I've been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks, but have been so busy DOING the thing that I haven't sat down and done the writing about it.
I find myself in the midst of a bathroom renovation, the second task of which was to gut my shower, pulling down a ton of tile and the drywall behind it. And almost as soon as I began, I was both bemused and amused at how it echoed a detail from A's life.
When I first knew A, he and his wife were living separate lives under one roof, and had been for a few years. He was waiting for her to make a move and get the ball rolling on the divorce she'd asked for, and there were several projects around the house he said he'd do to get the house ready for the eventual sale they both expected as a part of the divorce, the largest of which was a bathroom renovation. He said that as bad as living there still was, he wasn't about to come back and work on a house he was no longer living in. He told me that the wall behind the shower had been pulled down completely, and he needed to put up new backer board and retile it. The shower was currently unusable.
He moved out to his own apartment the month before we finally met in person, my visit being the impetus to make the move at that time, bathroom and other projects be damned. He liked his new place, though he only lived there for a year and a half before he died. He never did finish the bathroom, or any other projects, for his soon-to-be-ex-wife; it was just one of many things he left unfinished. But I think about it and smile, and think maybe he would, too, about the ultimate, unintentional, "fuck you" it ended up being. "Get someone else to fix your shower, lady. I'm outta here." It's kind of like the jury duty he got out of, though I've joked to him (wherever he is) that it's a damnably extreme gambit for skipping jury duty.
As I've stood there sweating, broken tiles flying and a layer of crumbing drywall dust sifting over me, I think of him working on that bathroom, and me being so impressed, because I wouldn't know how to do anything like that, and wouldn't take it on. And I think about who I am now, because I'm doing it. And I think about how I'm finishing the bathroom he started...and maybe it's my job to finish lots of things he started, or at least make my contribution to the inexorable continuation of life.
That is not to say that he didn't complete his own life; by some cosmic reckoning, maybe he well and truly did, however incomplete it appears to those of us left behind. But rather, it's more that, for the first time, I've felt in a very real way how it is on the survivors to take what we learned from those we lost, what they gave us, and how they shaped us into the people we are now, and use that going forward. That this is the best kind of ongoing tribute and memorial to those we love and have lost. Early on, I told myself that I couldn't grieve myself into oblivion forever, because I owed it to him to live, to really live instead of just exist, because that's what he'd want, and because he couldn't. But it was all talk, an intellectual consideration. It wasn't until I had tools in hand, picking up in my own life where he left off in his own, though, that I felt it, rather than thought it. I didn't even feel this way as I've moved forward in playing guitar, probably because I was so far behind him that I may not ever catch up, but this bathroom I can finish; maybe that's the difference.
Many times since he died, I've hoped that A is proud of me for what I'm doing, how I've healed, who I've become in, and because of, his absence. But surprisingly, I find I'm proud of myself when I suddenly become aware that I am doing something he could've or would've done, or said something he would've, because he was a good, and kind, and patient, and brilliant, and skilled man. My life is very much my own; I am not trying to live his for him, nor could I ever succeed in doing so. But it pleases me when I find my life, or my thoughts, running in familiar traces; for in those moments, our lives coincide once again. These are, in a way, new memories I can make with him, connecting my present, a future he could never foresee, with the past he shared with me and that which we lived together. I'd like to think he sees, knows, and it pleases him, too.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Mixed feelings
Among the many things I didn't receive when A died were a bunch of things of my own, including several books. We had swapped a bunch of our favorites that we thought the other would like, and I'm glad we did, because if I hadn't had the books he brought me all the way from California ten months before he died, I would've had nothing of his. I haven't read a single one of those books yet. I don't know what I'm saving them for. But it brings me some comfort to know his fingers touched every single page of them.
But this isn't about his books; it's about mine. Particularly the first two books of a series I love that were among his belongings that no doubt ended up at the charity thrift store, it never occurring to anyone to ask me if there was anything of mine, or anything I wanted, at the home of my lover of two years. But I'm not bitter.
(Hell yes, I am.)
I recently checked up on that author, and downloaded her latest book to my Kindle, and along with it, a short story that told of the meeting of the two main characters through the eyes of the man (who happens to be Sherlock Holmes); the original novel told it from the girl's (she was a girl when the books started, anyway) perspective. And that made me want to go back and reread the whole series, which I haven't done since the Little House books a million years ago. But of course, I couldn't, because I don't have the books. The completist in me had often thought about replacing them, but somehow, I couldn't, or didn't. I can't even tell you why I never did. Maybe it was a tiny cross I was hanging myself upon, a reminder of how I'd been wronged by his family, and worse, his ex who evidently took charge of the disposition of his things--she had the legal right, if not the ethical right; I think it may be worse that I don't think it was malicious; I don't think they gave me a thought one way or the other.
