Hurt Animal Pain

A few months ago on a routine walk, Phoenix started behaving strangely. Every few steps she would stop and aggressively rub her head on the ground. I was mystified as I had not seen her act like this before. As her movements grew more desperate and her anxiety ramped up, so did my concern. She clearly was in pain and needed help but would recoil when I approached her.

So it was for me on Christmas Eve. The pain of being without Chris cut to the bone; the supposed happiest night of the most wonderful time of the year just the complete opposite - a total nightmare from which I desperately wanted out of but couldn’t figure out how to make that happen.

The hurt was visceral, honestly it cannot be described. My mind was assaulted by memories so vivid that the long past moments could have been the present – date days for shopping and lunch while the kids were in school, late nights filling stockings and assembling toys, standing together while chatting with family, sending nonverbal messages that it is time to get home – except none of that is possible anymore. Irrational reactions to seeing normal intact families, even people I love. Everyone seemingly untouched and unphased except the one person who understood me through and through, like a lightning bolt zapped just my little family and nobody else even saw it. Being unable to hold a conversation. Tears sliding into my mouth while driving, slightly open to avoid holding my breath and letting it out in uncomfortable bursts. Hopefully the Universe smiles upon the person who tried to engage me in conversation, because I just couldn’t do it… I just needed it all to be over.

There is missing, and then there is hurt so acute and innate it can only be described as animalistic pain. I’ve seen my dog’s normally soft, flat coat rise in angry bristles when she is riled up, and I felt exactly like that on Christmas Eve. Nobody and nothing can take away my pain and I didn’t want anyone near me to try.

In these spells of intolerable grief, it is sometimes helpful, or maybe meaningful is the better word, to find parallels to Chris’s journey. He certainly had to bear unimaginable pain. In retrospect, I think he held a lot in so as not to burden me or others. There were a few moments when I saw it overtake him, though he had a different constitution than I do and was not prone to anger or even prickles. On a particularly brutal afternoon, perhaps after the last regular oncologist meeting when we learned that time was extremely short, Chris’s face was etched with pain as he sat in the infusion chair to receive the last dose of avastin. I stood next to him desperate to comfort him, awkwardly trying to cradle his head against my shoulder. He couldn’t say anything, there were only tears rolling down his face and a few silent shudders. Chris closed his eyes to shut out the room, including me. Nobody could lessen his incredible pain over leaving the life he loved.  

Just as it does in dogs, deep human pain sets off instincts – to flail about to relieve it, to lash out to protect against further pain, to close eyes and withdraw from all others.

So that’s Christmas Eve, last year was very much the same. I don’t know why I even try, but you do when there are children involved. They seem to be able to laugh and eat, wonder what is in the packages under the tree, and enjoy making Santa magic even with a sad Mom. I feel bad for them and try to explain it’s because I miss Dad so much. I hope one day they will forgive me for being a mess on Christmas Eve.

When Christmas morning arrived, the kids took delight in presents and were kind to one another. After the gifts were opened, ripped wrapping paper thrown out, and the boxes broken down, little rivulets of relief trickled over my mind as the real deluge of strangely warm rain picked up outside. Much later, once the holiday dinner was made, served, eaten, the dishes cleared, leftovers packaged up, and the dishwasher hummed in an otherwise quiet kitchen as the kids were occupied in separate pursuits, my own holiday peace fully descended and stayed for the whole day after Christmas.

It’s over. Oh, thank goodness that’s over. I don’t have to do that again for a whole year.

It was all very reminiscent of that day with Phoenix, when she was clearly in pain and fighting off my efforts to help. Acting on a hunch and perhaps a memory from Where the Red Fern Grows or another book, I can’t remember now which story, I finally caught her up in firm hands and pried open her jaws. Quickly I probed the slender roof of her mouth and, sure enough, there was a stick jammed across it. Once I removed the object causing her pain, she instantly calmed and returned to her normal self.

From two years of experience, I have learned the hard way that Christmas now brings with it a unique kind of grief, I can only describe it as hurt animal pain. But I also see the truth in the sentiment that the only way out is through, and those loaded minutes of Christmas agony do eventually pass.

Boxing Day, December 26, now that might just become my holiday.

Take This Cup Away

It’s been a bit of a rough patch with a series of minor incidents that built momentum into a decent-sized emotional backslide. If I list them out it will lay out a privileged person’s complaint list but, what the heck, I’m going for it anyway:

Thursday – campus covid lockdown announced, sudden transition to teaching from home. Super ugh. More pandemic turmoil, back to absolutely no time for deep, focused thought while being home all of the time. This is beyond old…

Monday – Zoom with grief group. Although much good came of it for me as it always does, I carried a lingering sting from its smack of reality that this solo parenting journey will NEVER end. Not ever! There is no going back to the good old days, no light at the end of the tunnel, only tough teenage years to weather without a co-parent and bittersweet milestones for the kids to mark without a dad. I’m stuck doing this alone for life. I just don’t know if I’m cut out for it…   

Tuesday – brand new car dead in the driveway. Yes. My newest baby, my biggest decision without Chris that brought me so much relief from car worry, a shiny bright spot in my new chapter, my hybrid RAV4 failed to start. Do I have a lemon? Will I ever not worry about a car? Why me?!?! What the hell?!?! (resolved by AAA jump, not a crisis)

Tuesday-Wednesday – parenting/adulting challenges that I will not lay out in detail out of respect for the privacy of the involved parties. Let’s just say that building a new life is hard for everyone, and nobody wanted a new life, anyway, when the old life was so great.

Tuesday-Saturday – major anxiety over the election. Memories of the 2016 election came rushing back - watching the returns come in on the projector with Chris and the kids, with early excitement. Then the night took a disastrous turn as Trump was elected. That last presidential election ushered in personal bad news as Chris's tumor returned soon after. This year, as it became clear that Biden had actually won, the bittersweet nature of the moment was a bit overwhelming. I remembered a moment from Nov 30, 2018. We were in the ER and doctors were trying to assess how aware Chris was after his massive seizures so they asked him who the president was. Chris managed to reply Obama. The doctors and I all suppressed smiles, and Chris shook his head with a smile knowing that he had not connected the right name to the answer, but he remembered a fine president instead. What I would give to share this presidential victory with Chris...  

