Guilt of a Happy Widow

Got this little Nutella freak from here

“Hey! How are you?” she asks.
With that question a hand is placed gently on my upper arm. Her eyes are round, her voice soft and kind, as if she were talking to a person who is old.
I wonder “Do I look ill? Is the lack of sleep that apparent?”
My friend wants to know, to
…really
… know
how I’m doing.
Only her assumption is that I’m not doing well. After all,
I
Am
A
Widow.

And all I want to do is smile and say “I’m doing….

GREAT! Today, the kids got ready for school by themselves and this included Langston (age 14) folding his laundry. The very same laundry he put into the wash AND the dryer by himself the night before.

I had to tell Ezra this morning as he dilly-dallied over his breakfast to “put down the book or I’d have to take it away from him." This same child, 2 months ago, I had to cajole into picking up a book.

Pallas is using me as her confidant (I know this will change) she comes into my room and we talk about friendships and bodies and nail polish color.

Me. Well, I closed my business and I feel free. I have an informational interview next week and you never know where those end up! Our new place is great. I like that there aren’t all these places to disappear to. If Langston is not in the great room then he’s in his bedroom or the bathroom. That’s it. No where else to look for him. And did I mention that it was 75 today? And I wore shorts that I couldn’t fit into when Art was alive because I am now healthy skinny not a holy-shit-my-husband-is-dead skinny? “

I want to tell her all of this. I want to go on and on and on to show her the other side of widowhood, the side that is beyond just getting through another day.

But I don’t. Because I also don’t want her thinking that it’s all OK again. I don’t want her to walk away from our conversation thinking I am “over” Art's death.

And then I feel guilty. Guilty for feeling good..

Guilty for thanking Art for dying. Without his death I would never have become 70% fearless. 89% authentic, and 100% alive. I really like all the ways I have been pushed to grow and expand and live.

Guilty because the kids and I are actually ok. We laugh and have fun without him, without thinking about him.

Guilty because the intense bouts of grief come further and further apart from each other. I can go weeks without crying about him. I can go days without yearning for him.

Guilty because most of the time, when I think of him, it is with sweetness, laughter and a deep sadness that doesn’t overwhelm me.

And honestly part of me doesn’t want to disappoint her. I want her to know that as a widow my life will never be "back to normal." I want her to know that I am still different from her and she absolutely CANNOT complain about her husband to me. I want her to know that it’s still a struggle – just less and less of one.

So instead of answering her, I simply change the subject.

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Mattering

my daughter Pallas (2nd from the left) and her friends

She says to me “Kim, you’re important. Other widows want to meet you. They ask if you will be there.”

I was talking to Michelle, the founder of this blog, Camp Widow, Widow’s Village and Soaring Spirits Foundation.

She was trying to convince me to come to widow camp.

I wasn’t going. Even though I live just two hours away.
I wasn’t going.

I’m important, I whispered to myself. I’m important.
I matter to other people.
I had not felt that way since…
Art died.

The moment Art died I felt like I mattered less.
Like the space I took up in this world was not nearly as important as the space others take up.

I was not a wife anymore.
As a wife I knew I mattered to one other adult. I mattered a lot to him.

As a widow there is no one to call to say “I’m on my way home.”
There is no one to worry about me, or worry with about the kids.
My day doesn’t matter to other people.
They guy who cut me off matters less.
The great deal I got on a dress doesn’t really matter either.
My life and all it’s little insignificant happenings does not matter to anyone else.
It would take days for anyone to realize that the kids and I were gone…or dead.
Without a husband I questioned my matterness.

And it was not until Michelle spoke the opposite of what I believed that I saw how I carried around that little belief. I carried it around as sure as I carry around my kids were born from me, that Obama is our president and that I will wake up tomorrow and it will be Sunday.

I don’t matter as much now that I don’t have some to matter to.

That belief just sits there,
quietly,
solidly.
I matter less with no one else to share my life with.

And the thing is I didn’t realize that was my belief until I spoke with Michelle.

“I matter,” I whisper again, this time just a little bit louder.
The funny thing is:
if I take a really close look at my life.
if I am honest about who I have become since Art gave me the gift of his death
if I really look at it, I matter more
now
than I did when he was alive.

And if this is true for me, then it is true for many of us widow’s too.

We matter.
We matter to each other.
Every blog that is discovered at 3:23 am, when a widow is terrified of what has happened to her or him,
matters.

The comments that widows leave, the open, honest, "me too" comments that are left and read by THOUSANDS
matter.

The visitors, lurkers, outsiders
matter.

We all matter! It just doesn’t look the same way it did before our partners died.
Heck it doesn’t look the way we were taught it was supposed to look, dead partner or not.

I matter
You matter.

So when you see me at Camp Widow, or out and about in LA, come up and give me a hug.

I need it. I need to be reminded that I matter.
And my guess is you need to be reminded that
you
matter
too.

I think we all do.

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Grief from A Child

This is what Ezra has to say about grief. He wants you to pay attention. He's nine. He was 7 by three weeks when Art died. M=Mom, aka Kim

E: It's scary whenever I go to sleep because I’m afraid I will be dreaming about daddy.

M: Why do you not like that?

E: Cause then every morning I wake up and I realize that he’s never coming back and it’s really hard for me.

M: What do you miss about your dad?

E: I miss that everyone would say, “Oh your dad is so tall. I wish I had a dad like him!” and stuff like that.

M: What do you think about our new lives without him?

E: Everyone says that everything that happens on earth has a reason. And it’s really hard to believe that this has a reason.

M: What do you like about our lives now that you don’t have Daddy?

E: Come to think of it, I’m having a lot of new experience that I wouldn’t have if my dad was alive.

M: Like what?

E: One of the biggest experiences is not having dad.

M: What are your good days like?

E: I don’t know. I think about him. I have my mind on other stuff.

M: Do you have any advice for people who are grieving, adult or child?

E: If people say that they are in worse grief than you are, just say, "You know I don’t think you are." because there are different kinds of grief. So it may be they are in bigger grief than me but in a different way.

When people say that to me, I just think you don’t know how I feel, so how can you compare something when you don’t know what it is?

M: What is it like to watch me cry when I miss Daddy?

E: I have different feelings. Sometimes I feel like I let you down somehow. Sometimes I feel like I should just leave you alone because I’m not in too good a shape myself.

