Bittersweet joy

Posted on October 5, 2011 by pathfinder

Memory is a faulty thing.  We can take out our polish and make them very shiny indeed.  Were we able to actually actively revisit them, I am afraid we might find them less wonderful than we have made them.  Maybe that is a good thing.

   Maybe that is the way life should be.  We should all be waiting with our polish to brighten up the past so that we can make it through the day.

My daughter is getting married.  Her father and I are so proud of her.  Our own marriage will have it’s 35th anniversary in December.  I have all expectations for her’s to last even longer.   She is marrying at the age of 26.  She dated a number of young men during her college days and finally has found someone with whom she will share her life.

My advice  to those seeking a mate has always been to find someone who encourages you, likes you for who you are, celebrates your accomplishments with you and who, by being with you ,makes you a better person.  In essence the union of the two makes each person better and that together you accomplish more than you could do byyourself.

Each individual must be the judge of these qualities and no one person is going to accomplish this perfectly.

It is easy  to start thinking that this person will make you “happy”.  That idea is a big mistake.  No one person can MAKE you happy.  You are responsible for your own happiness.  Granted there are people who can add substantially to your happiness.  This is however, by your own choice, to accept them for who they are and to allow them entry into your space, access to your thoughts, permission to express opinions etc.

The danger comes when  the “control” issue looms its ugly head.   Who will have control?  It can make for bitter battles.

Our daughter has weathered many storms in her life.

Let me tell you about my daughter a little bit.   She is beautiful, inside and out.   She is extremely intelligent but is also gifted with common sense.  At an early age she showed a capacity for independence and creative thinking.   A musical artist, having begun learning the piano at the age of 8, she has created musical compositions.  Her drive to work and be responsible permeates everything she does.

At the age of 14 she was diagnosed with leukemia.  She underwent 2 1/2 years of chemotherapy and emerged on the other side of what should have been her adolescence an adult/child.  Matured by the sobering painful reality of the unpredictability of life she  rebounded for a while trying to make up for “lost time.”  When she finally came back down to earth and got her footing nothing would stop her from her goals.

Her fiance is a beautiful man from Zimbabwe.  He has faced his own nightmares having to leave his country at a tender age.  He is an American citizen and has studied extensively as an engineer, working in his field of “green energy resources.”  His father departed this world recently.  While in the states and unable to return to Zimbabwe he has also lost 2 brothers.  The world is a hard and terrible place.

Now our son, our daughter’s brother, her fiance’s future brother-in-law is gone too.

Yet the wedding will occur as it should, with all the fluff and brilliance that a wedding of this sort deserves.  A wedding of cultures and minds, hopes and dreams.  Hopes. Hopes for children and for a future that will bring even more joy.  Two brilliant stellar people joining their lives and ambitions together to an even greater goal than they could achieve by themselves.

The day will bring tears for many reasons, but I look forward to it.  I look forward to knowing my new son-in-law better.  I look forward to watching them achieve the things they set out for themselves to do.    My husband and I will try to be supportive without interfering.  We regret that our son will not be here to witness the wedding, to take part in the joy of the event, to be brother to his sister and her husband.

It is truly and absolutely bittersweet and that control issue rears its ugly head as we realize with resignation there is nothing, nothing we can do about our son, our son-in-law’s father or brothers.

So let’s bring out the champagne flutes and toast to this new union, this new fusion of lives and all the hope for the future it brings.   May they have the very best of everything that is possible.

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Enough for now.

Posted on October 3, 2011 by pathfinder

Monday has come again.  It was a busy Monday for me with errands and  business to do.  A good friend met me and helped me with the transport of some paintings from one gallery to another.  The company of others is good therapy.

 The coming home to an empty house is hard.

At the end of October our daughter is getting married.  Her brother was supposed to be in the wedding and help her with the music choices.   I know her struggle is different from ours, though equally as difficult.   The fact that she misses him is undeniable.   He was her only sibling.  I don’t know what it feels like to loose a brother or sister.

Her ability to work through the sorrow and continue to function has been inspiring.  There are different triggers for her, than for me.   I worry that she feels neglected or that this horrible grief overshadows the joy that her upcoming marriage brings.   The feeling I have is that everything seems muffled.  Intense color and sound and light startle me a little and I want to withdraw.  Perhaps that accounts for my reluctance to participate in situations where there are a lot of people involved.