Saturday – cleaning up a large yard of dead leaves alone. Well, I had a tiny bit of help, but I sorely miss Chris and his steady companionship and productive perseverance at tasks. Despair settled in further. Will I be 80 and dumping leaves in the woods alone? Who is going to take care of me when I can’t take care of me and this place any longer?

Ongoing – Chris’s birthday, holidays, and his death day bearing down amidst skyrocketing covid cases. So, we cannot be with people or go places we used to… Can’t we just cancel the holidays? What’s the point?

 

This all spiraled into a few huge crying meltdowns. At a low point, and this is no exaggeration, the sobs left me with no choice but to collapse on the (unvacuumed) floor and let them out. I could not do anything but cry into the carpet over my losses for a good long while - for Chris, for the stable, 4-cornered family life my children used to have, for my own personal adult life. Guiltily, I implored the universe for a way out.

I don’t want to live this way anymore. Please, take this cup away.

This is the dirty little secret of grieving. It doesn’t end. While everyone might think you are doing great and even you might declare that you have come a long way, these spells of deep pain and despair still descend because it is literally unbelievable that a beloved person can just permanently disappear. Life is irrevocably, involuntarily changed, and not for the better. There are no easy fixes, no fixes at all.

It was in one of these terribly dark moments that I was compelled to ask my smartphone the question that I do every now and then, always with an indescribable mix of curiosity and dread when voicing the words:

How many days has it been since January 8, 2019?

Usually the answer elicits an equally indescribable reaction – some mashup of horror at the growing distance from Chris and disbelief at having survived that ever-increasing number. On this day, though, when I was crying and clawing for an escape from this life, the answer to my question actually made me laugh out loud because the most fitting, macabre number was returned – 666. Of course it was, why wouldn't it be?

I have a sneaking suspicion that only a widow can truly understand how that was funny...

This path is hell, 666 days in and beyond.

You Have to Start Somewhere

Very few areas of my life have been unchanged by Chris’s late stage illness and death. The number of times I have felt overwhelmed by his absence and by having to learn how to live a completely new life is officially countless. I remember many moments of doubt, despair, and paralysis in the days, weeks, and even months following his death.

Early on, I could see no way through except to survive one minute at a time, sometimes just sitting on the couch and staring out the window. As my mind raced, I turned to my hospital/hospice time filler of sudoku puzzles. Attempting to place numbers neatly in boxes to fit the rules of order was a calming distraction. There were many times where that failed because tears obscured my view of the page and a full minute seemed too hard, so I had to simply focus on breathing. I would draw air into my lungs, then control the exhalation to send the used breath blowing up over my face. By forcing the air out and fanning my eyelashes with it, I could get to the next breath after that.

Those hard to breathe moments make me sick to remember - that pain was excruciating. Chris felt so close then; he was just days out of our home, our last conversations still reverberating in my mind, the sensation of his hand in mine nearly palpable. Chris was still firmly my partner, our joined life the only thing I could fathom, yet he had been torn from my arms. The horror of that permanent parting twisted my insides into sobs that would catch in my chest until I let them out in pressure-relieving vents.  

How on earth did I move from the blast zone to the place I last wrote about, a new chapter?  

It’s something I have wondered about and yet that questioning seems ludicrous. How can I not answer that when I’m the one who has been doing the hard work? But that’s just it, the transformation has been so glacially incremental that I couldn’t see progress as one day bled into another.

Still, I did work harder on surviving than I have at anything else. I allowed (and even forced) myself to feel the emotions. I wrote my heart out on many quiet nights, working through important memories and feelings. I walked, cried a million tears, shared, despaired, read, listened, sought connection and community. All of those efforts plus the age-old remedy of time seem to have propelled me to today…

Perhaps an uncomplicated answer to my question of how this transformation occurred is that you simply have to start somewhere.

Backing up to those horrible December days of 2018, I see now that is exactly what you have to do, and I did it. Your brain absorbs the horrible news that your husband will die, and soon at that. You start somewhere, not knowing if it's the right place, but you jump into action and make the tough decisions to take the best care of him that you can. You stay right to the end. That is what you do when you vow "until death do us part."

But after he crosses his personal threshold to the other side and you realize that you didn't also die, then what? How do you manage the transition to your after? There is no choice but to start at the very beginning, which means you must leave your love alone and lifeless as you force your feet to walk out of the room. You drive home in the literal and figurative fog of the winter night, aware that this motion is launching you into an unwelcome, unfamiliar, new life. You take the next breath even when you don’t want to…

You start somewhere and then keep going, even when it doesn't feel like you are moving at all. One day things feel different in a bittersweet way. When they do, you see just how far you have come.

.................................

Even now as I’m crying again from putting myself vividly back into Chris’s last days, I’m grateful for it all. I don’t understand why Chris had this experience and short life, and I am NOT saying that I am glad this happened to him or our family. Rather, since it did indeed happen and that cannot be changed, I am grateful for finding a path forward. I will forever treasure the lessons I learned from Chris, from our time together, from myself.

I am thankful for it all even as I do not understand it. I will remember that as I continue along my path, for surely there is so much work yet to be done with living this life.

Fearless and Never Sad Are NOT My Goals

Time passes and, with it, change quietly, persistently, and inevitably rises within me.

I appreciate and even revel in the brilliant fall beauty that surrounds me, enjoy healing laughs with friends, and yes, delight in new connections.

Despite those wonders, I still grapple with regret. My fight with fear rages on as I wrestle with anxiety. I often feel the sickening dread of future losses. Under it all, I continue to worry that I am doing this all wrong…

My new place is both unrecognizable and familiar. I want so much to carry this all gently, to bear it with more grace, but change is not easy, nor is it always peaceful.

Helpfully, I remember that I am the captain of my own ship. Alone, I set my goals. The pressure of the post-traumatic, still dramatic world I live in can be shed if I decide to leave external expectations behind.

Tonight, I choose to say that fearless is not my goal. I reject never sad as an ideal. These are both unattainable; they will not be my aspirations. Similarly, graceful is not my way when scrappy serves me so well. I don’t need to make this look easy. I will put aside all of these unrealistic aims.

Instead, I recommit myself to the pursuit of meaning.

I already know it can be found when I feel deeply, amble through the past, and remember honestly. I see now that new meaning can be found when I go out on a limb, seek true connection, freely share, nurture love.

