the long, slow goodbye

"every true story ends in death."  ~ ernest hemingway

grief is so very different for everyone.  it is also a very private affair.

it's an affair of the heart and only the person going through it knows how deep the pain goes.

he meant the world to me.  he means the world to me.

i admit i find secret comfort in widow(er)s both fictitious and real who have not moved on,

who have kept their sorrow inside and simply lived on with the memories.

there was a short-lived television show titled "10 things i hate about you."  in it the father character is aggressively, and unsuccessfully, seduced by a divorced woman.  he tells her he is not ready to date; that he is a recent widow.  the woman extends her sympathy and asks him how long it's been.

"7 years."

i loved that.  his face.  his expression.  the soft, lingering love for his dead wife.  he was still wearing his wedding ring.

or Jessica Fletcher of the television show "Murder, She Wrote."  she never dated nor married again.  she had a full life writing her novels, welcoming company to her home, and solving murders all over the globe.

and Betty White. she has been his widow for 34 years.  she's having fun with her acting and her animal charities, yet when she was on Inside the Actor's Studio and she was asked that last question, her answer was so very poignant.

"If heaven exists, what would you want God to say at the pearly gates?"

Betty said, "come on in, Betty.  here's Allen."

i've been told to never say never; that i do not know what's around the bend.

but .....

it's been 5 years and i still feel the same about him.

i will love him forever.

i think this is one of those long, slow goodbyes.

he was so much fun
and he gave me so much.

laughter and joy,

confidence and love,
and the ocean.
he took me to live beside the ocean.

we talked and shared.

we were a true meeting of the minds.

i love him.  he is so dear to me.

a long, slow goodbye.
i think of him quite a lot.
i do still dream of him.
my memories of him are so vivid.
i can hear his voice.
i can hear his laugh.
i feel this deep and abiding connection to him.

it is my most fervent hope and wish that i will be with him when i die.

a long, slow goodbye.
my memories keep me company.
and as i will one day die,
know that this is a true story.

i leave you with the words of a fictitious widow ~ Jessica Fletcher.

"i won't tell you that the hurt will disappear.

it doesn't,

but sooner or later it becomes different.

the pain subsides and the memories take over.

it isn't wonderful,

but it's better."

five years of grief

five years

it used to burn ~ this grief that i still feel.

it used to burn me up inside.

it was as if someone had started a fire inside me to burn all that i was.

the fire ate away my insides for a long time yet it deliberately stopped short of killing me.

that was it's way of torturing me.

it never finished the job.

i continued to live.

and i got used to the heat.

then grief changed tactics.

it showed me loneliness.

it brought me back into the crowded world where no one notices me.

no one sees my pain.

no one accepts you can grieve after a year, after two and a half years,

after four years.

the world is a place where sympathy stops while the pain continues.

that is loneliness;

when your pain goes unrecognized, or unaccepted.

when you are expected to rejoin a world that fundamentally hasn't changed,

but you have.

i have.

i'm grieving.

and i got used to the loneliness.

it is now five years.

five long years.

grief is introducing me to it's next experience.

i am cold.

i feel chilled inside.

so cold i burn.

i feel detached at times, like i am a spectator to the world.

i am there but not included.

i refuse to be what i not and what i am not is this:

i am not through grieving.

i do not feel comfortable away from my tiny home.

but when i am home i still feel cold.

i can vividly recall his laugh.  i can conjure up an afternoon spent with him.

i can hear his voice in my head, my heart, deep in my soul.

time has taken nothing from my memory.

nothing has faded.

nothing has dimmed.

it is all still there.

but it is like being on the outside looking in on my own life

during that time we were together.

i remember what it felt like being with him but that is the one thing i cannot get back;

that feeling of safety, that feeling of being loved.

so i feel cold.

so i crawl on.

a mental picture of me is this:

imagine meeting a woman who is kind, funny, genuinely easy to be around.

you can tell she is a heartfelt listener and cares about others.

and you listen to her for a brief moment.

her words are soothing, make you smile, make you feel warm inside.

but there is something a bit off about her.

for all her smiles, her eyes seem sad.

even when she looks at you, you can see that her soul is split.

and her voice.