M: When you comfort me, how does that make you feel?

E: When I comfort you, it kind of comforts me. And also that’s why I like to play the piano sometimes. It’s another way to express myself without getting mad. It comforts me.

E: slyly. That’s why you should let me get on the piano more often.

M: Do you have any tips for widowed mothers?

E: When the kids say, “Leave me alone” the mother should. Cause a lot of times when we say, "Leave me alone." it’s just better to be left alone because it feels good to let your feelings out when you’re not with other people.

M: Ezra can I post this for other widow’s to read?

E: Well that’s why you’re writing it all down, isn’t it?

I love you Ezra. Thank you for teaching me what it's like to be you.

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How Did He Die?

I’m at the bank, not my usual branch.
Comments are made about how tall my youngest is.
“He’s only 9?”
I nod.
What I want to do is roll my eyes, and hand her a card that says:

“Thank you for noticing that my child is tall. Hopefully he will be a tall man some day. I have trained him to smile and say “Thank you,” even though he has nothing to do with how tall he is or how tall he will be. Now kindly stop ogling and either lets finish our business or be on your way.”

That’s what the card would say.

But I haven’t printed it up yet so instead I say:

“Yes, he is tall. My husband was 6’6.”

I use past tense easily now, forgetting how ominous it sounds. When their eyes go wide, I assume, for an instant that it’s in response to my husband’s height. Silly me.

The conversational tone changes from light to tragic. Their realization that in front of them is a woman whose life truly is tragic. “Did you say your husband ‘was’?”

Here we go.

“Yes. I did. My husband died.” And depending on the situation I sometimes add ‘recently.’

And then it comes, the stupidest question ever…

“How did he die?”
Or if they have a modicum of politeness, it’s:
“Do you mind me asking how he died?”

Now here is my quandary.

I do mind. Now I do.

When he first died, I would recount the story in detail. Somehow telling it over and over again and getting the same reactions over and over again put more and more earth beneath my feet, a place where I could say “this is where I stand now, without a husband.”

Then right around the second year, I noticed that telling my story began to feel old. I felt like my piece of earth was fairly solid. I had tamped it down and built it up. It was called “my new life: the expected bad, ugly and the surprisingly good.”

As I stepped into my third year, (OMG my third year….. I remember in the beginning not being able to imagine what it would be like to live that long without him!) Wow.

As I stepped into my third year, I find the question intrusive. And voyeuristic and well, like I’m adding to their gossip mill.

Isn’t it enough that my husband died? If I tell them he died of cancer, unless they have experienced loosing someone to cancer, they will have a way-not-accurate-image of his last moments on this earth that will probably include him looking deeply into my eyes and him saying a few final words before his last breath is taken. Or something that is so, so far from the truth!

I have to admit. It’s the kind of question I would have asked before I was on this side of death. It’s the kind of thing I would have listened intently too, shaken my head. Then later, maybe months later, I would have shared with an authoritative tone in my voice “I met this woman who lost her husband to cancer and she said…….”

That would have been me. Missing the whole point. Because it’s not how he died that matters. It’s the fact that he’s dead that matters.

And this is what I want to tell someone when they ask.

“Its not about what killed him. What makes it so difficult is that he’s dead.”

So I resolve to use that line. I resolve to not tell anyone how he died.
From here on out, when someone asks me “how” I will reply:

“It’s not what killed him that matters, it’s the fact that he is dead that is so difficult.”

And in that resolution, I leave the house the next day.
And I find myself in a random conversation with a random person in line at the grocery store.

Out slips “He was … “

“Oh!” she says “Is your husband dead? “

“Yes.” I reply

“Was he shot?”

I give up.

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Widow vs. Widow

She said “Well, at least you got to say good-bye.”

Anger rises in me because I see her comment as one of those my-situation-is-worse-than-yours comments.

Anger because she wants to beat me to the bottom, to claim more grief, more anger, more despondency than me.

Anger because really? Do we have to have this conversation? I’ve had it before but about skin color with a white friend who was saying that my “blackness” was different from the “poor people’s blackness.” And I had to explain that the store clerk doesn’t thing so. I still get “watched,” and treated with suspicion even with a platinum American Express in my purse.

This widow assumes that Art’s cancer gave me time to prepare. I am disappointed at the magical death image she holds. You know the one from t.v.? The one where the person looks like themselves, opens their eyes, says a few last dying but meaningful words with the last exhale.

She thinks that expecting that your husband will die is some how easier. As if I could “prepare” for the impending grief by filling up sandbags to line my life. The more sandbag the less pain.

As I go to open my mouth, to tell her my last memories of my husband are of a withered 6’6" man who went from 235 to 154, his sunken, hollow face, unconscious, mouth open emanating that foul sweet smell of his dying innards. A smell that even in thought, makes me wretch.

Before I can tell her about the relief that came over me when he died that was quickly followed with shame of being relieved. Before I can tell her any of that…

I float
into her head
and see her own
devastation.

I see her need to tell her story over and over and over again, to compare it to others because in her world, right now, there is no firm footing. Nothing makes sense. She doesn’t know how to get to point B because not only is she standing on completely new territory, she doesn’t even know which direction to head in to find that second point. Comparing her story to mine at least provides her with walls, something familiar, something firm, a shelter of sorts.

And it is not till I recognize all this, I back down. She can have the bottom. She can have the grief and the despondency. I no longer need it to stand on.

I am surprised for my love for her, for the way I want to hold her in my arms and let her know it will truly, truly be okay. I want to tell her that she will find her place in this world. That she will slowly learn to lean into, and live, decently, without him.

The love comes out of my right arm, through my fingertips as I take her hand. I say to her after a moments silence, “Wow, I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to loose him so suddenly. I hear you.”

Because I know she simply wants
to be
heard.

Exactly what I wanted and
still want.

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Happy Father's Day

July 2008, Malibu

So I was gonna try and ignore Father’s Day.
It’s Father’s Day and my kids don’t have one.

I was gonna just treat it like every other Sunday only….
Well last time I tried to run from one of the “big” days,
like his anniversary death date,
like his birthday,
like random days when his loss seems to be around every corner,
I get slammed,
Emotionally beat up,
eaten and then spewed out.

