Coiled Like a Spring

The days are busy. So, so busy. One day it was summer and now the morning darkness and chilly air tells me winter is closing in. What happened...

On the one hand, I'm better when I'm busy. Distraction takes the edge off and so I'm intensely grateful for the buzz-buzz-buzz of the academic year. Importantly, I feel like *I* have a purpose in the world when I'm immersed in my profession. In the classroom, I am uniquely me, trying my hardest to help others on their paths. Each day I get to share my appreciation for the beauty of data and logic, I dust off my proverbial pom-poms and become a cheerleader of young people who are distracted, disillusioned, and depressed. I make fun of myself to see them smile and I see them feel proud when they participate and are correct. When teaching, I am not worrying about my children or ruminating on my husband's fate, nor wondering if the best of life is already behind me and what the hell is the point anymore anyway. No, when teaching I am my authentic self. Just maybe the effort I put in could make some small difference to someone. This is good.

But, holy smokes, it is hectic. I am not sleeping enough or eating well enough. Multi-multi-multi-tasking is a challenge that I face day after day. I set alarms on my phone to remember zoom meetings with students, phone calls with brain tumor friends, bills, library books needing return, cooking plans. No stretch of time is too short to get something done, no location too odd to borrow wifi from. Still, I'm merely mortal even though I frequently deny my limits. The wax will be warming, nay, outright melting, and even though I feel it dripping off my wings, I fly closer to the sun instead of sensibly dropping altitude. The inevitable plummet is as painful as it is predictable.

Much has happened that is not solely my experience and therefore not fit to share, and so I have felt muted for months. I wonder if I would have stopped sharing no matter the circumstances. As time goes on, the world definitely doesn't understand that you don't stop missing an important person after a year or two or three goes by. It's not "complicated" or "prolonged" grief if you cry sometimes or express longing, it's the price you pay for deep connection. There is no room for nuance in this society, and now there's a mental health diagnosis for people who aren't "over" their loss after one short year. The armchair therapists are everywhere and quick to reference something they heard on public radio. 

My experience is mine. I am more protective now because I do feel judged. I sense that I am seen as unhealthy or unworthy since I am still single.

I don't care, f off world.

My particular suburban, utopian community has absolutely no idea what having a young dead husband is like. My experience is uniquely mine, my Chris still more precious than anything even though he is not alive. I don't choose to share as freely because people understand less and less what we had, how special he was, the emptiness of a life without him, and the ridiculous challenge of raising children alone. Yet, the tension of wanting to be seen as "normal" and a "valuable" or "high-quality" person is always there just under the surface, tightly coiled like a spring.

I guess I do care. A lot...

The problem is that I do not have a way to release the energy trapped in that spring. There is distraction, but that is not an outlet; it is only a disguise. Instead, I carry that tension day in and out, hour by hour, actively or subconsciously working to suppress it. Every now and then the thought of a heart attack or stroke crosses my mind, for how long can I do this? I worry that I will drop dead from stress and struggle, and then what would become of our children...

Try as I might, I cannot find a way to let it all simply rest.

Chris was my delight, my refuge, my peace, and he treasured me. With him, I needed nothing else to be happy; just spending a few simple minutes together was my idea of perfection. Now, this world does not hold real respite for me. He was my home, my delight, my solace, my one, and he is gone. 

I am tough as nails, I am strong as steel, I am incredibly capable, and I care a lot for others. I am a high quality single person. I know all of these things to be true. But, I am not peaceful without him. I do not know how to be truly, deeply happy without him.

That spring is coiled oh so tightly.

I Went to the Mat

There are dark days. I doubt myself, second-guess decisions, believe everyone would be better at managing the things that were dealt specifically to me. There are so many different feelings now that time has passed and nobody understands; the suffering is incredibly lonely.

But sometimes, when the light is perfectly right as the day is drawing to a close, I know that I did my best. Even though I stumble, I continue to do my best – for our children, for me, and I remember that I did for you, too.

I went to the mat for you.

I raised my voice and demanded attention.

I sought the best help that I could find when I realized it was all on me, no longer in your hands but completely in mine.

In the moments it mattered most, I was decisive when all eyes were on me to make the call.

I never gave up.

Even when I was tired and needed to step out, to attend to the other people who need me.

Even when I sought mental escape.

Because I did nearly break and need a minute, from time to time.

Of course I did. Because I am just one person, one human being, I needed to breathe for a minute.

I still went to the mat for you, for the best ending you could experience, for the least trauma for all of us.

I knew then that my best was not going to result in you being able to stay one minute longer than biology would allow. I know now that the pain of separation seeks blame, any deflection from a direct hit, so hating myself for everything is normal. I can’t blame myself for what happened, and I really don’t. In the same way, I’m working hard to not blame myself for the now. It simply is.

