A Patchwork Girl

"No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. 

Or you don’t."

-Stephen King

I will apologize in advance for my perhaps over-use of metaphor. But I guess that’s just how my mind works, because the other night as I lay in bed thinking about everything, I had a sudden vision of myself as a patchwork doll.

I was thinking about the person I was, and the life I had, before I met Mike. All the places I went, people I knew, things I did. How I used to perceive the world, and my life. Then I drifted into the years I spent with him and how much he changed me - how much I grew and developed during that chapter of my life, knowing him, and being married.

And then now, these past two years, how much I’ve continued to change and grow. To experience, make choices - and adjust to the void he left behind. How much I’ve learned about the grieving process, and myself as my own person. How many people I know now who are walking beside me in our terrible club. How I’ve had to reformulate my perception of this life and my expectations, for how different the future looks now without him.

It does feel as if the person I used to be exploded into a million fragments after he died. For a long time I didn’t know who I was without him, or how I was going to live without him. I didn’t know how I was going to keep walking without him by my side - but slowly I started picking up the pieces. I didn’t realize it at first, of course, because it was only about survival. At first, I only found the basic parts like a beating heart and thinking brain and cobbled them back into a semblance of a working organism, from the inside out, breathing life back into the startled, shattered shell by means of the basest, most animal instinct.

But I have learned to kept my needle and thread handy, along with a healthy heap of duct tape. Now, various and sometimes unexpected shards and innards start to come into focus in the once blurry, desolate terrain that is my Self. Now, I pick them up, determine if they will fit back into the restructured person, and either patch them back in, or toss them into the work bin for later consideration. 

There is no pattern to go by any more. I’m just working as I go. Some pieces are stitched together upside down or backwards because there are elements of myself that seem worthy, but are forever changed. A lot of the pieces don’t match anymore; the ends are frayed, and the colors are faded. And strangely enough I found other pieces I forgot were even in there. These seem brand new out-of-the-package, and for now, are in stark contrast to the older, worn but more familiar bits.

When I look at myself from the outside in, I see a person made up of the sum of her experiences. Some pieces are dark and scary, ugly and hard to look at. Others are bright and sparkly and surprise me with their vibrance. 

The above quote was posted by my friend and fellow widow Margaret just as I sat down to write this. Perhaps that is no accident. Then afterwards I searched online for images and discovered The Patchwork Girl, who is a character from the Oz series of books by L. Frank Baum. I will have to learn more about Scraps, I guess, because I too am a sort of patchwork person; a rag-tag girl, flopping about this quilt of a life in a strange and undiscovered world.

Post-death and Grief~

Our culture, I think, is filled with contradictions.  In general and most certainly when it comes to grief.  Here's a few I've encountered.

People love a good love story.  The public especially seems to admire and go awww when a couple long married, die within hours of each other, unable, even unconsciously, to face life without one another.

When we're widowed, and speak of not wishing to go on without our loved one, there is an immediate rush of but you must he/she would want you to be happy, you have to live for both of you now you can't give up it isn't healthy to think that way!

Possible medication suggestions may follow.  I guess the aww's only exist for elderly couples.

We are encouraged to have strong marriages, to live our vows, to honor one another.  So we do that, and do it well, and we build strong and loving partnerships over the years, dividing our lives up with tasks we're each best suited to, as is natural, learning healthy dependence on one another (Chuck and I called it interdependence), striving to be the it person for each other.  And then one dies and the one left behind feels overwhelmed and uncertain and lost and dislocated and, especially I think, as women, there is an unspoken criticism of you need to be your own person you were too dependent you need to stand on your own.

I wonder if men who are widowed feel the same pressure, culturally speaking, as women do.  There are many common pressures but I wonder if there is also that sense of judgement of self and from society at large.  Not doing it right.  Do more.  Do less.  Wait.  Go faster.  Stop.  Go.  Unspoken pressures but there, subtly (and sometimes not so subtly).