It took days for me to recover.
My whole body, my mind, just like in the beginning,
unable to focus, skittish,
in a sluggish way.

So this time, instead of running from his loss,
I turn into it.

Not out of bravery.
Not out of “I’ll show it whose boss!”

I turn into it out of the idea that facing the monster diminishes its power.
I’m not afraid anymore (or well just not afraid TODAY )

Cause what I have learned on this 792 day since his death is:

the loss won’t kill me.

Its unpredictability, won’t make my heart stop.
Its depth won’t suffocate me.
Its “holy-shit-this-hurtness” won’t be with me every single moment of every single day.
I have learned that all that pain that often brings me to my knees in random places like the kitchen, outside the car and yes, once in Whole Foods,
washes over me and then goes away.
And while I don’t like it, (I will never like the feeling of being left, abandoned and vulnerability),
every time, every fucking time afterward,
a rainbow appears.
And at the end of that rainbow is the new, better me!

It was a gift to have him even if he did stink up the bathroom (Cannonization of Art)
It was a gift to loose him (Dancing)

I am standing here, not just stronger, but wiser, more open, more sensitive than I have ever been.

I am standing here alive.
And alive means feeling all of it but knowing that “all” passes. The joy all and the yucky all, it passes.

Now as for the kids, cause really, the day is more about them, than about me.

This year I watched the grief and hopelessness catch up with Langston and flip him, and for moments, pin him to the floor. I have watched him look for relief in food, in friends and in video games. I have stood beside him, nodding my head, rubbing his back, curling me 128lb frame around his 251lb one.

He is walking his own journey and it is not for me to dictate it, fix it or say “No, no don’t go that way!” because he has to find his own place of strength. I have to remind myself that it is not one I can create for him.

His blessing through this? It seems that it is dawning on him (slowly) that the outside things bring him only temporary relief. He’s learning to turn into the loss, too. (That’s more awakening most adults 3, 4 and 5 times as old as he is!)

For Pallas, I still worry. I’m not sure where she is. I watch her float around with her friends, and with me seemingly content. I worry but as the saying goes, “Worry is putting a negative spin on the future.

For Ezra, I watch him fear the fear of his loss, hold it in till he turns blue with it and then let it out because he doesn’t have the strength (who does?) to keep it all pent up! And then worry what we will think him less than when it comes tumbling out. I am waiting for him to discover, like his brother, to run from it, gives it more power.

They lost a father, a man that cannot be replaced. I lost a husband who frankly, can be replaced. (I don’t believe there’s only one soul mate per lifetime.)

And the journeys my kids travel are their journeys. Not mine, I have to be careful not to confuse the two.

No doubt Father’s Day will mean different things to them as they grow up, as they discover and acknowledge their own courage and growth as it spills out of them in this life.

This year (cause next year may find me in completely different place!) Father’s Day is a day to give thanks to Art for being a decent dad and for mourning the kind of father he “could have been.” It’s also day for me to marvel at my children as they make their way in the world without a dad, something I didn’t have to do.

The one thing I hope for them for forever is that Father’s Day doesn’t scare them, doesn’t become a day to avoid.

I hope that Father’s Day becomes their independence day.

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Every Sunday

(Written 2/2011)

Every Sunday it happens.
I go into my office to print out the grocery list.
And find myself on the computer
Searching for……
a distraction,
a reason,
a gift,
something that will ease the unease.

I read the past week’s posts of the other widows.
I look at my emails.
I answer the ones that don’t take much out of me.
Finally, I refocus but not before I feel
Overwhelmed
by the emails
that require me to plan, to think, to notice that I have to do it again
alone.

I have to make lists that will get checked off
by
me.

Before I get stuck in overwhelm, I force myself to remember what I came in for.
I print out the grocery list and begin the routine.

Weeks meal plan
Three grocery stores
To Do List for the week

Every Sunday, I feel empty and alone.
Every Sunday I use my computer as a way to run from it
and every Sunday it doesn’t work.

This Sunday I went further
I tried ice cream, hoping the cold creaminess will make me
forget the
cold
emptiness.

It didn’t.

So I tried alcohol.
Hoping the gentle relaxation would allow me to weather the
insecurities, the fear, lesson the weight of the world that not only sits on my shoulders
but my spine,
my stomach and
my knees.

It doesn’t.

I call a neighbor. “Do you have anything?” I ask.
He runs me up a little something to smoke.
I look at it. I go to light it and I stop.
I know it won’t work either.

So I call this guy I know. This friend.
Strong hands, a comforting hug, a good kisser
I go to him.
I want to know that I matter to another man.
I want to feel his arms around me, to sink into the testosterone, the power
the protectiveness of him.

It works...
but only for a little while.

I get back into my car
And I am crying
And praying to God

“Please help me!
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take the weight, I cannot make one more decision on what we will eat this week by myself I can’t!”

And even as I say it, I know I am lying.
I’ve done it every Sunday for over 52 of them. I can do it for 100s more.

Every Sunday I wonder, is this it?
Is this what surviving grief looks like?
Is this what I worked so hard to get too?

Really?

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A Different Grief

Pallas and Langston

It was a lovely evening. I could feel the exhaustion running all the way into my finger tips and for once I welcomed it. It was 9:30 pm. I checked the clock 7 times to make sure I hadn’t misread it.

9:30 pm and for once all three of my children were in bed and….asleep.
A self-congratulatory smirk (accompanied with a sigh of unimaginable relief) passes over my lips. I’m in bed at 9:30 pm!!! I close my eyes doing a happy-skip-run-prance towards sleep.

I am exhausted. In an effort to take care of myself I have run myself into the ground. Eating healthy and answering all those kid questions, paying attention to the long and drawn out stories, making orthodontist appointments, and ordering skin cream and buying bikinis and getting my 9 year old to SLEEP IN HIS OWN DAMN bed and getting a break from them and running a business (two now….) and trying to have a social life and exercising and trying to spend quality time with each of them so they don’t feel further abandoned and teacher meetings and volunteering (which I admit I HAVE TO STOP doing) and talking to a new widow 3 times a week and remembering who has what game/doctors appointment/play date when
has
run
me
into
the
ground.

9:30 is huge fucking triumph!!!