None of that is necessarily congruent with fearless, nor does it mean I won’t feel sorrow over what happened and what will never be again.

Happiness, fear, grief, and joy will have to make friends with each other because it seems they will always claim competing homes in my damaged, healing heart. It is messy; it is many feelings at the same time; it is all a beautiful and sometimes terrible gift.

This is my new chapter. I find myself looking forward to the fresh page that tomorrow brings. This is progress.  

(Bitter)Sweet Sixteen

When one half of a partnership has died, marking its beginning is complicated. Do you keep counting the years, or do you have to add qualifying words in front of the number like would have been? Do you celebrate something when you are actually mourning it? I have no answers. Hopefully clarity will come in future years.

A new chapter formally began in my life sixteen years ago. I didn't know it would be but a chapter and not the rest of my life... We had no idea, absolutely no clue, about what the future held. Still, I smile when I remember our earnestness. We promised to stick by each other through sickness, hard times, right up until death parted us. We did that way sooner than most people have to face up to the fact that marriage is not happily ever after. 

I dreamed of Chris a few nights ago. It was a simple vignette of Chris resting next to me. There were some words exchanged but nothing of substance, and nothing of reassurance. This is typical of the dreams of Chris that I recall, and I wonder if it means that I do vividly remember him but that my brain is reminding me that he is not coming back. It is hard to wake up from a night when I dream of Chris. I usually want to go back to sleep to find him again and it often sets the day on an unproductive, unsettled track.

In this instance, when I woke I was not upset, but I probed my memory for more details of the dream and it was only then that I realized that there was at least one other dream of Chris from that same night. Try as I did, I could not call up anything other than vague recollections. I wonder if I dream of Chris frequently but do not remember in the morning. It's another mystery in this strange experience...

...

To Chris on our 16th anniversary:

Last year I had many words, a plan, actions to take. I made a pilgrimmage to our places. I took off my rings. I was devastated but also felt strangely euphoric and nostalgic; last 7/31 was a formative experience to mark our special day for the first time without you.

I miss my rings sometimes, Chris, because their simple beauty gave my pleasure and represented the best of times we shared. My hand looks old now without them. The skin on the tops of my hands has aged quickly, like the rest of me, and the bareness of my hands without my rings seems to suit how I feel. The austerity of the absence of these adornments is better for me now as my plainness exemplifies my hollowness. I stopped wearing my necklace with our rings a few months ago, too. I took it off once, disgusted at the tarnished chain, and haven't felt the need to wear it daily since. You see, I don't need symbols to remember you. Last year I was afraid to take them off, and now I know that I don't need them.

On thinking about the rings now, I have half a mind to see if they still fit but I simply don't have the energy. I do have the innate knowledge that they would slip back on, and also recognize that the reappearance of them on my finger would feel wrong for this moment. The rings would still fit, YOU would still fit in my life if you could only come back, but you can't. I can't go back despite how much I want to.

I miss you so much. I miss our life. I don't know how to do this well without you and I don't want to do this for tens of years without you.

This 7/31 I have few cogent words, no mental clarity, no plan, no nothing. My mind is buzzing with staticky panic because I am being severely tested right now, Chris. Many people are. What would you think of the pandemic and the state of the world? I only know it would be easier and lighter if you were alive and healthy. Not only logistically, although I sorely miss your can-do nature and teamwork right now, but the mood in this house would have an air of fun. We would get through it together. Sometimes I dwell in gratitude that this global health crisis did not occur while you were really sick. It would have been too much... 

Gratitude is actually the best place to focus because the regrets hurt too much to dwell on and cannot be fixed, anyway.

I am indeed grateful. I am so lucky you said YES when I attempted to pluck you out of the cold nerd-dom of grad school. My memories of that day are only vague, but I recall your smile, gentleness, and my own giddy anticipation of something about to begin. It is similar to my memory of our wedding day - it was happy and perfect, the beginning of something new and wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you for everything.

I mean all of that sincerely, but I still can't help but say I miss you because I miss you with everything I am tonight. I wish I could go back or you could come forward with me, and I'm crying in desperation from the futility of wanting that.

You are gone and I have to keep going. I only can because you loved me so well.

I love you. I will always carry you with me.  

B

#GBMDay Tribute

July has held a number of milestones that have been difficult. When combined with the continued limitations on normal life and the ongoing uncertainty/worry about the coronavirus and the upcoming academic year, it has not been an easy time.

One of the milestone events was the second annual #GBMDay on 7/22, a nationally recognized day for glioblastoma awareness. I tuned into a number of virtual events to hear major medical and research players speak, but mostly I was interested in patient and caregiver stories. On #GBMDay, I learned of teenagers, young parents, beloved older parents, and more who face and were lost to glioblastoma. In many ways it was cathartic to find community with other families affected by brain cancer. Still, I can't help but feel it was a little like viewing an impending train wreck from the experience of someone who survived a smoldering derailment accident only to find her beloved had perished in the disaster. It was both hard to look away on that day and hard to sit in that community, too.

As time goes on, it feels increasingly important to share Chris with the wider brain tumor community and still wider medical and end-of-life care communities, but I struggle to understand exactly how to do this. I've heard that "making meaning" is a 6th stage of grief that many go through, and I fully feel that urge to create something good from our tremendous loss. I took a stab and spent quite a long time putting the following #GBMDay tribute together for Chris, but ended up not sharing it broadly. Here seems like a good place for now...  

#GBMDay Love Story - Chris

Chris was so good. He is so loved and missed. Cue the tears... 

18 Months

It's been weighing on me, today marks a year and a half since you left. I don't understand why it seems to matter, it's just another of the 547 days I have spent without you, but it feels like a milestone and it does feel different.

Much of the time I feel incredible gratitude for you and the blessings of our life together, but today is not one of those days.

No, today the intractable whys are front and center.

Why did it have to be you?

Why did this happen to our family? 

Why does this happen to anyone?

Why do I have to live without you?

Why wasn't it me instead of you?

WHY???

The futile whats occupy my mind, too.

What was it like for you?

What could I have done differently to ease your way?

What would you think of how the kids are doing?

What am I doing that would annoy and concern you?

What am I doing that would make you proud?

