My horoscope earlier this week reminded me that I shouldn’t question why I am so lucky or whether or not I deserve the happiness and tranquility I know now. Rather I should bask in its warmth and know that I am entirely welcome to it. Like so many things these days, I am in awe of the peace and the sheer cozy joy of my life here in Canada with Rob.
The first time we meet in person came about a month after Rob had declared himself to me in a long rambling email that only he could write. I remembering impatiently skimming it to find his point because I knew there was more on his mind then just greetings of the day and updating me on his goings on. We had been writing to each other for about six weeks when he informed me that his feelings had turned more than just friendly. I was rendered speechless to the point where I couldn’t even type a reply and that, for me anyway, is true speechlessness. Our first sight of each other at the airport in Idaho Falls sealed our fates completely, interlocking our destinies for a damn long time to come.
Ten minutes ago, I saw you.
You looked up when I came through the door.
My head started reeling you gave me the feeling the room had no ceiling or floor.
-from the musical, Cinderella
I spent those first 36 or so hours with him nearly mute. I couldn’t look at him enough. Touch him enough. Be near enough. And I couldn't find words enough to tell him so. And it wasn’t a dream nor did it even feel like one. The reality of him was as grounded and concrete as any experience I have ever had. I had dreamt of my future so often in the bleak times that came before that his arrival at such a time and in such a way pulled me up by the short hairs.
I’m not eloquent enough to count the ways or compare Rob to a seasonal time frame. I am not a poet. Nor can I fashion a tune or fill a canvas with what I felt that weekend and since. Even words, my friends in nearly all times, can’t seem to help encapsulate what is Rob or our love for each other. Both are boundless and ever expanding like the universe seeking its outer limits. Unlike the universe, however, there are no edges to be found and no inevitably advancing implosion. I know it and couldn’t tell you how I do. It’s like the feeling you have when you wake up and see the sun rising pink and orange and you just know that whatever the day brings, its all good.
Though the ensuing months with the thousand plus miles between us strained our patience and brought a few valleys and rainy days, that are just part of living and learning and loving, I still get that same feeling of Idaho Falls when I wake up next to Rob every morning. How will I ever find time enough to spend with him before old age takes its toll and claims us?
Friday, October 5, 2007
Better to Have Loved and Lost
Cliches about lost love never go out of fashion but they sure don't fit all situations. I am continually amazed at the idea that some widowed people hang onto that somehow the death of their spouses is on par with divorce or separation or even the break-up of a romance.
Many of us are offered the dubious comfort of envy. Friends, relations, and even near-strangers, remind us that our marriages and the time we had with our lost loved ones is more than most people ever have the slightest chance to experience over the course of entire life-times it seems. Though not even a cold comfort, it is true. We were lucky and loved. What puzzles me is the idea that we "lost" at love. We didn't. We were loved. We are in all likelihood still loved, truly and deeply, though it might be hard to reach those feelings when anger and pain and the feeling of being cheated are all we allow ourselves to feel at first, and in the cases of some - for a long, long time. But we are not losers. We didn't end our relationships in front of a judge or discover one day after months, or years, that our inattention to each other had starved the emotions that once fanned desire. What we are is what remains of love after one of the pair is claimed by his or her mortality. It's not pretty, nor does it feel good, but it is not losing. Nor is it consolation. It is what it is but leave the bitterness to those who are the co-authors of their love's demise.
We chosen few have no reason to hang our heads or linger in bitterness. We are better for having loved, and being loved in return through all the heights and lulls that we know our soul enriching when others see them as valueless. I know that I gained more from the short time with my late husband than I will ever be able to explain. The love, as well as the pain and sorrow, separates me from those who are true losers at love. I gave my all. So did he. We played through to the true end. What more could anyone hope for?
Many of us are offered the dubious comfort of envy. Friends, relations, and even near-strangers, remind us that our marriages and the time we had with our lost loved ones is more than most people ever have the slightest chance to experience over the course of entire life-times it seems. Though not even a cold comfort, it is true. We were lucky and loved. What puzzles me is the idea that we "lost" at love. We didn't. We were loved. We are in all likelihood still loved, truly and deeply, though it might be hard to reach those feelings when anger and pain and the feeling of being cheated are all we allow ourselves to feel at first, and in the cases of some - for a long, long time. But we are not losers. We didn't end our relationships in front of a judge or discover one day after months, or years, that our inattention to each other had starved the emotions that once fanned desire. What we are is what remains of love after one of the pair is claimed by his or her mortality. It's not pretty, nor does it feel good, but it is not losing. Nor is it consolation. It is what it is but leave the bitterness to those who are the co-authors of their love's demise.