it sounds as if there is another voice speaking in chorus with her.

two voices from one soul.

that is me and my grief talking.

she and i speak simultaneously.

we are no longer separate.

we are a unit; a team.

we are entwined much like he and i were entwined while he lived.

my grief lives inside me or i live inside her.

it depends upon the day.

we color my existence together.

we share my life.

she is company.

i know her very well.

she lets me ask the hard questions and counsels with her silence.

my one and only consolation ~

the night before he died, we made love.

the night he died, i was lying in his arms in bed.

we had said, "i love you" to each other;

not with that peck on the cheek or a quick press of lips that makes a travesty of passion.

it was as it always was between us.

it was a soft, lingering kiss.

it was shared breath.

it was the silent acknowledgement that

"parting is such sweet sorrow"

even if only for sleep.

ten minutes later his body betrayed him.

it began separating his soul from me.

twenty minutes after that we were severed.

but we had that kiss.

beauty among the ruins

there is a wonderful book by Robert Clark titled "Love Among the Ruins" about two teenagers who fall in love during 1968.  the title has stuck with me for a long time and came around to my mind again shortly after my Dragon died.

and approaching 5 years, which, if you're read the previous couple of missives here, is hitting me pretty hard.

 i love my dogs....

... and my children.....

...and my grandson.

i like sewing.  i would like to get back to painting and making stained glass.  this last quilt commission to finish; which is approaching over 550 hours of work, and i will be free of the pressure of another person's judgement. my time free time off from work will be my own for the first time in 5 years.  i look very much forward to that.

this commission has been huge.  hundreds of hours.  no more compensation for my work. after asking for so much, she now says she is "strapped for money."   i have ended up resenting this commission.  i am finishing this pro bono.  *sigh*  i do not understand as i see her photographs of her and her new husband, the things they get to do, their trips.  but maybe they get those things cheaper than they appear, or they were gifts.  i do not know and should not judge.  it is my duty to finish this quilt and i will do so.

i feel like i am living among the ruins of my life:  a tiny apartment {but it's mine}, a job that takes away a lot of my soul {but i renew it everyday with thoughts of him, my children, my grandson, taking photos of the sky, etc.}, loneliness for him i can do nothing about {i talk to him though, and i talk to God}.

there is beauty among the ruins of my life.  i brought the photo up there under my blog title over from a page from Facebook; a page called Earth Porn.  it reminds me of Van Gogh's painting, "Starry Night."  i made me smile and stare at it, and come back to it.  i think it is beautiful.  had i be fortunate to be present on that day, i would have stayed outside until dark, or the clouds passed.  

there is beauty in the world in the shape of clouds and those of us left behind.

i miss my Dragon so very much.  five years is a long time to be without him.  it's a long time to sit here and know it will be longer before i hope to see him again.  five years of life among the ruins, but there is so much beauty here that i can take in and keep in my memories.

there will be a lot of tell him about when we meet. 

59 months still.......

since he died, i've crossed paths with quite a few widows and widowers.  i know everyone is on their own journey, feel differently, react differently.  it has been interesting to be the wallflower; to watch everyone, hear from them, hear about them.

so many have done very well.  a great deal have found new loves and married.

very few of the first ones to write to me here are actually still reading or writing anymore.  their lives are busy and reading one widow's blog?  keeping up with her here?  just no incentive anymore.

i'm still here though.  i'm not really in the same place emotionally that i was during that first year, but, to be honest, i am not too far removed from it.

i am still in the same vicinity that i was.  i'm wandering, i guess.

i have thought about this a great deal of late.  i am not still shell-shocked.  he has died.  i have a full-time job and work very hard for my money.  i count pennies very carefully.

i am a new grandmother.  i love that baby and have wonderful ideas of what i can teach him, of just playing with him.  grief has not tainted this blessing.

i do not want to take off my rings.  i do not want to date, or meet anyone.  i do not care about finding a friend anymore.  i am very used to being alone now.  it is not something i would have chosen, but i have grown accustomed to it.  it suits me.

i think if any one of the people who used to read all the time, at the beginning, were to stop by now -- just to see -- they might be concerned, or bored, depending upon how they feel about me.

i am still in month 59 with that 5 year mark - that 60th month - staring at me, glaring at me.  and i feel apprehensive about it.  5 years is a long time.  5 years is nothing compared to.........

i think i'll go to bed and try to sleep.  sleep is a good escape from the impending agony of hitting that 5th year.  

