A Shift

Something in me has definitely shifted. Two events that would have sent me into a grief spiral six months ago have not as yet evoked a tear and I'm not sure why not.

The symbol of John the Evangelist

The weekend held two deaths, one expected, one completely unexpected.

My dear friend Judy's husband Phil "finally" died, after over twenty years of being "close" to the Reaper.  It was her care for him that kept him alive for so long. He transitioned over the weekend with family and friends close by. I care for her a great deal and feel sadness for her. But I didn't cry.

Also this weekend a new friend, Carol, died unexpectedly. I had just begun reaching out to her before I left for Scotland and had actually emailed her last week to get together again for lunch. I had thought I had a "new" friend in adulthood because when I took her to lunch we had a great conversation about our past lives and she said she enjoyed talking with me and we should do it again. And last week we were just planning a lunch and then sometime Saturday night she died in her chair and her son with whom she lived found her body sitting there on Sunday morning.  

I am sad for this loss but I haven't cried. 

Six months ago such losses would have triggered buckets of tears.

I think I may have gained strength from my trip overseas. I don't really have a cognitive explanation. Maybe it's just the body and time. My being in time. (Shout out to Marty Heidegger ).

So much goes on in the body/brain that is not available to the front brain, the neocortex. So I don't really understand where I'm at right now but unlike six months ago, I am not worried about it. 

I guess that my "faith" has kicked in at a subatomic or at least a limbic level. I accept that I'm okay as I am and it's okay for other people to think I'm difficult because I can be. Will's presence in my life used to protect me from some of the consequences of my being who I am. I have this moderately disordered brain that feels some things too much and some things too little - that has difficulty with knowing how to deal with other people without a carefully controlled context. In the past I could go hug Will and feel loved no matter how fucked up was the thing I did or said.

In the Sanctuary of St. John the Divine, Oban

One of the Tuesday group people said I was "brave" to go traveling on my own and I said what feels brave to me is going up to talk to someone at coffee hour.

The photograph is the interior of an unfinished Episcopal Cathedral in Oban. It represents how I feel about myself now. I'm unfinished and need support but am comfortable remaining unfinished.

 

 

Report

 

Iona Abbey - My picture

I reported this to the Widowhood Sisters on Facebook:

The second part of this post contains of list of things that helped me on my grief journey.

 

I (2 1/2 years out) am back in Central Oregon from my first non-tour-group, self-booked overseas travel adventure. It was something I made myself set up last January and involved three major events: a 9 hour tour of the fictitious County of Midsomer, a 6 day spiritual retreat in the Abbey on the Isle of Iona, and a stopover in San Francisco to see the new opera, Innocence, before flying home. I made sure to include "buffer days" in case travel got cancelled and since it wasn't (except a train trip picked up by a separate company), I enjoyed visits to some wonderful art museums. (My spouse and I were art and opera people.) 

 

When I got to Iona I had a few grief tsunamis, in part because I was so stressed out about going from my very quiet introvert life to sharing 3 meals a day with 60 people. But the staff there were incredibly understanding and comforting. (And the spiritual director, out there on that distant island, turned out to be a gal from a city just 128 miles from me.)

 

Overall, though sometimes difficult, it was a wonderful trip during which I learned a lot about myself, my late spouse, and my grief journey. When I did all the planning back in January, I was still in deep grief but I knew I wanted the two UK adventures. While living at the Abbey turned out to be more challenging than I expected, it was interesting to me to find out I enjoyed going to ecumenical church services twice a day (9am, 9pm) in an unheated 700 year stone church.

 

I am not a "positivity" and "think your way through" kind of person. Up until this last April, I was pretty much crying every day. But then things started shifting inside. And now I feel like the great, heavy burden of the grief has lifted. I still miss my husband very much but my center feels more solid. I didn't even cry when I got home and he wasn't physically present. Maybe because I have more faith that his spirit is still with me. 

