A Cuppa Tea

Stan at the Buddhist Centre, making tea for the others

This has been a difficult week. I have re-entered the work arena, on a 'phased return', as they call it, here in England, and, Tuesday, I had to go speak to someone from Occupational Health, to justify my time away, and my continuing to work part-time for a few more weeks. This meant I had to recount the story of the tragic day my husband died. And it meant that the images of that day, images I have tried to place in the background of my consciousness, were brought, full force, to the front of it. 

It's not as if they are ever far away. Something can trigger a memory of that day, and the image of him in that place, on the ground, is as clear as if it happened yesterday, today, a moment ago. I know that all of us who were witness to his death, including his children, and his sisters, are plagued by that image, too. It is a trauma that is replayed over and over again, for us, and one that we will never be able to erase entirely. It is a trauma that compounds our loss of him. It is forever etched into our memory. Imprinted, there. 

It is this image that I carried with me, into the rest of my day, and  through that evening. Though I begged for it to fade away, it clung, stubbornly, replaying itself, relentlessly. When I arrived home from my counselling appointment, I used my words to write into that image, that memory, in the hopes of putting it to rest.

I wrote several hundred words about that day. I am not yet able to share those words, here. They are raw and intimate and too difficult for me to expose in a public forum. One day, perhaps, I can find a bit of distance and shape those words into something I can post. But not now. Not yet.

I did share them with an online writing workshop I am doing, however, called Writing Your Grief. This workshop is a challenging, deep, and incredible forum, in which we are given a prompt, each day, for thirty days, around some aspect of our grief journey, and asked to write what we can, in reflection.

There are people there who have lost best friends, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. There are people in the group who have lost more than one loved one in a short period of time. There are those whose loved one died a few months ago, and those who have lived with the grief for years. There is a loving cradle of support, for each of us,  as we explore all the complexities of living without the ones we love.

We are asked, in this forum, to reflect and remember. We are encouraged to share the things we miss about our loved ones, those that make us happy and those that make us sad. We are asked to dig deep. We are asked to laugh and to cry and to stomp our (virtual) feet, if we need to. The writing is, like the writing here, in Widow's Voice, beautiful and brave.

I like to rejoice in the memory of my husband. I like to write about who he was and what he meant to me, and to others. I like to laugh about his quirks and his silly ways. I like to remember his quiet wisdom and his strength of character. I feel closer to him when I am able to focus, not only on my grief, but on all the ways he enriched my world.

The Writing Your Grief workshop is helping me to do just that. One day this week, I reflected on my husband's relationship with tea.

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My husband was an Englishman, and loved his tea. I learned early that there is an art to making it, even though, to me, it seemed a simple process of teabag into cup. But no. Some like it strong, some like it weak. Some prefer it with milk, some without. Some like two sugars, some like one. To not remember how guests like their tea, when they come to visit, is considered impolite.

My husband liked it weak. His was more like coloured water. Just a swipe of the teabag in the cup. Pour the boiling water from the kettle, swirl the bag around, take it out.

He wasn't particular about the type. He was a working class man. He didn't get snooty and insist on English Breakfast or Earl Grey. Although he did not fancy our Lipton's Tea when he was in America. He said our tea was rubbish. 

When we first met, he stood over me and showed me exactly how he liked it. From then on, it became my job to make him his cups of tea. I would bring him his first cup in the morning, and set it on his bedside table, before I went off to work. When I got home at night, and turned my key in the door, I could hear his voice as I opened it. "BooBoo? Is that you?" Invariably followed by, "Could you bring me a cup of tea?"

Most often, he would be upstairs, in his man-cave, on his computer, playing music, writing, studying his dharma lessons. Scattered around him would be two or three or four cups. Did he not think to take one down, and use the same one, each time, I used to think? I would bring him a new cup of tea,  gather the other cups to take downstairs, and he would wrap his arm around my waist, pull me toward him, and thank me, always.

He drank a lot of tea. He must have found comfort in having a hot drink, even in summer. Our summers are not that hot, here, so a cup of tea never seemed out of order.

This meant he had to use the bathroom, a lot. On our road trips, (and there were many, in the short time we were together), we had to make frequent stops for him to use the toilet. Then we'd need to sit and have another cup of tea. 

