Category Archives: Death

Unknown's avatar

A New Year – 2012

by

I really enjoy my No TV New Year’s celebrations.  My late husband was a habitual TV user.  He grew up that way, so New Year’s Eve with him always included some televised ball drop with interviews and pop music.  My parents stored the TV in the den closet and brought it out on for certain occasions like National Geographic specials and episodes of Masterpiece Theater and Monty Python.  Steve and I don’t even own a TV, so once more I am back on my original footing.  What do we do instead?  I’m so glad you asked.

Yesterday afternoon, after some homemade lentil soup, we snuggled up in bed with the laptop on the breakfast tray to watch another installment of the DVD we borrowed from the library: Simon Schama’s “The Power of Art”.  The featured artist this time was JMW Turner.  Epic skies, light, emotion, chaos, romanticism.  The photography in the film paralleled the visual of the oil paintings quite effectively.  It was a scenic feast.  The sun was setting while we watched and cast its last rays across the bed as it ended.  We discussed the experience for a while, and then I excused myself to nod off for a nap.  My brain was over-stimulated, I think, and I needed to close my eyes to let the images settle.

I awoke about an hour later.  I was thinking about a book on photography that my son had been browsing on Christmas.  I went downstairs to find it and fix drinks and appetizers.  Steve joined me and brought a book on Turner that he had found in his stack.  So we nibbled brie and Gorgonzola on crackers and sipped vodka martinis while looking at pictures and discussing art.  The attempt to point to something beyond ourselves, to depict holistically the experience of living in body, mind and soul…how do we do that?  Reality isn’t all realistic…impressionism, expressionism & romanticism try to get at something more, something beyond, some movement and change that is hidden but implied.  As we talked, the salmon fillet was baking and the brown rice simmering.  We moved on to dinner and talked about memories.  I was recalling the last heart surgery my late husband had and how I tried to manage my anxiety as I looked out the window in the atrium of the cardiac wing.   Consciousness and fear, peace and presence.  What is reality, anyway?  I drained my glass of the last drops of Chardonnay and cleared the dishes.  We then settled on the couch with James Joyce’s Dubliners to read our favorite story, “The Dead”.  I first read this aloud to Steve our first Christmas together.  We had gone to a bed & breakfast place in Whitewater, Wisconsin called The Hamilton House.  We had “The Pisarro” room in this 1861 mansion, and I read to him from the satin-covered four poster that night.  I remembered enjoying a chance to use my theatrical British accent and reveling in the details of the text that reminded me of my family’s Christmas celebrations.  I had absorbed the atmosphere and the dialogue, but didn’t really catch the arc of the piece that first time.  I had been curiously surprised to find Steve in tears as I finished.  So, last night, I paid particular attention to the end of the story, the widening of scope in the main character’s vision.  The story is brilliantly crafted.  “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”  I read the final line and looked up to see Steve wiping his eyes.  He spoke a while about the expansive feeling of love that story illustrates for him.

Subdued but happy, I rose to check the time.  It was already NYC midnight, so I brought out the bottle of champagne and the fruitcake my eldest sister had sent.   Now, I know what you’re thinking.  “You had me up to the fruitcake!”  But listen, this recipe has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  It’s Julia Child’s version, I think.  It’s dark and rich with fruit and nuts and brandy and rum.  I topped our slices off with a little hard sauce, too.  (You know, brandy and sugar and butter…like frosting.)  Forget your prejudices and work with me, people!  So we ate fruitcake, sipped champagne and talked about our year together.  I moved in with him last January 10; he’d been living alone almost his entire adult life.  We had my daughter’s cat for the first 8 months of the year.  We took a 4 week road trip to the West Coast in April.  We entertained family and friends for dinner and “sleep overs”.  We have changed, danced, been with each other in all of our facets and moods.  It’s been a beautiful year.  The digital clock on the stove shone out 12:00 and we kissed.  We finally put on some music to accompany the new year.  Steve selected the movie soundtrack from “2001: A Space Odyssey”. We skipped the Richard Strauss and listened to the atonal and dissonant Ligeti pieces and then the Blue Danube waltz.  Mysterious, elegant, spacious.  Our world is huge.  I don’t like to imagine it being shut up in a box on TV.  I am looking forward to sampling it all year in different ways, through all of my senses.

