An Epiphany before Epiphany

 Dear Will --

I think I have finally survived your death.

Love,

Kake

HOLIDAY LESSON

 

Therapist Sarah said that if I were part of a holiday grief group she would give me the assignment to write up for next year what I learned from this year about what healing at this time of year means to me.

She also did this really cool therapist thing in which she redefined [or encouraged me to redefine] my isolating as contemplating.

Whatever -- words define us so next year I'll be contemplating.  

Probably from Thanksgiving until ... hmmm ... New Year's Day?  Epiphany? We'll see  how the next two weeks go, whether or not the rage really subsides, as I think it will.  

What might work for me next year based on what I learned this year.

Pull away from people starting the week of Thanksgiving.

Consume each of my foundational Christmas stories at least once. (The Baby story, the Old Man story, and the American mercantile story).

See only those people who I know like me and them only in small amounts.

Take myself to entertainment opportunities.

Give myself permission to change my mind (especially about entertainment opportunities).

When the absence grows too large, lie down on the grave and weep.

Do church work. Welcome the Baby.

Have no expectations of others or myself.

 

She also wanted me to think each day about what small hope was achievable each day. I'll hold on to that one.

 

After Christmas

 Christmas was hard.

Boxing Day, the actual anniversary, went by without much pain.

After I did altar guild clean up on Monday, Christmas Day, I took Winston out to the cemetery where I sat on Will's grave and wept for almost a half hour.  Later that day I went to visit friend Stacey where we drank some of my leftover Advent Calendar whiskey and she gave me some good advice. Then I went back home.

I texted my sister and her kids in the evening saying Merry Christmas. That was challenging since I didn't feel very merry.

Will before I was born

Yesterday I watched more TV, hung out with Winston, did grocery shopping. But in the morning I was able to host the Tuesday Group and it was so good being with that group of people. They have been of huge support to me, especially since I lost EFM.

It's time to start rebuilding my resilience in this new world of being alone.

Managing Christmas

 It's 6:50 a.m. I was awake at 3:30, got out of bed at 4:30.

I'm a little high. The movie musical Scrooge is playing on my 65 inch TV.  This is one of my top Christmas movies.

Alec Guinness as Jacob Marley in Scrooge (1970)

I don't have to be a coherent human being until about 8:30.  Church service isn't until 10 and I plan to go in and check everything at 9:00.  I'm soloing on altar guild this morning.

Yesterday I did altar guild set up for the "regular" 8:00 am service.  I also read the epistle.  I planned to attend an evening church service at a friend's church because I like the preacher there.  Unfortunately, the tears started rolling shortly after I sat down.  They didn't have Kleenex in the pews and I hadn't carried in a handkerchief because I wasn't expecting to cry. So I left.

I started howling in the car. When I got home I had a good, long cry then fell asleep in front of the tv.

What set me off? I don't know.  Maybe it was the same reason I left a theatre presentation last week -- because the presence of so many happy strangers triggered tears.  Or maybe it was because the lovely church I was visiting had a screen.  Suddenly Will's voice was in my head commenting on the screen in a church. Then I remembered his voice was gone forever.

Last year I was in the middle of the magnets and ketamine therapies at this time so Christmas had a cushion. 

This year, the memory of the last 10 days has returned full force.  And of course Will's death brings up my future dying and my own great fear of those coming days, whether soon or in decades. Like gazillions of humans before me, I struggle with fear of dying, especially dying alone with only paid help around me. I tell myself that a lot of people have this fear.  Well, that helps me feel normal, but doesn't erase the fear.

 

Dear Will.

My mind keeps remembering putting my hand on your cold, dead face as Kevin pulled back the soft reeds of the woven coffin. They'd already filled you with preservative because there were too many winter deaths to freeze you.  When I told the medium that I was remembering this he asked me why I needed to touch your face.  I had to think about that.  Eventually I said, "to prove to myself that he was dead."  But I don't think that was the reason. I think I was having trouble then, as I am now, letting you go. I think I just needed to be in touch with the body of my love one more time.

Will in his final days, December 16, 2021

Love forever,

Kake

 

Too Needy

 I am too needy.

Aspirational lyrics

If a lot of people tell you the same thing then it must be true. After all, I am the variable in all of my failed relationships.

That's why I'm not reaching out much over the holidays.

I think I want to bust through this fear of being without Will and the only way I will do that is to be alone as much as possible. It was my mistake my first year to think friendship can replace a missing partner. No one can replace Will. And I've finally settled into the realization that this pain of missing Will is the rest of my life. I know it will get better.  Or at least it will get different.  This year is different than last year -- it's been harder. I believe the coming year will be easier.