It used to irritate me, us having to stop every hour or two for tea and toilet breaks. I was an American, after all, and we buy our coffee at the drive-thru, and drink it in a styrofoam cup, while barrelling down the highway.  We have many more miles to cover, on our road trips through America, and we think we need to get someplace, fast. No time to stop. Our lives are too driven to consider such a thing.

Stan liked stopping. He knew how to slow down. He liked to sit in a spot and watch people, smile, have a conversation, and maybe a little snack.

My husband. how I miss his calling for me when I turn my key in the door. Gathering his cups. His thank yous for that simple act of nurture.

I have the same box of tea bags I had when he died, seven months ago. No one to use them, now.

Perhaps I'll set my coffee habit aside, and learn to love tea. I'll pour it into the cup my husband's grandchildren bought me for Christmas. A quick swipe of the bag, swish it around, take it out. 

Just the way he liked it. 

Milestones & Grief Creep

"Sanctuary" © Sarah Treanor

This past week one of the most amazing things happened to me that has happened in my "after" life. I was selected as a finalist for a magazine cover of an art magazine - for one of my photographs that tells part of my grief journey - and ended up winning the final vote. It is the first time my art will be published on a magazine cover. This is huge for my fledgling career as an artist. And more-so it is huge because more people going through loss will see my grief series and hopefully find something of their own story there.

I couldn't believe how many people voted and shared. Thousands of fans and friends and family all rallied behind me to make this happen. My gym shared it on their business page. My mother-in-law's employees all voted and shared it. People I don't even know. Old college classmates. Old coworkers. So many left comments about the grief journey they are on, and how one particular image or another of mine spoke directly to them. People bought prints - one, a counselor, who will be putting up the photo in her grief counseling room. It has been unreal.

Suddenly I have found myself looking back in a different way than I have before. Looking back and realizing that I've gotten somewhere I do want to be. Before my fiancé died, none of this was here. I was working in a cubicle, feeling trapped and unhappy and scared because I had no clue how to ever really go for my dream of being an artist. Leaving a full time job was the MOST terrifying thing I could possibly imagine. Before he died, this idea of being an artist was all just wishful thinking… a far away notion that he and I would often talk about over afternoon lunches and morning coffee.

Little did I know that his death was going to take me on a journey I could have never imagined for myself. Not an EASY journey… but somehow, a far more meaningful one. His death was the catalyst in my leaving that career behind. It was the thing that shook me awake and made me see that if he could die for his dreams, then I'd better get started living for mine.

It's been a horrible and agonizing and fear-filled journey that I wouldn't wish on anyone (you all know this!), and it STILL is every step of the way. Somehow though, during these two and a half years I have found some sort of really meaningful beginning. One that is far more meaningful to me than the life I was living before he died.

It isn't the one I wanted - not like THIS. I never wanted to make art about the death of the most important person in my world. Or death in general. But when you lose your mother at age 9, your father at age 26 and then your fiancé at age 29… it begins to feel like someone is trying to tell you something. I finally decided to listen and allow death into my art… nothing has felt more healing.

I'm learning that by having his death and him as the center of what I'm putting myself into, it is giving it a solid foundation. On the days when I feel scared shitless and still have NO CLUE how I will ever make any REAL money doing this (living off my savings, betting it all on this crazy dream right now). On days when I feel lost and like I'm floating… knowing that he is at the center of this work is what helps me to be able to keep faith going. It helps me to know with all my heart that this work is valuable and meaningful, because all of my love for him rests within these images. And I know without a doubt that will mean something to other people. Clearly, it is.

The days after the big win have been of course an emotional roller coaster - just like any major event in our lives without our person. I call it grief creep… we all know it well. The aftermath of anything exciting - the quiet moments when the pain slips back in to steal the spotlight. As the week has progressed, I think I've just gotten sadder. Sad that he is not here to celebrate with me. Heartbroken that no one actually thought to take me out for a celebratory dinner or drink for this monumental moment in my life. No one. Which leaves me with the painful reminder that the person who was sharing a life WITH me is not here… and that I no longer have someone to be excited for me in the way that only your partner can be. And I miss that so much. And I miss him.