Enoch Arden

it's January of 2014.  that means it's been 4 years, 11 months.  59 months of living without my Dragon.  it feels like a long time.

there are days when i miss him a great deal.  there are days when i think of him and smile.

still, even on the good days, i have fleeting moments of wonder.

where is he?

is he safe and happy?

does he sort of remember me?

it's that whole mystery of death and afterlife introspective journey i take.

i have faith.  i just don't know what really comes next; what it will feel like, be like.

the days get strung together.  i live for my days off.  i get physically tired.

December was hard.  i worked 112 + hour weeks.

the overtime was nice, but getting that run down catches up to you.

i have been melancholy.

i have been evaluating my life.  am i okay?  what do i really feel?

i feel like 59 months is a long time to go without your best friend.

it's a long time to go without holding hands, talking, knowing they are waiting for you when you get off work.

it's a long time.

and it's hardly any time at all depending upon how long i have on this earth.

i'm melancholy and i can't put my finger on it.

i'm doing okay.  paying bills.  holding on.

i love my new grandson.

wish i could see him every single day.

hoping he loves me.

secretly hoping i'm his favorite gramma.  would never say that out loud.

if you met me you would say i have it all together.

i'm funny.  people gravitate to me.

i have some talent with creativity; art stuff.

but if you look into my eyes; when i look in the mirror,

i don't see the me i was when he was here.

i'm less.

i'm sadder.

it's in the eyes.

it's in the moments when i am utterly alone that a voyeur could tell.

i am definitely less than who i was before.

i bow out of things, like at my daughter's baby shower.  i had made this book for people to write things in for her, advice for the new baby.

her mother-in-law had purchased cards for that and stood in front of me to speak to it and pass them out.  i slipped back down in my seat and hid the book i made.  i was embarrassed and a bit hurt.

i had wanted to participate more in my daughter's baby shower but it became her event and i felt left out.  and i stayed out.

i bowed out and let her have it.

i'm low on everyone's list; even my own.

i am, however, very high on the list of two little hearts.

my dogs are my roomies, my cuddle-buddies.

i don't want them to die.  i know they will.

and i know i will react very badly when this happens. i already feel it inside my heart.

 my little Miss Carmen Sophia the Wild Gypsy Girl with the Sensitive Soul is showing signs of her age.  she's my little girl with such a big attitude and a willful spirit.  but she's also a momma's girl.  she loves me so much.  when i finally sit down, she is in my lap in a heartbeat.  she stretches out with a sigh as if she's thinking, "at last.  momma is home and she's mine."

 Mister Scootie Wootums Lord of the Dance with the Stardust Eyes is still a bit more lively, but even he has his moments when i can tell; i can see he no longer has a puppy heart.  he's slowing down.  to this day he goes in search of my Dragon.  he'll go to the closet and get one of my Dragon's shoes and lay with it.  nose inside the shoe sniffing.  if i equate his actions to what a human would do, it breaks me.  it looks so very much like he misses my, our Dragon.

and then there's my new grandson.  such a cutie.  i adore him.  i'm am so ready, so excited about playing with him, reading to him, singing to him, showing him things, but i am careful about what i write in public about that, and what i mentally plan for him and me.  i cannot infringe or overstep.  i dare not intrude on the plans and expectations his other gramma has.  i can't get in the way.

call me Enoch Arden.

{Enoch Arden is an old sea story.  it's the tale of a man who left his wife to go on a two year whaling trip long, long ago.  neither knew she was pregnant with their son when he left.  word came back that a terrible storm broke Enoch's vessel apart and all aboard drowned.  however, Enoch had survived.  he recovered and it took him 5- 7 years, depending upon which version of the story you read, for him to work his way back home.  when he did arrive, he found his wife had married his best friend.  he saw his son.  he also saw the three of them together standing at a memorial to him.  a man who recognized Enoch approached him saying that his "widow" honored his memory; that his son knew who he was, and that his friend was taking good care of the little family.  but he also asked Enoch why he wasn't rushing down to make his presence known.  