In any case, tonight, 5 years, 4 months, and 2 weeks after his death, I bought the books again and downloaded them to my Kindle as well. My main impulse was that I wanted to read those books again, but it brings up a whole bunch of other stuff, of course. If he hadn't died, I'd have them, or know who did. If his family could've found it within themselves to care a little more about my feelings, I might have them. I am looking forward to rereading the books (and the story of their May-December romance between people of uncannily like minds), and resentful that I had to buy them twice, and sad because they were the least of what I lost, but they are the tip of that whole iceberg and it all comes back. They just can't be two books that went missing. I'm a widow, and too many damn things in my life are fraught with subtext that only I see and can read.
On the surface, it's no big deal. I had to replace two paperbacks. But there's an emotional kick that I can't avoid. I can anticipate it, and I can survive it, but I cannot avoid it. And frankly, I think that's a bitch. Even when you're mostly free of the pain, and the heartache, you're never free and clear. There's always something that can pull it front and center, where it mocks you in your helplessness. You can't fix it any more now than you ever could. And you know that only too well, with more clarity then you had way back in the beginning. Grief and loss? They're emotional herpes: something that won't kill you, but certainly has the power to cause you pain, inconvenience, and to cramp your style. It just pisses me off sometimes.
But this isn't about his books; it's about mine. Particularly the first two books of a series I love that were among his belongings that no doubt ended up at the charity thrift store, it never occurring to anyone to ask me if there was anything of mine, or anything I wanted, at the home of my lover of two years. But I'm not bitter.
(Hell yes, I am.)
I recently checked up on that author, and downloaded her latest book to my Kindle, and along with it, a short story that told of the meeting of the two main characters through the eyes of the man (who happens to be Sherlock Holmes); the original novel told it from the girl's (she was a girl when the books started, anyway) perspective. And that made me want to go back and reread the whole series, which I haven't done since the Little House books a million years ago. But of course, I couldn't, because I don't have the books. The completist in me had often thought about replacing them, but somehow, I couldn't, or didn't. I can't even tell you why I never did. Maybe it was a tiny cross I was hanging myself upon, a reminder of how I'd been wronged by his family, and worse, his ex who evidently took charge of the disposition of his things--she had the legal right, if not the ethical right; I think it may be worse that I don't think it was malicious; I don't think they gave me a thought one way or the other.
In any case, tonight, 5 years, 4 months, and 2 weeks after his death, I bought the books again and downloaded them to my Kindle as well. My main impulse was that I wanted to read those books again, but it brings up a whole bunch of other stuff, of course. If he hadn't died, I'd have them, or know who did. If his family could've found it within themselves to care a little more about my feelings, I might have them. I am looking forward to rereading the books (and the story of their May-December romance between people of uncannily like minds), and resentful that I had to buy them twice, and sad because they were the least of what I lost, but they are the tip of that whole iceberg and it all comes back. They just can't be two books that went missing. I'm a widow, and too many damn things in my life are fraught with subtext that only I see and can read.
On the surface, it's no big deal. I had to replace two paperbacks. But there's an emotional kick that I can't avoid. I can anticipate it, and I can survive it, but I cannot avoid it. And frankly, I think that's a bitch. Even when you're mostly free of the pain, and the heartache, you're never free and clear. There's always something that can pull it front and center, where it mocks you in your helplessness. You can't fix it any more now than you ever could. And you know that only too well, with more clarity then you had way back in the beginning. Grief and loss? They're emotional herpes: something that won't kill you, but certainly has the power to cause you pain, inconvenience, and to cramp your style. It just pisses me off sometimes.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Useless
The coworker I mentioned in this post has been back to work a couple weeks now. I sent him a condolence e-mail when the news came that his wife had passed, and we've swapped a couple e-mails sharing pertinent poems since he's been back, alluding to his situation, but not really talking about it. I talked more about it than he did, which I suppose is how it always is. I assume people want to talk, want to process; over and over again, because I did, but I find a lot of people really don't. When I was still e-mailing with A's family, I would spill my guts (carefully...I would carefully pour my guts out), and their responses, even in e-mail, seemed to have this palpable feeling of "Whoa there, lady...way too much information/emotion." It's always a sharing mismatch with me. He seems much like he always did, and is walking around, joking and laughing when he isn't hiding out in his office. It may well be that he's relieved to be in a context where the expectations are clear, and not so heart-rending as those he's been in all these months. But I swear I catch him staring blankly at his monitor a lot. I am not surprised. I did a lot of that for almost 2 years.