I am doing my best.

I am going to the mat for our children, for me. So we might be able to fully live with moments of joy.

Please. Help me believe these words.

 

 

Trauma

 What is trauma? What differentiates a traumatic experience from a difficult one?

One might experience something difficult as being caught in a very bad storm, frightened by nearby lightning and soaked to the skin. After darting into a shelter to wait it out, one might feel relief while toweling off the water. That was hard and unfortunate, but now it’s over. One might even learn important lessons from a difficult experience that positively influence future choices. But still, the damage can be repaired.

Unlike a difficult experience, trauma cannot be wiped away cleanly. Instead, trauma permeates the skin, steeps into bones, dissolves in blood and circulates through all the vessels, big and small, dissipating relentlessly into every last nook and mysterious cranny of the body. Trauma settles into all of the dark and mysterious hiding places: it swells to fill the pockets of joints, adheres to the ropey surface of ligaments, intricately weaves into the delicate spiderweb of nerve filaments. Trauma lies in wait, always at the ready to rush back to the bloodstream and flood the brain.

At the slightest trigger, the legacy of trauma is activated. Going far beyond memory, trauma unleashes an assault on the senses:

An unstable wobble in the stomach, the acrid taste of bile rising in the back of the throat, the heart racing at breakneck speed with the thudding of impending doom.

Your partner seizing in car, seizing again and again in the familiar red chair. The intensity as he silently held you in his gaze for the last time.

The sounds. The many, many sounds. Sirens, code announcements over a loudspeaker, urgent phone calls with dire news and split-second decisions required, grunts of human suffering and cries of anguish.

Trauma is a full-body, repetitive experience.

-----

I didn’t realize that I was traumatized for a long time. However, my dread of phone calls, fear of mail from health insurance companies and the government, and the indescribable dread that the other shoe is juuuust about to drop is not characteristic of the typical 40-something person.

It’s watching TV and hearing the sound of an IV alarm in the background of the show, then being right back in the ER, devoid of the happy ending that the program will inevitably feature.

Yes, the endless alarms of the hospital characterize trauma for me. The rhythmic, annoying beep-beep that might simply mean an IV drip has completed or a sensor was disconnected, or more sinisterly indicate depressed or elevated vital signs. The sound is dissonant, unpleasant, distressing; like someone is leaning on three adjacent keys of a synthesizer over and over and over. Two short off-key signals, then a longer pause.

Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.     Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.     

 

The patient is powerless to silence the alarm. The family cannot stop it, either. It might be nothing, but it just as well could mean the end has come.

Enh-enh.     Dan-ger.     Enh-enh.      End-time.     Enh-enh.     

It is impossible to relax or sleep in a hospital when that alarm is constantly going off.

Enh-enh.     Dan-ger.     Enh-enh.      End-time.     Enh-enh.     

Still, these years later, it wakes me up from a dead sleep sometimes.

Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.     Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.      Enh-enh.      

The alarm insists that bad things happened, are happening, will continue to happen.

 

Enh-enh.     Enh-enh…

 

Everyone I love has died or will die.

 

End-times.         End-times.         End-times.         End-times.         End-times.

---

This is trauma.

I Miss Him Like the Ocean

I read a poignant essay recently. It was written by Kelley Lynn, a remarried widow; she is some 10 years out from her first husband's death. The title of her piece is "I Miss Him Softly."

https://widowsvoice.com/post/i-miss-him-softly/

Something about it touched me. I was happy for this stranger who had struggled mightily with the loss of her partner and old life, but over a span of years forged a new life and found a second great love. In her recent piece, she describes missing her first husband "softly" as she moves through her days with her second husband.

Oh, I wish I could miss my Chris softly, but I am not there yet. No, my missing is not typically soft, not often gentle and rarely graceful. 

That is okay. I coach myself that everyone is different, my loss is more recent, it is not hers anyway nor is my life hers. It is okay.

Still, I recognize that I miss him differently than I did in earlier days. I don't remember Chris as clearly as I once did, which means the missing is not as acute, the pain is not as cutting on a daily basis. Unbelievably, I have to focus to remember how it felt to be Us; I have to quiet the noise in my brain to hear his voice, I have to actively call up the memory of his touch.

When I do... it can be overwhelming. Like a storm stirring the ocean, the waves of missing crash violently, forcefully. The diagonal, driving rain of longing makes me bone-cold. Yes, my desperate missing often emulates the endless depth and power of the angry, stormy ocean.

But life clicks along. I cannot stay in that space forever. Things change.

The storm clouds do eventually give way to all kinds of weather. Dry air moves in but it is yet windy and cool. Then, the sun peeks out and warmth takes over as the clouds slowly drift away. The ocean calms and a cerulean sky sets off the literally sparkling water for a time.