How do I make sure to be totally present for my daughter?  After all, she is still here, still a vital, loving, beautiful part of my life.   At the age of 14 she was diagnosed with Leukemia.  Her brother was 18 at the time, having just turned 18 and heading to his graduation from high school.   We were plunged into darkness that April.  We began two and a half years of chemotherapy with our daughter.  Our son opted to stay at the local university to be close by while she was in treatment.  During those years I don’t know what he did.  I have tried to remember but there are only bits and pieces.   I never got the chance to ask him what he thought during those years, though I did find out later that he suffered from panic attacks.   Maybe I should heap some guilt on myself for not being able to divide myself more evenly between my two children or guiltier still among my children and husband.  We were in survival mode.

Our daughter did survive.  Our son graduated from the local university and headed out west to Colorado.   Our daughter graduated with two degrees from our local university.   In getting past those years, we breathed a sigh of relief thinking the worst was behind us.

I cannot compare and contrast the times very well.  I am still too deep in grief to figure out how I feel much of the time.  Part of my grief is for my daughter, and I don’t want to pull her along where she does not want or need to go. Given that , at times,  I avoid expressing my grief.

I try to picture what my son would say if he could comment on this situation.   I know he did not want or expect to leave so abruptly.   He was getting on with his life.  He would be traveling out west right now.  He would be encouraging me to make plans, to reach out for my dreams, to travel and experience the life that was left to me. I also know he would come and wrap his arms around me and let me cry, but I’m wondering for how many years?

There are no clues or answers, no messages left, no famous last words.  He loved his sister.  I know that.  He would want her special time to be very beautiful and happy.   Maybe that is enough for now. That will have to be enough for now.

 

 

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First things first

Posted on October 2, 2011 by pathfinder

I remember when I thought I might be pregnant.  I worked in the OB-Gyn Clinic at a large hospital and one of my nurse friends said she would do the pregnancy test.   I was on the phone in my office when she peeped in the door.  I looked up to see her smile and nod yes.  The phone conversation was lost for me.  I have no idea what the person on the other end was saying.  When my husband came by later I was flustered and confused.

“I’m pregnant!” I blurted, “and I don’t want to talk about it.”  To say he looked confused was an understatement.  Let me explain.  My husband was in his second year of medical school.  I was working to help provide some of our living since we were dependent on loans.  We were living in a drafty farmhouse out in the middle of the country because it was too expensive to live in town.   We obviously had not been as careful as we had been in the past, but this pregnancy was not what you would call “planned.”

It took over a week before I felt like talking about it.  Finally we discussed what was ahead.  I had been accepted to the Master’s program in Library Science with a scholarship to become a children’s librarian.  Working at the hospital, I had great insurance coverage, as a grad student I did not.  I called the Library Science department and told them our situation.  They listened carefully and suggested that they could postpone my entry for a year and would retain my scholarship.  Seemed like the problem was solved.

I remember reclining on our little sofa in our drafty den while my husband climbed on the roof to clean the chimney.  We heated with wood and needed to make preparations for the coming cold weather.  It was then I felt the first tiny movement.   I thought I was imagining it, but there it was again.  I hurried outside and yelled to my husband on the roof.  “I just felt the baby move!”

“Great.” he smiled back at me and continued his sooty work.

I remember the visits to my obstetrician.  He enrolled me in an ultrasound study. I was working in a university hospital and they studied everything.   Every month they looked at that baby, never telling us the gender.   Finally it was the end of March.  The baby was due around Valentines’s day.  The doctor was quiet during the ultrasound exam.

“I think the baby has stopped growing.” he said ominously.  ” I think we should consider inducing labor soon.”

We did not know what to think.  We could not “Google” any information 29 years ago.  We went home waiting for the call to tell me when I was to come to the hospital.  February 3rd was the date.

I didn’t sleep much the night before.  I packed my things and the outfit I planned to bring our baby home in.  The girls in the clinic had planned a shower for me that day so after I was admitted I was wheeled down to waiting room of the OB-Gyn clinic and we had our party.  That evening they inserted laminaria to dilate my cervix, and we went back to the room to wait.  Later that evening I began to have contractions.  Giddy with excitement my husband who had not planned to spend the night went home to pack a few things and return.

By early morning labor was in full force.  My OB who had planned to stop by later in the day and begin the induction was called.  I was in the middle of a contraction when he came in the room.