Right now I am pretty afraid of being around people for fear I'll do something that will make them dislike me because that is my experience of me. Will accepted (though he didn't approve) of all of me.  There will never be anyone else who can do that.  That's another thing I need to accept - that for the rest of my life I'll need to act better than I am and not let people see the "real" me, not if I want to keep my friends.

My commitment to myself is that I will no longer hate myself and hurt myself for being an asshole.  I'll just avoid situations in which I might act like one, to the extent that I can.

It's my first December in almost three decades when I haven't been on some sort of anti-depressant.  Unless you count weed.  I am consuming way too much weed.  Well, way too much for someone who has a purpose in the world.  But perhaps just the right amount for someone free from purpose -- perhaps just perfect for a floater and slacker.

I have plans for January. If I can stop hurting so much. I want to get clean but only if I figure out a way manage the grief better and to manage my need for other higher level primates. Once I stop needing people to like the "authentic" me I think I'll be okay.  I plan to reread my old interpersonal communication text to figure out how to be with people again.

Metaphors

 I didn't expect to be so dysfunctional at this point in my widowhood but here we are.  When I posted this on a widows' FB site, a few folks said this was "sad but accurate."

Medium Medium Addendum

Things I forgot to write yesterday.

1. While his saying that Will wanted me to stay in the house seemed absolutely right for what a Spirit Will might want, and also corresponds to a former psychic's statement that spirit Will thought I should wait six

Barbie Dream House by Mattel

months before deciding anything, his use of the words "Dream Home" went clunk. Rang false. We bought the house as-is and Will laid out the furniture and books (thousands and thousands of books) but we never did much to the interior of the house. The carpets came with the house. We occasionally got rid of some furniture but it took many years because Will was always loath to get rid of anything or spend money on anything new.  I, however, have created my own "dreamy" space upstairs, getting rid of all the furniture we shared before his dementia.

2. He handled Will's teaching Bible more than he handled a tie of dubious provenance. (May have been purchased second hand - I don't remember. Pre-dementia Will would have remembered where and when.)

3. Speaking for Will he gave me two assignments: one was to read the 23rd psalm once a day for a week and the other was to write a love letter to Will for a week and then open and read them and find they're for me. This second assignment is a classic psychologist's tactic.

4. He said I had just two friends but that's not true - I can think of at least five people I can call on for support. I'm blessed in having friends. My big confusion up until recently is that I thought that having a lot of strings attached to my balloon would replace the big rope that was anchoring it.  I was wrong.  There is no replacement for Will.  There is no way to "fix" the pain of him not being in my life. I need to learn to live around the hole.

And once again, I want to underline the communication truism that it takes at least two beings to communicate. I used to say "sentient beings" in my classrooms, thinking about other mammals who communicate - dogs, cats, horses, whales, elephants, well, everybody! Though know one knows what the fox says. 

What I said to my wonderful grief therapist yesterday was that I was crying hard all the time I was there AND I was analyzing his communication behaviors. My analytical brain is not completely dead! "It's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE"

As for the dude's sitting too close to me and me getting freaked out about it, my therapist told me that the first time she tried to get close to me during a grief storm before Will's death, I backed away from her. So it's not just men I'm uncomfortable with getting close to me.  It may be people larger than I? People who are people? But she did agree that he should have been able to read my discomfort and responded to it.

Medium Medium

So I drove 40 minutes to visit a highly recommended medium to see if I could get some peace around Will's death as I am still experiencing deep grief and would like to be a bit more functional in the world than I seem to be at the present moment.

Did the visit function in that way?  Yes and no.

lemongrass

Yes

 The space felt safe and I was greeted by the spouse who also made the setting feel safe.

The chair I sat in was comfortable.

I was able to say out loud to spirit Will that I was proud of all he did and that I'd not said that to him enough.

During the channeling and "reading" I was given reassurances that Will

1. loved me
2. was sorry for being such a hard man
3. didn't want me to be in such pain still
   
4. wanted me to stay in the house
5.  was present in the house
6. was still my protector

The psychic also said that Will said to be selfish and take care of myself for the next two months.  This corresponds with what a psychic I talked to in the summer said - that I shouldn't think about moving for at least six months.  Both measures correspond to February, beginning of March - so some linkage as to shared spiritual reality. The psychic, either as Will or himself, said that he understood that life was hard because I was alone (without kids). It felt good to get that assurance.

One other thing said: "He slept on the right side of the bed." True. 

Another thing the psychic said that I appreciated was that I don't need to pay attention to friends who tell me I'm too emotional.  It was fun the way he said it, waving his long arms almost like Will would have, saying that I should wave them away.

