she was, burying my face in the warmth of her curls. My voice sounded thin and teary to me, but she didn't react noticeably to the change or even to Al's unusual absence. I got in the car and drove the forty-five minutes to the hospital and found Al walking the halls, trying to establish an exercise routine to replace his daily run. I saw that overnight fog had settled on him too. His eyes had a newly distant look to them. I needed to bring him back to the linoleum floor and florescent lights of the hospital so he could fight. I said to him, "Don't leave me." I watched his hazel eyes begin to refocus on me and determination form on his face. "I won't," he said in a hollowed-out voice.
I wouldn't have called it shock. After all, we acted decisively and efficiently. Or I did. He was too sick. Fluid was building up around the chambers of his heart, an overflow from his lungs. He had expressed a belief that only Sloan Kettering had the resources to save his life, so I set to work getting him to the chief of pulmonology. I called every doctor, friend, and acquaintance to get us an appointment. Then I called friends of friends and acquaintances. I surprised myself, ignoring my usual reserve and breaking through my natural shyness. Transferring from another hospital to Sloan Kettering was very difficult. The best I could do was get an appointment for an office visit in three weeks.
I had just started a semester-long sabbatical with a book contract to fulfill. Would a person in shock have studied and interpreted every nuance of non-small-cell adenocarcinoma she could lay her hands on? Have gathered its devastating statistics and been able to convince her opinionated, fact-driven husband that we would beat the horrible odds? Have honored his refusal to be taken in an ambulance, and driven the two and a half hours to the city with her husband throwing up into one of the plastic bags she'd packed for just that purpose? Would she have researched alternative treatments, found foods that he could bear to eat, spoken with every doctor, and taken charge of his treatment? Could she have (with the help of her understanding co-author and sympathetic publisher) finished her book within three months of the original deadline? Could she have returned to an indifferent work environment, taught a full load of courses, and still have accompanied him to every chemotherapy session and every alternative therapy?
And eighteen months after the diagnosis first hit, could she have taken one last devastating drive down the winding Taconic while her husband held her right hand until he slipped into a coma, straining to honor her promise to him that she would not let him die in a hospital? In the three and a half years since Al died, would a woman in shock have maintained high-level working duties and responsibilities, traversed the political minefields of academia, learned how to run a house on her own, and developed a new social network? I guess so. I'm only beginning to understand shock from the inside out.
I know it's still with me. Like fog, it lifts at times, and I have clarity. At other times it falls, and I function through memory and instinct. That seems to be adequate for most of my dealings with acquaintances. My friends provide a lifeline when I begin to drift. And I suppose that, despite the shockiness, something within me is determined to not just live, but to relish life. That's a struggle. Al and I were very close, and during his illness we grew even closer. We were each others' boosters and best friends. When he went, pieces of me that had melded with pieces of him went too. I hope I'm growing new pieces to take their place, but for now I exist with empty spaces. I refuse to fill them with just anything or anyone.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Waking
I woke this morning full of doubts about this blog. Who wants to read about widowhood? About death? Do you really want to be the one who writes the bad news? Do you really want to write at all? Just go back to sleep, soothed the voice that kills dreams.
I've slept enough already. I know how short life is and how suddenly it can end. I want to figure out the hand I've been dealt and what it means to me. When I'm taken out, I want to go knowing that I decided to face my life and the deaths within my life. I want to know that I tried, anyway. That I didn't let myself down by staying in bed and turning on the television as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning just to drown out my own thoughts. I've been doing that since Al died to keep away--what? Loneliness? Is loneliness that bad? I think it's something more that I've been holding at arm's length. The something contained in the word "loneliness," that I can only glean from the sounds that make it up. That long O, eternally startled and mournful--Oh! Where'd everybody go? But also the two Ls in the word that remind me of children singing and of being sung to--those childhood lullabies that lulled and swaddled.
What I've been avoiding is the awful feeling, harsh and grating, that doesn't stop. The naked longing and vulnerability of having no control and no power. I held those feelings at arm's length all during the eighteen months that Al and I fought his lung cancer. Together we held off exhaustion, despair, terror, and doubt. But now I'm alone with all of those feelings, and I can't hold them off anymore.