“You are in labor!” my doctor exclaimed.  I had no voice with which to tell him what an idiot I thought he was.

Finally it was time to push.

“Get in position” my doctor told me.

I looked dumbfounded.  “we missed that part of the childbirth lessons last night.” my husband informed him.  My doctor laughed and said, “no problem, I can teach you pretty quickly.”

I was in a birthing room, but they transferred me to a gurney while my husband went to be gowned and readied for the delivery room.  I was too busy to ask why we could not stay in the birthing room.

I am not sure how long I pushed, but before too long our baby was born.  “It’s a boy.” our doctor announced, “and he looks just like his dad, but he may grow out of it!”

A masked face leaned down to kiss me.  It took me a moment to realize it was my husband.

Unknown to me outside the delivery room a group of pediatric intensive care doctors and nurses took off their masks and went back to the intensive care unit.  Our baby had not stopped growing.  He was just long and thin and perfect.   The nurse pronounced him “bright eyes.”

Our real adventure had begun.

On my facebook page there is a picture of my son and me sitting together.  We have on our glasses and the light is reflected there.  Someone commented , “bright eyes.”   Yes he was and ever more shall be.

When the time came for me to go to grad school I had a bittersweet call to make.  I could not put this precious baby in day care and leave him to go off to school.  The school understood.  I became my son’s own personal children’s librarian and I never regretted one day of it.  I like to think I paved part of the early route for him to go on to receive his degrees.  His PhD sadly awarded posthumously.

I remember those days well.   It was the beginning of a love story that would grow to include a baby girl a few years later.

Wonderful days, those.  Days I embrace and  remember.  First things.

 

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A mountain hike

Posted on October 1, 2011 by pathfinder

Mountain Streams

Accepting a challenge.  Why would I ever want to do that?  I think this year has proved challenging enough. Writing every day?  Yes, I am being sarcastic.

Fall is here.  The mountains are rapidly turning gold at the tips and leaves come down with every breeze.  The temperature has dropped and will drop more tonight.   The angle of the sun has changed.  There is sometimes a whiff of woodsmoke in the air as those who have fireplaces opt for a fire to break the chill.

The sky is cobalt blue with a depth that makes you want to fall up.

I look towards the pinnacle rock and black rock and think of my son.  Yesterday was a perfect day for a hike.  I tried to picture myself hiking up the trail with my dog, without my son and I could not bring myself to do it.  It is not being dramatic to say, that even though I have hiked with others, hiking will never be the same without him. Hiking will never be the same without him.

The last time we went up the pinnacle trail we took the right branch that leads  to a waterfall.  It had rained a lot and there were leaves down everywhere.  The trail was slick and I am a big chicken when it comes to falling or turning my ankle.  Unfortunately I do that quite often.  “I won’t let you get hurt.” he promised.  “We are almost there.”

The trail narrows considerably the higher you go.  The drop off to the right is very steep and there are tree roots to step and stumble over.  Some trees have come down across the trail during the recent rains, large trees that you have to climb over or scramble under to the other side.

The trail became markedly more steep requiring me to lean forward and scramble like a quadruped or cling to nearby small trees.  Then I heard it, the crash and gurgle of falling water on rocks.  It was surprising that sound did not carry farther, but rather  you had to be right there on it before it could be heard.  The view of the falls was still partially blocked by rhododendron.  The path continued on to near the top of the fall, but it was wet thread weaving among water slick rocks.  We chose instead to descent a less steep brushy area to  the base of the fall.

Once down the embankment we found ourselves on the creek bank with an elbow of the creek separating us from the base of the falls.  The air temperature there was drastically cooler.  The dogs that had accompanied us on the walk, two border collies of my son’s, my australian shepherd pup and a 10 year old pomeranian snuffled and waded the creek.  We stood quietly in the cool shade and watched the water as it cascaded over the rocks and down.  My son explained that if we had continued  up the trail  it would finally intersect the Black Rock trail, and that he had used this particular trail many times while hiking down from Black Rock.

The dogs dripping and grinning, coated in beggar lice we climbed back up to the trail and began our descent.  It was here with my feet slipping out from under me I began to panic.

“Plant your heels hard” my son instructed me.  That worked for a while till I slipped again.

He took of his backpack, slung his Nalgene bottle on his belt, tucked up the straps and handed it to me.