I've always been a very strong woman and I felt strong and independent in my marriage.  But I've got to tell you-since Chuck's death, I feel like a piece of cooked spaghetti.  Wobbly and floppy, unable to gain my footing.  Like I can't breathe without him.  Like I don't want to breathe without him.  I hate my life without him and, honestly, have no real interest in creating a life without him.  Of course, I must do that because I'm still here, but my mom used to say this in various situations My lack of enthusiasm is exceeded only by my lack of interest.

Sometimes it seems that we're supposed to love just enough, but not so much that our lives crumble when that person we love dies.  Enough so that our lives are fulfilled but not so much that we are left stunned and shocked when that person is poof! gone.  Enough so that we feel loved but not so much that it kills our soul in the aftermath of death.

It's a strange computation, isn't it?  At this point, coming up on two years since the man I loved more than life itself died, I don't care how others think of my grief, one way or another.  In many ways I've become an observer of reactions to grief and it leaves me wondering at this world we live in, that there can be so much judgement and critique and lack of empathy.

All I know is that I loved my husband.  I miss him with every heart beat.  His absence in my life hums and pulses through my body on a daily basis and I don't know that that will ever change to any great degree.  Not for any other reason than I loved him for 24 years and will always love him and he died and will always be dead now and I'll always miss him.

With every beat of my heart.

A Place of Existence

For years, I have wandered outside.  When I was very young, on through my teenage years, I would often times find myself on my Aunt's cattle farm, traipsing around the back lots, playing in the creeks, or just generally exploring the land and finding interesting spots to spend time with my brother and cousins.  We were always outside.  We camped, fished, shot at old oil cans, roamed, watched birds or squirrels, built little shelters or dammed the creeks with a shovel and time, stared at the stars, and generally didn't have a care in the world.  I was a kid...that's the way it should be.

The farm is no longer in the family, but now, I have my own place.  It's a place that Megan never knew about, nor did Shelby.  It's a place I can go to to just "exist", and be that kid again, playing in the creek, listening to birds, or staring at a beech tree in winter, with its white leaves just barely clinging on while they flutter through the cold winter wind.  I found it one day maybe 7 years ago by glancing at a topographic map, looking for a sea of green and picking an interesting looking spot.  This little glade at the outlet of a small spring caught my eye, and I decided to explore.

It amazes me that I forgot about this place until last weekend.  Megan has been dead almost 4 months, she was in the hospital for 6 months before that, and had been diagnosed with rejection in early February.  That was the last time I visited my place...February 16th, 2014.  I read my journal entry from that day, and it might as well have been written the day she was going to die.  The terrifying feeling that I was going to be on my own had already crept in, and it was just as suffocating then as it was later on in November.

I packed my backpack, hopped in the truck, and decided that it was time to exist.  It's an odd thing for me sometimes to want to write something down, but predetermine that whatever I write is going to be more honest, raw, and meaningful if I wait and disappear into my place.  After a few miles of plodding through that late-winter crusty, creaky snow, I had finally returned to my place of existence.

I set my little stove up to make some coffee with snowmelt, assembled my mini chair, grabbed my journal, and started writing in my own little Walden that I had constructed.

There is something about being outside in an isolated spot in the woods that clears my head and fills it with thoughts at the same time.  I put pen to waterproof paper for awhile, every so often adding a little bit more snow to my pot until there was enough water in it to have a nice cup of coffee.  Once it was ready, I took a break and "existed" for awhile.

That's when it hit me.  Here I was, in a place that I had always come alone, but always had someone to return home to once I cleared my head.  Only now, I knew I would be returning to an empty house, and I was happy.  Not happy about having an empty home, obviously, but happy that I could still come to this place.  Happy because I was that skinny, nerdy little kid again, outside, building things out of sticks and snow and imagination, and not having a care in the world.  Happy because I was outside. 

Happy because after years of walking with Megan, I still had somewhere where I had NO memories with her, and the only footprints leading to it were mine.