Enoch said, "it would destroy the happiness she has found and the security my son knows with my friend.  i cannot do that to them.  please do not tell them i was ever here."

Enoch gained a berth on a ship leaving the harbor that evening never to return.  the man held the story inside himself until Enoch's "widow" had passed and his son had grown and moved away.  then he spoke with awe and reverence of the selfless and heartbreaking decision Enoch made to sacrifice his own happiness to let his family have theirs.}

in an insignificant way, i am a bit like Enoch Arden.

i bow out.

i let others have their way.

i never speak up.

i get my feelings hurt a lot, too.

59 months without him here.

59 months without someone speaking out on my behalf when i never would.

59 months without that certain someone who always knew where i was at all times,

of him waiting for me.

59 months of being without him.

i'm melancholy.

i wish ........

see, funny thing, i don't even know what i wish for.

i'll just bow out now;

before i say too much.

he's here

he's here.  26 december 2013.

he is handsome, sweet, quiet, and perfect as all babies are.

i love him with a quiet, deep emotion that can fill me with awe.

i love my own children with that kind of love.

i hope to be able to teach him things; abstract things like kindness, tolerance, logical deductions, and the profoundness found in books.

i hope to be able to show him rainbows, dew on grass blades, all the different kinds of life at the ocean's edge, and the shadows that play across a flag was it furls and unfurls in a strong breeze.

i hope to be able to answer his questions and give him more questions for us to find out the answers together.

i hope he can grow to love me.

~

it's the last night of 2013.

going to bed early.

no plans.

no one to do anything with.

curl up with my dogs and try to forget the day,

the loneliness, 

my current respiratory illness,

the fact that i have to get up to go to work tomorrow.

i wish i could be with them - my daughter and her new baby.

but he is so new, and i am so sick.

i wish i could talk to my Dragon.

i'd like to be held once more.

i'd like to fall into a deep, restorative sleep in his arms.

i'd like to think he's doing great.

i'd like to think he still loves me

on Christmas Eve ~ for those who have nothing

i can't remember the last time a door was held for me;
that i didn't sleep on a concrete rug,
that people didn't ignore me.
i can't remember what it's like to have your stomach full;
or be as warm as a piece of toast,
or wear tweed, silk, or wool.
i can't remember if i ever really had a home;
a place to settle and sit for a spell,
a place to call my own.

all i have is a shopping cart that's full of memories:
full of things i no longer am,
full of things i used to be.
all i have to keep with me are pictures, quilts, and self;
things to keep me warm inside,
things that have no wealth.
all i have to worry about would horrify you tonight;
the cold, no food, no place to sleep,
the dark, no friends, no light.

i don't have a home anymore.  i live out on the street;
never to cook and clean a place,
never to kick my shoes off my feet.
i don't have a family now.  they are all lost to me;
never to fuss and do for them,
never their faces to see.
i don't have a lot of things, but one thing i do keep;
i have myself to talk to,
i keep myself hidden deep.

i need help from time to time, and sometimes it works out;
some people are a Godsend,
some people are ignorant louts.
i need to be allowed to have my dignity and my space.
don't tell me what i should have done.
don't put me in my place.
i need to know someone's aware i'm still a human being;
with hopes and dreams of my own,
with awareness that my life may have meaning.

i want someone to remember that i'm out here when it snows;
or whenever the weather turns awful with rain,
or whenever it's cold and bad, you know?
i want someone to remember to care about whatever happens to me;
to care about where i am,
to care enough to come see.
i want someone to remember that i'm alone out on the street;
to understand that i'm afraid,
to understand that i'm beat.

i think that people everywhere should try to visualize;
what it's like to be without,
what it's like to be despised.
i think if they could understand how life goes wrong for some;
they wouldn't treat us like trash,
they wouldn't act as if we're dumb.
i think if people could remember that Our Lord helped people like me;
then they'd find Christ in themselves,
then they'd see Christ in me.

"the Lord bless you and keep you.  the Lord make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you.  the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace."  ~ Numbers 6:25.