“Here,” he said, “take this.  If you see a steep part you don’t feel comfortable walking down, just sit down on this and slide.”

“It will ruin your backpack!” I exclaimed.

“No it won’t,” he laughed,” and if it does, it doesn’t matter.  Here, take it.”

Reluctantly I took the backpack.  The sound of the waterfall disappeared quickly.  The place where I had had to scramble on all four was just ahead.  I sat down on the pack and slid.  The dogs got a big kick out this activity and ran back and forth between me and my son.  Finally the trail widened so I  walked  again now, always planting my heels first.

My son’s older border collie began chasing the other large dogs, tucking his behind under in a comic exaggerated run and scooting down the slopes after them.  Maybe he was mocking me.   Our laughter was swallowed up by the mountainside like the voice of the waterfall.

I have not looked for that backpack.  I still have trouble going through his things.  I don’t seem to get very far before I bury my head in a shirt that still smells like him.  I dread that day when the smell fades.   Maybe our laughter is still echoing up there somewhere, however faint.  I’ll go one day again and listen.

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Lessons from the Praying Mantis

Posted on September 29, 2011 by pathfinder

There is a cycle to the moods, the intrusive thoughts, the wrenching ache.  I have felt pretty good for about three days and I also feel guilty for feeling good.   Why are we wired this way?

Is it the same need as those who inflict physical injury upon themselves to make sure they are still alive?    Am I afraid that I will forget my son, so I have to dredge myself through the pain of loosing him again and again to make sure I remember?

The intrusive thoughts that  I have usually center around the hospital.  Seeing him there, his body alive his spirit gone.   I wanted to make sure he heard me one more time, but he, I am afraid did not.

I remember the words I said, stroking his hair, kissing his still warm face.  I can bring tears up quickly with those thoughts.   So if necessary, if I am feeling like I have strayed too far from my sorrow, I have a ready trigger at hand.   The question is for me, am I trying to hard to hold on to those pain triggers and not trying to grab on to the potential joy?

My children have always been a great source of joy.  In early childhood they provided me with a constant source of amazement.  They saw the world in a new fresh way.  We talked and talked about everything and anything.  We read books, we collected things from nature, we drew and painted and listened to music.  We danced and we sang.

I did not underestimate my children and I was never disappointed.  If they expressed interest in or seemed to understand something that perhaps was considered not something a person their age would like, we pursued it anyway.  My son’s kindergarten teacher reinforced the idea.  If a child showed interest you just kept filling the glass, until they could drink no more, even if you had to go so far as to provide “college” level information.

Probably from the outside we appeared a bit eclectic.  I don’t think it has hurt either one of my children.

We discovered a praying mantis on the bushes outside our house when our son was around 6 and our daughter 3.  I took them to the library and we found a book on the praying mantis.   I remember that day because I locked my keys in the car and had to have someone come and help me get in the vehicle.  I remember frustration, being there with my two young children, and their dad at work and unreachable – it being the days before cell phones.

We took the book home finally and read about the mantis.   We figured out it was a female and because of the time of the year and her great bulging abdomen we knew she would soon produce her egg sack.  The book suggested that we could let her live on our draperies in the den for a short time.  She would drink from a teaspoon that she would reach for pulling it towards her with her grasping front legs.  We found crickets in the back yard and skewering them on a toothpick with them still kicking and

A morning walk

offered them to her.  She would reach out and take the toothpick, turning the cricket like corn on the cob all the while regarding us with reflected interest.  Finally as the days grew colder she became restless, flying from the draperies so  we put her out on the rose bushes where she could find aphids to snack on.

One day my son took me out and there was the egg sack attached to a twig.

We took it in and placed in the garage, on a shelf.   Our timing was perfect for in the Spring we found hundreds of tiny praying mantis (mantids) scattering from the now empty egg sack.

Until the day he died our son could find a praying mantis egg sack in the fall.  He would collect it and place it in the sheltered window of the garage for it to hatch and release the young.  I often find an adult female on our deck.  This year, if I am so lucky I will talk to her and regard her as she turns her triangular head towards me to  listen.  I will tell her that I know about her because of my son.

I know about so many things because of my children.

I am working on cultivating these memories, that unfortunately also make me cry, but maybe in a different way.