I stayed for about 3 hours total, but I really didn't want to leave.  I could have continued happily existing for what felt like years. Finally, a small snippet of my own instruction manual for dealing with losing Megan wiggled its way into my head, oddly, from a comedy special that I had seen on Netflix.  I feel anyone dealing with any kind of stress, not just the loss of a partner, would find this advice useful:

Go outside. Remain.

Climbing Off the Wheel

"Walk around feeling like a leaf.

  Know you could tumble at any second.

  Then decide what to do with your time."

From "The Art of Disappearing" by Naomi Shihab Nye

In my Buddhist study group, this week, we are reflecting on the fact of impermanence, specifically, these things: we are all going to die, and none of us knows when that will happen. And if we are clear on these two things, what matters, while we are here?

For most of my life, I have yearned to write. I believe and have been told that I have some talent, yet I have let other distractions keep me from pursuing what, if I am honest, I have always felt to be my life's calling.

I have not developed the discipline to write, no matter what. I have let other things get in the way.

First, I had to swim through the trauma of my childhood. I used many methods, in my youth, to do that, including travelling to far reaches in escape, and ingesting multitudes of intoxicants as numbing agents. Both of those methods took up lots of time--time I could have spent writing.

Then, I decided to birth and raise my son, while weathering the grief of losing my father to cancer. I moved with my mother to Florida, living in the midst of my family, and returning to work full time, to support us.

I met my first husband, and wrote bits and bobs along the way, with a few of my essays published in our city's newspaper. I took some classes in writing, and wrote in spurts. But I didn't find the time to give it my full attention.

When my son was raised, I joined a series of writing workshops with the renowned author, Connie May Fowler. Connie May is a passionate, vibrant writer and teacher who is the author of numerous novels, essays and memoirs. I met with other writers, in those years, and we worked diligently on our writing, honouring it with daily attention. I was able, during this time, to produce some good pages.

Then, my mother and my sister came to live with me, and I spent the next two years helping them transition with dignity to their deaths. This monumental task didn't leave much time or energy to write.

I remember one day,  in the summer of 2008, when I was due to travel to our novel writing weekend. I was so looking forward to going, and I had arranged for my brother to come and sit with my mom, in my absence, while she was recovering from surgery in a short term nursing home placement.

I went to visit her and tell her goodbye before travelling north to meet my writing teacher and friends. And I found her lying in bed, practically comatose, having not eaten any of her morning meal, a fact that had warranted no notice or concern. I sat at her bedside and fed her tiny spoonfuls, for several hours, that day, like one would feed an infant, or a tiny bird. And I knew, then, that I could not leave her side to pursue my writing. I called my group and sent my apologies.

I spent the next few months at her bedside, until she died.

After her death, a veil was lifted from my eyes, and I saw, for a moment, the preciousness of our time on this earth, deciding to free myself from the safe, comfortable job I had been doing, in Medical Foster Care, for the past 13 years. It was a good job, at a good salary, with the promise of a substantial pension. But I didn't want to sit in that job and count the days until my retirement.

It was shortly after my mother's death that I took a chance, and moved to England.

The first year of my life here was spent adjusting to my new country and dealing with my grief. I entered into some writing mentoring with Connie May, again, via Skype, and made some progress on my novel.

Then I met Stan.

And I fell so hopelessly in love that I found it hard to concentrate on anything else. My world had a new vibrancy and meaning. I wrapped myself around him and held on for the wild ride we shared together. I am so happy that I did it.

But I didn't make time to write.

Almost all of the wonderful, talented writers I met, during those workshops, now have their novels published. I am certain they, too, had obstacles to overcome, life circumstances to navigate, sorrows to process. Yet they made the time to honour their art. I have so much respect for them. And I feel a bit of envy, too.

Now, my husband is gone, and another veil has been lifted. And I have to ask myself, what matters?

What am I, as the poet, Mary Oliver, says, to do with my one wild and precious life?