I drift into my triumph

At that mother sleep level, the level that allows you to hear the cough, the sneeze, the bathroom runs, the talking when you are asleep but not quite wake up, I hear him rise from bed. I hear his heavy methodical one-foot-slightly-dragging footsteps make their way towards the bathroom. Only they don’t stop they keep heading my way. I think “Lie really still. He’ll just go away.”

I remember those nights when all three kids just seemed to keep getting up, Art and I would pretend to be asleep so the other one would get up with whichever kid had just wandered into our room. I remember how the person who “won” would feel guilty and would hold open the covers.

So I’m pretending and it’s not working because Art’s dead and I’m the only one here. Langston, my oldest, says to me, almost pleading, “Mom I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” His voice is nasally, stuffed up, then that mother awareness memory kicks in. He’s been blowing his nose….a lot. My big man-child has been crying. A lot. Him in pain jolts me awake.

“Hey … kiddo, what’s going on?” I hesitate using ‘kiddo” it’s what Art called him. I let my mother imagination fly … drugs, girls, bullying and suicide. He won’t tell me. He won’t alleviate my anxiety. He repeats over and over again “I don’t’ want to go to school. I don’t want to go to school.”

I repeat “I need to know what’s going. I need to know what’s going on. “

After the seventeenth “I need to know what’s going on.” He shouts, exasperated, “Never mind!!” and storms out. I get up, go into his room, he’s not there. I find my crocks, grab my sweatshirt and head out the front door, that I just noticed is ajar. And there he is. Sitting on the front stoop.

“I want to be alone.” He says. I pretend I didn’t hear him. I sit next to him. I put my hand on his back wondering when did this back become the back of a man, and not of a little boy. His man back is shaking as he cries.

My heart, that feels so fragile, begins to tear at seams that have been mended over and over and over again.

“Sweetheart, tell me what’s going on. It’s safe. I promise you it’s safe.” I say
“It’s everything.” he says “I miss Daddy and no one understands. Only one of my friends gets it.”

I say “Yes, that’s true. Many of my friend’s don’t get it and it makes me feel lonely.
But you know people who get it. You can talk to them.”

Then he says
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!”
I want to laugh.
I’ve been waiting my whole parenting life for one of them to say that to me.

“You don’t,” he catches a sob in his throat, “You don’t have to walk past his office every single day!

Rip…the seam is completely undone.

Langston attends school where Art used to work and he does walk past his old office every day. I thought it didn’t bother him.

I’m such as ass.
Such a mother ass!
I know better than those not-knowing people who act all surprised at my sudden tears over Art’s loss and say “Are still mourning?”


“I think about him all the time, Mom. All the time, every day and I don’t want to think about him every day.”

He’s sobbing. He’s almost pleading. My 6 feet-225-pound-14-year-old is sobbing. I'm trying to use my 5’7”-130-pound frame to comfort him and it feels entirely inadequate.

This is THE WORST PART OF ALL THIS.

I can’t fix it for him.
I can’t protect him from this loss.
No amount of words, or actions or back rubs will take his pain away.

It is like watching someone drown because I am unable to swim.

I’m silent. Every day he walks past Art’s office. Every day. How many of those days does he think he might see his dad? How many of those days does he just want to punch that door?

It feels like for the first time I am seeing his world, a world that doesn’t include potential other fathers the way my world includes potential other husbands.

He lost his father. There will be no other.

I breath deeply. He is not ok…he has been hurting all this time? Shame rises and then falls. In Art’s death I feel the lack of motherhood omnipotence.

He’s right. I don’t get it.
I don’t understand because I don’t walk past Art’s office every day. I don't understand because my dad lived till I was just one day shy of 40, not when I was 12.

Then he says, “Mom, it was so hard having you and Pallas and Ezra fall apart but I couldn’t.”

I let out the kind of sob that hurts my body.

“I know, baby. It must have been so hard for you to lose Daddy and then have me not being able to function. Sweetheart, I’m here now, I’m functioning. It’s ok. We survived it.”

He continues, “I felt so powerless. Unable to do anything to help you.”

This is when I hear my heart shatter.

I stifle the sobs. “I know how you feel.” I say.

He just sits there and cries. And I sit next time him, my hand on his back, or stroking his hair, his neck. I do what I wanted so many others to do for me.

I witness him.

I witness his pain. I honor it. I validate it. I don’t hand him a tissue, I don’t say “It’ll be alright.” I don't distract him with "You know your father loved you." or "Your dad used to...." stories. I just sit there until he’s cried out.

I put him to bed and he lets me rub his back as he falls asleep. I notice that it takes longer than I remember to traverse the distance from his left shoulder to his right, then down diagonally to his waist and across.

He has grown in the last two years, inside and out. Another loss for me. I feel like I am seeing him for the first time in two years, since Art died.

And in those long strokes, I send him courage and strength and love, love, and love. I sit in my powerlessness, finding that I do have some power.

My power is not in protecting him but in honoring his journey. My power is in not lying to him, telling him it will be ok because it will never be ok. His father is dead.

My power is in letting him have his feelings and making them ok. My power lies in showing him that the bad is followed by the good, which will be followed by the bad and the good again.

My power is in teaching him to hold tight to those moments…all of them because they are what will make him so wonderfully approachable and human.

I see his grief and my grief as separate. I always saw it as the same.
He lost a father, someone that cannot be replaced.

I mourn his innocence.

-----

I finished writing this, the eve of Mother's Day, and for a moment I can't think. I keep wishing everyone else a Happy Mother's Day and forget that it applies to me as well.

I'm not sure how I feel about it or that I should even put much thought into it. The man who is partially responsible for me becoming a mother is dead, but I'm still a mother. A very, very different mother than I would have been if he were still alive. I haven't thought about the ways I've changed till now.

But when I re-read my post I see. In Art's death, I am becoming the mother I always wanted to be. The approachable kind, the kind that my kids (and others?) know will love them, will honor them, their triumphs and foibles. I am impatient, but real (I'm sorry guys. I don't have the space right now to help you.) I am harsh. (It's because when I was your age I didn't have the chance to do it. It may not make sense to you. But you are doing it anyway!) Above all I hope my kids see that I am human -- flawed and imperfect, courageous and terrified and still moving, changing and forever growing. I have never felt more like a real mother than I do today, at this moment.

Art's death freed me to be this kind of mother.