And suddenly, the whole milestone event of the magazine cover begins to pale in comparison to the feelings of sadness and grief. Don't you hate that? When the grief just seems to swallow up the good stuff - no matter how hard you try to not let it? I know I do. I've been fighting it all week - trying so hard to hold on to the good, and trying not to let in the sadness. I know… I have to let the sadness in. It needs to be felt as much as the joy. I will let it in, but dammit, I don't want to.

PS. A big thank you to anyone here who may have happened to vote for my image. You made a huge difference in my world this week.

To view my grief series "Still, Life" you can visit my blog here.

Disconnected by Pain

Source

Last weekend, both my sister and my best friend were out of town on (separate) family holidays when my grief decided it might be a good time to roll on up and knock me around for a bit. Knowing I was in for a quiet weekend, I had set myself a few tasks around the house and planned to lay low, catch up on laundry and housework, do some cooking for the week and fit in a gym session or two. 

However when I woke up on Saturday morning, with the weekend stretching before me, the feeling of loneliness was heavy and the emptiness filled my bedroom. I am usually quite comfortable spending time alone and quite enjoy my own company, so it’s not unusual for me to have a weekend by myself.  But I think that knowing my two ‘go-to people’ were unavailable if I started feeling lost or down, opened the door to that horrible realisation that my person is gone and I am on my own. 

By midday on Sunday the tears had been falling almost non-stop all weekend, I had achieved none of the chores I’d set myself and had lost a significant number of hours just staring at the wall and waiting for time to pass.   I was in a deep depression and felt disconnected from the rest of the world.  The idea of returning to work Monday morning was actually looking appealing.  Yep, things were that grim!

Somewhere in the depths of my logical brain, I knew the fog that had settled would lift again.  I knew there was light and hope and happiness out there somewhere, it was just out of reach in that moment so I had to buckle up and wait for it to pass.

Luckily, mid-week I started doing better and am feeling ok now but when I caught up with another friend and mentioned that I’d had a bad few days, she asked why I hadn’t called her. It was so hard to explain.  I’ve never been very good at asking for help and the grief complicates this even more, because no one can make it so that Dan didn’t die and bring back my old life.

I’m lucky that my sister and my best friend know me well enough to sense when I’ve gone a bit quiet or usually hear the strain in my voice when I lie that ‘I’m ok’, and just turn up to sit with me and talk it out.  But even with them it takes a considerable amount of effort to show them my pain.

In my head, it’s like I’m so miserable and sad, I just can’t bring myself to subject other people to that.  I don’t even know what I would say or what I need/want. In my grieving brain, I can’t see the purpose in calling and saying, ‘Oh hi, I’m really sad.’ I mean, what am expecting from them?  I feel terrible for putting someone in the position to have to respond to that.  It’s not like I’m asking for help moving a heavy piece of furniture, I’m asking them to help me feel less devastated.  What a massive thing to ask of someone!

In hindsight I know the act of reaching out always leads me to a better place.  Once I connect and start talking I can usually identify whatever particular thought or emotion it is that happens to be taking the floor at that moment and almost always feel a release by just verbalising the pain.  But when you’re in that hole, you just can’t see that.

In a way, if I put myself in the company of others, I’d probably just feel pressure to try not to be sad and upset them, so I’d feel compelled to put on my cheerful mask to reassure everyone that I’m ok, and that’s just even more exhausting. 

Which lead me to think, I wonder if that’s kind of how Dan felt when his depression passed that point of going beyond being able to reach out.  Maybe that’s what stopped him from talking to me that day.  Did he think that there was nothing I could do to help him, so he didn’t want to worry me and inflict that on me?  Maybe he didn’t want to put that pressure on me – or knew he’d feel compelled to put on his ‘I’m ok’ face and just didn’t have the energy to do that anymore. 

I’m not anywhere near as desperate and lost as he must have been feeling, because I’m not suicidal.  So it makes me sad to think just how dark that place must have been for him. It’s a cruel disease, depression.  The way it feeds you lies and blocks you from getting help.  If he had of been suffering from a physical pain, rather than a disease in his brain, he would have had the logic and capacity to communicate how he was feeling and seek help.  But the depression took that from him.