 I am not set financially, by any means, But, since his death, I have found it harder and harder to trudge to a job that now holds so little meaning for me. It's not that the work environment is toxic. My managers and colleagues have shown me more compassion and understanding during this loss than I ever thought possible. It is just that I have lost my tolerance for pouring over budgets and targets and audits and documents.

I have spent my entire career, as a Social Worker, mopping up the failures of this society. And I don't want this to be my primary focus, anymore.

I will always remember the story Stan told me, about when he left his job, at the age of 48. He had worked his way up from city gardener to Assistant Director of  Housing for all of Manchester. This was a high powered position with massive responsibility. He worked 60-80 hours a week and never took a sick day. He also smoked 60-80 cigarettes a day. He was stressed, anxious, and unhealthy.

 Then his father died, and some other things happened, and he took medical leave from that position, never returning to it.When he left, he told me,  he stuffed all of his unfinished work in his briefcase and brought it home with him, work that he had agonised over for months. He was certain that there would be huge repercussions when upper management saw that this work had not been completed.

Yet no one ever asked him for it.

All the time he spent sweating over that paperwork, and, when he left, it didn't mean a thing.

So, what matters, really?

What am I to do with my time, now?

It matters that I attend to this grief and honour the memory of my husband.

It matters that I walk and revel in these hills that surround me.

It matters that I spend time with friends and family and show them I love them.

It matters that I return to my creative source.

It matters that I study the dharma.

It matters that I write.

I am cutting my hours to half time, after Easter. I am going to pay attention to what matters.

We could tumble at any second. We could be cut right down.

I want to honour this life, for the time that I have left, however long that may be.

_______________________________________________________________

I won't advertise their novels, here. But I will give you the names of my lovely and talented writing friends, who now have novels published: Sandra Gail Lambert--Pat Spears--Glenda Bailey Mershon--Darlyn Finch Kuhn. Look them up. You will be glad you did. And if you haven't read her already, read Connie May Fowler's work. Simply brilliant.  Teb.

Returning with New Eyes

This morning I went for a hike out on the ranch scouting my next location for a photo shoot. I started out at a particular dry creek bed. Parked the truck, walked down a shallow slope and stood a moment taking in the world around me. This was where Drew first taught me how to shoot a gun. Back when I was so terrified of them that my hands would shake just to hold one. I have only been back here twice since he died… always I can feel the absence so strongly here. This time was no different.

I stood looking out at the steep slope where old cans and barrels still lay in the dirt – full of bullet holes and rust. It’s an empty place to go to now… with nothing left but these small aluminum reminders of a past life, now decaying slowly in into the earth. It all looked smaller now – the way childhood places look to you when you visit them for the first time as an adult. Only I wasn’t a child when I was here… it was only a few years ago when we last came here together and shot a few rounds. But how strange it all looks now. As if the life is gone out of it. Despite the creek bed being full of winding mesquite trees and dusty green cacti and a hint of the first rush of wildflowers of spring. To see it with my eyes… there is no life in it.

I look down at my feet and notice a few bones, vertebrae of a deer or a hog likely. I have a thing for animal skulls, so my mind is immediately on the search for a skull to collect. I find none… but the thought of one “out there” somewhere ends up getting me wandering.

I follow the creek bed about a half a mile or so – somewhat still looking for a location for my photo shoot… but mostly not. By now the clouds are clearing and the harsh sun coming out – so my chances of getting the light right for the photography are blown anyway. I really do need to start getting up earlier for this stuff, when the low morning cloud cover offers the perfect light. I wander… Enjoying the cool breeze on my skin, enjoying the birds singing all around me, and the crunch my boots make in the residual dead leaves from winter. For a little while at least, I am lost and enjoying it. Enjoying being alone and the feeling that no one knows where I am. Why is that such an appealing feeling? The freedom of it, I suppose.