We chosen few have no reason to hang our heads or linger in bitterness. We are better for having loved, and being loved in return through all the heights and lulls that we know our soul enriching when others see them as valueless. I know that I gained more from the short time with my late husband than I will ever be able to explain. The love, as well as the pain and sorrow, separates me from those who are true losers at love. I gave my all. So did he. We played through to the true end. What more could anyone hope for?
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Moving On
I am hardly an expert but I do know a thing or two more than I would like about endings and beginnings and about moving on. I spent a good deal of time closing up the rooms in the dreams of the future my late husband and I imagined together in what seems now to be a long ago time but in reality is just a mere five years past. During his long illness, there were many endings. Most too painful to recount. There is a time for remembering loss and there comes a day when the laundry list of hurts isn't a useful exercise anymore and I have reached that point. Ironically there were as many beginnings during times of tragedy and loss, and there is even growth. I changed job sites and age levels in my teaching career. Began and finished a masters program. Made new friends. Set new goals, among them a decision to change locale and careers in the short term future. It's interesting the chain reactions decisions of all shapes and sizes have on the course of a person's life. Some people are blown far afield by unexpected circumstances and their reactions to them. Some are brought to a dead stop, letting currents take them and waves sweep them under. Some keep moving, re-plotting their courses as the conditions warrant until they find themselves on stable ground again. My plans changed course over the course of my late husband's illness and in the aftermath of his death and again when I met my now husband, Rob. In a strange way, Rob has always seemed a natural progression, a given, in a new beginning we seemed destined to share, so despite the rather momentous hurdles of leaving family, friends, home, job and country, it's been in some ways the easiest of my transitions from then to now.
Being a widow I have the dubious pleasure to know many others. Male and female. Much older than I am and some young enough to be my sons or daughters. We have endings in common. That's true. But a small portion of us share beginnings too. Some are triumphs and some are not. There is one gentlemen I know of through a message board for young widowed I frequent from time to time. He has taken to posting emails he receives from an organization called GriefShare, which tries to help bereaved people work through their losses. Recently he posted the following message:
What It Means to Move On
Moving on does not mean . . .
• you forget the person.
• you never feel the pain of your loss.
• you believe that life is fair.
Moving on does mean . . .
• you experience a lessening of the pain.
• you can treasure your best memories of the person who has died.
• you can realistically accept the different aspects of your loss.
• you can form new relationships, try new things.
Moving on also means . . .
• you grow in grace and in your walk with God.
• you accept your loss and forgive others.
• you understand that both joy and loss are a part of life.
• you believe that God is good, even when life isn't.
My husband loathes the saying "moving on" like many widowed he prefers "moving forward", and I try to use the term in deference to him though to me it is a bit of a semantics thing. In many ways beginnings do mean moving on as opposed to forward because it is not about momentum or trajectory as much as it is about putting certain dreams, hopes and deep feelings away in much the same way you pack up mementos from your children's lives or souvenirs from a trip. My mother has a cedar chest in the basement of my childhood home that is crammed with tiny clothes, blankets, report cards and such that belonged, and were important, to her and to each of us kids in times now long past. I seldom think about the old rag doll I named CeeDee that lies there wrapped, I think, in the remnants of my sister Kate's baby blanket. I know that it sounds like apples and oranges, comparing the inevitable of growing up to the loss of one's spouse, but they are not as different as you think. As my mother has been annoyingly fond of pointing out to me over the years, everything is a growth experience. Because I look as though I have achieved adulthood doesn't necessary mean I learned all there is to learn. I haven't achieved the enlightenment of Sidharrtha. Possibly because I haven't the time to sit under a tree until it smacks me on the head like gravity struck Newton. But in a way, widowhood has been my apple. We learn from everything and everyone in our lives, with luck, and at some point we move on from them - willing or not. It's not about forgetting or minimizing. Time moves and sweeps us along in its wake, but its different from just being pushed forward. Moving on implies that we have packed up those things from our old lives that are important and special in our own cedar chests, loaded them on the truck and once arrived, carefully put them away.