And, I'm mad. I am very angry at the normal families present at the fledgling town baseball season. I can't talk to the other parents at all because I seethe over everyone who is here when you can't be.

Even though that anger is natural, it feels shameful. For some reason I don't think you would have been loathing everything if our fates had been reversed. But then again... You were human, too. Perhaps you would have had your bad days with your own irrational feelings.

I feel selfish because I am missing with stunning acuity what you gave to me, specifically and uniquely and by choice, every single day - unwavering support, unconditional love, uncomplicated companionship. You were solidly in my corner and you always had my back, and you made sure I knew it. You chose your words carefully to say what you meant, and you sincerely meant what you said about me. Repeatedly. Yes, I can still laugh about your signature repetitiveness. You always did, too.

Today I miss you in a wounded way, in a guttural, ugly way, in a forceful way.

I @#*&ING MISS YOU!!! has run through my mind a hundred times on this day. Nice, huh?

It is a sickening feeling to be clawing at the emptiness for you in this way, for you were always gentle, kind, and calm. You somehow rose above the desolation, you were never desperate. I don't understand how you managed to live in the shadow of death for so long and still allowed the light of your love to shine so well on everyone important to you.

I don't understand why you had to go through what you did at the prime of your life.

I don't understand anything. 

There is no why, is there? It was what it was then, and now it is what it is.

I miss you.

I love you.

Terrible, Beautiful Mess

Another 4^th of July has rolled around as we continue the second calendar cycle without Chris. It was never a big holiday for us, but of course we always had time together as a family. We often camped, as Facebook thoughtfully reminded me today, presenting me with a photo album we put together entitled Franconia Fun on the 4^th! Looking at those young, happy faces sitting on flat rocks in the river nearly broke my heart.

07-04-2015

Ah, to go back to that weekend even for a few minutes... I made Chris stretch his comfort zone at a campground without running water and he never let me forget that he didn’t particularly enjoy that aspect of the trip in general, and especially not the fact he baited hooks and took fish off the line without a faucet for washing up. I never let him forget that it was a terrific campground with trails, a river, and mountains just steps away and it had a vacancy when all other places were filled. Certain people did not get enough sleep and were notoriously unpleasant on the last morning.

Despite the less than ideal points of the trip, I can see in my mind’s eye many vivid, wonderful images. There was an 8 year-old boy riding his bike around the paved loop, thrilled at his growing independence. I smile at the tiny preschool girl gently putting her baby dolls to bed in the tent. The mountain loomed dark yet benevolent above the central field as dusk settled in, and water rushed wildly over rocks polished smooth by decades, if not centuries or millennia, of that same river running in the same location. The flicker of the dying campfire held only the promise of marshmallows to be roasted and not a hint of mournfulness that it was near its end.

Yes, we had our moments of difficulty as there were bound to be with over-tired young children, but I remember how it felt to be wrapped in the comfort of our family of four. It is beautiful to remember and simultaneously terrible that it is now out of reach.

By now this is a familiar, striking contrast of emotions - thankful that it happened, devastated that it’s over. Two feelings right at the same time.

...

Tonight, I sit in the comfort of my porch and am profoundly grateful that it is not last year. Oh, last 4^th of July was an epic disaster. I thought it would be a good idea to take the kids and puppy camping. Alone. (What was I thinking?!?!)

On that particular holiday weekend, the temperature neared 100 degrees. The campground beach was closed due to high bacteria counts, the pup was on high alert at the activity around us, and nobody cheerfully helped me so I was physically exhausted. There was basically only one thing to do that everyone agreed on - while the kids biked, I walked countless loops on the campground road with Phoenix, openly weeping. Tears coursed down my face and sobs caught in my throat; I didn’t care who saw me because my only thoughts were of the past and how it was not to be anymore… To cap it off, we tried to put the kayaks in a lake near the campground but failed due to jammed parking lots. We ended up with a consolation prize DQ trip and then threw in the towel after just one night.

It is hard to remember that trip without castigating myself for the enormous flop.

But still… Look how far we have come. Just look, once again! All of us have grown immensely. Sure, the dog is no longer a puppy and is now nearly 70 pounds and each child has shot up a handful of inches, but what is more significant is that each of us possesses new coping mechanisms and we (mostly) enjoy more sophisticated dynamics to our family.

And then again, Chris is still gone. We miss him so much it cuts to the bone, our hearts quite literally hurt.

Terrible. Beautiful. Terrible. Just like that awful broken solar light outside the hospice room. I have no more control over the oscillation of feelings than I did over the annoying, random flashes of light that taunted me as sleep remained elusive and the end drew ever nearer…

...

Today a friend’s spouse died after a long experience with cancer. It is not my story to tell nor my loss to grieve, but the news nearly gutted me. I am filled with awe and gratitude for this couple’s grace under pressure and the strength of their tight-knit family. At the same time, I am slain by a deep cavern of devastation. There are simply no words to mourn the severing of this well-matched pair. My friend will now have to walk a lonely path through shattering loss.

...

Life - what a terrible, beautiful mess.

Gifts That Keep On Giving (Round 2 Realizations)

One way to deal with a breakup is to write several thousand words to process the experience. According to the wisdom of my dating coach friend, that way is perhaps rare; most people take a different approach and immediately jump back on the apps. Ugh. I hate this so much, does nothing mean anything anymore? Still, Coach had good advice for round 1 so I decided to listen.

Coach lovingly reminded me that I was on a dating app for about two minutes before connecting with GUY, so for Round 2, I needed to really give it the old college try to understand how this works. Let’s recall that I had an impressive GPA so that means giving it a lot of time and effort…

Now, I’m resurfacing to process everything again! Here’s the dump of knowledge gleaned from Round 2 of online dating, perhaps appropriately referred to as the good-bad-and-ugly highlights.

(If you read this and are happily paired up, well, just be infinitely glad you aren’t me and go hug your partner a good long while.)

1. If anyone can contact someone without first matching, you will receive a bunch of messages from people who are decidedly not your type. (Bad/ugly)

I was not eager to see my old messages on the app I used before. So, with great trepidation, I tried a different one that allowed people to contact one another without necessarily “matching” first. I won’t say that I had a horrific experience on it, but I had to leave it within 72 hours after receiving multiple introductory messages of the sorts:

U R 2 beautiful 2 B single!

Why U singel?

Sup, you working?

