Death double-dips

I arrived at the widow board today to learn that we'd lost one of our own, a new widow.  It is not clear whether it was a suicide, broken heart syndrome, or she just went to bed and refused to get out again.  I remember that last option seeming so appealing in those early days, seeing as the first option was impossible to me, and the second seemingly wasn't going to happen.  But I had E; I had no choice but to heal, though I remember telling E that should he leave me widowed again, that's what I would do:  crawl into bed and never get out again.  I figured that fatal dehydration probably wouldn't take more than a week.  I hurt so terribly that I was sure I couldn't survive it happening again, because I wasn't sure at that time that I'd survive it the first time.

Obviously, I have, and now I'm not so certain about the fatality of a second widowhood.  Would it damage me incredibly?  Without question.  Would it kill me?  I don't know now.  I would just as soon never find out.

I have been thinking about this poor dead widow all day, and I find myself angry at her for some reason.  I know she was in terrible pain.  I know she said she wanted to die.  I've felt that pain myself, and I feel for her.  Lots of widows say they want to die, and every time they do, I wince.  I wince for the survivors of suicide who have to read that.  I wince for all those other widows who may be too close to the edge already and are just waiting for that kind of reinforcement to check themselves out of this life.  It always seems irresponsible to me, like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.

Honestly, I'm really not sure what my objection is to suicide, active or passive.  I don't believe there's a hell she'll go to for it.  I do believe that we come to this life with free will, and that we have the right to exercise that free will even in how long we choose to be here.  So on principal, I don't believe that people should force themselves to live through crushing pain, physical or mental.  And yet it still seems so very wrong to me.  Is it cultural conditioning that says that giving up is not an option that is so deeply ingrained in me?  Or is it something more petty:  if the rest of us have to stay here and fight it out, why does she get to choose the "get out of jail free" card?  Is that why it bothers me?  That if I had been widowed and left with no one who loved and relied on me, I would've done the same?  Is she my living (and now dead) shadow that I'm forced to confront?  I don't know; I just know how I feel. 

And yet how can I be angry at someone who hurt so bad, and was hopeless?  How can I expect the hopeless to have faith that there is reason to hope?  That's not even logical.  I guess it's because I really don't believe that people who will themselves dead really want to be dead.  What they want is for the pain to stop, and to be with their loved one like they used to be.  I understand that, and the pain will stop (mostly).  But there is no cure for death; their loved one can't come back the way it was.  And there's no getting around that.  What hope do we really have to offer to new widows, then?  Life will get better, you will get stronger, but some days you're still going to cry out of the blue, and that's how it is?  How is that going to lift anyone up?  I know a lot of widows who have learned to enjoy life again, to be happy.  I'd like to think I AM one of those widows.  But I have to say, I've yet to meet one who is just ecstatic about life.  All of us have that quiet knowing behind our eyes that can be seen by any pair of eyes who shares it.  Is a "pretty good" life all we have to offer each other?  Is that enough to make the difference for a person on the edge?

She had no children, but she had other family, and they will now have to feel that horrible, soul-gutting pain, and I am sad for them as much as for her.  I am sorry she couldn't hold on long enough to find a tiny shred of hope that this would get better.  And I am sorry that I know that the widow road is such that there are few enough shreds for even us veterans to offer her; even those of us who know life gets better still struggle.

I worry for the other noobs, too.  My hope is that this death will shake them out of their death wish; my fear is that it will make that death wish seem slightly more reasonable.  And I can't really think of anything to dissuade them, other than "You shouldn't."  If I am asked why, I've got nothin'.

Swiss cheese

As part of our Christmas weekend, E and I decided to rewatch all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. (Last year it was the LOTR trilogy.) We watched the first one Christmas night, and the last two last night. We had originally seen them all in the theatre. As the second film began and played on, I kept thinking, "I don't remember any of this." There were minor bits and pieces that seemed vaguely familiar, but overall, it was as if I'd never seen the film before.