It had been said there are significant similarities between grief and depression, but it’s also incredibly important to know the difference between the two.  I have felt depressed in my grief but I haven’t had depression, although I know many of my widowed friends have, which is very scary for them.

Every time the darkness of that deep grief descends upon me I’m reminded of some of the feelings my darling husband must have been battling with.  It helps me understand how out of control he must have been feeling and again reaffirms that his suicide wasn’t a ‘choice’ made by a rational brain, it was a desperate act by someone who felt deprived of any other solution. While I can remind myself that the fog will lift and my deep pain isn’t permanent, he just wasn’t able to find that hope.  

Catch

The other day, my cat Sammy was lying on the couch, when my other cat Autumn jumped up next to him. She looked at Sammy for a few seconds, and then started to slowly lick him and clean him all over his face and neck. This went on for awhile. Then, she sort of kissed his nose a bit, and slowly sat herself down right next to Sammy, leaning against him, and they both went to sleep. In the midst of this, I ran to grab my cell phone and find the video option so I could take video of this unbelievable sight. As I looked through my phone's video, catching only the last few seconds of this madness, I started to cry.

 I was crying because this was the first time ever since we brought Sammy home, that Autumn went up to Sammy and didn't attack him or growl at him or swipe her paw at him violently. I cried because my husband and I got Sammy at the rescue shelter, just days after Autumn's sister Ginger died suddenly from a blood clot at age 3, and Autumn never really accepted Sammy into her life, until now. I cried because whenever Autumn used to randomly attack Sammy and Sammy would cower away and back down, Don would cheer him on, saying: 'Come on, Sammy. Don't put up with that. Fight back, buddy! Come on! One day you'll be friends. You will. Just give her some time. " I was crying because this was that day - and Don wasn't here to witness it with me. And I was really crying because I still, even after three and a half years, instinctively picked up that phone to film them, with the intention of showing the video to Don later. Three years, and this is still my immediate response when something happens in life. I have to tell Don this. I gotta call hiim. Let me record this so I can show it to him later. It still takes me a few seconds to remember what I never really forgot - he is gone. He will never witness the video or see the tape or watch the TV show or check out what our niece did the other day that was so cute, or anything else, ever again.

That really sucks. I mean, having to come to that same realization, over and over again, really sucks a lot. It sucks that he cannot see the relationship between our two furry monster children changing. But you know what sucks even more about it? The fact that nobody else on earth cares about that moment. That tiny moment, which would be SO significant and meaningful to me and my husband, is significant to absolutely nobody else, except us. There is literally nobody I could have called or hunted down in that moment, who would have understood what it meant, or why I was so moved by it, or who would have genuinely cared with everything inside of them about this, the way that Don would have. That is what sucks about it most. And there are a billion and one other moments just like that one - they happen all the time - moments that only matter to me and Don. Jokes that only we would get. References that only he understands. On and on and on .......

How does one fill this very specific and particular void that is left behind when your partner dies? How? I don't know. I don't think you do. I don't think it's possible. I think it just continues to suck each and every time that one of those moments happens, and you just sort of learn to live with the silence of not being able to tell your person about the latest thing that only he would care about. It feels like a sentence that needs finishing. It resembles a ball being thrown, and stopping in mid-air somehow, never caught by another person. It mirrors standing on a tightrope, up in the sky, nothing below, nowhere to go. Not moving forward or backward, nobody on the other side to fall into; but just balancing - swaying - holding on.

At first, it is shocking to feel such unwavering dizziness. It is shattering to have things happen, and then have nowhere to put them, nobody to acknowledge them with. But after awhile, it becomes the norm, and the moments that meant something to only you and him - they fade into the walls like cloudy air, and become nothing but piles of fragments and dust. It's kind of like that old riddle: If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is there to hear it .......

Well, you know the rest.

Hurricane Grief

Last weekend a friend who is dear to me and was dear to Mike since nearly the day we moved to Kona in 2001 had a terrible asthma attack. This young man was 11 when we met him. He is now 25, so we have seen him grow up into a young adult. He and his mom were devoted students of Mike’s for many years in martial arts, and since his father was not present in his life, they became like family very quickly. Mike’s death has just wrecked them both, I know, and it has been a long journey of grief for all of us, losing his powerful and reassuring presence in our lives.