My son was a man of learning.  I like to think that our early times together encouraged that in him.  He and his sister opened doors to thoughts and ideas I would have never had without them.  I will just have to try harder, observe more carefully and find those things he would have had me find, perhaps catching a glimpse of him here and there along the way.

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gifts of life

Posted on September 26, 2011 by pathfinder

Emotions are running high today.  The high of being with friends for a few days, the joy of laughter and the

I keep looking for the silver lining.

The silver lining?

closeness of physical presence has dropped.  I am at home with my grief again. Grief tagged along on my weekend retreat and was brought to the surface again and again and again, but now, today I feel the full weight of it.

It seems the  sorrow wants to bury in deep into my core.

I traveled with some beautiful friends to a conference.  We rode together, ate together, roomed together and played together.  There were tears  for various reasons and much laughter.   Women are wonderful, and I am thankful for their friendship.

Thoughts of my son were close all around, but I thought I was safe because there were no triggers in this arena where we gathered.  Foolish thought, little did I know.

While sitting during a break I  decided to check my email on my iphone.  There was the letter from Lifeshare.  It thanked us and praised our son for the gifts his body shared with others.  His heart, kidneys, pancreas, liver and lungs along with his corneas.  Seven lives of people who never knew of him now changed by his death.  My son’s heart still beats, his lungs still breath, eyes now see because of him.

I weep.

Everyone who has received a gift from my son is “doing well.”  Doing well.   I suppose we too are doing as well as can be expected.

There are six children who have their parents with them now because of our son.

There are mother’s who hug their grown children now because of our son.

I wish them long and happy lives.  I wish them joy.   I wish them no harm ever, but I miss and mourn and ache for my son.

I ache for his laugh and his smile, his arms to embrace me, his gentle chiding encouragement.

Perhaps the biggest gift my children have given me is this: that I am a better person because of them.   Their honest faces and expectations of me have brought me up short so many times, and called me to be the person they expect me to be.

I fail, but I would have been a bigger failure were it not for them.

He shared himself in life, and he shared himself in death.   I cannot balance any of this out in any equation.  I am torn apart by the pain and the beauty.

I don’t even know how to talk about it coherently.

Once day we will all be gone from here.  The letter extolling our son’s gifts tucked perhaps in a box for someone to find and wonder over.   There is a certificate, suitable for framing.  I will put it with his diplomas that were never framed because he was not a man to wear his honors on his sleeve.

His life was a gift to me.

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Unthinkable

Posted on September 21, 2011 by pathfinder

There is an illusion we create of the order of things in the world.   We are born, we live, we die.  Childhood is supposed to be carefree and frivolous, puberty full of confusion and angst, teenage years dire and gothic.  By the early twenties you try to recapture some of the carefree and frivolous because the need for decisions and a career choice are looming on the horizon.  You are being called to responsibility in a new way.  Maybe you go to grad school.  Maybe you find a mate and marry, even have children of your own.   Your parents age, but they are supposed to, you are not.    Your children grow, maturing in fits and starts, make questionable decisions, do not embrace your belief system or priorities.  Then at some point they start repeating things you have said to them as if it were their own idea.  They tell you they appreciate you, they love you.  They choose to spend time with you when they have opportunities where they could do something else.  You are feeling pretty good about this whole thing.   Then, as you are sailing along peacefully, patting your fat round belly in contentment the unthinkable happens.

In the year 1989 the first unthinkable thing happened.  My husband’s dad died.  He had abused himself with alcohol and refused to take care of himself.  Our family had moved to what is now our home.  My father-in-law had yet to come visit.  My husband had yet to “show off” what his years of schooling and training had achieved for us to the father he desperately wanted to have love him, take pride in him.  Right before Christmas, having lived in our new hometown for only six months we received the call that he was gone.  Our children, two of the three grandchildren in the family were aged 7 and 4.

In February of 1998 my father was diagnosed with leukemia.  He opted not to receive treatment in light of the advanced state of his disease.  My sister’s and I along with the help of hospice helped our mother care for him at home.   He lived three months.   We cared for him as a we would a baby.

