My Battle Axe

(Picture is a selfie from last night and totally real. 

This is my "I'm a deep thinker" look.)
(Picture actually from here.)

(I'm filling in for Amanda because the storms in Australia have knocked out Internet access.  She'll be back again next week.)

I’ve got a battle-axe that I carry with me everywhere I go.  I’ve had it since Jan 5, 2007 when it was given to me by a doctor who said the words “cancer” and “urgent.” Its blade is sharp and still bloody from previous use.

Back after Maggie was first diagnosed, I didn’t even realize that I wielded such a weapon.  Quite innocently, I’d share Maggie and my recent experiences but I was oblivious to the carnage I was leaving in my wake.  In an innocent daze, I’d rambled on like a berserker, leaving broken and beaten hearts with every story I’d tell.

Often, the end of my stories would be punctuated by thick silence.  Damage would be everywhere.  People would be crying.  Some would be running for safety, with hearts bleeding.  Seeing the suffering I caused while entranced in my own recounting of the awesomeness of what was happening to us caused even more pain. I felt reckless and selfish.  My sharing had made things worse.  I felt like a clumsy yet huggy Edward Scissorhands.

Eventually, I learned to be gentler with my battle-axe.  I learned that the best way to share the latest news was not all at once, but instead, in very small pieces and with many pauses.  I also learned that often more detail is worse than less, even when asked.  And that people can’t handle raw, honest grief and fear. I even decided that often it makes sense to say nothing at all, even when the voice inside my head was screaming and my heart was aching.  There was a time and place and I got to choose.

Last Thursday, my colleague’s father died.  Several of us sat in my office, distraught and discussed how difficult death is.  They talked about what it was like in the last days and moments.  They talked about how hard it was with the morphine and shallow breathing. They talked about how hard it was to accept that their fathers were gone.  Then, they turned to me and asked:  Chris, have you had to deal with your father dying yet?

The me from not too long ago would have carelessly unsheathed my battle-axe and begun to swing it around.  It would have been messy.

The new, wiser me last Thursday did something different.  Instead of pulling out my axe, I calmly said “no” and then nothing more.  Carnage avoided.  It wasn't the right time or place.  And, truthfully, I have no idea what it’s like to lose a parent.

I don't know if staying silent at that moment was a good idea but I think it was.  On one hand, no one at my new job and in my new life knows about Maggie which makes me sad.  On the other hand, no one runs from me or feels sorry for me.  I'm accepted for simply who I am right now and that's a very good thing.  Eventually, they'll find out.

But hey, if things ever do get rowdy, I've got this here battle-axe I can whip out.  I'm not afraid to break stuff.  >:-)

Pushing Toward Happiness

(Yes, this is totally a picture of me, in case your curious....)

I’m not angry.  I’m not specifically unhappy, really.  But I’m very, very dissatisfied with my life, and that dissatisfaction is driving change.  So I’m pushing with all my might against that smothering bubble that is grief.  This time, rather than being focused on what’s in my head or what’s in my heart, I’m focused squarely on what’s in my home.  Excuse my directness, but I’m living in a home that’s not really mine and I’m done.  It’s time for change.  It’s past time for change.

For years (Years!?  Really!?!? How can it be years?), I’ve opened up kitchen drawers with the best intentions, looked at the contents, sighed, and closed those drawers, not to be touched again for weeks - sometimes even years.

I’ve walked around Maggie’s clothes that haven’t moved since I last cried into them.   I’ve kept my clothes on a spare bed because my chest of drawers is full of designer jeans that I don’t know what to do with. They looked great on her. But they are in the way of my future.

I’ve lived around pantry and cabinets full of dishes, kitchen tools, and mementos that represent a life I’m not allowed to live any more.

I’ve kept expensive dishes (our incomplete wedding china set) up on the top shelf, collecting dust because just what the heck do you do with wedding china when by death we did part?  (Dear Abby, got an answer for that one?)

I’ve kept piles of various gifts given to Maggie because what the hell was I supposed to do with them?

I’ve avoided touching the nicely stacked piles of flyers given out at Maggie’s memorial.  I’ve buried stacks of condolence cards way, way, way deep in the back of the Bookshelf of Painful Memories.  Hidden throughout the house are stacks of photos from our wedding given to me from friends after she died, photos assembled specifically for the memorial service, photos assembled especially for our wedding video, and photos I’ve taken down in a fit of “Damn it!  I’ve got to make some sort of progress!  I’ll just take this down and hide it!”  (I call those little glorious, proud moments “progress seizures” which may, or may not, be followed immediately with a shot of tequila, a large beer or other assorted bad choices.)