I find a few more bones… a shoulder blade, likely from a hog, a large femur from a cow long ago passed. No skulls. I find an old dead tree that looks like a cross, and pull my phone out to snap a picture and note its location. It might be something worth capturing in different light. Then I make my way back through the creek bed to my place or origin… listening along the way to a recording on my phone of an artist friend talking about life. He is saying how each day is a new day, a chance to make a new choice, to be reborn. It’s comforting… even as sad as I am today, still this idea is comforting. To even live somewhere where I have the opportunity to choose so much in my life, is really quite remarkable.

I am back at the beginning of my trek before I know it… and as I’m crossing the creek bed to return to the truck, there, right at my feet… is a skull. Wild hog, in very good condition. It is laying only 4 or 5 feet from those first bones I saw, yet somehow I missed it? There all along. I smile, and I think about this all for a while. They say that which we may spend our lives looking for, our peace, our happiness, acceptance, love… we need not search it out, for it is always right where we were to begin with. Sometimes maybe we just need to look a bit closer to find it. But maybe at times we do just need to go on a search outside ourselves in order to return back to our hearts with new eyes. I know it has helped me to do so since he died. It’s far too treacherous a landscape to stay inside myself for too long.

As I returned, and looked around at this place that felt so alone before, it felt different… transformed somehow by my journey outward. I could see it with new eyes that were able to notice all the life around me – the birds, the wildflowers, the insects. Amazing how I hadn’t been able to see any of that before… only the loss, only the memories which I can no longer recreate there with him. And now I was seeing everything else. I suppose sometimes we need a good venture outward in order to see ourselves and our loss differently.

Doing it for Myself

Marking my husband's birthday with a cupcake and sunflowers

As far as the 'ups and downs' of grief go, it's been a pretty tough week.  It started with what would have been Dan's 36th birthday on Monday (the second since he's been gone).  Despite coming up with a plan for the day and preparing as much as I could for the inevitable roller-coaster, the rug was well and truly pulled from underneath me.

I was ready for the pain, but not so ready for the loneliness, the sense of isolation and the anger.  I was so damn angry at him.  I haven't really felt much anger towards him throughout my grief, and it's a terrible feeling. One that, to be honest, I'm still not really ready to explore.  This might be something to go more in depth on another day.  But I was also really angry that the people still here in my life hadn't been more present for me this week, and that didn't feel very nice either.

I unpacked it with my grief counsellor yesterday. Where did this fury come from?  Why was I so mad at my friends?  Was I angry that they seemed to have forgotten me - what I was going through?  Was I angry that their partners were still here and mine wasn't? Was I just angry full stop, and they were an easy target?

I had talked about Dan's pending birthday a fair bit, so assumed that those close to me would know it would be a difficult day.  But I was surprised that only three friends sent 'thinking of you' text messages and none called, offered to visit or followed up that evening to make sure I was ok.

Quite a few of my husband's friends (who have become my friends) called or sent messages to share the day with me, some sent photos of the activities they were doing to remember him, like making a cake and talking about happier birthday from the past.  That was really nice, to know he wasn't forgotten and I wasn't the only one missing him.

My feelings were really hurt that my own friends hadn't been more involved.  It was a stark contrast to the year before - the first 'after' birthday - when everything was very raw.  I honestly felt like those around me had started to think 'well, it's been over a year and a half, she must be doing ok by now' or were, quite frankly, just bored of the same conversations about how I miss him and what we'd be doing if we were here.

I mean, hell, I'M bored of it!  Of course I'm tired of my grief, it's tedious and exhausting and not fun in any way.  So I get that my friends might be feeling a bit over it.  But there's nothing I can do about that.  This is my life now, his loss is part of me.  I'm not some miserable thing who NEVER enjoys life or looks forward to anything or who can't have a laugh, but I also can't pretend that it never happened and it doesn't still affect me.

With some hindsight, I don't necessarily think that my friends were a bit less involved on Monday because they're bored with me.  They most likely just didn't know what support I needed, didn't know how to help or what to say.  They also don't miss Das as much as I do, because they weren't his wife.  They don't feel my pain and there's no way they can know what to do with it.