So to all you widow-mothers out there -- I love you. Our journey through motherhood without husband's is an imperfect one, full of bad words, horrible feelings and unwise actions. Yet we not only live it but find the courage to grow in it.

That truly is the miracle of motherhood.

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730 Days

Written on April 15, 2011

729 days and 22 hours ago…

we were dancing in his room.

We were drinking beer, watching American Idol

and eating.

I can’t remember what.

We were laughing together,

his sister, his best childhood friend, my friend and I.

And then one of us would look at him,

and cry.

I tried to forget all of that today.

I told myself that I will “ignore” tomorrow.

I had decided that I would ignore this anniversary.

The 730^th day.

730 days since my life

shifted,

became Jell-O under my feet,

since it ended up on a different life plane.

And those memories of the last hours of his life

can’t be stopped.

I tried eating my way into ignorance.

I tried drinking my way past them.

And yet, there they are,

those pointy edges,

those fragments of memory,

pricking me,

making me bleed tiny little droplets

and

as I bleed out,

in comes the physical response to the grief.

My spine aches,

my eyes feel prickly.

I feel fuzzy, unclear and surreal.

Just like I did 729 days ago.

I am filled with the same joy too. It was us, the four of us there, in our cocoon. The world stopped at the hospital door. Those three were there with me, we were there to help him leave this life. It was beautiful those last hours.

His leaving so black, so unknowing. Sarah McGloughlin reminding me to:

“Hold on.

Hold on to yourself.

This is gonna hurt like hell.”

I remember the nurse telling me that I wasn’t cooping well.

And I yelling at her, “I know I’m not cooping. My husband is dying! Now get him more morphine!”

I remember all of it

It pours into me.

There is no stopping it, no deciding to ignore it.

So I sit still

Let the tears come in their sporadic, unpredictable rhythm,

dropping down my cheek and onto my shirt.

I use my hands to swipe at them, smearing the wetness onto the back of my hands then onto my cheeks and then my pants or the bed duvet cover. Tissues …I can’t. Placing something clean and white under my eye to safely contain the grief feels absurd.

Grief is messy and wet and unpredictable.

I want these tears to represent all of it.

And then I want to cry not just to honor what has been lost,

but what

has

been

gained.

I can’t be one without the other.

730 days.

730 days.

730 days.

730 days.

To be followed by 731.

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The New Road

some where on the I-5 in CA heading south

862 miles

14 hours in the car

in two days
.
Less actually, because we left at 
1:00 pm on Friday
 and got back tonight (Saturday) at 7:00 pm.



It started with a casual comment.
"Hey, you guys wanna go to Sacramento to the State Championship Basketball games for the boys and the girls varsity teams?" I asked my kids on Tuesday.



"Sure." came their reply, unaware of the weight their casualness carried. 



The plan?
Drive to San Francisco, (387 miles) stay over night with Art's cousin.
Get up early the next morning and drive to Sacramento (91 miles).
Watch two basketball games, then drive home (384 miles).

The motivation is simple and clear.
It would be fun and
I think I can do it.


862 miles in 30 hours.

Crazy talk.


Overwhelming talk.


Why-didn't-someone-talk-me-out-of-it? talk.



Only this time, I notice, I'm on a new road.



It's unfamiliar.


It makes me grin.



The road is called SPONTANEITY!

 And I’m diggin' its slickness, its sense of adventure, its well-what-the-heckness, its I-can-handle-an-unplanned-event confidence.


Two years ago, I could not have done this.
Last year I could not have done this.
4 months ago, I could not have done this.
Today, I smirk.
I did it.


Spontaneity powers my grin.

Forgiveness powers my spontaneity. 


Death powers the forgiveness.

Because after his death,


after the grief lifts for longer and longer periods of time,
I see that …

grief
didn’t
kill me
(although I was sure it would).

I notice that...
I didn’t
cry
myself
to death
(although I tried).

I realize that...
the next day
kept
showing up
(although I doubted it would come again).

I grasp that ...
life went on,
but
yes,
yes
it
got
better.

I have faced loss,
painful,
excruciating loss
and
I’m still hear.

Did you hear me??????

I'M STILL HERE!!!!!

Nothing will be as hard as those moments.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G!!!!

In the realization comes freedom.

Spontaneity is my new road and I’m driving it, baby, on cruise control because
I
have
been
to hell
and
I’m
back.



On Thursday, a friend texted me and asked
“Do you want to go see Lady Gaga on Monday? VIP seats!”

As if I need VIP seats as an incentive!

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The Ghost of Art

I read one of his journals today.
I read it because
I sold
our bed,
in three hours.

I had to empty out his bedside table (they went too) before the guy came to pick it up.

Later, as I try to decide where
a mattress
on a floor would look best,
in MY room,
I get side tracked
and sift through
the box of stuff from the bedside tables. I sit down, pick up a journal and read.

It starts in June 1995, 6 months after we had been married.

I recognize his early fear of not being strong enough for us. I recognize my young self, but from his eyes. It is a refreshing and slightly embarrassing view. I am soften. I want to reach in and back and hug him and tell him it will all be ok.

The journal gives me a memory of things I had forgotten. He records our bike trips, the time he got fired from his job as a basketball coach. He records his fear and excitement about my pregnancy…and his amazement at how I just want to eat all the time. He records our trip to Paris and every single place we visit. He records his disappointment at work and his deep disappointment for his parent’s reactions. He records his love for me.

He records the good advice I gave him, calling it “another good thing Kim said..”

When I open his journal
I did not expect to see him,
Rising, like a ghost.
But he is no longer clear.
He is like mist.
I can see him if I stand still or far enough away from this life.
But up close, he looses his definition.

Reading that journal brought him back to me but not in a full form.

My life is past him, and here in this life 702 days away from loss,
I can only see traces of him.

It’s strange because I see
the idea of him, of Art,
doesn’t fit in this new place,
in this bedroom with no bed.

I could not be who I have become if he were here.

It’s almost like another death. A quieter
More gentle death
As I move forward, I leave him behind
In the mist
As a ghost.

Tonight
I will lie on the mattress,
on the floor and cry,
for him, for me
for how I am leaving him,
and for all the good things I have
become since he has gone.

That is what needs to happen
So I can find a new bed.