Unknown's avatar

Homework

by

So here’s my assignment for the week: write a description of one of the characters who will be in your memoir.  Here’s what I have written.

“When I met Jim, he was a warm, charismatic 17-year old. Everything about him was golden and good. He was an A student parented by professional educators, a member of the Mormon Church who spent an hour in seminary every day before school, an athlete competitive in tennis, a baritone soloist with the school choir, a blue-eyed blonde with thick, curly surfer locks and a regular California dream. And the crowning touch? His grandfather was an Italian immigrant. I was introduced to him at our high school’s International Talk-In, where locals were given the opportunity to mingle with exchange students. I was then the Vice President of the Italian Club, a thorough Anglo hopelessly enamored of all things italiano. My best friend at the time, the President of the Club, Lynn Panighetti, introduced us. Jim enclosed my right hand in a bear paw and then wouldn’t let go. His long lashes fluttered in befuddlement as he pretended our hands were magically glued together. He was a flirt, a funny one, and I was instantly flattered and powerfully attracted.

His right hand was broad with short, stubby fingers. He would later lament how often he “fat fingered” the keys of his computer. He had a scar on his fourth finger from a machine accident he had while working in a cannery at age 15. He told me after we’d been dating for a few years that I could have all of him except the thumb and two middle fingers of his right hand – he needed them for bowling. Eventually, he qualified for PBA membership; he always pushed himself to achieve the highest level possible in any of his pursuits. His hands matched the rest of his mesomorphic frame. At 5 feet 8 inches tall, with a massive barrel chest, he resembled a friendly teddy bear, especially to my 15-year old eyes. I nicknamed him Winnie the Pooh.

Thirty years later, that stocky body was swollen with toxins and dialysis solution as a result of his failing kidneys. His barrel chest sported a 6-inch scar where they had split his sternum to perform double bypass surgery on his 31-year old heart. A longer scar down his right calf marked the place where they had harvested a vein for the graft. The kids called his lower legs “cankles” because they looked like calves and ankles combined after neuropathy and edema developed. His polar bear feet with the sideways little toes were in pretty good shape for a diabetic. He had lost only one toenail to ulcerating infection. His hair was still thick, too short to be very curly, and just barely graying at the temples. His beautiful Italian mouth fringed by the ginger mustache looked about to smile, but it wouldn’t. His ears were blue with what our daughter identified as ‘circumaural cyanosis’. (“See, Daddy, I’m really smart,” she sobbed.) He was dead.”

I have become rather moody while taking this course.  Finished Joan Didion’s memoir about her husband’s death (The Year of Magical Thinking) last night and did a little research.  Her only child died at the age of 39 just a month before it was published.  Recent images of her are gaunt and haunted.  Interesting that she was an Episcopalian, like me.  Her New York life reminds me a little of Madeleine L’Engle’s (another Episcopalian), but she is more neurotic, less serenely spiritual.   L’Engle’s memoir of her marriage to actor Hugh Franklin was a favorite of mine about 20 years ago.  (Two-Part Invention)  I feel rather like I’m swimming in the shallow end of their private pool.

Unknown's avatar

Affairs of the Heart

by

“Sudden massive coronary events” are dominating my thinking lately.  I am reading Joan Didion’s account of her husband’s death in The Year of Magical Thinking and recently browsed the pertinent pages of Ekaterina Gordeeva’s book My Sergei while waiting for Steve to glean salable items from Good Will on Tuesday.   I am also writing my own memoirs of my husband Jim in a Continuing Ed course.  What struck me this morning was the role of the grieving person’s best friend as hero.  Not the knight-in-shining-armor type hero, but the simple, calming presence modelling a way to be.  In a moment when shock obscures all notions of how to act, having a trusted person exhibit some caring, helpful behavior is a distinct grace.