I have a habit of choosing my mottoes from the lyrics of songs. One of my favorites was written by group called Semi Sonic. The song is entitled "Closing Time". It uses the idea of a pub closing down in the wee hours as a metaphor for moving on and out into the big wide world. The song on the whole has a rather positive message but the line I truly love is "Closing time. Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end." There is so much truth in that one simple expression. So much faith as well because I know many people who see endings as endings and nothing more, and even though I can see their side of it, I find that kind of thinking short-sighted. The reason being that endings and beginnings, as Shakespeare once put it are "neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so." Funny that I should find a line from Hamlet inspiring because there are few plays I dislike more than that dirge, but it is true.
Being a widow I have the dubious pleasure to know many others. Male and female. Much older than I am and some young enough to be my sons or daughters. We have endings in common. That's true. But a small portion of us share beginnings too. Some are triumphs and some are not. There is one gentlemen I know of through a message board for young widowed I frequent from time to time. He has taken to posting emails he receives from an organization called GriefShare, which tries to help bereaved people work through their losses. Recently he posted the following message:
What It Means to Move On
Moving on does not mean . . .
• you forget the person.
• you never feel the pain of your loss.
• you believe that life is fair.
Moving on does mean . . .
• you experience a lessening of the pain.
• you can treasure your best memories of the person who has died.
• you can realistically accept the different aspects of your loss.
• you can form new relationships, try new things.
Moving on also means . . .
• you grow in grace and in your walk with God.
• you accept your loss and forgive others.
• you understand that both joy and loss are a part of life.
• you believe that God is good, even when life isn't.
My husband loathes the saying "moving on" like many widowed he prefers "moving forward", and I try to use the term in deference to him though to me it is a bit of a semantics thing. In many ways beginnings do mean moving on as opposed to forward because it is not about momentum or trajectory as much as it is about putting certain dreams, hopes and deep feelings away in much the same way you pack up mementos from your children's lives or souvenirs from a trip. My mother has a cedar chest in the basement of my childhood home that is crammed with tiny clothes, blankets, report cards and such that belonged, and were important, to her and to each of us kids in times now long past. I seldom think about the old rag doll I named CeeDee that lies there wrapped, I think, in the remnants of my sister Kate's baby blanket. I know that it sounds like apples and oranges, comparing the inevitable of growing up to the loss of one's spouse, but they are not as different as you think. As my mother has been annoyingly fond of pointing out to me over the years, everything is a growth experience. Because I look as though I have achieved adulthood doesn't necessary mean I learned all there is to learn. I haven't achieved the enlightenment of Sidharrtha. Possibly because I haven't the time to sit under a tree until it smacks me on the head like gravity struck Newton. But in a way, widowhood has been my apple. We learn from everything and everyone in our lives, with luck, and at some point we move on from them - willing or not. It's not about forgetting or minimizing. Time moves and sweeps us along in its wake, but its different from just being pushed forward. Moving on implies that we have packed up those things from our old lives that are important and special in our own cedar chests, loaded them on the truck and once arrived, carefully put them away.
I have a habit of choosing my mottoes from the lyrics of songs. One of my favorites was written by group called Semi Sonic. The song is entitled "Closing Time". It uses the idea of a pub closing down in the wee hours as a metaphor for moving on and out into the big wide world. The song on the whole has a rather positive message but the line I truly love is "Closing time. Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end." There is so much truth in that one simple expression. So much faith as well because I know many people who see endings as endings and nothing more, and even though I can see their side of it, I find that kind of thinking short-sighted. The reason being that endings and beginnings, as Shakespeare once put it are "neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so." Funny that I should find a line from Hamlet inspiring because there are few plays I dislike more than that dirge, but it is true.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
I was an Angelic Teen
There was an interesting opinion piece in The Globe and Mail on October 2nd about being honest with your children when discussing your own alcohol and drug use when you were young. I suppose this applies to sexual experiences too. Having spent as many years as I did working with preteens and teenagers, I am bit torn about his advice. While I know that it is always best to be as honest as possible with young people, I also know that there are too many variables in play to give a blanket seal of approval to the "be honest" approach when discussing sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
Age appropriateness is an area that isn't as seriously discussed as much as it receives lip service. We live in an era of the parent as peer with parents and teens conversing and interacting on a level playing field with rules and officials viewed as quaint anachronisms. Parents should certainly take a more proactive role when it comes to dispensing and disseminating the information that their children receive through dubious sources when it comes to drugs, drinking and sex. Television, movies, popular music, the Internet, and of course peers, can spread as much misinformation as not, and there are too many truly stupid people in and out of your child's life on a daily basis for you not to pay attention to what they are learning and from whom.