 

Here are some of things that I did over the past 2 1/2 years that I think helped me the most 

 

1) I cried when I needed to cry, no matter who was around or where I was. (My joke about that is I always apologized to the server by saying, 'it's not about the food'.) 

 

2) I worked with a grief therapist, joined grief groups, and read a bit about grief (though for two years I couldn't tackle anything more than a few pages long)

 

3) I avoided saying, 'I'm fine' when it wasn't true - as the saying of my age group was when we were young, I 'let it all hang out.' 

 

4) When financially possible, I pushed myself to experience long-desired adventures (6 months after he died I went on a Viking tour to see the pandemic-delayed Passionsspiel at Oberamergau, a theatrical event I'd wanted to see since youth)

 

5) One of the toughest things -- I walked away from judgemental friends and non-sustaining relationships.

 

6) I blogged.

 

7) I remained a "tattooed church lady" (my own name for myself) doing altar guild and being a reader.

 

8 ) I kept my faith even though many of my prayers in the beginning of my widowhood sounded something like, "Oh Holy Lord, WTF?" (This was because I had grieved through seven years of dementia care and thought I wouldn't have such severe grief in widowhood.)

 

I hope my list provides some help to those who are where I was as late as six months ago.

 

 "It gets better".

The Grieving Brain

I’ve been having one of those moments that my wise mother used to chuckle about. I’ve been learning something scientifically that she used to tell me she had learned through her years of life. Or maybe she actually learned it through her reading and passed in on. It’s not like I quizzed her, self-absorbed git that I was and am. 

Mom used to warn me about belly-button watching. (It’s funny that Will used the same term toward me when I was in my twenties.) The technical term for this is “rumination.”

As I fly across the Atlantic and the Northern Hemisphere, I’ve been listening to Mary Frances O’Conner’s brilliant book, The Grieving Brain. In her chapter on rumination, she uses science to show that rumination, or going over and over the same issues without doing any problem-solving or accepting, it actually has at least two negative effects. First, it can actually intensify or lengthen one’s unhappiness. Second, it’s actually a way of pushing away grief.

I won’t explain all the science that was used to determine the legitimacy of these two claims. It involves machinery with levers and brain and eye scanners. Not to mention intense interviews. I encourage anyone reading this who is interested in grief to read the book. Because of all the science I’ve actually been using it to help me sleep on the plane. Or I was, until the bell dinged and the flight attendant came by to ask if I wanted a snack. Nope.  

Let me ruminate for a moment about the awful vegan food on British Airways.

OK. I’m done now.  The plane is comfy, the entertainment is great, and the attendants are stellar. It’s just that the food options suck. You know the old saying about airline food being an oxymoron. Or as a comic might say, “Airline food. . . . Am I right?”

Another interesting thing I found out is that my panicking and fear is a normal part of grief. So the broad who used to love driving now gets sweaty palms going from Bend over the mountains. Normal for my situation. At least I climbed Dun I when I was on Iona and looked out at the view.  I have photographic proof!

I’m actually proud of myself for scheduling and taking this trip, in spite of all its challenges. People have been kind to me.

A Little Late

Dear Will -

 I know that we forgave each other toward the end, when you were still mostly compos mentis and I had yet to become your caregiver. Still I feel some guilt over these things having to do with travel.

I’m sorry I believed you when you said you were okay with traveling and didn’t make more of an effort to understand that you were not okay.

I’m sorry for that night in 2014 in New York City, before I knew your brain was dying but when I already knew you were old, that I let you walk alone back to the hotel when you exploded in anger at the cost of a theater seat.

I’m sorry for not being more of a busy-body caretaker, sorry for letting you travel even though you were sicker than I understood

I’m sorry for not understanding that you were incapable of reading a map and only knew how to find your way around cities laid out on a plat.

I’m sorry I got us lost in Paris on that day of the downpour.

I’m sorry I made us go on that last trip to Bilbao with Chuck. It was so difficult, with its 12 hour layover in Kennedy airport, kids fucking loudly in the room next to us, and cold, cold, cold pit stop in Madras. 