In April of 2000 our daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.  My father had been diagnosed with AML, our daughter ALL.  She was 14 years old.   Our son had been arrested  in December along with a number of his friends because of crazy prank involving a port-o-john and an explosion.  He and his friends (the top scoring SAT students including valedictorian) were not allowed to graduate with their class – the class of 2000.  We were in the middle of lawyers and trying to shore up our son’s prospects for the future when the real bomb dropped.   We scooped up our daughter and spent the next 2 1/2 years with her in treatment.   She was high-risk, with questionable cytogenetics. I don’t remember home life during those years, though I know we celebrated Christmas and the normal holidays.  I remember being at the hospital and the smell of chemotherapy.  Three of the children we met during treatment during those years died.  Our daughter survived.

Our son stayed home to go to college during those years.  I try to remember what he was doing while I was on the road with his sister.  I lost a couple of years of his life and some of my own during that time.

College days came for our daughter, graduate school for our son.  Finally he was able to leave and head out on his own and Colorado called.  He had begun doing some rock climbing here at home, but there in the Rockies he fell in love with the sport.   Colorado.  That first place you live when you strike out on your own becomes an icon for freedom.  There could not have been a better place for that man to live. He always talked about returning to the West eventually.  He earned his Masters.  Applications for a PhD program were submitted, and he received a placement at the University of Cincinnati.

By this time our daughter had finished her degree and had moved to a town an hour away from us.  In her own apartment and working full time she too was thriving.  She met a man and as those things progress they fell in love. Her boyfriend’s job took him to of all places, Cincinnati!   They became engaged.  She applied for a job, got it and moved to Cincinnati, to live in the downstairs apartment of the same house where her brother lived upstairs.

For the first time in seven years my children were under the same roof.  They had six months together, learning about each other and growing to love each other as adult siblings.

The 4th of July weekend was upon us.  Our daughter and her fiance were coming to town.  One of my husbands brothers and wife were visiting.  Our son called and asked it would be too much for him and one of his friends to come also.  Was there room?  Of course there was room, of course we could do it!  No problem.

He and his friend arrived on that Friday night July 1st, a bit later than usual.  There were leftovers from supper with my in-laws.  His sister and fiance were to arrive the next day.  I put the hot plates of food on the table.  He smiled at me and shook his head in amazement.  “What is it?” I asked.  “You are crazy,” he smiled at me.   The boys ate and tired from the drive retired early.  We hugged and kissed good night.  Even at 29 he kissed his dad goodnight.

I rose early and oven-fried 2 pounds of bacon.  I fixed pancakes.  Slowly the house awakened.  My husband and his brother and wife were going to a car show in a neighboring town.  My son and his friend came down the hall. Everyone shuffled around, eating and preparing for their activities.  The two boys thanked me, my son hugged and kissed me.  “Be careful” we said.  They packed up the climbing gear.  My husband and in-laws headed out.  I never went out to the car where the boys were to say good-bye again.  I wish I had.

I painted that morning.  I will share that painting one day, when I am ready.   At noon I was in the den, having finished the painting and while on the phone was interrupted by a call coming in from my husband.  He was in tears.  “I am on my way to the hospital.”  he said, “there has been an accident.  It is bad.”

It is bad.  It is very bad.    I hear those words.  My husband had to tell me that his dad was dead, that the pathologist thought our daughter had leukemia, that our son had had an accident, and it was bad.  Poor sweet man, the news he has had to deliver, unthinkable news.

We are  now often together in silence, he and I.   In the past three months we have cried together quite a bit.  He goes to work with his mask on and faces the day.  I venture out a bit more slowly.  We sit together  each with our own random thoughts, that make little since, that bog us down.  The unthinkable happens all the time, all around us and unfortunately sometimes to us and usually unfortunately – it is really bad.

Illusion is shattered.  Reality rushes in like a tide.  We cling to anything that appears to represent normal.  We shuffle through the  “if only’s”, but nothing fits.

There is something to be said for the spirit of man, however.  Whatever stuff the pioneers possessed that sent men out in tiny sailing ships, or over desert and windswept plain.  Some survived, some died in the effort.  We keep trying, clinging to the illusion that we are invincible, that the bad things happen to someone else.  We just won’t think about the unthinkable will we Ms. Scarlett?  But just in case, please make sure you tell those you love, that you do love them, tell them today, just in case.

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Three little words

Posted on September 20, 2011 by pathfinder

Sunset over the mountains

We are a culture who likes to “get over” things.  Show us a mountain and someone will try to climb it. The idea of closure is something we have come to think is important.  We are supposed to eventually be able to tie things up neatly in a box and put it away on the shelf.   When someone does not appear to be able to accomplish closure especially concerning a death of a loved one people begin to think that the person has mental problems.  They think this until unfortunately something happens to someone they love and treasure.  The hateful table is turned.  The game is altered, the rules have changed.