No. Just, no.

2. I am not going to be highly sought after in the pool of single men in the age range of 40-50. (Good, I think, after interacting with this general dating population more broadly.)

It’s fine, I know myself well and I figured that this would be the case. This is true before dropping the widowed only-parent bomb on potential suitors!

Look, I don’t want and simply cannot have a glamorous hairstyle that needs cut-and-color every four weeks; I don’t have that kind of time or inclination. It’s fine for other women, just not this woman. Similarly, I do not dress stylishly nor provocatively, and I don’t post witty banter in my profile. I am me, and I like me. Personal authenticity is something I absolutely will not compromise, so my genuine dating profile is not particularly eye-catching in the disposable culture we live in.

This was all confirmed on the new app with more freedom to contact people; not one man who could be my type contacted me first. This was really depressing. I did go for it and message several men who seemed remotely like my type. A few wrote me back and I ended up exchanging messages with a couple of nice guys, one was even a minor league baseball player! Everything petered out quickly, though, and then I deleted the app. Back to the first app I tried in which both people have to select the other as a potential suitor, there the woman writes messages to guys that are matches (for hetero-seeking situations).

3. I have a weakness for the intellectual/professorial never-been-married, no-kids type, but it doesn’t work well. (Bad/disappointing, because I seem to be a good personal fit but the fact that I have two kids is like an ear-splitting alarm to these guys. Good, because I should know what I’m contending with. Not ugly, just a bit sad.)

In round 2, I messaged with a handful of seemingly intelligent, notoriously single, non-parent men. Each of these were delightful to engage with at the start! Nobody commented on my looks and more than one asked what I was currently reading. They openly found me articulate and smart, one even said outright that I was not like most other women on the app! Uniformly, things went south once we began discussing hobbies, free time, and the dead husband thing. Oops, I have two kids not close to graduation…

I am a bit sad because I found these lifelong bachelors to be enjoyable to talk to, but I don’t see how anything could possibly work out with one of them in this time of my life. I don’t blame these guys; I understand that I have a metric ton of responsibility that they can’t relate to, don’t have interest in, aren’t up for, etc. I won’t absolutely rule anything out for future rounds, but I had enough of the same kind of experience to turn my focus.   

4. Talking and video chatting help this process a lot. (Good for a widowed parent with little free time, and good in the age of covid19!)

To be fair, one of the older, lifelong bachelors (let’s call him M) messaged to ask if I’d like to talk using the app phone function instead of endlessly text. I read his message, closed my eyes for a minute, then surprised myself by agreeing. At the appointed time, my stomach was full of butterflies. I wasn’t particularly nervous about talking with M, I was mainly concerned about finding privacy away from my children within range of wifi. I accomplished this by lurking outside in the shade at the weedy, chimney side of my house (it is so fun to be me...).

I ended up chatting with M for nearly an hour. He was kind and intelligent. He shared his thoughts about the moms he had connected with – he largely finds that they are selfless and focused, as he said I seemed. It was a good conversation, I just did not get the idea that we would be a good fit for each other. Later, we messaged a bit more, and then I thanked M for a wonderful dialogue and we parted ways.

The interaction with M taught me a couple of things. First, similarly to what Coach suggested in Round 1, quickly pivoting from messaging to a more personal form of interaction can really help you understand if the person is promising. Particularly in the age of covid19, why not talk relatively soon? I actually channeled M after this experience and proactively invited two different men to video chat!

(Seriously, who is this virtual socialite I’ve become???)  

5. A divorced dad’s situation is not the same as the widowed parent scene. (Good? Bad? Ugly? Let’s say it is just going to be a challenge. Where are the widowed dads in their 40’s? Oh. Right…)

I am going to toot my own horn - at first, I was a reasonably hot ticket in the divorced dad scene! When I started swiping right with focus on the men who indicated they had children, I matched with many of them. I pulled out all the stops and messaged most of them, and many of these divorced dads wrote me back almost immediately. More than one even told me in a nice, appropriate way that I had a pretty smile! I was grinning a lot as the message notification popped up frequently in the app.

Still… The conversation almost always turns to the circumstances of singledom, it is part of the due diligence phase. Once you drop the widowed only-parent bomb, a lot of these guys disappear. I was immediately ghosted by a couple, but more common was a nice reply but then no further messages.

Here is my interpretation of my experiences. Many divorced parents have shared custody which lands them with more free time than they used to have. So, the divorced dads are looking to have some fun in their time off. The widowed mom experience is opposite because there is now way more on her plate with no significant, routine kids-free time. It can be a non-starter to the divorced dads. Since there is always a deep dating population to swipe through, why would these guys waste time on someone who would be hard to date? Turns out, most wouldn’t.

6. I’m a one-at-a-time person. (Good, it suits me.)

The game is one of numbers. In Round 1, I definitely didn’t understand how it worked… Now, I do.

First, you winnow it down by swiping and matching. Next, you further narrow the field by sending out a bunch of messages that are frequently ignored. Nothing personal, maybe you weren’t brassy enough, or maybe they were busy with work and couldn’t reply in time. Then, you carry out some surface chit-chat with several people and see where it goes. Finally, you try to talk (and in pre-covid19 days, meet) with a few.

I don’t like getting to the point where I’m talking/video chatting for a second time with more than one person. It feels like a reality TV show where I’m deciding who is worthy of my FaceTime allowance. Here, you get the rose, let’s talk again at 9:45pm tomorrow!

I may not be like other people. Or, maybe I am. I don’t care either way. It just feels dishonest to get more involved than a first meet (talk or video appearance) with multiple men. So, I’ll do it my way because at this age with my lived experience, it is the only way to go.

7. I am going to be disappointed. Frequently. (Bad/ugly. I know what I want, where is it???)

Round 2 neared completion with a finalist identified, a divorced dad (let’s call him D). We FaceTimed for hours over a couple of nights. I think we were both surprised that we felt as much in common as we did since not many of our personal facts are particularly similar. Gasp, he’s not a scientist…

D is really sweet – he followed up after a video chat with a classy text thanking me for a great connection. On another occasion, he told me that I am cute and fun, without any kind of weirdness. He also gave me his real name so I could look into him. Who could resist, right??? We decided that with a stretch of nice weather ahead, we would meet in person for takeout and have it in a public park to be socially distanced.