I’m sorry I could never really understand how you thought or how you made decisions.

I know you’ve forgiven me but I just wanted to get it in print since I’ve been thinking so much about you.

Facebook Advertising

 OK, Facebook. I was happy when you were sending me adverts for shoes and cool African-American designed clothing. But now my feed is filled with mental health apps?

I suppose I could just trash them instead of taking the tests that clearly want me as a customer. This completely non-scientific assessment was supposed to show me that I should sign up for “BetterMe” immediately (with a little frowny-faced weejum for emphasis). I’d rather buy another stuffed toy, thank you very much.

Sadly Happy Birthday

     

I found the poem following this brief note, part of a Shabbat service, posted in the Widow’s Sisterhood group this morning.  

Dear Will.  

I have been thinking so much about you and about how you would have disliked this trip so maybe I can take some pleasure from being on my own. I have also been learning, as I deal with my own intestinal issues, how brave you were to do all that traveling while taking anti-diarrheals every day. Bodies break down. (Isaiah 40:6-7) I am thankful this morning that haven’t lost both a husband and a child. My friend Alexis, who lost her son last year, texted me last night that her husband had died shortly after entering hospice. Our choice to be child free saved me from that sorrow, though I know there were times you kind of wanted children. But you would not have been a good dad because you were so fierce about how everything should be done and I would have been a terrible mother, I am so delulu in the malulu. For example, even though I think my anger is under control, my hard voice is still upsetting people and got me yelled at by a tall, gay pastor while I was on Iona. (And oi, did I wish you were around to talk to about that.) It would not have been good for me, with my narcissism and anger issues, to have children.

Fortunately, most of the people on Iona understood my grief situation and why I was breaking into tears at odd moments. Most of them agreed when I said, “Grief never ends.” 

My friend Stacey texted me a picture of your birthday greeting in the Bulletin. It wasn’t a good picture as it was a photo of a photo and badly edited, but at least I remembered to get it in once I got to Scotland.

I’m going to the modern art museum today. That’s one thing you would have liked. Then tomorrow I head to San Francisco for the opera. Yeah, it’s a weird-ass trip with way more travel than I like. Trains are great but there’s no train over the Atlantic.

This poem is how I’m feeling today as I hold you in my heart.

Judah Halevi was a Jewish poet, living in Spain about a thousand years ago - translation has been attributed to Chaim Stern, around 1930.

It’s a fearful thing to love
what death can touch.

A fearful thing to love,
hope, dream: to be —
to be, and oh! to lose.

A thing for fools this, and
a holy thing,
a holy thing to love.

For
your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was a gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.
It’s a human thing, love,
a holy thing,
to love
what death has touched.

Iona

Dear Will: Sunday is your birthday.

I’ve been thinking about you a lot. There is a contingent of Der Deutsch here including a fellow called “David” and everytime I saw him I thought, “Wo ist Der David?”

I wrote two poems, thinking about you. The one that came quickly is good. The second, nicht zo gute. I read both at last night’s talent show and got through them without tears.

AFTER HESSE

My soul becomes a raven --
picking at the carcass of my love
pulling up a long strong of gut
bloated with the shit of memory

My soul, returning, questions me
asking why I’m stuck
when there is so much to digest;
when the shit is warm and sweet
and the maggots are so crunchy.

GANNET IN THE SAND

Ten years ago Iona called,
whispering “come, come, come find new life.”

But you’d already put a foot onto the path to elsewhere,
your long goodbye abandoning our life in bits and bobs.

And now, at teacher’s request, I walk her island sands
in search of death — and find it.

Flatter than Saturday,
eaten from within as parent flies
sparkle on the gannet’s snowy back.

With gold neck raked, beak out,
and black tipped wings outspread,
it could be flying in the sand.

I know your people think a
bird’s deposit on a head can bring
good luck.

I say a prayer that Sunday
on your birthday,
this spirit bird drops spirit crap
upon your now deep distant spirit cap.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart.