Take a decade, leave a decade

Last Friday should've been A's 62nd birthday, the 7th birthday now he's missed. I thought I was getting through the day all right, but by dinnertime, I realized I was kind of out of it. Not as much sad as distracted and finding it hard to concentrate. I was trying to put together a complex dinner of grilled burgers and baked French fries, and was just scatterbrained throughout. As I thought about it later, I realized that it was no doubt the birthday doing it. When these milestone dates come up, or something triggers some subconscious grief, it now manifests more often as more brain flatulence than usual, or irritability, or both.

Two weeks ago, we were back in E's hometown, and while we were there, we visited his aged great-aunt, who is pushing 98 now. She's been ready to leave this world for at least 5 years, maybe more, and frankly, I can't blame her. She's been widowed for some years. She has macular degeneration, dementia, and is so physically frail, she's not supposed to leave her chair, even to go to the bathroom, without assistance, lest she fall...again. She spends all day sitting in a chair, watching TV or her birds at the feeder outside her window, and wonders aloud frequently why she's still here. She does it frequently, because she forgets she just talked about it; she mentioned it at least 5 times in the 45 minutes we were there. She's taken to quizzing her pastor why she's still here when he visits, and he tells her that God has a plan for her. She is lucid enough to ask him what is the point of plan involves her sitting in a chair all her waking hours, unable to move, alone in the world but for an aging niece and the people who work at her facility, barely able to see, her body and mind largely non-functional when it comes to daily living, but not broken enough to get on with dying.

I think it's a fair question. She is not having new experiences. She is not learning new things. She is not meeting new people; neither is she able to enjoy the ones she knows--after a little prompting, she finally remembered E, but as a 4-year-old boy; she didn't remember all the times she'd visited with him as a man, as recently as 5 years ago. And she had no idea who I was, other than a friendly face she could talk to. She is merely waiting for her body to finally give out, and frustrated that it hasn't yet. I can't blame her.

I'm not a "God's plan" person to begin with. If there is a rhyme or reason to this life, to this universe, (and I'm willing to accept the possibility that there is), it is irrelevant to my living my life if I'm not privy to what it is. If there is one, then I suspect it is something along the lines of us experiencing, learning, growing, and loving in ever-expanding consciousness throughout our lives; if we aren't doing that, for whatever reason, then we are dead, regardless of our breathing lungs and beating hearts. I tend to operate under the idea that if I'm still alive, I still have work to do in this life. But I look at her, and I see no work left to be done, and even if there were, no ability remaining to her to do it. If there are lessons to learn, and insights to come to, they will have to arrive clear as day in front of her in her tiny room; she will not find them in the books she can't read, or the experiences she can't have, or the housemates she can't communicate with because of her problems, and theirs.

Ever since, I have been nagged by the question of why someone whose life is so obviously at an end, whose experiences have contracted down to televised golf and mealtimes, who is so very ready to go, gets so many years she doesn't want, and sees no end to, and why someone like A, who was in his middle-aged prime, a new grandfather, with a new love in his life, and enjoying his work and his family and me, didn't get even the average number of years humans can expect? He would've gladly had the years that my great-aunt-in-law would gladly dispense with, and those of us who loved him, and her, could not object to the trade, for both their sakes. In this, I cannot ask, "What is the plan?" I can only ask "What the hell is the point?" I find it staggeringly cruel and unjust that the reward for living to a very old age is to lose all your friends, most of your family, your physical and mental faculties, your freedom, such that you yearn for death, even as others are cut down, robbed of years they could've put to better use.

Like all the rest of such questions, I don't expect any kind of answer. But as I see this play out in my own life, it makes me less philosophical and more angry, in a "WTF?" kind of way. It is this kind of thing, as much as anything, that makes me think there couldn't be any kind of plan at all; a 4-year-old wouldn't come up with a plan this illogical, let alone a higher power.

Valentine's Day 2013

On February 10, 2007, I was sitting in the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, A's sister to my immediate left, and several of his closest friends beyond her. We were there together, wearing shirts with his beautiful face on them (a picture I took), in his honor, to attend a Tommy Emmanuel concert. Tommy was a favorite of A's, and a topic of some of our earliest conversations. He told me that he'd just gone to a show at the invitation of a friend and seen this Australian guy who got more out of an acoustic guitar than A had ever thought possible. He gave me the name, I looked him up on iTunes, and was an instant fan. When he died, he had tickets for two different Tommy Emmanuel shows waiting to be used within the next month or so; obviously, he never used them. Which was the inspiration for our group outing to the show in February.

Six years to the week later, this past Tuesday I found myself sitting in the Fox Theatre in Tucson, my new boyfriend to my immediate left, my best girlfriends to my right, and my guitar teacher and his wife in the same row right across the aisle from us, to see Tommy Emmanuel. It was my 8th time, my friend B's second, and everyone else was seeing him live for the first time, and I was excited for them, because Tommy has to be seen to be believed; he's that amazing. I knew when I bought the tickets, the timing of Tommy's first show in Tucson was auspicious, resonating with that tribute show we all attended. But as I sat in the audience among my friends, I pondered the particular appropriateness of this collection of folks with me at this show.

There was my dear friend B, whom I met at guitar camp, a guitar camp I chose in large part because it brought me to northern California, and therefore closer to A. I flew into his town and he drove me to camp that first year, stayed up there with me the second year, and it was she who told me she'd take care of me if I fell apart when I went the third year, 6 months after he died. After he was gone, and she and I became such good friends, I couldn't help but feel that A wasn't the only reason I was supposed to go to that particular camp; I was supposed to go there to meet B, too.