My mother was that hero to me when my sister was killed in a car crash.  She and I were traveling across country together, enjoying the freedom of being 20 and (almost) 17 when it happened.  My mother cobbled together connecting flights to reach me in Nebraska the next morning.   She got me discharged from the hospital and set up in a hotel with her while she went through all the details of bringing Alice’s ashes back to California.  We went to the mortuary the next day.  I was still rather zombie-like while my mother handled the business.  Then the director asked us if we would like to see the body.  “Absolutely,” was my mother’s reply.  For some reason, I hadn’t realized that was why we were there.  I hesitated.  Mom led me into the room while the director closed the door.  “Oh, honey,” she sighed as she approached the table.  “No, she’s not there.  She’s gone.  Look here…” she began to comment on Alice’s wounds, on her swollen face and how old she looked, as if she were a battered wife decades in the future.  My mom said something about all the suffering her daughter had been spared.  Then she tenderly bend down and kissed that pale, waxy forehead.  My mother has never looked more beautiful to me in all my life than she did at that moment.  Strong, compassionate, wise and incredibly beautiful.  I wanted to be like her, so I kissed my sister’s forehead, too.

My mom (photo credit DKK)

Gordeeva writes about her coach, Marina, prompting her to go into the ICU room where her husband lay.  “Don’t be afraid.  Go talk to him.  He can still hear you.”  She goes in and begins to unlace his skates, a normal gesture that helps loosen her words, her tears, her emotions.  I remember our priest asking me and two of my daughters if we’d like to anoint Jim with some olive oil, bathe his face, and prepare his body to be taken away.  It was a relief to excuse ourselves from the people downstairs in the living room and go up to him together, to say our goodbyes together, to touch him one more time.  I am so grateful someone thought of allowing us that right then.  We had another opportunity to say goodbye to his body at the funeral home later when my two other children came home.  By then, I could take the lead with them and encourage them to approach.  I can’t remember who started humming “Amazing Grace”, but we all joined in, musical family that we are, and swayed together, arms and bodies entwined.

In the aftermath of Jim’s death, my youngest daughter and I fought frequently.  I didn’t know how to talk to her, to listen to her anger directed at me and recognize that she wasn’t hateful, only grieving.  Steve was the one who suggested that she was hurt, not hurtful and agreed to sit by me while we attempted an honest conversation.  My instinct was to run away.  I was grateful to observe someone who could be calm and present, reasonable and compassionate in the face of powerful emotions that frightened me.  He is adamant about not rescuing me, but equally determined to be the best friend he can be.

I hope that I will have opportunities to be a great friend to someone in grief.  I would like to be a conduit of such grace.

Unknown's avatar

Morning Pages

by

With the time change, morning daylight becomes precious.  It’s dark by 5pm now, so I like to get up and get going early.  My partner, however, stays up working late into the wee hours and sleeps in.  I woke up at 7, but decided to stay in bed.  Early morning brain work is often my most productive, so I just lay there and thought about my Memoirs assignment.  How would I describe my late husband in detail?  As I pictured him from toe to head, each part brought back associations and memories spanning the 30 years we were together.  Doing this in the quiet, safe, wordless place where I sleep was a great indulgence.  I didn’t feel the need to come up with verbiage or sentence structure or decide what might be better left unsaid.  My brain wandered through different decades and moments without the need to assign chronology.  In this floating place, I felt more connected with his entire person, without delineation.  When Steve rolled over, I put a hand on his shoulder and suddenly began to weep.  Why just then?  Perhaps the absence of tangibility in my relationship with Jim just would not be denied at the moment I became aware of touch.

We are still one.

He sat at the edge of the bed, his naked back to me.  He was working up to rising, about to stand on his unsteady, swollen, deadened feet and shuffle off to the bathroom.  Something prompted me to scoot forward and wrap my legs around his waist and lay my cheek between his shoulder blades.  “You will always be the love of my life,” I whispered.  “You know that, don’t you?”

He did.  He does.

Unknown's avatar

Ordinary Business with a side of grief

by

My finger is bleeding; I’m cold and frustrated, and now I’m crying.  Time to go inside and figure out what’s going on with me.

I still have occasional melt downs.  I am still grieving.

