On the Shelf ...

So here is something for your soul to snack on ...

Other than my dad and my brother and a few really close friends that feel like brothers, I have not been held by or hugged by a person of the male species in 32 months. I have not been kissed by a guy in 32 months. I haven't been told I'm beautiful, or been made to feel beautiful, by a member of the opposite sex, in 32 very long months. There has been no intimacy. No sex. Not even any serious cuddling. Nothing. Do I miss all of those things? Hell, yes. Of course I do. Who wouldn't? But other than the normal missing of those things from time to time, when I actually have time to sit around thinking about it, mostly I don't notice it. Mostly.

Is that normal? Is it normal that, for the most part, it doesn't really bother me that intimacy and physical love is no longer a part of my life? Is it normal that I still have zero desire to seek any of this stuff out, especially if it means I have to be in a relationship with someone? (ewww!) Is it normal that even now, after 32 months of life without my husband, I still feel like "if I can't be intimate with my husband, than I don't want to be intimate at all?" It feels like being hungry. Like that feeling, when you have gone maybe the entire day without eating, and you get so hungry, that by the time you get home from your long day, you are so incredibly hungry, that you can't focus on anything and you don't know what to eat and nothing sounds good or satisfying - so instead of eating, you end up going to bed - and you almost forget that you were so hungry in the first place. That is how I feel with the physical and the intimacy stuff. Sometimes I really feel like I might need that very, very soon. But then, there is really no way for me to get that, without either being in a relationship or compromising my morals in some way - so I end up putting it out of my mind until the next time.

 It's weird, because I know the reality. It is not like I am tricking myself into thinking he is coming back or something. No. I don't live in a fantasy world. I know he is dead, and I know that dead means dead forever. But even knowing this, I am still in that place mentally where I would rather remain in love with him, dead, than even consider or think about loving someone else, alive. Why do I feel like this? Is it because our love was so great and so special, that I fear it impossible to ever find such a thing again? Yes. Is it because I am terrified that I will never fall in love again, in that all-encompassing way, like I was in love with him? Yes. Is it because I am scared that I will fall in love again, and then he will die too? Yes. Is it because I am afraid that I will go searching for love again, and finally decide to open my heart, only to never ever find it, and have nobody ever love me again for the rest of my life?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's the big one. That is the ultimate fear - that I will put myself out there, and nobody will respond. I will be standing in the middle of the ocean, and all I will see for miles around me is empty, foggy sky. I will be in a large, glass case - on display for all the world to see - my heart and soul broken into fragments from the sheer loudness of hearing: Nobody will ever love you again. You had your one great soulmate. It is over for you. Give up. You are fat. You are old. The only men that will ever show interest in you are 70 years old, or total creeps. Stop being selfish. You have already had your one great love. You will grow old and die alone - your greatest fear. 

Yup, these are the types of fun, happy-go-lucky thoughts that go through my head on a semi-regular basis. So, instead of thinking about this stuff, I mostly try and push it away. I keep busy. I have loads of friends. I have a full life. Great family. Creative jobs such as teaching, writing, and directing shows - things that keep my brain and my soul happy. I try not to focus on or think about the fact that I'd really, really love to be held or kissed or comforted in an intimate way. Because once I start thinking about it, I won't be able to stop. So I just put it away on a shelf somewhere. Put it over there, far enough away from me that I don't need to see it or look at it. If I don't look at it, then it's not there, and that is the reality I am comfortable with right now.

Anything else is simply too frightening.

My Graduate

Amanda is away this week, so I am filling in with a post I wrote in 2009 when my daughter, Caitlin, graduated from High School. I find that so much of this still rings true as we celebrate her college graduation this month. Death and grief have shaped our family, but they haven't defined us. Instead, we've learned (over years, and with many starts and stops and aboutfaces) to LIVE in honor of our love for a man who changed our lives. If you will be celebrating a graduation this year without a person you all miss so much, I hope these words mean something to you.

On May 29Th my little girl graduated from High School. The ceremony took place in a beautiful garden with an audience full of proud family and friends and an air of hope for the future all around. My mind drifted back to a time in my own life when naivety and optimism were companions I knew well.

As with most milestones post 8/31/05 there was a bittersweet quality to our celebration. Phil is a regular topic of conversation in our home, and we welcome him to our family gatherings now by commenting on what he would do if he were here, things we remember about past celebrations, and the ways we still miss him today. We tend to do this instinctively, and often separately. Our remembrances create a space for Phil to join us on our continuing life path.

As I listened to the speakers at the commencement ceremony I thought back to my own high school graduation and the ways that my view of the impact one person makes on the world has changed since that day many years ago. I remember being encouraged to work hard, discover and follow a dream, set ever higher standards, and live a responsible life. All good advice; yet I can't help but feel that collectively we often fail to remind our graduates (and ourselves too) of a few essential components of determining a life well lived. But graduates who have lost someone they love have achieved a distinction that others their age have not, and have learned lessons that they will carry with them throughout their lives. My daughter knows some things that I did not when I entered the adult world.