The day came and… he had to cancel. Not for anything to do with me; I do not feel rejected. I was just disappointed. He apologized profusely and we agreed to reschedule, but that hasn’t happened yet. The magic seems diminished in our subsequent communications.

Maybe D and I will continue to be in touch and actually meet, but it feels like I can already hear the bell ringing on Round 2.

8. I learn something about myself, my life, dating, and other people from nearly every interaction of substance! (Good, sometimes bad/ugly)

Happily, I’m a much more mature person than the last time I dated in my twenties! The ups/downs are not so awful as I remember. I'm a catch, darn it! If these guys don't think so, their loss.

I crave social interactions now that I’m single. My friends are amazing and I’m incredibly grateful to them, but even the best friend is not the same as having “a person.” I’d like to find my new person, and I’m doing what I can! Who would ever guess that I would invite strangers to video chat??? Mid-life growth is good.

Unfortunately, this quest is complicated – on my end of course, but also the other. People want different things, don’t know what they want, have their own baggage to manage, etc. Timing is everything and that’s out of my control. Like bachelor M said, either something will happen organically or it just won’t; you can’t force it.

9. Being a widowed parent is the “gift” that keeps on “giving.” (Crazy hard.)

Yeah, so it’s ridiculously sad to lose your partner and co-parent. You see that the loss is multi-faceted and nuanced while you attempt to parent the grieving children you have with him and learn to live a totally new, difficult life. As you make strides in dealing with the fallout, you realize that the world isn’t too easy on single parents let alone only parents. When you try to find a partner, being immediately eliminated from consideration due to widowed parenthood is just another punch in the gut.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

10. My marriage continues to bestow real gifts on me, they are just not tangible. (Amazing.)

Why do I want the dating thing to eventually produce a new "person," a true partner? Because I know just how wonderful it is to love a great person and be treasured in return. Chris showed me how to be part of a team. He showed me that real love doesn’t end. I don’t get any kind of physical sign of it these days, but our love is there underneath everything. It won’t go away, either, should I find another partner. Finding that kind of love to enjoy with a living person will not be easy, but worth it.

Five Million Steps

I haven’t written about something because… I’m actually not quite sure why. Perhaps I thought putting words to it here would make it disappear and I wanted to keep fanning that little flame of happiness. But now it IS over, so I feel empowered to give it an enormous postmortem rumination.

...

For eleven years, I knew that Chris was going to almost certainly die before me while the kids were young. That’s a long time to know something awful is going to happen. Still, over those years I had no comprehension of what it would be like once that happened. Of course not, nobody knows what his actual death will be like and nobody knows what it will be like to support someone through that and live on afterward. You cannot prepare.

Or, perhaps I should say it this way - you cannot fully anticipate the pain and, even if you could, you certainly cannot prevent the pain. Even a perfectly timed and executed brace position cannot noticeably soften the impact of a crash landing. There was no way to anticipate the complexity of the many other grief feelings, either. 

Let's talk about waiting. Not the waiting before the death, the waiting after the death.

The heart yearns for what it wants, and so the heart holds out an irrational, steadfast hope that its desire will come back. The heart waits patiently, rhythmically, quietly for a long, long time.

Now the brain is ready to move forward well before the heart, because the brain can absorb information and put pieces together. The brain lectures you that it heard him take his last breath, felt his body turn cold, and saw him being prepared for his final transport. The brain screams at you that he can’t come back, he is not coming back, stop waiting for him to come back!

The brain knows he is gone forever, but the heart… The heart simply cannot believe that he is gone, so it ignores the brain’s exhortations and just keeps quietly, stubbornly waiting.

And so it goes for weeks and months, there is a constant state of waiting. Finally, the brain gets tired of it and wants something, anything, to happen; the brain decides to DO SOMETHING! to shock the heart into a different rhythm.

The brain makes you compose an online dating profile about 14 months into this new life…

Yes you, the eternal nerd, the 42-year-old, style-less tomboy with white streaked hair. You spend about five minutes on it because it seems stupid and futile. Who would want you? Is there anyone out there worth trying to find? Let’s get this over with and then laugh about the horror later.

You post some pictures, write some vague description of yourself while trying not to put identifying information in it, answer silly questions, and then you are live on the app. The next step, swipe right on the guys with profiles you like and left on the losers. This feels awful. What’s worse? People are also judging you in a five (or fewer) second appraisal.

I hid in the bathroom and scrolled through guys. No way, no, ok fine maybe, yes, yes, no, no way, oh why would you post that no way, maybe yes, no, no, yes. Left, left, right, right, left, left, right, left, left…

Oh, so now you’ve matched with a bunch of people, nothing will happen until you message them. Here goes… It was all confusing to me. I put time and thought into my little messages, and many people don’t write back??? I was flummoxed and annoyed.

About 12 hours into it, I saw a profile that interested me more than others. Everything about it was great. The picture was normal and showed a nice-looking guy, a scientist from the Midwest who loves dogs and believes that kindness is important. We matched. I wrote him a short, casual message emphasizing our commonalities. He wrote back and I was kind of excited. It was easy to write back. He replied. We went back and forth numerous times and found that we had a lot of additional things in common. We exchanged pictures of our dogs. One of my friends who became my online dating coach suggested meeting any prospects relatively early, so I decided to take an upfront approach. On a weekend morning while drinking my coffee, I sat for a minute and closed my eyes, then opened them and typed the following message:

“Hey GUY, I’ve had fun chatting with you and I’d be interested in meeting up. However, I just want you to know that I’m single because I’m widowed and I have two kids that I’m solo in charge of. It’s not a standard situation so it’s totally okay if you’d rather not.”

My brain forced me to send it… Nothing ventured, nothing gained. GUY deserves to know what my deal is and I needed to stop waiting. I could perhaps make something new happen.

Unbelievably, GUY was in!

Oh crap. What have I done??? What if he is a serial killer? Have I rushed this? I entered serious internet sleuth mode. I found him after quite a bit of effort. He had represented himself honestly and he seemed like a decent person from what I found. Also, he agreed to meet me during the day near where he worked so I probably wouldn’t get abducted. Still, I was freaking out.