Today I went to the Wisconsin DMV to get a new driver’s license, car registration, title and license plates.  I am not exactly timely in getting this bit of business done, and I still have to figure out what to do with the other car that is in Chicago with my daughter.  I don’t relish going into “the system”.  I often feel stupid, pushed around, ripped off and helpless.  I try to do my homework and come prepared.  I cannot tell a lie and haven’t figured out how to find justifiable loop holes to save myself some money.  Steve says that I think in black and white, which is why the system loves me.  Fine.  I suppose that’s my personality, and I don’t think it’s so bad.  I will never be a shrewd iconoclast.  I’ll leave that to someone else.  I figure I did okay getting out in 30 minutes with new plates, a new title, and a new (temp) driver’s license.  I was kind of proud of myself for a moment for jumping through this hurdle.  I got home and updated my insurance info online and then went out with a screwdriver and the plates to do the swap.  The back plates are held on by a hexagonal bolt.  Fine.  I went to get pliers.  Back outside.  I couldn’t budge the thing, and the pliers kept slipping.  Fine.  I’ll go find a socket wrench or something.  I do have a handy array of tools, and I rather like solving problems.  I found a set of wrenches and selected one the right size.  It fit on the bolt, but I still couldn’t move it.  I needed more force, so I went back inside to find a hammer.  With the hammer, I decided to be more aggressive.  I wanted to move this stubborn bolt, but the rust resisted.  My knuckle scraped against the plate and started bleeding.  Fine.  I’ll go inside and wash my hand and find some gloves.  Back outside.  Final attempt, nothing’s budging, I’m cold and ILLINOIS is staring me in the face.  “This is Jim’s car,” pops into my head, my nose starts burning and suddenly, everything is blurry.

If this little operation had gone smoothly, I wouldn’t have thought much about it.  I still play the games inside my head that swing me from “This is no big deal” to “This is something important” and back again.  Denying emotion, repressing the thoughts and feelings that spring unbidden in an ordinary moment. Where is that Middle Way?

This isn’t an emergency.  There’s no need to be anxious, but something notable is happening.  I want to slow down and pay attention.  I am thinking of Jim, and I am sad.  I miss the way he took care of all kinds of “system business” smoothly and happily.  Knocking away at his plates with my hammer makes me feel like I’m dismantling something precious, and I don’t want it to be taken apart.  I can’t preserve everything, of course.  What can I keep?  I don’t need the plates.  I appreciate the car.  I want always to have the love.  I wish I could hang on to the security.

And that’s what it is all about.

I am grateful to have a partner who provides a safe, warm place for me to talk about this and arms to encircle me and fingers that can open a package of Band-Aids when I’m trembling.

Unknown's avatar

Bravi!

by

I just returned from watching the HD live simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s matinee performance of Wagner’s Siegfried.  After five and half hours in another world, I’m not really sure what day it is.  But it doesn’t matter.  I’ve been convening with the gods and had a ringside (oh, pun appreciated!) seat at a resurrection which left me breathless and sobbing.  Brunhilde (two dots over the ‘u’) is wakened from her 18 year slumber by a kiss from Siegfried.  It may sound like Sleeping Beauty, but with Wagner’s incredible score underneath instead of Disney, it is a much more transcendent moment.  Deborah Voigt is an amazing actress as well as a singer.  In due time, she rises and greets the sun with a smile that lights the stage and a melody that thrills you to gooseflesh and tears.  Have you ever felt dead?  Hopeless?  Trapped?  Futureless? Depressed?  “There’s got to be a morning after….” is the same sentiment with inferior music. Her salutation of the day and the realization that she is alive reminds me of the Suryanamaskar in yoga, not that she does the position, but the joy of it shows in her entire being.  The passion behind the resurrection in this story is her banishment by Wotan, her father, god of Valhalla and enforcer of all the rules.  That scene as well struck me in the heart and gut as I pictured my own stern father turning his back on his daughter.  Their parting was a wrenching and painful death, again reducing me to tears in the darkness of the theater…last June.  She doesn’t awake until Act III of the next opera, which is what I saw today.

Oh, life!  Light in your eyes, the touch of your own warm flesh, breath in your lungs.  What compares with realizing the richness of being alive?  We can barely endure a moment of this stunning gift.  Something of sentience crashes in on the sparkle like a sledgehammer on an icicle.  Now that I’m alive, there’s so much to fear!  Brunhilde quickly realizes she’s lost her immortality, her armor and shield, and her autonomy.  I know the place where my morning turns on a dime from sunny dawn to mental lists of obligations and anxieties.  It’s like the Easter let down after the trumpet recessional when you know you have to leave the church and the music and go back to your business.  Listening to Deborah sing those first phrases, I hitch my entire being to her joy and long to go with her into that rapture and never come back.