My friend died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, but was revived by the paramedics. and put on a ventilator for several days, unconscious. A total shock - there was just no way we could lose him too - not like this, not so young.

On Monday I drove to the hospital, having heard scary words like “brain damage” and “life support” and “intensive care”. I couldn’t believe this was happening, and my mind raced as I sped down the road. Of course all the memories of all those trips to the hospital with Mike came rushing back. The closer I got the worse it became…by the time I got there I was totally triggered and shot through with emotion. I called my friend and fellow widow Margaret from the car…we have become each other’s “go-to” person for moments like these. She was working, I knew, and couldn’t pick up but just hearing her voice on the message helped and I knew she would call back when she could, and she did. Meanwhile I collected myself as best I could before I went inside.

When we spoke later that day, Margaret mentioned about grief bursts, which is a term I hadn’t heard before. She said she actually thinks of it more as a grief storm, like a hurricane of emotion that blows through very intensely. Essentially a relatively short period of intense sorrow that can come upon us in random moments, or times when life presents any of a number of triggers.

When I finally found my way into the ICU I hugged my friend, his mom, expecting to hear the worst…but she was smiling. Just before I arrived they had had the first little inkling that he was coming out of it. She was talking to him and he cracked a smile, through the tube. Another friend of his said he felt him squeeze his hand, and when I stood by his bed and said who I was and that we were here with him he lifted his head slightly and tried to open his eyes as a tear erupted and rolled down his cheek.

The next few hours a few more friends arrived and we all took turns holding his hands, rubbing his feet and talking to him as he slowly began to regain consciousness. But the end of the day they had removed his breathing tube and he was able to say a few words - enough to know he was back, and not damaged. Thank God.

But the experience has left me shaken, like a grief hangover or something. That feeling of horror…that shadowy specter that life is filled with death and there’s nothing any one of us can do about it. We are all going to die…our friends and family will die…the sun can be shining brightly here in this lovely place and yet my heart feels leaden…dark…stormy. We can never know when something bad will happen…I feel traumatized and know these tragic aspects of life are forever out of my control. 

I can try and put a smile on and be a source of strength and support for others, but inside, I feel weak and fragile. I can try and be the center of the hurricane…try to find peace and quiet amidst the tempest, but occasionally the winds and thunder will find their way in and blow me over.

Consolidating

Before my mum and step-dad passed in 2008, they would often have discussions about the stuff in their farmhouse and outbuildings.

My mum would always say "we need to consolidate", to which my step-dad would reply "you mean throw out".  Yep, that's exactly what she meant.  But he just couldn't do it, so it never happened and it was left to my sister and I to sort through.  The amount we've subsequently held on to is still considerable.  So I had all this hanging over me when Ian died, and 15 months later, his mother died.
 
Over the weekend I removed the visible portion of Ian's clothes from our walk-in closet. I've done a few chunks here and there, mostly a year ago, but I've not removed, or even sorted anything for about a year. Anything that has been touched has really just been put into boxes. There's still a few drawers full, but apart from a selection of items I've left hanging, all his business shirts, suits and pants, that he wore regularly are now donated to a charity linked to both him and his mother.

I was surprised, even though they've been left to the open air and the shoulders were covered in a film of dust, that even close on 3 years since he wore them, they still held his smell.   I'm more surprised this didn't trigger anything major for me - more surprise it was still lingering.  Maybe it's an indication that it's time to clear out many of those physical items he left behind.

There is so much stuff cluttering up the house, it's reached the point of it being there is driving me more bonkers than the thought of removing all the things tied to people who have passed makes me upset.  Ian's stuff, my mum & step-dad's stuff, Ian's mum's (and three quarters of this list hoarded to some degree or other!) plus all my pre-existing stuff and now John's things. I only have a little house!

 As others have said, Ian's not is his clothes or the items he kept (that quite frankly for the most part I have no idea what the meaning of them are).  Doesn't make it too much easier, but I am able to work in fits and starts when I can get through the question of 'what if this is important?'.  I guess, if I don't know the story, I can't pass it on to John, so it's significance to Ian has passed with Ian.  They held memories for Ian, but I only knew him for the last 3 years of his life.  Much of the stuff from Ian and his Mum don't signify or represent any memories for me.  It is just stuff.