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Tired

I’m tired of being a widow.
I’m tired of bringing the car to the mechanic when the red maintenance light visually screams at me.
I’m tired of running out of food and being responsible for getting more.
I’m tired of waking up by myself.
I’m tired of being solely responsible for:

Bringing in all the income
Paying all the bills
Making sure the kitchen is clean.
Preparing the kids for their car pool.


I’m tired of not hearing “Daddy?”
I’m tired of hearing “Mom?” from three different voices in 13 seconds.
I’m tired of being interrupted while I am trying to hear what the first "mom" yeller (or was it the second) call was about.

I’m tired of telling people I’m a widow.
I’m tired of using it to help me get what I need
Or don’t need (like that traffic ticket).
I’m tired of the look that people give me when they find out I’m a widow.
I’m tired of that fucking gentle touch on the arm which really means “I’m so sorry for you and I’m so glad it’s not me.”
I'm tired of my widow story.

I’m tired of explaining that widowhood is not all doom and gloom
I’m tired of talking about the growth, the joy, the fun it is too.

I’m tired of going to teacher conferences alone.
I’m tired of teachers asking me to do that one more thing for one child or another, not realizing that it will break me.
I’m tired of taking the kids to doctor’s appointments, dropping off the prescriptions and picking them up and administering them by myself.

I’m tired of listening for that horrible cough in the middle of the night by myself.

I’m tired of holding our children as they cry because they want you to come back.
I’m tired of my powerlessness to fix it.
I’m tired of telling myself that they will be better people for your death.

I’m tired of my over reaction to the Legos on the floor.

I’m tired of not knowing what will trigger sobbing.

I'm tired of the guilt I feel because Langston, as a teenager, doesn't have a father.

I’m tired of being awed by all that they are doing and then, in the next breath regretting that they won’t ever know the joy of looking up and seeing you smile at them after they did it.

I’m tired of the irritated sound of my friend's voices when I need to talk.

I’m tired of the shallow “OMG! You look so great!” as if there is a direct correlation between looking good and feeling good.

I’m tired of admiring my body…by myself.

I’m tired of deciding to: break the cell phone contract, buy a new couch, and enter that cycling race with you not here to discuss it.

I’m tired of being lonely.

I’m tired of writing about widowhood
I’m tired of crying.
I’m tired of missing you.
I’m tired of loving the person I have become since you have been gone.

I’m tired of forgetting, in very brief moments, that you are dead.

I’m tired of planning each day, a closely choreographed dance, with dancers who want to go their own way on a tiny stage.
I tired of remembering drinks for the team, that Langston is sleeping over at ___'s house, that Ezra needs cleats and what color Pallas wants to paint her room.
I’m tired of asking:

What is your homework plan?
Did you write that thank you note?
Will his parents be home?

I’m tired of forgiving myself for the missed phone calls, forgotten plans and skipped lunches.

I’m tired of fearing dates:
6 months,
1 year and now
two years dead.
Your birthday or
Langston’s or
Ezra’s or Pallas’s.
Or mine.

I’m tired of discovering that the reason I have been feeling so crappy for so many days is because I have been in a death march (Susan, such a great and accurate phrase!) because one of those dates is coming.

I’m tired of crying in Trader Joes (I am sure they are too).

I’m tired for trying to remember if something occurred before you died or after.

I’m tired of looking forward to the weekend, only to realize the weekends offer no break from the kids, from the grocery shopping, from being an only parent.

I’m tired of the men I date not even trying to understand what it is to be an only parent, not just a single one!

I’m tired of not having someone to tag team with.

I’m tired of not having anyone to look horrible in front of but still be loved.

I’m tired of your parents who can’t take ONE damn step out of their comfort zone to see your children.

I'm tired of hearing them say how important family is but backing it up with NO action whatsoever.

I’m tired of not having someone to talk about the car or the stupid pedestrian I almost hit on my bike ride today.

I’m tired of having no one to discuss my day with.
I’m tired of thinking about the energy and time it takes to get into a new relationship.

I’m tired of craving sex.
I’m tired of wanting to be held, of needing to be touched.
I'm tired of wondering if my sagging breasts are a turn off.
I'm tired of wondering if I'm good in bed.
I'm tired of waiting to have sex.
I'm tired of wondering if I can give a good blow job.
I'm tired of worrying about diseases!

I’m tired of wanting someone to take care of me, so I can have the energy to take care of everything and everyone else.

I’m tired of clean sheets and a clean body and no one to enjoy them with.

I’m tired of wishing I could see you just one more time, just one more fucking time, healthy.

I’m tired of watching the anguish in our kid’s eyes as they miss you.

I’m tired of writing about you.
I’m tired of talking about you.
I’m tired of telling stories about you to our kids so they can know you.

I’m tired.
I am so, so, so fucking tired.

So honey?
When the fuck are you coming back? Cause I’m tired of this shit.

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Get the BLEEP Away from Me!!

Take your hands off of me!

I said get away from me!

Only you don't understand it cause the words that are coming from my mouth are...

"Damn it, L! How many times do I need to tell you to pick up, wipe off, clean up your _____ (insert typical mother rant hear.)

I CAN NOT DO THIS ALONE!" I yell.

Really wanting to throttle him,

to give my hands something to do

with rage,

disappointment,

anger,

hopelessness,

and trapped-ness.

Art Nagle! Damn you, Art Nagle!

You were supposed to be here!

I picked you!

I am not supposed to be doing this alone.

Damn you! Damn you! Damn you for dying!

And damn me for only having two arms, two legs, two ears and one over-wrought tired and lonely brain!

I scream, "Death sucks!" and I slam the door.

I cry.

And then later, I pick up and keep moving forward.

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The Smell

I didn’t mean to.
I was only trying to help
To help him
Because he missed you so much.

He was in your closet.
He came out and said,
“It doesn’t smell like Daddy anymore.”

He looked so sad.
He looked so forlorn.

So I showed him my secret.
Your cap.
The one I have kept folded up
Tight
In a Ziplock bag,
Stashed
in my bedside table.

I unzipped it.
We both inhaled.
It smelled like you.

And then his face crumbled.
Mirroring mine, I think

Your smell.
Your smell reminding us,
Of how it no longer surrounds us,
How we can’t take it for granted.
How it is no longer part of the background of our lives
How it is fading.