There was her partner, P, who has become another dear friend in her own right, and has taken care of this broken, problematic body of mine for years now, easing my soul in the process with her kind ways and generous heart. It was on a trip to visit the two of them, when I was 15 months out, that I had the first feeling that I was going to be all right. Intellectually, I knew I would heal in time (though what that would look like, I hadn't the foggiest). But they took me out, and they loved me through it, and as I sat on the back of the motorcycle of a friend of theirs, riding past a beautiful lake as aspen leaves floated down upon and around us like confetti, I thought, "Life IS good." And I felt the truth of it in that moment. A always said "Life is good." It was hard for me to see that up until that point, and to be honest, at many points thereafter. But with them, I always come away feeling better: filled up, healed; not just on that trip. They're that kind of people. And now they live in my city and we see each other all the time, so I'm very lucky.

A had been my guitar guru, my cheerleader, the one who got me playing the guitar after I'd completely given up. If not for him, I wouldn't be a musician today; I'm always sure of that, and I told him that often, though he would never accept credit for it. A year or so after he died, I bought a set of guitar lesson DVDs, in a fit of pique, actually, angry that he was no longer here to guide me in my learning to play guitar; one more loss on top of a mountain of them. But I never did anything with them, and ended up passing them on to a friend years later. Two years ago, however, I'd realized I'd run up against my own limitations as a self-taught guitarist, and I needed a new teacher. And I was ready for one who wasn't A. As it turns out, I couldn't have picked a better one. So for him to be there with me at the Tommy show, his lovely wife at his side, enjoying a guitarist that A had introduced to me, and I had introduced to everyone there with me, including my guitar teacher, seemed apropos.

And finally, my boyfriend. I started dating again this past summer, somewhat accidentally, but it wasn't until then that I could even consider it. Of course, being married makes it less imperative to even think about trying, but that aside, I wasn't ready or interested. I have had the two great loves of my life, and didn't expect another; it seemed greedy, somehow. And I love him, but it is very different, as it must be. It is not the same kind of relationship I have with E, or had with A. He is different. Circumstances are different. And I, too, am different. And as lovely as it is, it makes me think often of A, of the things that were so effortless with him, the way we clicked and always understood each other. I still miss that so much. I still miss him so much. I sometimes wish he hadn't been so wonderful, such a delightful human being, and a great man; then maybe everyone else in the world wouldn't suffer so much by comparison.

Still, the fact that I have made another positive, loving connection in this life is all to the good, and certainly beyond anything I dared to imagine in the early, or later, days of my widowhood. I'm sure we all say that, though I should've known better--I was poly before he died, whereas for most widows, this is a new concept, loving more than one person infinitely and equally. And for him to be there at the Tommy show with all of us, it just kind of felt like the circle was complete in a way. Because not one of those people, not the one on the stage, nor the ones sitting with me, would've been in my life if not for A. It is both strange and amazing to contemplate.

So here we are again on Valentine's Day. I was disappointed on Valentine's Day 2006, because A totally spaced getting me a card. He totally spaced a lot of things that spring, and in hindsight, I think the heart disease that would kill him just 5 months later was having an effect on him already; he was moody and snappish and forgetful; totally unlike himself. Out in the backyard this afternoon, I heard a hummingbird making a considerable racket, and I said hello, to A, thanking him for the little winged messenger, and razzing him that he didn't get me a card this year.

Valentine's Day, 7 years later. Nothing, and everything, has changed.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The movie had been on our DVR for weeks.  Every time I asked E. if he wanted to watch it, he demurred, and finally I asked him if he wanted to watch it at all, and he said that he did, but had heard it was sad.  It's a 9/11-related movie; there's no way it could be otherwise.  I told him I'd watch it on my own, when he was out of town.  And at 10 o'clock tonight, that's what I did.  Two hours later, I had A.'s picture clutched to my chest and tears rolling down my cheeks.

I remember the quest to find something else to do that would keep the link between us alive in a way more tangible than hope and belief, something I could do for him, something I could do for us, something I could do for me to make him less gone.  As bizarre as the child's search was, I understood it completely.  The desperation.  The frustration of still holding the key, and having no lock to put it in; the key being actions, words, things I wanted to share with him, things I wanted to give to him, things only he would understand; him being the lock I could no longer find.

I understand the bone-deep need to make sense of something that cannot ever make sense, no matter how many times you revisit it.  The only way to make sense of it is to tell yourself that people die sometimes, and sometimes the people that die are people you love.  That is the only part of it that makes sense; it's the only part that can, because there's no disputing the truth of it.  Everyone knows; it's in all the papers, all the time.  You will never be able to make sense of why.  Why him.  Why me.  Why us.  Why then.  Why heart disease couldn't give us a warning shot across the bow before it shot to kill.

In the movie, the boy says he was sure he couldn't live without his dad, but he was wrong, and he thinks his dad would be proud of him.  Sometimes I am a little sad that I've learned to live without him.  I'm also proud that I've managed to get this far, and for the most part, the pride (and the relief) outweigh the sadness.  Until I watch a movie I know will open it all up, and leave me with A's picture clutched to my chest and tears rolling down my cheeks.

Maybe sometimes I need that key for all that I've locked up.