The day of the first meeting, I dressed carefully. I did not wear the chain with our wedding bands, but instead wore a decorative necklace for the first time in forever. I also brought a bunch of silly things to work to make sure I could slip into the restroom to fix myself up and look as good as said 42-year-old tomboy can. I almost vomited as I drove over to the meeting place; I considered not showing, but that would be rude and he had been kind. I texted a friend to let her know where I was and waited for him.

I saw him from a distance. He looked kind. I’m not entirely certain about this, but I think he knew I was extremely nervous and he made me feel at ease. We had coffee and talked for about an hour. It was a remarkable conversation, there were no awkward pauses and not much surface chit-chat. We talked about things that matter to each other, some of them quite personal. At the end, we exchanged real phone numbers and a hug. I thanked him for making my first experience with online dating a positive one and he said he had a good time, too. I walked to my car with a goofy smile on my face, texted my friend that I was safe, and drove home. I wasn’t sure if this would go anywhere, but I was happy to have connected with my kind of person and was also super proud of myself.

Later, GUY texted to say that he’d had a nice time and would enjoy seeing me again. We made plans for a week later. We messaged quite a lot in the meantime, then that day came and it was also very nice. We walked our dogs together at my favorite off-leash place a few days after that. We always had plenty to talk about. We took it slow and I was so grateful to him for that, this was all so new to me. We kept messaging and were getting to know each other.

And then… It became clear that the coronavirus was going to change life drastically. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to carry on with this, see where it would go, but we had to be safe. Messages were the main form of communication. Both GUY and I kept reaching out to the other. I honestly think we both liked the other but were not sure if that was like as in friend, or like as in potential relationship. (Sounds a bit like middle school, doesn’t it?)

We kept each other company, virtually, through many weeks of lockdown. We expanded from messages and used FaceTime, Skype, and emails, too. We shared some online events together, talked a ton, and truly let each other “in,” or at least I did. We saw each other only briefly in person, distantly, from time to time. If I went to the store, I would see if he needed anything and drop items off, a few times enjoying minutes of chatting outdoors. He brought me milk to stretch my time between grocery trips. As time went on, we went for a few socially distant walks with masks and dogs.

It was honestly a beautiful coronavirus companionship.

Still, I wondered if GUY liked me. (Told you this was middle schoolish.) I think that’s to be expected, though, we met on a dating app after all. I valiantly tried to figure it out but couldn’t find an unambiguous answer. Perhaps there was no answer to be found due to the crazy circumstances; we had not spent enough time together in person for either of us to know about the prospects of a real relationship.

As the state began to open up, we decided to meet up a few times. We had fun and talked easily, but in making plans and spending some hours together in person, our differences came into sharp focus. I’m not a logistically easy person to date in my new normal life but without school, babysitters and playdates, forget about it. Plus, parenting grieving children and trying to date is terribly hard. GUY was understanding, truly he is kind. It just forced us to see these and other differences between us. We both genuinely cared for the other, but a romantic relationship is not in the cards. We amicably broke things off a few days ago.

My heart is sad for this loss, but my brain knows it was 100% the right thing to do for both of us.

Did you catch that? My heart noticed GUY; my heart knew it wasn’t Chris and still warmed to GUY. It’s too soon to say whether the needle was moved on the waiting front, but this is monumental.

Oh, but the fallout is interesting… Missing those messages from GUY, new waves of grief for Chris, nothing to look forward to with certainty. Happily, though, my brain is not screaming anymore.

No, my brain is being gentle with my heart now. See, heart? Chris is gone. He is gone, but there are many people in your life, old and new, who have shown you incredible love and care. Some will stay and some cannot. You have to see now that your life is far from over.

My heart replies that goodbyes are too hard, the sadness seems worse now, it doesn’t know what to do.

My brain assures my heart that it does know what to do, for didn’t the greatest loss already occur and yet I’m still here? Didn’t I begin to survive without Chris by first releasing his icy, motionless hand and taking one step away from his lifeless body, then another, then leaving that room?

That is what you already did here, says the brain. You said goodbye, ended the call, and took one step away, then another. You are on your way. You can look back and see everything at first, so do it if you must. Smile over the good times, learn from the mistakes, shake your head at the pandemic puzzlement, be grateful for the incredible personal growth that this experience generated. With more steps and time, this person will become more distant and that’s sad, but he is not dead. He can still be a friend.  

You know you will make it through, says my brain. You know this because you’ve taken at least five million steps away from Chris and you’ve taken at least eight million breaths since his last, and somehow you are still moving, still breathing, still living. Look how far you have come. Just look! You are truly a different person now, better in many ways. Chris would be proud of you, he really would.

Keep taking steps, keep breathing, keep going, keep growing, keep trying, keep loving, says my brain.

Eventually the people and things you have to leave but still care about are out of sight, but the brain won’t forget the important things and neither will the heart – kindness, life lessons, love.

...

This experience constituted HUGE leaps among those five million steps of my new life. I never thought my heart would be ready for anyone but Chris, but my brain was right. The whole of me was ready to add someone to my life.

I also never thought that anyone available on the internet would be my type of person or entertain the thought of me, but I was wrong about that, too. What started as a cynical experiment turned into a worthwhile experience. GUY was special and worth my time. GUY also showed me many things about myself and kept me company through what would have been a terribly isolated time. I am so grateful to him for what we shared. He will never know how far he launched me down the road to acceptance, belief in myself, and a full embrace of my new life. I hope that I provided something to him in return, some laughs on lonely lockdown days and maybe a boost to his confidence that someone found him interesting.

It won’t be easy to find a new partner and I may never be successful. But oh, I long for connection and companionship. I will try again.

The first step is behind me, and taking that first step is always the hardest part.

Pinhole Camera

Over the 16 months since Chris has died, I have filed away papers and tried to keep on top of messes without making drastic changes before being ready. While it used to be a frequent occurrence, at this point it is only every now and then that I come across items from before, normal life with Chris or even totally abnormal life but still with Chris. What do I do with these relics of the past???

I found an index card marked up in my handwriting with several Vermont hiking and biking options for our Killington trip in August 2018, hastily booked from the MGH infusion unit. It gave me a long pause. That had been a hard trip for me, a pivotal situation in which I was solely in charge of the details and fun. Honestly, I didn’t feel successful at the time because I was overcome with worries and the weight of “lasts.” It had been hard for Chris, too, since he had been struggling physically and emotionally. Indeed, it turned out to be our last family trip but we made some memories and had simple fun that the kids and I still talk about. I shoved that index card into a safe place, unready to let it go.