People are obviously different and  so is their grief.  There are organizations you may seek out that lead you to other people who have experienced a loss and if you are fortunate you may find someone  who grieves in a manner similar to yours.  There are books that talk about the stages of grief. We are loath to stand on those stages, and some of us set up camp and live out our lives on them.    For the most part those grieving have  learned to wear a mask in public.  We learn early that public grief in our country frightens people.

At first you think you are imagining it.   You see someone you know and there is a flicker of change behind their eyes.  They don’t know what to do with you.  They don’t know what to say.  You too probably are meeting their eyes with what appears to be trepidation.  Any word spoken may tip you over the edge.  You come towards each other, the path thinning to a wire stretched between your reality and theirs and neither of you are on solid footing.

Sometimes for the grief laden we want to frighten people.  We want to gather up some of our pain and throw it at them.  We lived where they now are, blissfully ignorant and now we want to jolt them and have them taste a moment of our reality.  We blurt things out to strangers or perhaps totally innocuous things are said to us and we take offense, because of the turn of a word that is now offensive to us.  We really don’t mean to be cruel, but it is like a test.  Will you stay here and take it from us, as we stand shaking and the flood of tears is welling up behind our eyes? Not many can stay, and we vent our anger at them, because had we a choice we would not want to be around us either.

We want to scream our loved ones name, and we do, behind the safe closed doors of our home.   We are probably not safe to drive our cars at times because of the tears that obscure our vision. We drift away in unbidden thoughts.  We go through the motions of living.

Others who have been on this journey longer than I have tell me that  it does not get easier, it just becomes different.  Some say there are less tears.  They say you find yourself not thinking of them quite as often.  You have more joy in memories.

I am not sure how long any of this takes.  The journey is too new for me.  I have great memories and horrifying memories.  Weighed on the scale the great outweigh the horror. The horror is unkind however, and lurks most in the tired evening, waits till your mind wants to rest when you are most vulnerable.

What do I want other’s to say or do for me?  I have been told, “call me if you need anything.”I don’t know what I need.  Well, yes, I take that back, I know what I really want  and need- and you know the answer to that, but that is impossible.   I will never call.You tell me you are thinking about me,  and I appreciate that, I think the human spirit can reach out and sometimes I think I feel it.  You tell me you are sorry, and that is perhaps the only thing that we the grieving need to hear on a regular basis.  I take that to mean that you are full of sorrow.  That the passing of this beautiful life, the life of our adored son, has given you sorrow.  As the passing of any life should for any of us here on this globe.

I have a few friends who have the gift of being able to just “be” with me.  They come physically and spend time with me.   I don’t frighten them.   They roll along with me and give me space and their own physical presence.   It is a wonderful gift.  It is the best help.  They do not feel that they need to fill the air with words.

Words.  My son was a man of words.  He studied them and wrestled with them, turning them this way and that to discover the nuances and how, if at all, they connect man to man.  There are folders full of papers and notebooks full of formula and theory all written in his hand. There are only really three  words that really  connect me to him and always will – I love you.  I will as long as there is an always,  I love you.   Unconditionally, irrevocably, absolutely and forever.

Posted in Coping with the Death of a Child, Death | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

this sucks

Posted on September 19, 2011 by pathfinder

It is Monday of the 12th week since my son’s death.  One of his friends visited with us this weekend.  He is in fact the friend that was with our son the day he fell.  We tiptoed around each other in the visit.  It was uncomfortable on both sides.  I don’t know exactly what he is thinking and right now I don’t want to know.   I feel impotent.

My role as mother in this family has been to be the hub.  Well greased and running as smoothly as possible, it was my job to make sure everyone else accomplished what they needed as much as it was within my power.   Meals, bills, clothes, necessities – the business aspect of living.  My husband the father of this family makes the money we spend.  He has done a great job providing us with a secure living.   Our partnership has been a good one, and amazingly has stood the test of many stressors.   I serve also as comforter, listener.  My time by my own choice is available to my family to be spent on them.  I like being with my husband and children and many potentially frivolous activities have occurred because of my desire to just be with them.  I have learned much about my son, daughter and husband because of this choice.  I treasure what I have learned and store it up in my heart.