Only I had. I had seen it the afternoon of July 16, 2006. It was a Sunday afternoon. The Sunday afternoon after the Saturday I didn't hear from A all day, and he missed our chat time. The Sunday afternoon after the morning where I called him again and again, and didn't get ahold of him, nor did he answer my e-mails. The Sunday afternoon after I'd called his apartment complex office and asked them to check for his truck, or knock on his door, and they refused to help me. The Sunday afternoon I was frantic, but still had a tiny bit of hope that maybe he'd been in some kind of accident and wasn't yet able to contact me. So E asked if I wanted to go to a movie to try and distract myself from my increasing panic, and we went to see POTC: Dead Man's Chest (until just now I didn't appreciate the foreshadowing, and I have to say, I don't much like it), and I left my phone on in case A called. When the phone rang, I was overcome with relief as I sprinted out into the lobby, only to see that it was my cousin calling me. My heart sank. She wanted to talk to me about her wedding a month hence, and I told her I was in the middle of a movie and would call her back. I didn't really care about the movie; I wanted the line open in case A called.

I think that was then I really started to suspect the worst. I was upset, and E was angry at A for being so inconsiderate and putting me through this. I told him A was never inconsiderate, and that this was bad. Really bad. Despite that feeling, I still waited for A to show up on chat that night, as always. He didn't show, and as I went to bed that night, I knew that as bad as that day had been, tomorrow was going to be worse. Tomorrow I was going to have to put our emergency plan into action and contact his family, who had no idea who I was. Tomorrow would be the day I called the police to check on him. Tomorrow would be the day my life changed forever.

Given the panic I was in during the film, and the daze I was in once "tomorrow" became "today," I guess it's not surprising that I would've blocked out that movie. But I didn't know until almost 3 1/2 years later that that had happened. It is so weird, this onion I am peeling. What else have I forgotten that I've forgotten?

Reading is dangerous

I've been trying to limit my computer usage when I'm not at work so that I don't cripple myself right into unemployment, so I've been reading a lot more lately, curling up with the dogs and a hot drink by the glow of the Christmas tree. I'm afraid literacy has been kind of tough on me lately, though. I was given a book as an early Christmas gift by a friend, so I decided to start that one immediately the next night. It's a wonderfully written book that kept me turning pages; however, it's also a book that not only has a dead spouse, but also a dead dog. Awesome!

I love the friend who gave it to me, and I know she loved the book herself, but more than once since I finished it, I've had to wonder what she was thinking. I mean, honestly.

As hard as the book was to finish, and as hard as I cried at the end for my little dog who died nine months after A did, that wasn't really the remarkable moment for me.

Rather, that was the point late in the book where I turned the page and at the top of the next was my sweetie's name, shared by a minor character in the book who was never to be mentioned again after that. But it kind of stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't stop staring at those five letters, though I wasn't aware of it until I shook myself out of my reverie, kind of stunned that it had that effect on me. And my eyes kept drifting back to his name as I finished that page, the next, and even after I turned the page I found myself flipping back to it. I'd been hypnotized, it seemed.

I think it was because I was desperately thirsty to have someone say his name other than I. I mention him daily, I'm sure--I don't keep track, but his name crops up in a thousand stories or experiences. But I am the only one in my life who speaks of him by name, who tells those stories, because, his family and friends having drifted away, I am the only one who has stories of him. And he will never write his name on a post-it note and send it to me again.

Obviously, the author didn't know my A. The writer didn't put that there for me, but nevertheless, I drank my fill of A's name on the page as if he had, reading and rereading it, as if it were some kind of marker that he was here. I have no other. I have the carpet of ferns that cover the floor of the redwood forest where his ashes were scattered by others, and the rain there that mixed with my tears, and the fallen tree burgeoning with a million other lifeforms that I tried very hard to make a symbol for my fallen self, a reminder that much life comes from death...all life, really.

I don't need a gravestone. I don't need his family and friends who have gone on without me, forcing me to do likewise. But I didn't know until that very moment how much I needed to hear and see his name, not his pseudonym, not even the nickname I called him out of love. But him before he even knew me; him as a living, breathing person who walked this earth and mattered in his own right.

It's funny, how I can still be surprised at how grief works on me, and through me, and I through it. Just when you think you've seen it all, you find out otherwise.