Sometimes I play music and stray thoughts coalesce and show up as snatches of emotional prose that I capture for a yet-to-be-fully-formed book. Here are a couple of examples:
“Why do I have to re-invent my life? Why does it have to go some new direction? Am I supposed to be alone now for the next 40 years? Look for a new partner? What if I can’t do it successfully again – layers upon layers of touch and experience? You were my prince. We created bliss and success together. Why does God want to push me for more? Could I not learn detachment some less painful way?”
“Sometimes I understand why widows always used to dress in black. The sun is blackened in some moments. Oh, I’m not generally unhappy. But sometimes so very sad and so very mad. Or do I mean angry? I dress in purple, because it is the color of the spirit and the color of our wedding band stones. But then I dress in red to be angry. Or yellow to be happy. What does it mean to be a widow when there is no longer a costume, a design, a symbol to declare that I’m in mourning. Those of us who face the death of a loved one look so ordinary to the world. The pain all has to sit on the inside and often be on the hide side. With some it’s comfortable to let the tears fall down my cheeks, but for others it sticks in the throat and lodges in pain between the ribs around my heart.”
“Sometimes I’m fiercely glad that you are integrally part of me forever. Sometimes I’m so glad that you are nearby. And then I just want to run and hide far away and hope you don’t follow so I don’t have to face how life has changed and is changing every day. Near, far, words that speak of the physical which you are no longer. It’s a mirage, a miracle, a mystery. My mind grapples trying to understand the unknowable, to find patterns in the immensely complex. WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE AM I? WHERE ARE WE? IS THERE STILL A WE? It’s the pain of that last question that spreads the blackness of doubt warring with hope and dreams. Can I ever be good enough to deserve being with you again for eternity? What does God want of me yet?”
On December 8th, the afternoon before I left for Florida, Craig’s marker stone was set at his grave at Lake View Cemetery. They tell me it takes so long, because the granite to match the others at the family plot had to come from Vermont and then be lettered in Ohio. On the 16th, Dave Farnsworth (Craig’s son) and I visited the cemetery with a Christmas wreath, a family tradition, and to see the stone. It was a very emotional visit, with stories of Craig and simply seeing yet one more piece of “evidence” that he’s physically gone. Part of my ongoing process of achieving acceptance.
That afternoon I met with the social worker at The Gathering Place, sharing and exploring where I’m at and why I feel so blocked carrying out the publication of the book on responding to cancer that Craig and I did this spring. Some of it seems to be resistance to the topic of cancer taking over my life. I stayed at TGP and participated in a panel for medical students on the subject of caregiving cancer patients. So, all in all, a very emotional day. The following day I cancelled most plans and spent a lot of time in bed.
After two days of taking it easy, on the 18th our spiritual study circle group visited Lake View cemetery together. Remember the rocks we painted in November? They got placed on Craig’s grave and on the grave of the mother of one of the participants. It was lovely, and not as wrenching as the visit there with Dave.
So, it’s been a week where grief has filled me at times and exhausted me. Interspersed have been decisions about health insurance, life insurance, job hunting, bill paying, finding a place for my mother and I to stay in Florida in February, visiting the dentist (no cavities!), yoga, massage, chiropractor, swimming, study circles, and reorganizing my office. And naps.
Love,
Susanne
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