Even though my own child is quite young. I have been on the receiving end of uncomfortable questions as a teacher and in personal relationships with younger people. Students reach a certain age where they take great delight in putting teachers on the spot whenever circumstances allow. In my role as teacher I have been asked about drinking habits, past drug use and the age at which I lost my virginity,among other things. The district where I taught arbitrarily chose grade 7 as the year to begin sex education, and many of my co-workers dreaded when the unit would come up in the Family and Consumer Science class because very often the children would sit passively in that class and ask their questions later in our classes. I gained a reputation for being able to answer their questions without stammering or blushing, and it was this experience that led me to the conclusion that if you are calm and as matter of fact as possible when addressing potentially explosive issues with kids, they will generally take you at your word. So, did I admit to drinking as a teen? No, I didn't need to because I kept it to the present tense. I rarely drink. I don't drink to get drunk when I do. From there my students assumed, incorrectly, that I had always been that way. Is this lying? Need to know is key when dealing with children, and my students simply didn't need to know what I was like as nineteen year old college student. Older teens would always ask about pot smoking. My stock answer was, and is still that I have asthma and therefore couldn't. Many of my students were on probation for drug offenses and looking for any example they could find of respectable adults who had smoked weed in high school. The truth is that I could have had I wanted to. My younger brother was growing it in the basement after all, but I really could never smoke. I grew up in the house of a smoker and was allergic by then, though I didn't realize it. Smoke of any kind made me cough and wheeze. Even if I had done this in high school, there was no reason for me to admit it and plenty not to give the circumstances. It gets back to variables and the bumpiness of the playing field. My high school students came from families where parents smoked, drank, ran through sexual partners faster than the seasons changed. They needed me to be an adult. Their questions were a way of confirming that I was.
When it came to sex, my first test was a close friend's oldest daughter. She and her sisters are like nieces to me. I watched them all grow up. When she was sixteen, she had her first serious boyfriend and she asked me about birth control because she was thinking about being intimate. I gave her the information and I also told her she needed to talk with her mom because if she was old enough to have sex and use birth control, she was old enough to be honest about her actions with her parents. After all, since college my motto has always been that if I couldn't tell my mom about it, I shouldn't be doing it. She did talk with her mom as a result, but when she asked me how old I was when I first had sex, I was honest. I was just shy of twenty-one. Old by standards now and then, but if I had been younger, I would have told her that too. Would I have shared the information in a classroom. No. That's not appropriate for the setting or the relationship of teacher and student. Which gets back to my early argument of appropriateness.
Being honest does not mean that children have any right to information about your past beyond the need to know rule, and it is foolish of parents to share their misadventures in their teens with their teen and younger children simply because they are still children and will not learn from your mistakes. They aren't old enough or experienced enough to internalize, or even see, the lesson you are hoping to teach them. Teens especially are blind to anything that is contrary to what they want. There is no need for them to know when you first started drinking, if you have ever smoked pot or the age at which you lost your virginity. All evidence points to the fact that when teens ask you these types of questions, they are looking for permission which is what knowledge of your teen actions provides. And when they discover that you evaded (and I recommend evasion highly over out-right lying)? You don't owe them an answer to that either. You are the parent and you were acting in their best interests at the time, and they will understand should they have children of their own someday. Yes, there is a reason that cliche exists. It's true.
Parent and child is never an equal relationship no matter the ages of either. When your children reach adulthood and are out living on their own, share until your heart bursts with fulfillment and lovey-dovey bonding, but until they be the parent. Be as perfect as possible, even if it is not quite the truth.
