how to grieve

These letters have been lacking in matters practical.  For one thing, plenty of information on widowhood -- psychological, sociological, spiritual -- is available in books and on websites.  I've read a small library's worth, but to quote Thomas Merton: "How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books."  Grief obscures reason and feeling; clarity during these days is more often than not recognized by chance.

I offer a few ways of being that have been healing for me, with emphasis on what I have not found in books. 

1. Solitude:  Severed from life shared with another forces one to undertake a retreat that would challenge -- and perhaps baffle -- the most advanced Zen master (no life! no death! no desire!)  Everything in these days is about life lost and death won and desire unfulfilled.  Going out of my mind is not an option.  It is not playing at a religious game.  Solitude gives the razors freedom to cut as deep as necessary.  Solitude allows the bleeding to happen.
2. Relationships: Not an opposite of Solitude, but a compliment.  Friends have saved my life.  By feeding, listening, and occasional use of cattle prod.
3. Dreams: The stuff of the sleeping night, yes, and also the awake days.  In the first, horror and release; in the second, a possible future.  Dreams won't bring back the "real" Rich and cannot predict a "real" life, but in both is a sweet taste of what was and what might be.

Candace

digested

Someday I hope to write these words:  Grief eaten.  Digested.  This meal is over.

Never will that happen, unless I have a lobotomy.  Nor do I want it to.

But in the past week, I have come closer to gut health as a series of events and people moved into my life, equipped with forks and knives to carve up the indigestible and serve up only the good parts. 

One will be mentioned here because the event made no sense.

I was relaxing in the Tranquility Room at my local day spa (an indulgence this year) when a woman walked in.  She was not the usual spa type, who tend towards the healthy and fit.  She emerged from behind the massage rooms' curtain on swollen, wobbly legs, and her well-creased face was testimony to many years.

We caught eyes.  

"I just had a massage," she said.

That was all she said.  But her glow said more, as if she were revealing a secret, as if no one ever heard of a massage before.  I moistened.  I melted.  

She slowly walked to two other women lounging in the room, who I guessed were her daughters, and kissed them.  When the massage therapist brought her a mug of lemon water, she glowed even brighter in amazement, staring at the miracle of the cup, the water, the fruit.

With all of her self -- and more -- she gave me a massage, too, easing out the tightness that didn't expect to be touched.

And revealing possibilities of a life yet to come.

Candace

bugs live

I didn't call an exterminator.  The bugs yet live.  Their numbers, however, do seem significantly reduced.  I've learned that most problems heal more quickly and completely with minimal intervention.  Or maybe I don't really give a damn.


Today was a trip to the landfill.  Most of it was four months worth of ordinary rubbish. I don't have a weekly garbage collection; we never did, having never generated that much trash.  But a few items broke the heart.  Two pairs of Rich's old boots, and worn-out socks.  Plus two used-up mops, both of which he bought.  From now on, anything leaving the house or garage will be harder.  The easy stuff is gone.


That's what this grieving game feels like, too.  For five years, life was focused on death and dying.  Now it's back to life, and this is the hard part.  I'm not sure how this problem will heal, not anymore.  And each day I have to remind myself that I still give a damn.  


Candace

bugs

Flying insects have invaded.  About a year ago, in fact.  But, really, who noticed such little things a year ago?  Death or deep sleep quieted them over the winter, and now they're back, and brought their cousins, friends, acquaintances.  Mostly, they confine themselves to one hallway.  They don't bite, or get into food, and die all too easily, succumbing to a slight swipe of the hand.


But, somehow, I now feel they must leave (pretty good euphemism, no?)  I need the illusion of clean.


So I will call an exterminator tomorrow and ask what gentle environmentally friendly methods are available.


Which reminds me of years ago, when the building where I worked was invaded by ants.  The exterminator, when asked if there was a way she could be gentle, laughed.


"You mean you want me to kill them without hurting them?"


Well, no...kill them, but don't harm the humans.  Somehow, that sounded virtuous, then.


Candace

an abandoned life

An abandoned life doesn't vanish whole.  It sloughs off, piece by piece. 


Eating, for example.  Alone is the new normal, but that doesn't always stop me from buying sunflower seeds in quantity sufficient to feed the avian stars of "The Birds," or oats enough for a stable of athletic polo ponies.  But I pretend it works.  Jars of roasted seeds and oats transformed into my maple granola can radiate abundance as much as stupidity.


Repairs, too.  I still expect Rich will do it.  Out of eight overhead lights, all requiring a ladder and a gymnast's skills to reach, three have gone dark.  Maybe, when I reach the halfway mark, I will get motivated.  Or go to sleep earlier -- that's fine, too.  


But these are small matters.  What is vanishing is Rich himself, an amazing possibility that startles my mind.  How can 10 months apart swallow 37 years together?  Unless one of the places where he has gone is me.  That could explain the abundance that someday will devour the stupidity and the pain and the life abandoned.


Candace

eight percent

I just read that eight percent of women in my age group are widows.  This info and more was provided in today's edition of USA Today.  Such as the tidbit that this blog is one of about 120 on widowhood.  That a "Camp Widow" exists for younger widows where dressing in black is discouraged, good times encouraged, and T-shirts with the logo "Widows Rock" and mugs with "Death Sucks" and books such as "I'm Grieving as Fast as I Can" are available for purchase.


As I've said before, each day is lived inside a paradox.  I'm horrified by the thought of a book suggesting that "grief" and "fast" can be used in the same sentence.  Grief is never finished; it is a chronic disease that can be managed but not cured.  And yet -- how much I want to move on!


I don't "rock," though I would love to remember what it is, again, to feel alive.  And what sucks is not death -- inevitable, after all -- but one particular death.  I calmly accept generic death while raging at the loss of the one person whose existence mattered above all others.


Still, today is not as bad as the preceding ones.  Perhaps it was the massage on Monday that relaxed me so deeply I was in bed before sunset, and awoke to find I could write again.  I cooked.  I cleaned.  I didn't rock, but this is a start.


Candace

drowning

I'm running out of tools.  Everything I have tried isn't working right now.  Alone I'm alone.  With others I'm more alone.  We're having a heat wave, I'm told.  Really?  I have hardly broken into a sweat, frozen still, no air conditioner needed.


So, I will let myself drown in the sorrow.  Fear isn't sinking, not anymore.  It's coming up to the surface again, alone.


Candace