We didn’t remember what you smelled like
Till that moment.

And after we remembered
Me and Ezra,
Ezra and I,
Sat on the floor
Sobbing like ….

The people we are
A wife,
A son,
Missing you.

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Another

I had a conversation yesterday with another widow.
Sorry, a widower
He wanted to meet me after his sister, a friend, showed him my black widow photo.

It was a conversation that felt good, connected and real.
It was a conversation with laughter and head nodding (which he didn’t see cause we were on the phone.)
It was a conversation of understanding.

It was a conversation of “Oh!! ME TOO!”
It was a conversation of faith.
It was a conversation of regret.
It was a conversation of courage and hope.

It was a conversation that made me sad.
It was a conversation that afterwards made me cry
For all that we have both lost.
It was a conversation that made me sigh for all that we have gained.

It was a conversation that reminds me that with pain comes wisdom
and hope
and profound tenderness.

It was a conversation that reminded me that while I didn’t want this life, I am moved by it
and
odd enough
grateful for it.

Grateful because I can have a conversations with a widower and recognize my inspiring journey in his words.

I can’t wait to talk to him again.

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Death Sucks

I was wearing this t-shirt the other day.

It was a "you think your life is bad, I dare you to try mine" day.

I was feeling righteous.

I was feeling mad.

I was feeling "How dare you world go on and leave me here, in this life, struggling today to just do enough.

How dare you!"

I was willing to take it out on any poor sap who dared comment about death sucking.

So I put on the t-shirt, hoping that one person would comment,

would open their mouth and say

"Life can't be that bad." or something that would let me tell them

how bad my life was at the moment.

And then I saw her.

This young woman.

She made eye contact

and came towards me, purposefully.

I rehearsed my lines in my head.

She smiled.

She leaned into me, gently holding my arm and said

"I'm so glad you are wearing that t-shirt. I sometimes think I am the only one who truly believes that Jesus will rise again. Death does suck and that's why it does not happen to the believers. God bless you."

I give her a faint smile.

I nod.

I leave the grocery story.

I
laugh
all the way home.

I take off the shirt.

My death suckiness day having come to an abrupt end.

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On a Four Star Floor

Written on Thursday, January 13, 2011 during my two day break from the kids.

I’m sitting on the floor of a four star hotel (paid for with Amex points)
I’m crying
and
I can’t seem to stop.

This is not how I wanted this break to go.
I wanted it to be about rejuvenation and rest and self-love.

Instead it feels, right now, like it’s about not enoughness and loss and fucking grief.

It feels like it's about transition and learning.

It feels like there will be no peace from the hole, the void, the confusion that has placed me on the floor of this four star hotel.

I got this email from a client, someone who should have never been a client.
She is upset with how I am working with her. I take her criticism and turn it global. I smear it all over my body.

I become
what is wrong,
instead of just my wrong action.

After two glasses of wine,
I send a bit cocky email to a guy who I like.
This afternoon, I reread it and am amazed how there is no gentleness or softness, something I like to be, I need to be, I like to be with him.

I layer that mistake on top of the one I made with my client.

I become all things bad.

And then I open up my web browser
And I see
a photo of
Christina Green’s brother (Tuscon shootings)
wiping tears away.

I stand up, sobbing.
I pace the floor.
I walk over to the window, back to the hotel door.
Then without knowing that I am doing it,
I am on my knees on the floor,
hands covering my face, forehead leaning of the floor.

I laugh for a moment, I have spent a lot of time on floors this past one year and 8 months!

And I think:
How is it I’m grieving again?
How is it that the sobs can come from a place so deep I forget it exists?

I think:
I don’t’ want this life.

I think:
This is just too hard

The kids, the dating
The business

I think:
I want it all to be easy
Because after what I have been through,

I think I deserve easy.

I want easy.

I desire easy.

I think:
Easy
is not
what this is!

One sob out, a slower breath in and I remember,
it’s not them.
It’s not what they do or say or what I write or the photo I saw that leave me on the floor.

It’s that I have forgotten
I am still a well-functioning

raw nerve.

The emotions from Art’s death are just a short dig, a disappointed client, a stupid email, a photograph away.

When will I stop being so sensitive?



Maybe that’s the
wrong
question. Maybe the question is:

When will I just give into the sensitivity and learn to embrace it?

I think

it’s what

makes me real.

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All I Can Be Is Who I Am

Pallas was assigned this book in school. I would read sections of it to her. The first time I read the section below out loud, I could not finish it. I was sobbing as Pallas watched me curiously. Mau had put into words the way I feel about being a widow.

I hope you will read the entire quote for nothing I have read has fully encompassed what widowhood means to me than this single paragraph.

Back story: Mau’s entire family and village are wiped by a wave. The wave also shipwrecks Daphne (ghost girl). As the days go on, survivors from neighboring islands arrive. Mau and Daphne (both approximately age 12) find themselves in charge of building new lives for themselves and this new nation.

From Nation by Terry Pratchett

Daphne asks, “Would you go back? If you could?”

“How can I answer you? There is no language. There was a boy called Mau. I see him in my memory, so proud of himself because he was going to be a man. He cried for his family and turned the tears into rage. And if he could, he would say “Did not happen!” and the wave would roll backward and never have been. But there is another boy, and he is called Mau too. And his head is on fire with new things. What does he say? He was born in the wave, and he knows that the world is round and he met a ghost girl….. He called himself the little blue hermit crab, scuttling across the sand in search of a new shell, but now he looks at the sky and knows that no shell will ever be big enough, ever. Will you ask him not to be? Any answer will be the wrong one. All I can be is who I am.”

There was a woman and her name was Kim.

I see her in my memory and she is a fairly happy person and she has a husband and three children and dreams of being “somebody.’ She cried for her husband when he died and couldn’t see how she could live with such great loss in her life. She would say “I can’t do this.” She would wish her husband alive, make bargains in order to bring him back. And would spend long periods of time wondering around her house, functioning but unable to think or move without her husband. She wondered how she was going to get through the day.

There is another woman named Kim too. And her mind and life are on fire! She says “OMG! I can do so much and I feel so happy!” She was born in her husband’s death. She sees his death as his last gift to her. She has discovered herself and her courage. She sees that life is full of hope and fun and new things. She sees her abilities are growing and she discovers new ones too.