Age appropriateness is an area that isn't as seriously discussed as much as it receives lip service. We live in an era of the parent as peer with parents and teens conversing and interacting on a level playing field with rules and officials viewed as quaint anachronisms. Parents should certainly take a more proactive role when it comes to dispensing and disseminating the information that their children receive through dubious sources when it comes to drugs, drinking and sex. Television, movies, popular music, the Internet, and of course peers, can spread as much misinformation as not, and there are too many truly stupid people in and out of your child's life on a daily basis for you not to pay attention to what they are learning and from whom.
Even though my own child is quite young. I have been on the receiving end of uncomfortable questions as a teacher and in personal relationships with younger people. Students reach a certain age where they take great delight in putting teachers on the spot whenever circumstances allow. In my role as teacher I have been asked about drinking habits, past drug use and the age at which I lost my virginity,among other things. The district where I taught arbitrarily chose grade 7 as the year to begin sex education, and many of my co-workers dreaded when the unit would come up in the Family and Consumer Science class because very often the children would sit passively in that class and ask their questions later in our classes. I gained a reputation for being able to answer their questions without stammering or blushing, and it was this experience that led me to the conclusion that if you are calm and as matter of fact as possible when addressing potentially explosive issues with kids, they will generally take you at your word. So, did I admit to drinking as a teen? No, I didn't need to because I kept it to the present tense. I rarely drink. I don't drink to get drunk when I do. From there my students assumed, incorrectly, that I had always been that way. Is this lying? Need to know is key when dealing with children, and my students simply didn't need to know what I was like as nineteen year old college student. Older teens would always ask about pot smoking. My stock answer was, and is still that I have asthma and therefore couldn't. Many of my students were on probation for drug offenses and looking for any example they could find of respectable adults who had smoked weed in high school. The truth is that I could have had I wanted to. My younger brother was growing it in the basement after all, but I really could never smoke. I grew up in the house of a smoker and was allergic by then, though I didn't realize it. Smoke of any kind made me cough and wheeze. Even if I had done this in high school, there was no reason for me to admit it and plenty not to give the circumstances. It gets back to variables and the bumpiness of the playing field. My high school students came from families where parents smoked, drank, ran through sexual partners faster than the seasons changed. They needed me to be an adult. Their questions were a way of confirming that I was.
When it came to sex, my first test was a close friend's oldest daughter. She and her sisters are like nieces to me. I watched them all grow up. When she was sixteen, she had her first serious boyfriend and she asked me about birth control because she was thinking about being intimate. I gave her the information and I also told her she needed to talk with her mom because if she was old enough to have sex and use birth control, she was old enough to be honest about her actions with her parents. After all, since college my motto has always been that if I couldn't tell my mom about it, I shouldn't be doing it. She did talk with her mom as a result, but when she asked me how old I was when I first had sex, I was honest. I was just shy of twenty-one. Old by standards now and then, but if I had been younger, I would have told her that too. Would I have shared the information in a classroom. No. That's not appropriate for the setting or the relationship of teacher and student. Which gets back to my early argument of appropriateness.
Being honest does not mean that children have any right to information about your past beyond the need to know rule, and it is foolish of parents to share their misadventures in their teens with their teen and younger children simply because they are still children and will not learn from your mistakes. They aren't old enough or experienced enough to internalize, or even see, the lesson you are hoping to teach them. Teens especially are blind to anything that is contrary to what they want. There is no need for them to know when you first started drinking, if you have ever smoked pot or the age at which you lost your virginity. All evidence points to the fact that when teens ask you these types of questions, they are looking for permission which is what knowledge of your teen actions provides. And when they discover that you evaded (and I recommend evasion highly over out-right lying)? You don't owe them an answer to that either. You are the parent and you were acting in their best interests at the time, and they will understand should they have children of their own someday. Yes, there is a reason that cliche exists. It's true.
Parent and child is never an equal relationship no matter the ages of either. When your children reach adulthood and are out living on their own, share until your heart bursts with fulfillment and lovey-dovey bonding, but until they be the parent. Be as perfect as possible, even if it is not quite the truth.
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