Just Not Yet

"Don't cry because it's over.  Smile because it happened."
~ Dr. Seuss

I love Dr. Seuss and I so want to believe this.   I can recognize that I am making progress, for sure.  In those first few weeks after John died, I despaired of remembering him other than from those last six months when he declined so significantly, losing weight, losing his ability to drive, losing his eyesight, eventually needing my help for even the most rudimentary tasks.  I panicked when I couldn't remember the silly little jingle he created and sang only in the shower.  I couldn't sleep in our bed, couldn't ward off the regrets.  

I turned to a multitude of grief books, hoping to find that someone else, anyone else, who felt the way I did.  Thankfully, I found the reassurance I was looking forward.  Not crazy, not unusual to feel so frantic.  

Then one morning, out of nowhere, the jingle emerged as I was waking up.  Gradually, sweet memories from those last six months returned.  How pleased he was that our little rescue dog, Rufus, and I had "found each other."  How he would sing to me, "Have I told you lately that I love you?" several times a day.  How, when I asked if he knew how much I loved him, his response was "and do you know how much that mattered?"  How he always expressed his gratitude to me, to his doctor, to the home health care and hospice nurses who cared for him.  Memories that, though they first brought tears, could also evoke a smile.  Not either/or but both.

In recent months, other memories have returned, sometimes initiated deliberately by someone sharing a common experience.  Or when I have had the courage to sit with photo albums or my basket of all the cards he sent me over the years.  When I have had the courage to go through a travel journal - our trips to Tuscany or the one to Sicily when we came upon a relative of mine sitting on a doorstep in her housecoat and flannel slippers, a scene from a Fellini movie.  Or the photos from the helicopter ride down the face of the Jurassic Falls.  How thrilled he was to sit beside the pilot.  

There are the memories that pop up unexpectedly - when it's dusk and I can hear him call to me to "come see this.  You won't believe the sky."  Or when I wake in the morning and recall how he would ask how I slept.  Hearing that Tiger Woods won the Masters and knowing he would have said, "I told you so."  Walking into the local Starbucks and ordering an iced tea the way he would have.

The intimate memories - the night we met in a "bar in Kansas City."  Well, an elegant lounge actually, but he loved telling everyone it was a bar.  Our wedding, the way he hovered when I had breast cancer, the beautiful messages he wrote on every card until he could no longer even sign his name.  

There isn't a day now when yet another memory emerges.  Bidden, unbidden.  Most of the time I can smile, well, at least smile first.  Am I at the point when I don't cry?  Not yet.  Will there come a day when I can simply smile because it happened?  Maybe, hopefully, but just not yet.

This Much I Know

"Healing in grief is a lot like the onset of spring.  It's unreliable and fickle."

~ Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.

Unreliable and fickle.  Certainly my experience.  It's uncanny how this spring my inner mood so reflects the weather - or is it vice versa?   

Some days, the skies are gunmetal gray and the temperatures have dropped by ten degrees.  It's all I can do to get out of my nightgown and accomplish anything.  A song, a telephone conversation, an unexpected request related to John's death and I'm weeping.  A grief burst to rival the cloudbursts that have been all too common this spring.  

Some days, I wake to sunshine and the expectation of a good day, but by noon, banks of gray clouds roll in and the threat of yet another cloudburst increases by the hour.  On these days, it takes so little to unleash my own cloudburst of tears.  For how could those grief experts who warn you to prepare for the first anniversary or birthday or holiday know how easily I can fall apart at the sight of the first tulip, remembering the delight he took in planting them.  Or the sight of the first hummingbird, reminding me that he is not here to fill the feeder.  Or how even anticipating the first roses brings tears as I know he will never again bring in a fresh rose in the morning to greet my day,  How could they know?

Lately, however, there are days when I think I'm making progress through the forest of my grief.  The sun shines.  It's warm and a breeze whispers the shrubbery.   I have energy, look forward to the day and getting out and among folks.  The memories are sweet.  I barely shed a tear.  I even laugh.  On these days, I can believe there will be more such days, hopefully, many more.