A human emotion, pure and powerful, captured in Art.  It seems simple enough but somehow requires genius…or open innocence…or both.  I feel compelled to become attached, to grab this jewel and hang on, to build a booth around this transfiguration, but that would be a strangle hold.  I let it go, grateful for its presence and passing, and hopeful that another day the sun will rise and I with it.

 

Unknown's avatar

Suspension of Meaning

by

In the quiet hours this morning as Steve slept beside me, the maple tree performed a Wayang shadow dance on the south window.

My mind began to wonder: what is 7 billion?  Are there 7 billion maple leaves in this town?  Has my heart beat 7 billion times?  Have I written 7 billion words?  Are there 7 billion of any other species on earth besides humans right now?  Are there 7 billion ants or bats or mice?  If I am one of 7 billion, does my life have meaning?  Am I unique?  Have I produced anything of value?  Am I a “productive member of society”?  And failing to produce any anxiety about this question, I ask myself: does it matter?

I found myself in a rather peaceful state, suspended as any other late fall maple leaf, not very concerned if the next gust of wind should liberate me forever from my connective  capacity.  Steve stirred and asked me what I was doing.  “Just thinking….”  As he awoke more fully, he told me of his late night reading adventures and the existential anger it stoked.  We began discussing morality and deep ecology and meaning.  At breakfast, we listened to Beethoven and Charles Ives and contemplated the difference in the world of the 1800s and the post WWI era.  He mentioned Nietzsche and his mental breakdown and death.  He was an insomniac and took morphine and chloral hydrate; he also had syphilis.  I thought of my brilliant father’s last 7 years living with Alzheimer’s.  What is it like to be separated from meaning?  Steve finds it frightening.  I imagine that it brings you closer to the state of an animal in the wild.  Do they have need of symbolic representations that are recognizable and repeatable?  Do they need meaning to live their lives?  We would probably find it impossible to function for a day without it.  Perhaps in meditation we suspend it for a time.  Is that what Enlightenment is?

Without the blinds covering my window, the maple leaves are golden and bright.

  They dance as solid dark figures when the veil is lowered.  Are they the same leaves?  Why do we attach different meanings to different states of being?  What if we didn’t?

Just wondering.

Unknown's avatar

I’m Afraid So…

by

I’m afraid so…often.

I’m afraid, so I get surges of adrenaline, tense shoulders, a rather breathless feeling, and I give off a vibe that Steve notices right away as “ungrounded”, even before I’m aware of anything.  Yesterday, I wrote in a comment to my blog post that I have a fear-based outlook on the world.  This morning, it showed up in a small-scale episode of anxiety.  I was driving to a park to do a Kindergarten program when I noticed my engine temperature indicator dipping into the HOT zone.  I wasn’t going more than 8 miles away, so I just continued to the park.  Driving home, the needle stayed on the cool half of the dial.  I called my local repair shop and made an appointment for Monday.  Now, this does not present a real problem for me at all.  I don’t have a job I need to get to, and Steve has a car I can use for errands and whatnot.  But something inside me escalates things into a sense of “OMG!  There are things that I need to FIX RIGHT AWAY!”, and suddenly I’m making mental lists of everything I am responsible for or slightly dreading in the next month.  Subtly, of course, so that I don’t notice, but Steve does.  “Are you OK?” he asks.  And suddenly, I am aware that I am not quite.  I am a foot or so off the ground.  Tense.  Not confident.  Addled.  Alert, but not trusting.  So I take a break, sit in the sun on the couch, take off my glasses and breathe.

"While the storm clouds gather..."

Why don’t I trust myself?  The things that I have on my mind are tasks that are well within my range of skills or conditions that I can survive.  I notice that this kind of “crisis” happens in the weeks leading up to the first snowfall.  Perhaps it’s a biological trigger for preparedness.  Perhaps it’s a feeling of dread brought on by the many memories I have of emergencies that happened in winter.  My husband was in the hospital a lot in the winter months over a period of about 5 years with pneumonia and kidney dialysis issues.  He died in the middle of February.   I also have a lot of automobile-related dread triggers.  I hate driving in snow.  I visualize car accidents all the time, probably because of the accident I was in that claimed my sister’s life.  I can never go to that default position of “it’ll never happen to me”.  I gasp at the slightest jerk of the steering wheel. (Just ask my kids!)  So maybe I have “reasons” to be fear-based.  But I don’t want to be.