It's been weird, and I've felt frustrated, because my instinct is to reach out to him. I am, to my knowledge, the only other person at the company who's been widowed. I have grief books to share. I have experience. I have the URL of a sometimes wacky, but overall helpful, support website I could give him. I have an open heart and a listening ear. I could, and would, be there for him but for two things: we are only friendly, not actually friends, and he has no reason to confide in me, or to imagine he could; and I am not out as a widow to the world at large, just select segments of it. And I don't see any point in coming out 5 years after the fact to someone at work. Too risky.
But I have to say, it was bad enough when my being a closeted poly person interfered with my own grieving; now it's interfering with my ability to be compassionate. Or rather, my ability to demonstrate that compassion. And that sucks. The suckage of that never seems to end. I think about that sometimes, as my parents and my friends and I all grow older. How many times will my ability to empathize be constrained and stifled because it still seems prudent to keep my love of A on a need-to-know basis? How many times will I bite back, "I do know how you feel," because they don't know that I do. Sometimes, I think "fuck it," I'm tired of keeping that secret, and that I'll let the chips fall where they may. But I never do; somehow, beyond the imagined risk, it seems disloyal and cowardly; if I wasn't going to 'fess up when it was happening and he was here and it could've mattered, why would I do it now, when that particular reality is long gone, and only the meanest souls would think less of me for it?
So I do what I can, but mostly, I feel I stupid because it ain't much. I don't ask him how he is. I ignore the subject, just like everyone else seems to around the office, and maybe that is, in fact, what he'd prefer. A lot of widows I know have expressed how they got really tired of people asking "How ARE you?" with that look. And it's not like I can ask him. So basically, I'm behaving like any other DGI--Let's all pretend M's wife didn't die, and that it's business as usual for him. I cringed when a coworker ran into him outside my cube, and chirped brightly, "Welcome back!" like he'd been on vacation or something; he spent the last 5 months watching his wife die. Jesus.
I guess, if I'm honest, I'm projecting the feelings that arise from my old wounds onto him, and he may be feeling none of that himself. But it's not about me. And maybe that's what I need to remember in my frustration; I have to guess he has other means of support. It is no doubt pure ego to think that he needs what I have to contribute. That makes sense to me; there's just that bit of doubt that nags at me, as I remember how many rats fled my sinking ship, and worry for him: what if I were the one person who might've supported him, but didn't?
It's been weird, and I've felt frustrated, because my instinct is to reach out to him. I am, to my knowledge, the only other person at the company who's been widowed. I have grief books to share. I have experience. I have the URL of a sometimes wacky, but overall helpful, support website I could give him. I have an open heart and a listening ear. I could, and would, be there for him but for two things: we are only friendly, not actually friends, and he has no reason to confide in me, or to imagine he could; and I am not out as a widow to the world at large, just select segments of it. And I don't see any point in coming out 5 years after the fact to someone at work. Too risky.
But I have to say, it was bad enough when my being a closeted poly person interfered with my own grieving; now it's interfering with my ability to be compassionate. Or rather, my ability to demonstrate that compassion. And that sucks. The suckage of that never seems to end. I think about that sometimes, as my parents and my friends and I all grow older. How many times will my ability to empathize be constrained and stifled because it still seems prudent to keep my love of A on a need-to-know basis? How many times will I bite back, "I do know how you feel," because they don't know that I do. Sometimes, I think "fuck it," I'm tired of keeping that secret, and that I'll let the chips fall where they may. But I never do; somehow, beyond the imagined risk, it seems disloyal and cowardly; if I wasn't going to 'fess up when it was happening and he was here and it could've mattered, why would I do it now, when that particular reality is long gone, and only the meanest souls would think less of me for it?
So I do what I can, but mostly, I feel I stupid because it ain't much. I don't ask him how he is. I ignore the subject, just like everyone else seems to around the office, and maybe that is, in fact, what he'd prefer. A lot of widows I know have expressed how they got really tired of people asking "How ARE you?" with that look. And it's not like I can ask him. So basically, I'm behaving like any other DGI--Let's all pretend M's wife didn't die, and that it's business as usual for him. I cringed when a coworker ran into him outside my cube, and chirped brightly, "Welcome back!" like he'd been on vacation or something; he spent the last 5 months watching his wife die. Jesus.
I guess, if I'm honest, I'm projecting the feelings that arise from my old wounds onto him, and he may be feeling none of that himself. But it's not about me. And maybe that's what I need to remember in my frustration; I have to guess he has other means of support. It is no doubt pure ego to think that he needs what I have to contribute. That makes sense to me; there's just that bit of doubt that nags at me, as I remember how many rats fled my sinking ship, and worry for him: what if I were the one person who might've supported him, but didn't?
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