I accomplish tasks, fix things, think about the future. I make art and new friends. I apply for a new position at work and get it, my colleagues congratulate me. I watch our children grow and marvel at their progress, thankful to be here to see it. 

You know what, though? Even in calm weather there are at least ripples on the ocean, and those waves still break rhythmically on the beach. The tide still goes in and out. As the beach lengthens, the crests do meet the sand gently, retreating farther and farther away from me. On those same good days, the tide inevitably comes back in. Imperceptibly at first but relentlessly nevertheless, those same waves encroach on the smooth sand, eroding the beach bit by bit.

In the best of times, I feel like I am in Maine, standing with my feet in the sand and my face raised to the setting sun as the ocean swells to meet the land. The water rushes to my half buried bare toes, then reaches the apex and rapidly recedes. Even in its graceful calm, the cadence of the rushing water is a repeated whisper:

Toward the shore, I draw you near: I miss you.

Out to the ocean, I cannot hold onto you: Come back.

Toward the shore, you feel so close: I love you.

Out to the ocean, the details fade: Thank you.

I miss you, Come back.

I love you, Thank you.

Over and over and over and over. Sometimes serenely, sometimes brutally, often at one of a myriad of gradations in between. Regardless of tenor, the underlying rhythm has become so predictable it is comforting.

Just as the ocean will persist in its surging and ebbing, it will be this way until the end of my time, I think.

I miss you, Come back. I love you, Thank you.

Yes. I miss my husband these days like the multi-faceted ocean, the ocean I have always loved. Powerful, mysterious, scary, benevolent, beautiful; covering most of the earth where my being currently resides and his has ceased to exist.

I miss him like the ocean.

Would You Know Me?

So much time has gone by. Months and months, now over three years. Things have happened, little things, boring things, big huge things. Through it all, I often wonder...

What would you think?

I simply don't know. I could guess, but I do not have any way of knowing because you are not here. You are gone.

You are dead.

It is still shocking to me that your light has gone out. The kindness in your smile, your voice, your eyes... It will not beam on me or anyone you loved again.

How can that be? It is not fair. You were so good. So very, very good.

So yes, time has passed and you are still not here. You are not coming back. And I... Well, I have changed. I sit here tonight and know that I am not the same as I was when you were here.

For starters, I feel one hundred years old. I am bone tired from the constant managing and weight of missing. My hair is streaked with white, my body is softer, my face a little more substantial, my eyesight is declining.

Yes, the old me with boundless vigor and 20-20 vision is gone. I fall into bed exhausted every night at a shockingly early hour. My new glasses, which I have been instructed to wear as much as possible, are set to arrive tomorrow. I wonder what I'll look like with these glasses and if I'll feel totally different. My mind immediately asks...

Would you know me now?

The question nips at the back of my consciousness. I know I am quite different from when you were here, when we were Us. On the one hand, I am ashamed. I'm more jaded, bitter, depressed, leaden. On the other hand, I'm so sorry you missed out on this version of me because I manage, Chris. I handle things. I'm not only talking about the school bus just not coming for a solid week, I'm talking about Serious Crap. I'm actually decent in a crisis now. I don't know if you saw that when you were in crisis because I was so worried about doing the wrong thing and was simply AFRAID, but my competence has its origins in your decline. Your illness and death changed me.

When things go wrong, I pony up. I manage. Stiff upper lip, voicing the unspeakable and all that. 

Except. 

Except I lose my mind sometimes. I rail against the improbability of the cards life has dealt us, now me. I get angry. I am jealous of people who haven't had their lives upended. I despair. I don't know how to go on with a purpose, with joy. It all seems so meaningless without you.  

Like my clothes, this life doesn't feel like it fits. It was a life that worked wonderfully with you, with Us. But now, I don't know why I stay in this place, this job and this house and this life, without you. It no longer makes sense. Yet, I don't know what to do. 

I don't know what I am supposed to do, Chris.

Maybe you would know me now. Unfortunately, most of my life has been this way, feeling like I don't know what to do. I had no idea what to do when you seized that first time. I didn't know what to do when you had a difficult recovery from the first surgery. I was terrified when you would discuss the tumor returning while it was stable. I froze when you started having partial seizures again and then we found out that the tumor did return. I panicked inside as you faced your inevitable death over many months. I cried out of desperation as you slipped away, silently imploring you to stay.

This has been a long journey of acceptance. I am still working on accepting that you are truly gone. I do still beg you to come back... But, when push comes to shove, I am less reliant on the memory of you and Us to guide my decisions. I ask for help from other people because I am forced to, and I want to. I need so much help, so so so much help. That is ok. No woman is an island, I suppose.