Even harder, there are items with notes that Chris wrote. Do I keep everything that he ever touched? Of course not. It wouldn’t make sense to keep some deposited checks with his writing on them, nor a post-it with a password to some unknown account. But let me tell you about something I couldn’t discard. It was a paper with words and phrases like “oncology” and “cancer” and “he struck out” written in Chris’s shaky, unfamiliar handwriting of his last months. There were some dates that didn’t make sense, like his birthday with the wrong year. Surely these notations were made in attempt to hang on to language and number skills as the tumor carried out its relentless assault on his brain. I can almost feel the questions in those jottings – am I losing it? What is happening here?  I kept that paper not as an act of masochism but instead as a witness to Chris’s suffering and his many losses. It feels important to remember how terrible it was for him.

In addition to these difficult discoveries, every so often something good surfaces at a fortuitous time. Several months ago, I had been extremely down and was feeling that I could not continue managing without some help. It was time to work at my demons instead of just flounder, so I rummaged through a drawer looking for a stashed piece of paper with the name of therapists that my doctor recommended. I didn’t find the paper I was searching for, but instead I found something else that changed everything for a while. It was an old note that Chris had written to me in his familiar, strong, healthy handwriting. I had seen it before and forgotten that it was put away in this location; it was not something he left for me to find in the after - there will not be anything like that.

Betsy,

Thank you for a wonderful weekend! Hope you have a great week with your family. I’m looking forward to Wednesday if we’re still on…

Love, Chris

I wish there was a date on it, but that’s not how anyone writes a casual note. (Actually, we don’t often write notes at all in this era of text messages…) Mostly you wouldn’t think to put a date on a little message of care and affection; you simply don’t anticipate that a folded 4x4 inch paper with three sentences will be a treasured memento years later.  I can only guess that it was written in December of 2003. We were engaged to be married in the summer, and I had spent Christmas with my family while he was in the Boston area. After I returned, Chris presented me with the sapphire and diamond ring we had chosen together. Maybe the day he gave it to me was the “Wednesday” he was anticipating.

The discovery of this note instantly brought me relief. I could clearly picture Chris’s smile, I remembered his sense of fun, I felt his love for me. Even my overheated, tortured mind that wants to convince me that I deserve this painful mess couldn’t deny those things.

Chris was incredible and he loved me. He chose me. The horrible events did transpire but, more importantly, the wonderful was not imagined.

It all happened.

This note was like a pinhole camera, blocking out overwhelming rays of sadness, regret, and missing, allowing only pure love to shine through. Just like a rudimentary homemade solar eclipse viewer, the note focused the image of Chris’s love in a way such that I saw and felt it safely, reassured of its solidity and lasting truth.

Chris does not exist in the same way but, following the laws of conservation of energy, his energy could not be destroyed. It had to go somewhere. As the life left his body, Chris’s love and energy dissipated into that quiet room, into the atmosphere, and they can never end.

All I could do then and now, on this evening many weeks later, is hold this uncomplicated love note, look at the pinhole projection of Chris’s love, and try with all my might to reflect the purest message of my own love for him back out into the universe. I hope that his energy collides with mine and still somehow delights in that dance.

Wrapping Up a Life

A few days ago, my next-door neighbor left his house for the last time. He is 84 and had lived there with his wife for 46 years. She dealt with a long illness and died almost two years ago, then my neighbor soldiered on alone until experiencing a medical problem. His daughter flew in and helped make a plan for how to live out his remaining time; they decided together that he should relocate to be near her on the opposite coast. People in town feted our iconic golfing neighbor the best we could given the pandemic, but what do you do when someone who has spent his life here is leaving and will never be back? Any gesture seems too little, certainly efforts with distanced waves and faces obscured by masks felt flat.

Nevertheless, the appointed day came and, before I was up, he had left. My neighbor is gone now, having left the history of his adult life behind. His marriage was spent in that home, his young family raised to maturity within its comfort. There must have been many happy memories, but difficult ones, too. His son passed away as an adult, his wife died after suffering for years. How did he go about wrapping up the entire arc of that life? How was he able to turn and walk away?

In the afternoon of my neighbor’s departure, workers from a junk removal service arrived to empty his house. They worked for a few hours, steadily tossing chairs, tables, mattresses, books, fixtures, files, and more into at least two enormous trucks. The men did nothing wrong, they were just doing their job and being efficient about it, but the indifferent disposal of the everyday items of someone else bothered me. Snap, just like that, a life dismantled.   

It is not my story, it is not my loss, but it still pierced my heart.

I helplessly watched Chris embark on his own quest to “wrap up” his life. His words. He looked through boxes of pictures, filed documents into neatly labeled folders, spent time with the people he loved, gave hugs. He had to leave his home knowing he would not return, that he was going off to die. Still, Chris soaked in every drop of life he could until eventually he had to take his leave.

Now there are still signs Chris lived in this house, but his handwriting is fading. His bathrobe doesn’t smell like him anymore. Dust gathers on his electronics that I don’t know what to do with. The dates on his files seem shockingly long ago. Family pictures with the four of us look outdated because three of us have aged. If our house went on the market like my neighbor's, nobody looking around it would know that the rocking chair was Chris’s spot. An outsider could not possibly know that Chris ordered the shed to match the house and yet it arrived a different color, so he painted it with the kids, first writing their names on the walls before methodically and meticulously finishing the job.

My neighbor’s departure and efforts to wrap up his life provoked familiar pangs of desolation. What happens to the joy, the pain, the lessons learned, the struggles, and the love once the people who experienced them are no longer? Is it all just over, so meaningless that a full life can be reduced to a few truckloads of trash that nobody else wants? Does a life just combust, disintegrate, and settle into a box of ashes, devoid of feeling?

I find no answers when I search for reasons and meaning out of desperation like this. Instead, when I stop trying so hard there is sometimes peace to be found at quiet times.

Love doesn’t live in a house, it cannot be fully expressed by words or even kind eyes, love doesn’t care if the whole world knows about it or just the beings involved. Love cannot even be contained by a living body. Instead, love is steadfast, ethereal, and mysterious.

Love was, is, and will be.