But if I'm in the wrong mood, it's still difficult to go through and part with it.

One thing that's helped me at this point is doing a bit of a sort through my stuff as well, so donations have included stuff I no longer wear, read or need.   It's helping me to consider the process as an overall household clear out, not just removing the bulk of Ian's remaining things.  Although they did make up the bulk of the donation I just made, the balance will vary each time depending on what I tackle.

So I plan on spending the rest of my summer holidays chipping away at the piles, a little at a time.  This time it was 3 foot of hanging space.  Next time it may be a box, or a shelf, or a drawer. 

I'm slowly consolidating Ian's life and our life together to the key, significant items I can use to tell John about his dad.

Two piles in my study (that was John's nursery - I really like the giraffes, so they're staying) - boxes of books and my study stuff, some of Ian's 63 catalogued photo albums (our relationship starts in the late 50s), as well as his Mum's stamp collection.  I can just get into the closet, and to my desk.  Hence the going bonkers.

Winter's Snow

On this bleak, grey, England winter's day, I remember the comforting quiet of snow. Stan loved the snow. He would sit for hours, watching it. When we first began to talk to each other, he told me that he wanted to move to the Northeastern coast of England, near Whitby, where he said they had a 'proper winter'. Proper winter? I had moved to England from the west coast of Florida, just a year before, and the bits of snow I had encountered in London, that year, were quite enough, for me, thank you. But he wanted to see more of it.

When he was a little boy, he told me, he used to cry when the snow melted. I will always remember that sweet image of him, as a child, wiping his tears as the snow disappeared into the boggy ground.

Today I understand his love of snow. It turns the grey days white with promise. It makes everything new again. Walking into the hills, the biting wind brushing my cheeks, I hear my footsteps crunch against the frozen ground. Bare branches glisten with ice droplets. Black crows hop and peck their beaks into the frost covered earth in search of food. Blessed sun warms the slick pathway climbing upward, past blanketed horses, their breath steaming from cold nostrils, past wooly sheep, huddled against stone fences, toward the summit, hidden by misty cloud. I could get lost up there. It wouldn't be a bad way to go.

When I was young, living in Montana, and contemplating ending my time on this earth, (which I did, often, in those days), I decided that the easiest way to go would be to climb to the top of some mountain, and wait for the cold to envelop me, wrapping me in its blue tendrils, until I couldn't feel a thing. I would just get sleepy, I thought, and pass peacefully away. Perhaps I'd stay frozen until spring, when some hiker would come across my mummified corpse. Or perhaps the animals would use me for food, and my sun-bleached bones would be all that they'd find. At least my life would have served some purpose, I thought. It was a twisted comfort for my tortured soul, back then.

These days, my grief is deep and all-encompassing.  But I am not the tortured soul I was. As much as the loss of my beloved husband has broken me, I do not feel defeated. I have been softened by this experience. His death was tragic, true. I would not wish this pain on anyone. It is the worst thing that has happened to me. And it has made me tender-hearted.

Staying soft is difficult. My natural instinct is to protect myself from the prospect of further hurt and sorrow. Leaving myself open to others means I most certainly will feel the pain of loss, again. Perhaps not a loss that cuts so deeply. But pain and loss, nonetheless.

My husband understood the importance of staying soft.  He knew deep sorrow. He experienced trauma and turmoil as a young lad. He used many salves, through the years, to bind and heal those wounds. But he did not let them make him hard and bitter. He used his sorrow to reach out to others. He had a deep empathy for those who suffered. He had seen much suffering, himself.

Today, I find a different kind of hope in winter's snow. I feel nurtured and warmed by its white blanket. I like to nestle into its silence. There's less frantic activity when snow closes in. People slow their pace. Buses and trains and planes come to a standstill. Folks stay home, and make space for their thoughts, and for each other.

When snow comes to my hills, I open the curtains, build a warm fire, and pour myself a hot drink from the kettle. And I remember him, up all night, seated at the window, snowflakes falling.