Lonliness doesn't even begin to explain it. It's less word than sound. It's like the cry a hawk makes, piercing the very air that holds it up. An alien, animal sound is what I would have said before Al died, but afterwards I identified with that cry. It bridged the gap between human and beast, between me and every mortal thing.
Anyway that's what it semed like when I came home from the hospital that last time. A hawk was nearby, very near, which isn't unusual up in the Taconic Hills, but this one wouldn't stop screeching. It screeched and screeched every time I went outside to walk our dog, Star. I had to cover my ears with my hands, the screeching was so loud. I couldn't understand why Star seemed so unperturbed. She didn't seem to hear it. She had been his. I expected her to be frantic, look everywhere for him and run from place to place with a lost look on her face, like she used to do when she had dozed off while he went into another room. But no, as we walked, she kept her nose to the ground, sniffing every other blade of grass and stone as if it were an ordinary day. With Al gone, she became my buddy, such a calm transfer of loyalty.
I also couldn't understand why, as we walked on our country road, my neighbors weren't running out of their houses to see what on earth all the racket was up in the sky. But no one seemed to notice. No one on the road seemed home at all. It was deserted. Just Star, the hawk, and I. Strange, although it looked like my road, it felt different, like an old faded painting. A still life minus one dimension, flat and dull, where I now dwelled, having become flat and dull myself without Al.
But that red tailed hawk was anything but dull. His cries pierced through the fog of my surroundings and pierced through me too. It cried for two days and nights like that. Sometimes I even heard it when I was inside, through the drone of fans and music and television voices, and every time we went outside in the dusty green of that hot August, its voice followed Star and me through the trees and down the road.
I still couldn't cry back then. To say the truth, I was feeling calm--relieved--no longer in a constant state of emergency, no longer on hyper-alert status, no longer trying to save each next minute of Al's life. I was numb, which I suppose accounted for the dullness of everything around me.
That hawk hung around for two days, and then, as suddenly as it had come, it left. I've seen many hawks around my house since that time. Some have even cried out as they flew by. But none have keep a constant crying vigil, night and day, day and night, as that hawk did when Al died.
I've slept enough already. I know how short life is and how suddenly it can end. I want to figure out the hand I've been dealt and what it means to me. When I'm taken out, I want to go knowing that I decided to face my life and the deaths within my life. I want to know that I tried, anyway. That I didn't let myself down by staying in bed and turning on the television as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning just to drown out my own thoughts. I've been doing that since Al died to keep away--what? Loneliness? Is loneliness that bad? I think it's something more that I've been holding at arm's length. The something contained in the word "loneliness," that I can only glean from the sounds that make it up. That long O, eternally startled and mournful--Oh! Where'd everybody go? But also the two Ls in the word that remind me of children singing and of being sung to--those childhood lullabies that lulled and swaddled.
What I've been avoiding is the awful feeling, harsh and grating, that doesn't stop. The naked longing and vulnerability of having no control and no power. I held those feelings at arm's length all during the eighteen months that Al and I fought his lung cancer. Together we held off exhaustion, despair, terror, and doubt. But now I'm alone with all of those feelings, and I can't hold them off anymore.
Lonliness doesn't even begin to explain it. It's less word than sound. It's like the cry a hawk makes, piercing the very air that holds it up. An alien, animal sound is what I would have said before Al died, but afterwards I identified with that cry. It bridged the gap between human and beast, between me and every mortal thing.
Anyway that's what it semed like when I came home from the hospital that last time. A hawk was nearby, very near, which isn't unusual up in the Taconic Hills, but this one wouldn't stop screeching. It screeched and screeched every time I went outside to walk our dog, Star. I had to cover my ears with my hands, the screeching was so loud. I couldn't understand why Star seemed so unperturbed. She didn't seem to hear it. She had been his. I expected her to be frantic, look everywhere for him and run from place to place with a lost look on her face, like she used to do when she had dozed off while he went into another room. But no, as we walked, she kept her nose to the ground, sniffing every other blade of grass and stone as if it were an ordinary day. With Al gone, she became my buddy, such a calm transfer of loyalty.