The converse of my question hurts in a different way. 

Would I still know you?

Of course. Of course, of course. You are in my dresser, a heavy box of ashes, frozen in time. Your brain cannot rewire, you cannot change. Your goodness is as true as it always was. 

I don't know how to reconcile my aging and your not being.

Would you know me?

You would if you could. 

You would if you only could.

Please. If there is any way that I don't know about, don't believe in... Please help me. Please help me guide our children. Show us how to feel joy. 

Please help me go on more easily, more gracefully. 

I miss you so.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Portal to the Past

Funny how I can live in the same home that once housed our family of four, hold the same job that I started back before the brain tumor, move in the same body that I always had, and yet not constantly be distracted by the breathtaking fact that it's a totally different life. Truthfully, I'm sometimes flummoxed by the framework looking the same as it always did but the reality being different. Mostly I am able to function well but there are landmines yet, unexpected jolts to be had when one of us encounters a forgotten relic from before.

Tonight, it was when we happened on a notebook that belonged to Chris. We opened it to find some of the last notes he wrote at work from February of 2018.  We stared at it. As I sit to recount it now, I imagine a whooshing sound as we stepped through an unexpected portal to the past.

For there he was in that familiar handwriting - right back in front of our eyes - engaged in science, trying to be a good boss, making plans, and writing medical notes, all with those signature boxes to be checked off. His enthusiasm, earnestness, and intelligence were palpable on the page as we scanned notes about matters that ranged from mundane to monumental.

It was hard to read, yet impossible to stop.

It was unspeakably difficult, but we remembered him aloud.

He was RIGHT THERE.

It all could have happened yesterday...

Whoosh - the portal closed. It was four years ago. Four long years ago, and that is just back to the beginning of the most terrible time. Five years ago to the beginning of the end when the tumor returned. Six years ago to the last normal family time. The gap will only lengthen. I imagine the trips through the portal won't feel like yesterday at some point, or maybe they only do to me right now anyway as I think it is not the same for our children.  

For me, the details of that hard time are exquisitely painful and precious. I look at the pages and am transported to a different state, one in which I temporarily feel like I did with him as a partner. There are no words to describe being put back in that life. Every part of life was so much more back then. Happier and more secure in the warmth of our marriage, even as I was totally unable to do anything to stop his death. I had Chris. He had me. We had our family, we were us. It was everything I ever wanted...

I no longer have the life I wanted. The portal closed. It always does. 

Once locked out from these moments, I see in myself an endless ability to wait. I was always good at the long game and tonight I believe that I would wait literally forever for Chris to come back if he could. He and I were so connected, so entwined at the end dealing with the horror, that I do not want anything else. I could continue to manage this less-than life alone and wait a lifetime for him, it would be an honor.

My trips through the portal are illuminating. I cannot control the memories that rush back when I go through, and he comes to me in ways that remind me of what he wanted for me.

He didn't want me to wait. He wanted me to live and be happy.  

I can't give up my quiet vigilance, not yet. I don't want to live without him and I must go on, so I will continue to wait and do it all again tomorrow without him. For tonight it is enough to see it, to name it, to understand what is going on deep under my conscious mind. I will need to give it up at some point, and recognizing that is a step toward laying it down.

In my longing, I do only what I can tonight. I simply beam out my same messages to Chris. 

I love you.

I miss you desperately.

I am sorry for the ways I failed over the years.

Please help me, please come back. Please. I'm sorry for asking the impossible but I need you. We need you.

Thank you for everything.

Thank you.

Thank you. 

Today is Not Forever

 I am being tested by this pandemic. Still. 20 months on. The vaccine for kids ages 5-11 is literally days away from rollout, but my daughter's school has a sizeable covid-19 outbreak. Boom, email went out Sunday night declaring remote school for the affected grade. Trick-or-treat time for me was spent obsessing over what to do.

I just... Can't keep doing this! What am I supposed to do? There is no help to call on. The "rest" of the culture seems to have moved on and I am expected in person at work. She is not very old, obviously, being ineligible for the current vaccine. I am exhausted from the mental calculus of what is acceptable and least objectionable on multiple fronts. I am burned out from living one day at a time for years now. Years of not being able to look forward to a happy future, a good future, will drag you down.

I miss the days of thinking it through with my partner.

I miss the days of passing the baton back and forth to make it work.

I miss the relief of conversation and shared looks. This is nuts but we will get through it.

This week will be hard, but it will pass. If none of us test positive, it will be but an inconvenience. The way this life goes, next week I won't even remember how stressed I was today in the face of the next challenge.

Today is not forever. That is what I need to remember in these moments of desperation.

Today is NOT forever.