The psychic seemed to me to believe in what he was saying: he made direct eye contact, spoke clearly when he was not channeling, and sat with confidence in his body posture. His voice was warm and expressed caring through vocal quality. 

His presence largely expressed compassion and he mostly behaved compassionately, as did his spouse.

During the channeling, his body posture curved down and he spoke in a gutteral whisper I strained to hear, even as I put my ear wearing the hearing aid down next to his head. He was a soft talker even in regular speech.

He performed a ceremony of rubbing my hands with a lemongrass oil and then he held the back of my hands during the channeling. He was bending over the clasped hands so he would have been smelling the lemon grass and since I know that lemongrass opens up a connection to the brain, that all made sense to me.

A couple of the reassurances suggest that a true contact with spirit was made. #2 How could the psychic have known that Will was a hard man?  That rang true.#4 And how could he have known that I had been thinking of moving?

Most of what the psychic said during my visit was aimed at helping me and providing me with support and reassurance, no matter from what side of the veil the reassurance came.

No

 Here is why I left the meeting quickly and I'm not going back.

First, most of what he told me was explainable as a highly skilled "cold reading." 

1. What would a widow still grieving need?  Reassurance. 
2. What would a former caregiver need to hear? That a good job was done.
3. Even the "hard man" might have been a good guess as he'd already asked about children and been told we had none.
4. The house.  What he actually might have said is "he said 'you're staying'?" ie, it was a cold reading hook.  But frankly, I don't remember.
   

Second, I really disliked that he moved his chair way too close to mine even when we weren't doing the channeling ritual.  I felt very uncomfortable, what with my PTSD sirens going off along with the tinnitus. I wanted to back up but either the chair was too big or I was feeling like I should treat this guy as though I weren't suddenly afraid. The old belief that one shows respect to "good men" by pretending the leftover trauma of "bad men" doesn't exist.

When he rubbed the lemongrass oil into my palms he said it was to calm me down because my energy was so high - I was crying most of the time I was there. Frankly, I didn't want to hear One. More. Person. tell me to fucking calm down.

He tried to fucking up-sell me. He started saying, "We're going to get through this". Like, I should fucking drive forty fucking miles again to sit with a guy who sits too close to me? And is a psychic who can't read my discomfort?  Nope.  Nopey nopey nope. Aaaaannnnnd .... that underlying river of rage returned. (How do you like the alliteration?) I, who wanted to blurt out 'you're fucking cold reading me' instead took a moment to politely express my disinterest in returning. And he said, "But of course that's okay." A man giving me permission to live my life the way I want to live it. Nice. Just . . . nice.

And finally, unlike the last psychic gal I spoke to on zoom, he didn't explain his process -- ie: wasn't transparent. Simply assumed that I would "believe" what was happening. To be fair, he did ask if I had questions but by that time I was so ready to get out of there I just put my jacket on and skedaddled.

Overall

I had the experience I did because I am the person I am. 

Others have had and will have other experiences. I went because I heard very positive things. The people who went to him before may not have rape-associated PTSD that gets activated during times of stress. Nor may they have been afflicted with underlying rage and a lifetime of being a rhetorician. Yet, as someone who enjoys her own company, I like being given permission to take two more months off from worrying about whether or not I'm an asshole.

Medium

Philly, our last trip, 2015

 Dear Will:I'm going to see a highly-recommended medium today. 

I'm sure the you on this side of the veil wouldn't have approved because it's a connection to a world other than the material and you were all about the material world.

I'm going to take the Bible you taught from and a tie, if I still have one that you wore. I trashed or gave away most of your things in 2022.

Anyway, if he can contact your spirit, I want you to know how proud I was of you for being that little boy who survived. You were a fucking annoying little boy at times, for sure.  But you stuck it out a long time on the planet. You made a great career of 33 years, in spite of your differences from your colleagues and friends.  But then, so many of them were crazy too -- and now long dead, most all before you.  You who lived to be 91 even though in your mind you were 65 those last four years. 

You and Miss Birdy, Christmas 2017

I'm sorry you did not die peacefully.  I'm sorry you needed to rage at me before your last stroke, the one that put you into your death coma.  The one that began on Christmas. But I can look at it and see that I wasn't Kake when you were raging at me.  I was someone from your deep past who hurt you in a terrible way.

I hope that during your final coma your heart on this side
found peace.

I love you still and always will (excuse the rhyme).

Kake

 

Private Joke

 Dear Will --

I got this whiskey advent calendar and when I opened it up what should I see?

 

And I laughed and said out loud, "Wo ist der David?"

 And of course the answer was

 

Will and me laughing sometime after living in Firenze