When our son died we followed his wishes to be an organ donor.  That meant that his body was not available for funeral/memorial services for a while.  Once it was released we had his remains cremated.  A memorial gathering was planned for the weekend to allow his friends and colleagues to make it available to attend if they so desired.  The day of the gathering family began to arrive at our house.  It was terrifying.  Suddenly there was talk and laughter and all the air was being breathed up in the house.   Our son was conspicuously missing.  My husband, daughter and I would retreat to our bedroom, dazed and shaking.

At his “gathering” I went into mother mode.  His beautiful friends and colleagues needed comforting.   I held them.  My husband held them, our daughter hugged and held them.  We cried down each other’s back.  We repeated the platitudes that come unbidden.  “He would would want . . .”  All the time I am thinking , he would not want this. He would want to be with his friends drinking beer at the local hangout.  He would want to be shooting pool and talking climbing and philosophy and politics.  I wanted to scream how unfair it was for him not to be with us though he would have hated the crowd, for crowd there was of over 300 people.    It was the most surreal party.  Here we were with all of our friends and family and he was represented by some papers, a box of ashes, his climbing gear and pictures.  His music played in the background.  His beloved friends spoke about him when we gathered for a few minutes in the chapel.   A passage was read from his favorite book, a statement read from his father, a poem from me, a prayer was offered for the comfort, for the hope.   Outside the rain had soaked the town, and as we left the chapel the sun broke through the clouds.   I could have soaked the town many times since with tears.

There is a box with well over 350 cards in it.  Lovely thoughts and sentiments are expressed in those cards.  Well meaning, generous friends and acquaintances have taken the time to think of us, some to grieve with us because of similar losses in their lives.  One visitor at our son’s gathering summed it up the best.  She had not known our son but came with another friend of ours for moral support.  She, a tiny person looked directly in my eyes and hugged me in surprisingly strong arms, “this sucks!” she said pointedly.  I had to smile.  “yes,” I agreed, “it does.”

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Unsafe world

Posted on September 18, 2011 by pathfinder

Along the Blue Ridge

This journey will end when I end.   There is a subset of days in my journey that included my first born child, my son. That subset consists of 29 years and ended abruptly,tragically in an accident  for him while rappelling from a climb.  I began before he did, some 27 years before he did, but I think my life really began when he came into my life and continues through his sister even now.I am attached to these wonderful people who are my children.   What is real and what is not is tough to figure out now.   I have been scrambling to collect all my memories because I am loath to let them go.

I have been writing now for almost three months.  I am writing because I miss talking to him and the words need to go somewhere, along with the frustration and pain.   I am writing because I have always written about everything and this is something I can do to keep myself in check, to keep from spinning off into space.

I have written letters to him, and I have written about him, but nothing seems big enough, full enough.   These are shadow words, splashed with tears.

I never knew how much pain people could endure and still walk on the face of this earth.  I know there are many with pain of many kinds and I never understood, until now.  I wish I did not understand.  I wish I was blissfully ignorant. I wish no one had to feel this awful, empty, impossible feeling.

Reading the paper, the internet, scanning for disasters and finding each new daily loss, I reach out with my heart to each new victim, to each family now shattered with this affliction.   I know it sounds morbid.  It is morbid, but I cannot help myself, it is from guilt of not having taken sufficient notice before.

Who would ever want to think about the death of their child.   Certainly not me.  Every time he traveled, or went for a climb I did think about it, except that day.  Something superstitious in me wants to blame myself, because there is no good thing to blame except maybe gravity.  Perhaps I am to blame for moving to the mountains with my husband and children and allowing them to fall in love with the landscape.   I want to blame something because I need something to focus my frustration on.

Every morning I wake and say to myself, he is gone.  Every time I see his face in a picture my breath catches and sometimes I dissolve in tears.  At night I ready for bed, and look at the face in the mirror,  the new lines grief has written on it and I think, he will not be here tomorrow.  In the night if I wake the first thought is, he is gone.  I never thought about him that much before!   This has been constant for 3 months now.  I wonder, will this ever stop?  Is this the routine I face until I too leave this place?  I have no answers concerning anything anymore.  Decisions are difficult.   To make a plan almost impossible.   The world has had the rug pulled out from under it as far as I can tell and nothing that I ever counted on is dependable any more.   We are not safe.   We never have been.

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