I also couldn't understand why, as we walked on our country road, my neighbors weren't running out of their houses to see what on earth all the racket was up in the sky. But no one seemed to notice. No one on the road seemed home at all. It was deserted. Just Star, the hawk, and I. Strange, although it looked like my road, it felt different, like an old faded painting. A still life minus one dimension, flat and dull, where I now dwelled, having become flat and dull myself without Al.
But that red tailed hawk was anything but dull. His cries pierced through the fog of my surroundings and pierced through me too. It cried for two days and nights like that. Sometimes I even heard it when I was inside, through the drone of fans and music and television voices, and every time we went outside in the dusty green of that hot August, its voice followed Star and me through the trees and down the road.
I still couldn't cry back then. To say the truth, I was feeling calm--relieved--no longer in a constant state of emergency, no longer on hyper-alert status, no longer trying to save each next minute of Al's life. I was numb, which I suppose accounted for the dullness of everything around me.
That hawk hung around for two days, and then, as suddenly as it had come, it left. I've seen many hawks around my house since that time. Some have even cried out as they flew by. But none have keep a constant crying vigil, night and day, day and night, as that hawk did when Al died.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
A New Identity
When I was widowed three and a half years ago, I searched for books on how to be what I had just become--a woman with a new identity. My library data base had pages of fiction about widows. Merry Widows. Black Widows. I wanted to read books written by widows who would shed some light on this new life I was going to have to live. I found some, but not enough. So now I'm doing the writing.
Widowhood in the 21st century is not our mother's widowhood. We're less isolated, and we go out more. Other single women are available--other widows, those who never married, and those who divorced. And there are those enlightened couples, secure in their mates, with whom I still socialize. (There are those who are not secure and behave badly, but that's another story.) I'm grateful to have so many good friends and neighbors, but still I have to admit here that it seems at times like I'm trying to be a good sport in a bad situation.
Things don't quite fit the way they used to with my old friends, and I don't quite feel comfortable with my new friends. I suddenly seem to have become someone else. The minute my husband died, I became re-identified to society. And I'm still in the process of knowing my new self. I don't quite recognize myself as the person I'm becoming. And I'm not quite ready to give up the person I was.
Some of what I find myself saying and doing feels fraudulent to me. I've been trying to go through the motions of a normal life, or at least what I remember to be a normal life. When Al was alive, I would have laughed at such a phrase as a normal life. Back then I had the luxury of claiming nonconformity, but I don't feel so entitled anymore. It's easier to claim not to fit in with the rest of the world when you have a partner at your side.
Now that the shock of my husband's death is beginning to wear off, I need to figure out what I think and believe for myself and on my own. Our strong marriage with its advantages and compromises tended to mask some of my individual traits and potential. That's the nature of marriage. So here I am, after three and a half widowed years, my anger dissipating, my confusion settling down, and my clarity just beginning to return. I'm claiming my own new identity, and I'm writing to understand my new self.
Widowhood in the 21st century is not our mother's widowhood. We're less isolated, and we go out more. Other single women are available--other widows, those who never married, and those who divorced. And there are those enlightened couples, secure in their mates, with whom I still socialize. (There are those who are not secure and behave badly, but that's another story.) I'm grateful to have so many good friends and neighbors, but still I have to admit here that it seems at times like I'm trying to be a good sport in a bad situation.
Things don't quite fit the way they used to with my old friends, and I don't quite feel comfortable with my new friends. I suddenly seem to have become someone else. The minute my husband died, I became re-identified to society. And I'm still in the process of knowing my new self. I don't quite recognize myself as the person I'm becoming. And I'm not quite ready to give up the person I was.
Some of what I find myself saying and doing feels fraudulent to me. I've been trying to go through the motions of a normal life, or at least what I remember to be a normal life. When Al was alive, I would have laughed at such a phrase as a normal life. Back then I had the luxury of claiming nonconformity, but I don't feel so entitled anymore. It's easier to claim not to fit in with the rest of the world when you have a partner at your side.
Now that the shock of my husband's death is beginning to wear off, I need to figure out what I think and believe for myself and on my own. Our strong marriage with its advantages and compromises tended to mask some of my individual traits and potential. That's the nature of marriage. So here I am, after three and a half widowed years, my anger dissipating, my confusion settling down, and my clarity just beginning to return. I'm claiming my own new identity, and I'm writing to understand my new self.
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