Can I ask her not to be? All I can be is who I am.

I spent the last moments of 2010 making a list of all the things that I am grateful for in that year. In contrast, I spent the last few moments in 2009 (the year my husband died), praying/hoping/begging God to make 2010 better. I gave 2009 the finger as I stepped into 2010.

I gave 2010 a sweet kiss and hug as I stepped into 2011. I cannot go back. And I cannot ask me not to be, either. The old me and the new me make up this me whose potential I am quiet excited about.

If you are new to this journey, if you don’t know how you will make it, know you don’t have to know.

None of us knew.

I still don’t at times.

But there is one thing I do know, the pain does not last. It comes less frequently and with every time, every cry, every longing, I find nuggets of courage and light.

In 2010, I discovered my strength, my courage and my ability to handle adversity. It was not pretty and yet I stand here before you in my newly discovered inner beauty.

And by jove (I have always wanted to use that saying!) if I can get here, so can you.

Welcome to 2011! May you marvel and celebrate your strength!!

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Wonder Woman Again

On Tuesday night, I went on a second date

dressed as

Wonder Woman.

I know...right?!

The back story: We tried to get together and then he was making cracks via email about how busy I am and then he asked if I was out saving the world, or something like that.

He made a joke about my invisible airplane. His last comment to me before we met was "Don't forget your cape!"

And like someone shoving me in the chest, I reacted. I thought "I'm gonna wear my Wonder Woman costume."

Wonder Woman

I bought the outfit in 2006 one month after Art was diagnosed with cancer during his first battle.

I wanted to be a queen that year until Langston, then age 9, pointed out the Wonder Woman costume and said "Mom, you should be this!" I laughed as I paid for it at the register.

Art almost fell over when I met him at the door after he was being escorted home from a chemo treatment.

My friends thought it was the best costume .... EVER.

And then I put it way.

And then, three years later Art died.

So on Tuesday, I'm sitting outside a wine bar, in my car, dressed as a blonde Wonder Woman. And I'm on the phone talking to a widow friend of mine.

"This is stupid." I say.

"No it's not Kim. It's who you are. You are Wonder Woman!"

I take it in.

I feel my superpower rising.

She is right.

I am Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman is back, I think.

Wonder Woman with the faults that do not make her weak but actually make her strong.

Wonder Woman is real.

Wonder Woman has been who I have been all this time, since the moment he was diagnosed to this moment, one year and 8 months after his death.

I realize Wonder Woman is back.

I wear it to meet this guy who is laughing so hard he can't talk for a moment.

I stand there laughing too because he enjoys the joke so much, because I had the balls to say "Fuck it" again and show up in a costume for a second date.

The next day I am laughing because he has written out the lyrics to the Wonder Woman theme song and sent them to me and... he asked me to accompany him to a Christmas party.

He likes Wonder Woman.

The costume will not go back in the Halloween box.

It will stay with me, in my closet so that

I can remember

that Art's death

has brought back

Wonder Woman.

It's nice to see her again.

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Wild Crazy

L, my 13 yr old is taking French. The Spanish classes met at the same time as the Jazz Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra. He plays the cello.

And he says “Mom, what would really help me is if we went to France.”

And I say, “Ok, wanna go this summer?” This is not a bluff. I have spent the past three weeks deciding where we will live (Chamonix region). I have checked out vacation homes in that area and I have posted on yahoo traveler groups for insider tips. And honestly, I think we may stay a little longer like a year or ….three.

My living room is devoid of furniture, having sold it all a few months ago. Last week, I spent 3 hours in a furniture store. I made the sales person drool as I choose a rug, a coffee table and a cool comfy chair and then inquired about someone who could go to my mom’s garage…in Connecticut (I live in LA), measure the furniture that is being stored there and then make arrangements to ship it out here.

Tonight, I am standing at a party, talking to a man, looking at his lips and I open my mouth to say “I’m sorry. Can you just kiss me right now? I want to see if your lips are as soft as they look and if you are as good a kisser as I think you may be.” I pause before I say anything, then don’t say anything at all.

I feel crazy.

Wild crazy.

The kind of crazy that lately let’s me buy two pairs of jeans for more money that most people’s monthly car payments. The kind of crazy that almost has me purchasing a new piece of art work for 3 months of rent. The kind of crazy that has me longing for physical touch that I considering leaving my kids alone, knocking on “this” guy’s door at 12 midnight just so I can be held and caressed and can fall asleep in a man’s arms. In a man’s arms. In a man’s arms.

It’s the kind of crazy that will make my friends and family whisper to each other “Well, obviously, she’s still grieving and hasn’t thought this through.”

I remember the day I came home from the hospital after Art died. I remember having the need to COMPLETLEY rearrange my house so that it too would be as changed and different as I felt. I was wild crazy with grief.

It is all I can do to keep this wild, crazy in check.

I am wild crazy with “Why the fuck not? Huh, really why the fuck not?!!!” I can’t afford to spend a month in France. Hell, my French is on the level with a two year old.

And everyone knows the way to get a man is not to, in the middle of a conversation, stop him from talking and challenge him to kiss you to see if he kisses well.

But it’s what I want to do. I want my habits to reflect the crazy wild I feel.

I want my kids to have ‘those” kind of stories that they share with their college friends and beyond. “One year, my mom lost it. She took us to France for the summer and we stayed there for four years!” “She dated this guy who……” “She wore these hot pink jeans and …..” I want them to know what if feels like to be wild crazy and to survive it and to look back and say “Wow but cool!”

And here’s the thing, while it feels wild crazy, there is a part of me that knows I make more sense than most people on the other side of death. There is piece of me that understands that after death

“Fuck it”

is a really good answer.

There is part of me that really, really wants to let loose, to live large, to worry later cause I have spent the last 46 years of my life worrying. I have spent the last 4 years of my life watching my husband recover then die from cancer. I have spent the last 1 year and not even 7 months finding my feet, my hands, learning how to breath a whole new kind of air. And I know I will spend the next 45+ years (I will live well into my 100s) missing the man I see in my children. So why the hell, not!

So, I’m gonna stop writing because ya know what? Chamonix is amazing in the summer. I still have my rock climbing shoes and harness. I hope our babysitter is willing to come. I wonder if she speaks French.

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