I’m afraid, so I’ll “invite my fears to the dinner table”, make friends with my demons, try to look at them head-on and learn from them.  What do they tell me about life?  What do they tell me about me?

Life is unpredictable.  We humans have a biological mechanism to get us hyped up to respond to emergencies.  “Fight or flight”, they call it.  Adrenaline flows into our veins and speeds up our breathing and heart rate.  It’s useful at times, and seems inappropriate at others.  What do you do with adrenaline when you’re sitting in a hospital waiting room?  There’s no physical outlet for it!  So perhaps this response was designed for a more physical lifestyle. I’m afraid, so I should exercise more.

I’m afraid, so I should be compassionate with myself.  Slowing down, allowing my heart rate to come back to resting range, I can concentrate on my thoughts, my breath, my emotions.  “Are you OK?”  I want to check in with myself more often and take the time to get grounded.  The stuff I need to fix isn’t usually immediate life-or-death stuff.  I can take it easy.  I have a frightened child with me – myself.  How would I care for her?

I’m afraid, so I think I’ll write about it.  Maybe one day I’ll come up with a picture book about being afraid.

 

Unknown's avatar

Suffering Attachment

by

Today was a cottage industry day.  Mondays are good days to get all the book orders from the weekend off to the Post Office.  It’s always interesting to peruse the stack and see who’s buying what and where it’s going.  Today there was a book on mourning going out.  I couldn’t help myself, I had to look into the table of contents and see what helpful and insightful pearls of grief I may have missed.  Philosophical or practical nuggets on this subject still pertain, right?  So there I was, reading about identity and widowhood, and it still struck a chord.  How am I almost 50 years old and still not sure who I am?  I have been working really hard on this for 3 and a half years now.  I am working on updating relationships, working on being as honest as I possibly can in order to face myself and my changes directly.  I am working on my memories a bit more slowly, I suspect, because I don’t live with my kids who share those memories, and I don’t mention all the ones that occur to me when I’m with Steve (not that he’d object in any way).  What do I mean by “working on my memories” anyway?  Well, I guess I mean identifying the emotions associated with them.  Maybe the primary work is the identification of attachment and expectation and the acknowledgement of the suffering that produces.

Jim was my first love, my high school sweetheart, my only husband, and my best friend for 30 years.  I expected to be reminded of that head-over-heels falling in love stage on a daily basis for the rest of my life.  It’s starting to fade.  I see my daughter and her boyfriend together, and I am reminded of that youthful, giddy feeling…and I realize that I don’t feel it anymore.  It’s an attachment I developed.  It’s not necessary in any way.  Many people don’t feel that way and never did.  Why can’t I just get over it already?  Jim was a singer.  He sang to me frequently.  I expected to be serenaded throughout my life, I suppose.  It’s not happening.  I miss it.  The fourth finger of my left hand feels occasionally naked, and I will twirl the phantom ring that is no longer there with the surrounding fingers every once in a while.  I wish I could just stop doing that.  In brainstorming with my kids about possible homestead arrangements, it feels weird that Jim isn’t part of that family meeting.  I suspect that I have a million small expectations and maybe a couple of dozen rather large ones that I have not been able to exorcize.

Grief seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving.  My identity was very much associated with being Jim’s wife, and I am working on getting to know myself as just myself.  And I keep on working.  Here are a few things I know about me:  I am a visual person; I like pictures.  I like figuring out how to do stuff.  How do you treat deer skin after you’ve field dressed your kill, and turn it into leather? (I wake up in the middle of the night wondering about stuff like that.  No kidding.)  I am an introvert.  I managed to live without “partying” and “dating” for my entire life so far.  I am a “natural woman”.  What do you mean by that?  I liked getting pregnant and having babies.  I like taking care of people.  I like preparing food.  I also like being silly and childlike and entertaining.  I like sensual experiences: fragrance, textures, tastes, sounds, sights, juxtapositions.  I like enjoying them unhurried.  I have a million insecurities and anxieties and a huge desire to be a good person.  I have fantasies of being really good at something and recognized for it.  I am a bit on the “dreamy” side and rather afraid of meeting the world head on, but I work hard at being practical.  Relationships are really important to me.  I want to be loved, and I want to be loving.

