August 5, 2009 Looking for Him

This place is saturated with him.

I awake from a bad dream and prefer to go back to it than acknowledge that the other half of the bed is empty.

It feels like it did in the beginning, raw and suffocating. I am steeped in disbelief. I am not here without him, I think. He’s in the kitchen. And when he’s not there, I think he’s stretching in the living room. And when I check and see the floor empty I think, he’s down by the water. I walk down expecting to find his long legs stretched out, his head back, eyes closed, hands intertwined and resting on his chest, dressed in red fleece. And when I don’t see him there, I sink into his chair and sob again.

This is that big wave that my friend spoke about. It comes and shoves me down to the bottom. It tosses me and I don’t know which way is up. If I breathe it is water that I take in.

At 12:10, three hours after I have gone looking for him, I sit on the porch of Blue Hill Books, unwrap my new journal and begin writing. My lungs fill with air that is filled with him.

I'm still breathing.

Tweet

August 4, 2009

On August 4th, I left CT and headed to Blue Hill, Maine where my in-laws have a house that has dial up internet!

August 4th Grief and Joy

Joy is …

Racing Malia’s son into their driveway (he was on foot, I in a car), leaving the car after a 3 hour drive and seeing Malia for the first time in 15 (?) years. She looks just like she did over 25 years ago. I see in her, that I do as well. I know nothing about her really. We share a common past, having gone to high school together but little else. Art’s cancer, death and Facebook is why we are together today.

30 minutes later, our kids are in her pool. She and I chat in the shade of an umbrella. We laugh and share as women do. She’s as strong and equally as opinionated as I am. I feel at ease. We take photographs of the kids. Later she texts me “I love how we didn’t take a foto of US!” And I laugh because I know we’ll have another chance. A friendship was born today and this one is my own. She knew me before Art and now after him, but she didn’t know me while I was with him. I experience this kind of exhilaration. This is my new friendship, as an individual, not as a part of ‘us.’ I will not have to check in with him to see if he wants to stop next visit, or worry about how he will feel meeting my old friend. My chest puffs out as I congratulate myself on mastering another see-I-can-do-this-on-my-own moment.

His death emboldens me. I would probably not have stopped if I had been invited. His death emboldens others, she probably wouldn’t have invited me to stop by. Suddenly we, my friends new and old, are no longer too busy. We admit to ourselves, albeit silently, there may not be a ‘next’ time. Art’s death reminds me of the real reason we are alive. It’s to say “I love you” on a whim, to hold that hug a little longer and to marvel at how we effect each other for the good. We are here to say “We didn’t get a foto of us of us” which is just another way to say “you count.” And that is the gift of his death. I find when I take a deep enough breath, I cry for the beauty of it.

----

Grief is…
3 hours and 30 minutes after leaving Malia’s I turn onto Rt. 15, in Maine, twenty minutes from Blue Hill. My foot presses down on the gas, urgency flooding the engine. Getting there suddenly becomes very important.

“Look I say. This is where Dad and I got married.” My foot lets off the gas, as we pass the Blue Hill Farm Inn. I consider turning around. Tomorrow I think. You can visit Jim tomorrow. We pass Blue Hill Books, a store Art and I spent hours in before we had kids, would visit when we could sneak away from the kids and would hide from the kids and have a quick make-out session in one of the few intimate corners downstairs. I laugh and the tears spring like the air from a chip bag under pressure.

I don’t stop crying. I cry as I head to 175. I cry as I turn onto Falls Bridge Road. Snap shots appear in my mind; us running or biking down the road, the white house on the right with the white picket fence, just past the reversing falls that we dreamt about owning.

Quickly Haight Farm appears on the right. I turn left into the driveway and cover the eight of a mile as fast as I can without kicking up the dust. We walked this driveway first with Langston, then Pallas then Ezra all in a radio flyer wagon up. We headed up to Haight Farm where Pallas got butted by a goat once, where we admired the soft angora rabbits before they were shipped to Tibet, and where we saw our first hydroponic green house.

The car tires crunch on the gravel. I turn to park and skadush….I realize Art will not be here. A tiny, tiny piece of me, beyond any common sense, believed I would see him, that I would hear his feet on the gravel, hear his voice, feel his kiss. This was the last place I could look for him.

The sound of the gravel under my feet, the combination smell of the sea and grass, the deafening silence make me want to run rather than face the emptiness. Shit.

My mother in-law appears and like a mamma bear, she tries to make the big bad loss go away. And I sob and she says it will be ok and I know but really what I want is for him to tell me that. And I sob some more.

The crying subsides. I wipe my face with my hands, wipe my hands on my dress. And the same smell and sound of the kid’s feet on the gravel tamps down the grief. I have to face this place. And as I pull the luggage out of the car, I see new memories here, ones that include us remembering him but without him in them. And I feel tired and sad and distraught and tired again.