But this all got me thinking about how, when I'm struggling with the grief, I have a tendency to look to the people around me to pick me up and carry me through.  What a lot to ask of them.  Not necessarily the support bit, but the fact that I seem to expect them to be able to mind-read and figure out what I need without me having to say so.  To call at the right time, or to give me space when I don't want to talk.  To talk about him - or to distract me when I just can't face it anymore.

This need to be saved almost always leaves me feeling let down, abandoned or misunderstood and that's really unfair to the people who love me and are trying to be there as much as they can.  So I need to get better at looking after myself.  At self-soothing.  Instead of looking to others for comfort or validation that my grief is 'ok' and I'm doing the right thing, I need to trust myself more, love myself more and back myself more.

I wish I could click my fingers and become this zen, chilled out, self-loving guru who sees the peace and light in everything and never doubts herself or her place in the world.  But I doesn't work like that.  The therapy sessions are helping, as is meditation, yoga and working with essential oils.

If Dan were still here I probably wouldn't have had to look this closely at myself and think so much about my lack of self-belief and insecurity.  Because his love gave me validation, his words gave me the reassurance that I now need to find within.  I know his love is still with me, but I need to look inside to find it.  I'm searching for this place of peace.  It may take me the rest of my life to reach it but, hey, I've got time.  It's not like I've got much else going on right now anyway.

In the Ring with Grief

I'm filling in for Kelley Lynn today, she will be back next week! This post was written about four years after Phil died. It's amazing how the written words mean the same thing literally, but six years later their figurative meaning has shifted yet again. 

source

Over the past four years grief and I have reluctantly become friends. Grief is not the kind of friend I can call in the middle of the night when I am sad, but rather the kind of friend who sits quietly at the end of my bed while I cry myself to sleep. Grief may be away for weeks or even months at a time, but the knock of this friend is now as familiar to me as my own voice. There is no need to explain my sorrow to grief; she understands my process better than I do. Grief knows I will get up again no matter how hard I have been hit by her power, and patiently stands as a witness to my ability to regain my balance time and time again. When grief calls, I stop what I am doing because I have learned that she must be answered. When I quit trying to escape her, I found an unexpected comfort by her side. She calls me and repels me; guides me and confuses me; moves me forward and throws me back.


Some days I hate grief, and other days I miss her. I have discovered a safe place in her arms, though her twisting, turning path won't allow me to be still for long. Her presence has added a soft cadence to my day-to-day life that I have come to rely on as confirmation that I am, indeed, alive. The irony of this does not escape me. I have realized that in my mind grief has replaced Phil, and that my fear of letting him go has created a relationship with grief I could never have anticipated.

I am beginning to believe that this is why grief comes in waves. If grief was linear and we could walk from one stage into the next, there would likely be large numbers of grieving people with severe stage fright. I would be terrified if someone were able to provide me with a grief graduation date. Instead, grief throws us from one phase to the next, with no predictable pattern or discernible course. Like a boxer who learns to fight on their feet, our tortured, grieving selves wheel from one moment to the next watching for the inevitable gut punch. And slowly, painfully we become stronger, faster, and more confident each time we are forced into the ring. That doesn't mean we won't hit the mat, or that we won't be tempted to stay down for the count...but somehow our spirits find the will to fight one more time.

Grief holds the towel as we come out of the ring. Grief bandages our wounds and then sends us to face the opponent called death, again and again. Grief stands behind the stool in our corner and insists we go another round. There is a saying that speaks to the concept that some friends come into our lives for a purpose, but do not stay long. I am beginning to think of grief as a friend who will come and go from my life. She will show me how to survive in the ring of sorrow, and then leave me with these hard earned knocks hoping they teach me something about living courageously. Grief will also point out that she is not Phil and that he is not her. He exists in a separate, and timeless, place that she does not inhabit. Grief is wise. And eventually I must let her go, knowing that when she resurfaces, sometime down the road, I will greet her as a friend.