Caitlin knows that life is short, and that now is the best time to live your dreams. She has discovered that the things you remember about a person you love have nothing to do with how much money they made over their lifetime. The word priceless doesn't really apply to material things for my little girl, but it does apply to memories of bike rides, rock climbing, watching a TV show as a family, and running after the ice cream man with a dollar in hand. Death has taught my graduate that grief is a part of the cycle of life, and that like it or not we have to find a way to keep going on the path laid out before us. I would bet though that she is more convinced than ever that she won't sit idle while the landscape of life passes by her unnoticed. Kate knows that value isn't measured in dollars and cents, but in compassion and integrity. She has no expectation that life will be easy, but is determined to make the ride worthwhile. She has faith in her family, counts many people as friends, and knows that her life was changed for the better by just one person.

I have to believe that the bitter, which is inexorably linked with the sweet, that has now become an expected part of our life milestones has taught our family some significant life lessons. And also that the bitterness of loss makes the sweetness of life more meaningful. I send my daughter into the world a richer person because she has loved and lost a man whose life impacted others not by measure of his paycheck, but because he cared for his fellow human beings. Thanks honey.

Time Study in Pictures~

Do any of you look at pictures from before?  Before your life was shredded and burned to a crisp around you?

I don't mean to go all dramatic on you, but I'm curious.  Sometimes I study pictures of me before.  Not in the same critical way I used to;  oh, look at my bad hair day, oh, I need to lose a few pounds, is that a pimple?  Stupid stuff now.

No, now I study pictures of me over the past 24 years with Chuck and marvel at the joy in my eyes, the happiness, the sparkle.  I can feel the love between us in those pictures.  A friend of mine suggested that if I have any doubts about who he was, or who we were together (brought on by conversations during his time in hospice and the months afterwards and, yes, how seriously stupid of me to give any energy to such a thing), I've only to look at the hundreds of pictures that chronicle our years together.  There is love and connection and each of us, individually and together, look joyful.  Always.

And then I study the few pictures taken of me since his death almost a year ago and I wonder who is that woman?  Where is the joie de vie? Where is the sparkle in her eyes? What happened to the soul light that used to fairly burst from her?

I mourn the loss of that woman.  The fact is, she's gone and I don't know who I am now.  Yes, under other circumstances I could be excited and think wow, I can be whoever I want to be now!  I can create whatever life I want!

Yeah, not so much. I'm not excited about what I can be or who I'll become.  I'm not even curious.  This  new life thrust itself upon me and I want to refuse it but that isn't an option.  I loved my life with him.  I was a strong, independent woman passionately in love with a strong, handsome, loving, man. I knew how to do anything I needed to do but there was much I didn't have to do because he happily took tasks on as his part of us.  I wasn't missing anything in my life, nor feeling as if there was something more for me in life.

And now.

This in-between time when who I was is forever gone and the who that I'll be is not yet determined.

Grief singes and burns and changes us in ways both seen and unseen.  Loneliness and missing-ness and confusion and shock and dislocation and disorientation rule the day in this transition time to what will be.

I hate transitions.

Adapt

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One of my online friends posted a challenge on a Facebook private board this week that got me thinking...

It was "describe yourself in three words without using the words 'wife' or 'mother'" (it's not a widow group, so the majority of the group are married).

And one response brought to mind widows I knew prior to my own widowhood.

Her identified that her whole identity was tied up in her husband and children, and she couldn't answer the question. She was trying to figure out if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

And my immediate reaction, based on my life story, was it's a bad thing.   

The amazing older women I saw widowed before I even married all had strong, loving marriages, and a fair smattering of joy and issues with adult children. 

Yes they struggled, and still struggle, with grief.

But watching from a distance I saw that being widowed was survivable, and must have tucked it away somewhere.  I saw that the common thing between them all was none had lost their identity in their marriages. 

What I saw from my then vantage point was they were able to adapt to their enforced life without their husbands because they had interests & communities they were engaged with alongside their marriages which helped them have a strong sense of who they were as individuals, as well as their partnership.

It's something I actively sought to maintain through Ian and I's courtship and marriage - and I encouraged with Ian (even though I would not engage at all with some of his interests, they were part of what made Ian "Ian"). 

And something I've maintained since.  Plus it gave me the knowledge and confidence to seek out sites like widow's voice, a face to face peer support group and to take the risk of going back to school rather than work for the next little while.

If a humongous thing like a husband dying isn't going to stop these women, nothing will. 

And I'm not going to let it, either (but I may just step off to the side for a breather every now and then).

Chains

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I woke up this morning from a disturbing dream. Dave was in the dream, telling me he didn't love me, was in fact, disgusted by me, and wanted very badly to leave me. There was no trace of tenderness or empathy. Just disgust. As though I made him ill and just telling me it was over was making him feel a little better and he was impatient to get it all over with and move on.

It was shattering, but within moments in the dream, I was planning my new life. I felt a dawning relief. I'd move out of the bedroom with him first, then an apartment on my own and then I could begin my life with him. In the dream this was a vague sense of someone else, though in my waking life, there is a specific someone I'd like to launch into a new life with. I felt freed from guilt. I felt as though now my feelings wouldn't be wrong. I could fully give myself over to this new person.