I like camping and building fires.

And all of this might change.  What happens if I get to know me and get attached to me and then develop Alzheimer’s like my dad did?  Best to stay light on my feet and light in my thinking, not get dogmatic about it.

Life is suffering and life is wonderful.  And sometimes I just feel sad about the attachments I’ve developed.  And that’s the truth.

Unknown's avatar

Friendship

by

I woke from a dream this morning feeling the hostility of people whom I thought were my friends.  It made me wonder about myself and about friendship.  My late husband, Jim, was a very popular person.  About 300 people came to his memorial service.  Collecting friends was as easy as collecting dust for him.  Everyone liked him.  He was easy-going, out-going, always going.  He had friends from the P.B.A. (bowling buddies), friends from church, friends from music groups he was in, friends to golf with, friends he worked with, friends from Junior High School he still played cards with on occasion, friends he met through me, even, who probably liked him better.  He was gifted in the social dance and spun like a well-balanced top.  I admire that, and I’m not like that.  Does that mean there’s something wrong with me?

Before I got too heavily into my little pity party, Steve woke up and asked me what I was thinking.  Then he asked, “So, what is a friend?”

With my friends the sun and the prairie

I have never really had more than one good friend at a time.  Neither has Steve.  We’re both introverted, which is one way to label us.  What does that mean?  We go inward, downward.  We get introspective and deep.  We challenge ourselves, and we challenge others. Often, this makes other people uncomfortable.  Steve has no problem being uncomfortable; he’s just that confident and always has been.  When I feel uncomfortable or that I’ve made someone else uncomfortable, I get very judgmental of myself.  I hide from the discomfort.  That can make me seem aloof, I suppose.  When I am with my one friend whom I trust, I can risk being uncomfortable and be honest.  This is what I want most in a friendship.  I have a lot of questions that I want to ask, but I’m afraid to ask most of them.  It takes me a long time to feel that I’m in a safe enough space to be my questioning, challenging, unsure self.  Providing that space is a wonderful gift.  Really interacting with me in that space is a rare and holy experience, and one that I think I have sought out throughout my life.  I have been in prayer groups, Bible study groups, leadership groups, workshop groups, meditation groups, and interactive groups of all kinds ever since my teenaged years looking for that.  I thought I was just looking for acceptance, but now I think I was looking for much more.  I don’t crave being social.  I crave the mystery and vulnerability of authenticity.  I want to feel free to go into dangerous inner territory, and I’d like a companion to help me feel safe.

Years ago, my spiritual director asked me if I thought Jim was my “soul mate”.  I replied, “Sometimes.”  We’d get to places of depth, and then he’d pull up.  I accepted that.  Then I’d go to another prayer group or walk alone in the prairie or write some poetry.  It worked.  We were very good companions, but different.  There is no “right” way to be a friend.  We aren’t guaranteed a soul-mate.  Although, if you look at Yahoo news items, they will give you a list of how many friends you’re “supposed” to have and what kind and then give you 6 tips on how to make more friends.  I imagine that is fear-based, and that’s what I want to avoid.  “I’m afraid that no one likes me” “I’m afraid there’s something wrong with me” “I’m afraid I’ll die alone and unloved”.   I am who I am.  I will be who I will be.  We all die on our own.  I will go down to the depths with myself, if no one else, and that will be fine.  God is within me, at the depths, around me, everywhere.  That space that allows me to be how I am is God.  There is nothing to be afraid of.

After breakfast, Steve played his favorite song.  It always makes him (and now me) cry.  The last verse goes like this:

His head was bent in sorrow/ green scales fell like rain/ Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.

Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave/ So Puff that magic dragon sadly slipped into his cave.

 

Life changes.  Sometimes we slip into a cave and become our own best friend.  We can still explore the depths there and thrill to that dangerous territory.