This feeling of loss will never go away. However, having been through it so many times, it does feel manageable. Not predictable or logical but manageable. I am still here. There is nowhere else for me to go but forward. I walk into the house.

Tweet

August, 3, 2009 -- Old Friends

I visit with pre-Art friends.

Friends from high school. I have breakfast with my oldest friend in the world, Teri P. (We've known each other since second grade). I see another old high school friend; stop by the house of another. I feel grounded, remembering a life before Art.

We gab about people he didn't know, guys I slept with, guys our friend's slept with and it feels easy and funny and not embarrassing at all.

And I come back to the hotel room, feeling tight and strange, questioning his existence. It's like Art was a hiccup. And standing here, in a hotel we never stayed at, in a bed we never made-love in, with children he will never see grow, his existence is hard to grasp.

Until I try to sleep...

Tweet

August 2, 2009 Death Sits Besides Me

Driving over to my mother’s in the rain, my hands gripping the steering wheel, I kept thinking, don’t crash, don’t crash and then I noticed my death sitting next to me and I relaxed.

I don’t know when I’m going to die and yes, it could happen today. There is no rule that says tragedy can’t strike twice. We make up that rule to deal with the quaking land under our feet. So I’m driving and I feel death sitting next to me and I relax because I see that it could happen right now – I could crash and die. I could crash and two of my kids could die. I could crash and kill someone else.

Oddly this brings me comfort. In the uncertainty, I find peace. I have less control over this than I desire but it gives me room to maneuver the things I do have control over. I turn my head, glancing to the back of the car for a moment and say to my children...

"You are a gift to me from God. I am grateful and lucky that you are here with me.

Now will you please stop arguing and share the damn goldfish!"

A subtle and unsettling gift from grief followed with a dose of reality.

Pallas and my sister's children

Tweet

June ?, 2009

I'm in the hole

The kids...

They were up till 10:30 last night

having played video games for well over five hours, watched movies for three more hours.

The energy to care for them, having left me when my hysterical self lost it on the front porch at about 5:00 pm yesterday.

I tried to call people. People who know what loss is. But no one was home. (And Freddie from The Meadows School, I don't have your number. I wanted so badly to talk to you last night. Please email it to me!!! (kitequeen44@gmail.com)

At 10:30 Langston asked when I would put them to bed.

I looked at the clock and said "Oh, I guess now."

But they did it all themselves. They didn't need to be told to brush their teeths. (Besides I really didn't care.) Ezra slept in his clothes, giggling with glee that I would allow that.

This morning at 9:00 when everyone was finally up, and thought I had pulled myself together, I announced they were gonna have to get their own breakfasts.

They did.

Only now we are out of cereal.

And strawberry jam.

I yell at them only if my solitude is interrupted with requests for food or to break up an argument.

Lunch happened becuase Langston got hungry and made ravioli.

I was too busy putting the world out of my mind, trying to transfer all my files from one computer to another and watching movies.

I did leave the house today.

Once.

To drive Langston to an appointment

that we were 30 minutes late for.

I drove wearing my pajamas

and my flip flops.

Hair a mess.

I don't think the kids had any fruit today. They for sure didn't get vegatables.

I don't care.

Dinner was just ordered (at 8:00 pm!) becuase Langston said he was hungry.

The kitchen is filthy. Yesterday and today's food reminents on the counter.

I have no energy to take care of them or myself.

I have no energy to think who to call.

And what would I tell them anyway?

"Oh Hi. Well I was wondering if you could come over while I fall apart. I may cry a bit, but mostly I'm going to ignore the world and bury myself in work and movies."

"Oh and I'm not sure how long this will last. So you may have to come back tomorrow and the day after that. Better yet, could you just take my kids? That way I can wallow in the mess myself."

"Oh and one more thing. I will sound and look fine. So I hope you don't expect a sobbing fool. It's not my style."

I hesitate to write this lest someone will tell me to buck up.

And my response would be:

You can't say jack (@)*$ until you have been where I am now.

Besides, I'm still alive. Granted I may not be functioning great now, but ya know who the hell says I need to hide this from my kids! Heck, Langston can walk to the store if they really want cereal tomorrow morning.

But in reality I would think somehow they would be right, even though I know it is not so. Being weak is not a trait many aspire to!

So do yourself, spare me the guilt, and don't waste your finger energy telling me to be strong for the kids or for myself. In a weird way, I think I am finding strength in falling apart.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring.

I suppose I will have to call someone if we want butter, apple juice, cereal and strawberry jam.

The pressure of getting all that together in the am literally makes me cry. I can't do shit, right now. Not shit.

And in a weird way, I'm proud of myself for finally letting go.

Tweet