My first waking thoughts were along the lines of "what the fuck?". And then it dawned on me. It was my subconscious way of saying that my guilt has been holding me back. Maybe it's not really guilt so much. I've never felt truly guilty for dating anyone else. I think it's more like the tension of balancing two relationships in my heart, the delicate dance of loving two people, is fraught.

I know my subconscious has been acting out in this relationship. When he mentioned how close we've become in only a few months, I began to look for excuses for us not being that close, for example. A part of me wants to simply revel in the fact that we have something very, very special and another part of me, seemingly not under my control, wants to back out and say "we're not that close!". But we are. We really are. It's not like it was with Dave and me and it shouldn't be. It's completely different.

So, maybe this dream is a tiny push in the direction of choosing love over fear, my constant quest and biggest challenge.

Maybe my gift from it is to remember that I don't need to undo what Dave and I had to allow someone else into my heart, but I do need to let myself go and be free.

His death can't be chains that bind me to the past. I wouldn't want that for him, either.

I Refuse

Lately I have been trying not to plan what to write here… instead waiting until the moment I sit down to the keyboard to see what happens. I feel like keeping my head out of it allows my heart to connect to what needs to be said most. So today I'm feeling compelled to share this poem I wrote not long ago. It is the way I have felt about my fiancé, our love, and his death since the very beginning… and how I continue to feel about it all. I gather it's how many of us feel. I hope it grabs you, grounds you, ignites you, comforts you - whatever it is that you need to receive today - I hope it gives you a small piece of that, my dear brave friends.

I REFUSE

The other day

driving home from work

I realized that you did not die at all.

That when your heart stopped beating

and your veins ceased to drink

and your eyes closed upon themselves

you did not die.

You did not die because I refused.

I refused to lay down and

accept that you no longer exist.

I refused to believe that our love

could ever die.

And I will refuse it

until my own heart stops beating

and my veins cease to drink

and my eyes close upon themselves.

-

For all my days ahead

I will stand up tall

and I will fight

the very idea of you being “lost”.

I will question

everything that attempts to disprove

that you and I still exist together.

I will build

a new way of being with you.

Because WE do NOT die.

It is not in the nature of us

to simply cease to exist from each other.

You cannot be removed from me

any easier than

the stars can be removed from the universe

by a human hand.

I refuse your death.

-

Instead

I believe

I know

That we are as if

living in two countries

worlds apart

and we speak two different languages now.

Our new way of being

will be the most difficult challenge

we will ever face.

It will require quietness

and surrender

and acceptance

and an unfaltering belief

in what we cannot see.

It will require the fire of faith

and the courage

to sit with the pain

and give it love.

It will require parts of us

we don’t even know exist yet.

But they do.

-

And in this way

we will begin again

with a new language of love.

One that transcends

all barriers

all fears

all fires.

For we will begin again

with divine love.

NYC

** I'm going to preface this with the fact that I wrote it October 25th,2013.....2 days after meeting L at an awards ceremony where we were both recipients in New York. I kept it stashed away, but feel that it has now become one more piece of the unfolding of the Texas girl and Boston boy.**



Ok.

I'm going to say it.

I'm completely intrigued by someone I hardly know.

It reminds me of when I first met my husband.

Sarcasm as a protective shield.

Purposely not trying to show attention or interest of any kind.

Heck, he may be gay. 

But he called me out.

Made me laugh.

Is way too intelligent for my comprehension, yet still makes me feel that I am worthy to speak with.

Just like Michael.

And tall.

I forgot to mention that.

Others have caught my eye and I mentally went through the ringer trying to figure out why, but with him it's so clear.

If ever I was to choose someone to be around. Learn from. Be challenged by. Travel with....after all that has happened....i have a deep and knowing feeling that He makes me feel like it could be him.

And if he's not straight, I'd still love too (but secretly hoping he's not...or not in a relationship...shit, forgot about that!)


He's nowhere near, yet I feel that we will meet.


When I met him, I just wanted to be around him. 

As if our energies fed off each other.


I love my husband so.

I do not know why he crossed my path.

But he has, and I'm being emotionally challenged by the feelings.

I can't really believe I'm writing this, but I know it must be for the deep underlying feeling that if anyone could ever intrigue me to care for another after losing my baby, he makes me feel like he could.

Fuck. I feel like a 13 year old writing in her diary.

I know who will see this and that you will guide me and answer me on the reason why he is now stuck in my mind.

It's a secret he makes me feel like I want to reveal if the future should unfold for us to meet each other once more.

A crush on the man who may not even find me the least bit interesting or beautiful or intelligent... yet the one that has made the girl with the laser focused eye, look away to him.

I ask that my worries, apprehensions, feelings and fears be released and set aside to let the natural path unfold as it will.

Luke, i don't know you, but you have challenged all I have known for 6 years.

Thank you for that.....though it's a pain.

I hope we'll meet, and toast and laugh once more.