bereave-in

Last week I returned, for the first time in about four months, to the local hospice-sponsored bereavement group.  This is a drop-in gathering, meeting twice a month, no reservations required.


A friend dubbed this a "bereave-in," a "love-in" for those who have lost, and inevitably are lost.  How can it help, he wondered, to wander among those equally sad at their map-lessness?


It was my car's idea, I said.  I was headed home when, almost without any assistance from me, I found myself in Hospicare's parking lot, looking at out the gardens so familiar.  But I didn't look at Rich's room.  I didn't go inside the front entrance.  I entered through the lower level, directly into the bereavement room.


Two hours later, did I know where I was?


No, but I knew who I was, at least for that time in that room.  A griever.  A human being who could admit she was nothing more, who didn't have to pretend.  To say Rich's name.  To say he was my husband.  Who is still my map, still the one through whose eyes I see the world and in whose heart I am still, always, lost.


Candace

playing it safe

The article was about fat cats.  The four-legged sort who meow and purr and, if given the opportunity, munch mice and stalk rabbits and, now and then, engage in combat with their fellow felines.


While the veterinarian interviewed admitted that indoor cats were prone to packing too much weight, she said that, overall, it was a better life.  They wouldn't risk fights, or being run over by a car, or catching a disease.


In short, they would be breathing but dead.


Which is the temptation of grief.


Why risk exploring the outside world, with its potential for new relationships, new work, new home?  Because a new language must be learned, because diseases may be contracted, because the spirit which remains may be broken and crushed.


Rich is dead.  I am breathing.  Somehow, both are possible.


Candace

learning to sail

The invitation came from an almost-stranger, a friend of a friend.  Would you like to come sailing, she asked; I didn't hesitate.


Next day, once underway, the captain spoke to me.  I'm sorry, he said; I heard about your loss. 


It is hard, I said.  But at the moment, it didn't feel hard.  I was having too much fun.


You're good, he said.  You should take sailing lessons, then you can crew.


That sounded like a possible idea.  Anything that could blow open another layer of pain was worth considering.


But I also knew that every time a surge of joy came, another layer of grief would be uncovered, an inevitable law of balancing emotions.


And the grief did come, that evening.  While standing with Thundercat in the driveway, I saw Rich, vivid but unreal, walking up the driveway, wearing his brown Rockports, pressed tan chinos, blue shirt, striped tie, blue braces.


He's never coming home, I said to Thunder.  He's never coming home, is he?


Thunder scratched behind his right ear.  


I cried.


Candace

taking the world

You take the world into yourself and you write about it. -- C.K. Williams, poet


Not everyone is a poet, or a writer.  But everyone, I believe, needs to find a way to make sense of their lives, a task that is both a privilege (I'm not starving, I have shelter, I have clothing) and a responsibility.  Otherwise we risk becoming voyeurs who watch the stories of our lives and those of others, chopping ourselves into pieces that please or impress or whimper or reveal nothing.  Think "Facebook."  Think this blog.


Death does more than chop.  It pulverizes the world that was created, a world incarnate in another human.


What I have learned: The world cannot be incarnated.  Rich held my heart and my love and he did the dishes.  He is gone, and now I have to do the dishes, but my heart and love remain -- what else can explain the calm, joy, and peace that weaves through the grief?


What is beyond incarnation is interpretation.  And so I write, I walk, I arise in the morning wondering where I will see love today, and rarely go to bed disappointed.  It's out there, it's in here, and on the best days words fade away.


Candace 

little bites

One of the advantages of taking work to the coffee place is conversation overheard, and then incorporating its meaning into my life (doesn't this sound more respectable than admitting I'm a gossip?)


The characters:  A boy, somewhere between eight and ten years old, and a woman, late teens/early twenties, who I guess to be his babysitter.


He is eating a cinnamon raisin bagel, coated with butter.  She is asking him questions that, to me, sound more appropriate for Kant than for a pre-pubescent boy.


And then, the question that tops them all.


"Does good ever prevail over evil?" she asks.


Don't do this to him, I want to say.  But I don't.  I watch and wait for his answer.


He chews, furrows his brow, gazes at the street, takes another bite.


Finally, he answers.


"This bagel is too big to eat in one bite."


Brilliant.  Whatever the question, this is the answer.


Today is a good day for little bites.  My summer cold is fading, I was up at dawn, hiked in a nearby gorge, began revising my manuscript, made reservations for another trip out of town.  


Yum.


Candace