I’ve pushed hard before and made some minor progress.  But this house is big and over the 10 years she and I were together, we accumulated a lot of stuff and, frankly, I’m flat out overwhelmed.  (At the rate I’m going, I’ll totally have my life together around 2035, just in time for time travel to be in vogue. Now, don’t get me started about the very first trip I’ll be taking in that time machine.  It will not be a trip to tell the 1994 me to buy Dell stock.)

Pushing hard sucks. But this time I’m doing things differently – I’ve called in reinforcements.  I’ve hired a friend to help.  She’s a good friend of mine, is friends with many of Maggie’s friends, and knows (and is deeply touched by) our story.  She’s also a tender, thoughtful, sincere, genuinely sweet person who truly understands both how difficult this is for me, what role she plays and what the big goal is (and recognizes when those three ideals collide.)  Fortunately, she’s also a manic, Type A, anti-hording, neat freak that knows how to problem solve and get things done.  Together, we make a great cleaning-out, re-organizing, crying machine.

For our first big push, she suggested a genius plan. For everything, choose one: A) Throw it away, B) Give it a new life somewhere else, or C) Keep it in a special box.   It’s amazing how much progress we’ve made just placing things into those three categories. Notably, it’s also amazing how few things went into the special box.  Most of the stuff has fit perfectly into the New Life category.  And, because she is wonderful and sensitive, she reminded me each timed I stumbled emotionally, that wonderful things deserve wonderful lives, even after they’ve had wonderful lives with Maggie and me.

I like to think that those re-lifed items are blessed, even though the unknowing recipients have no hint at how much love surrounded that shiny new object they’ve welcomed into their lives. In some ways, Maggie and I are sharing the aura of our love with them, whether they know it or not.  Now, that’s pretty cool.  We had a lot of love, she and me - more than most, I’ve learned.  Maggie was a person who truly wanted to make the world a better place. So, by letting the things she loved find new, happy homes, she lives on.  In pushing through this difficult time to my new life, I honor her legacy.

Most of all, I honor her legacy by refusing to live any life other than that which is wonderful to me.  I have a lot of work to go.  I will not quit.  Wonderful is around the bend.

Grief will always suck.

source

No matter how good life can get, grief will always suck.

And that sneaky little bugger grief always pops up, whether you're ready or not (when are you ever really ready?)

And the other thing about grief - it's life long. Just like love. And you when you lose someone you love, the hurt never disappears, even when it doesn't hurt to breathe anymore. And that love never goes away either, even when you find more room in your heart to love again.

This week grief has been following me around. It popped up in different places: in the faces of my children, in hearing stories of others' tragic losses, in my early morning prayers while I'm out running, going through stuff in the basement...nearly everywhere. Like someone kicking the back of my knee each time until finally I fall down.

The other night, Steve took our three girls out on a date. Since the boys and I weren't feeling all that well, we were just going to stay in, but Caleb asked if we could go on a "sick date" - how could I say no? We grabbed some food and headed to Jer's memorial stone to eat with Daddy at the College. I love getting to chance to have one-on-one with our kids, and Caleb is so much fun to talk to - I never have a dull moment trying to figure out where the heck he comes up with half the stuff he says. But I also love hearing him talk about his daddy. How much he misses him, what he thinks daddy might be doing in Heaven, what he wants to tell him, and his favorite memories of him. He is just the spitting image of Jeremy, it hurts my heart sometimes.

I sat in front of Jer's stone and watched the boys play while tears filled up in my eyes. What an odd place to watch my sons play - at their dad's memorial stone. I love being able to go there and spend time in that place, but it will never feel right to be there.

Every once in awhile, the kids ask to watch the videos on my desk top that were taken days before Jeremy died of the kids with a whoopie cushion. The sound of Jer's his voice can confuse me like nothing else. This morning when Caleb asked to watch it, my brain couldn't make sense of hearing his voice right there but knowing he's not here anymore. He sounds so close, still so real like I could reach out and touch him. Only, I can't.

I tend to be too hard on myself sometimes, thinking I should be ok and grief shouldn't overwhelm like it still can sometimes. But then I remember that it hurts so great because I was loved so great.

I try to let myself have the bad days, because sometimes...it just sucks.