So, this much I have come to know about this path I'm walking - the journey is, at best, unreliable and fickle.  Grief bursts are to be expected at the most unexpected times.  They are a part of the journey, but they, like spring showers, eventually pass.  So, I do best when I take it a day at a time, some days an hour at a time.  

I know that quotes like the above help me to make sense of my experience.  I know that the good days, and there are good days, are cause for celebration. The good days, and there are more good days, are cause for optimism.  I know that somehow, someday, the firsts will not overwhelm me.  I know that I will survive, and maybe, just maybe, even thrive again.  Even if, today, the clouds roll in again.

Who Will Remember?

"I never wanted to be the eldest."

~ Ben Magestro

I haven't thought of this comment in years.  Many years.  Dad made it at the news of the death of his remaining older brother over 25 years ago.  Dad was just about the age I am today.  I didn't pursue the comment.  Maybe it was because I am the eldest child and grandchild and had never given it much thought at the point.  Maybe I feared I'd make both of us uncomfortable discussing why he felt that way. Maybe I arrogantly assumed I understood. Whatever - I just let it pass, one more comment to file away. 

Until recently, when I caught a video of my remaining uncle, now in his 80's, suddenly frail, undoubtedly old.  In the weeks that have followed, my dad's comment has popped up at the most unexpected moments.  Finally, I suspect I understand.  When this uncle dies, when I am the eldest in the clan, who will remember?

For, it's not only that this uncle is the last of his generation.  In many ways, he was more an older brother than an uncle.  We lived under the same roof at the end of World War II.  He consoled me and tried to protect me when the stress of that household at that time was too much for a little girl.  He took me trick or treating.  He fixed my plate at the buffet when we celebrated my great-grandmother's 100th birthday.  He was there when I was baptized, and when I received Holy Communion.  He remembers the day Grandma gave up her icebox for a refrigerator, what it took to keep the coal burning furnace going, the snowstorm that crippled the city in 1947.

He was the first male in the family to get a college degree; I was the first female.  He was the first to leave the city and his family to serve in Korea.  I was the first to leave the city and never return.

When he dies, there will be no one left who knows where I began, who can appreciate even remotely what it has taken to be who and where I am today. There will be no one else who remembers. I'm not sure this is what Dad meant when he made that comment so many years ago.  But I rather suspect I'm in the ballpark.

I know there are scientific reasons given for why we older folks begin to dwell on memories of our younger selves.  But what if it isn't also that we reach a point when we are the eldest and there is no one else who remembers?

My Hero

"You must bear losses like a soldier, a voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward.  That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong."

~ Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

I admit it, I'm addicted to quotes.  I can spend hours trolling quote sites whenever I get interested in a topic, but especially when preparing to blog.  And I did so when I decided to post this week on the topic of loss.  Because loss is ever present in our lives these days.  Not just the constant presence of the Ghost of Christmas Future, but the onslaught of loss that John has been experiencing of late.  

I set out to find a quote that might capture the feelings I have experienced as I watch him. My concern as I see him walk more slowly, tire more easily, require still another transfusion.  The sorrow I felt when he recently divested himself of his business, his "baby" that he nurtured for almost 30 years.  The heartbreak of watching him sell his car, accepting that the progression of his macular degeneration necessitates my chauffering.  The loss of stamina and energy, the loss of a piece of his identity, the loss of freedom and independence.  Loss upon loss.  I hate this for him.

And then I came upon the above quote and literally, in the moment, realized that this is how John thinks about loss and that the feelings I need to hold onto are my profound respect and gratitude for how he is managing his.  For he doesn't complain, doesn't even see complaining as a choice.  He takes life a day at a time, reorganizes quickly, and moves forward as best he can with amazing agility and dignity.  

I have often described my husband as resilient or persistent.  Strong.  But now, heroic.  My hero - and he will never lose that.