Shelley's Mother

I met my husband’s mother-in-law for the first time in August. She had just had a Carotid Endarterectomy, the procedure to remove fatty plaque from neck arteries. She been having trouble speaking and her doctors came to the conclusion she’d had a stroke. My own dad had the same procedure in the fall of 2005 after a serious of TIA’s left him unable to use his left leg or speak clearly. The day we met she was obviously very tired and in pain, but she was very kind and welcoming to me and to my daughter. I can’t even begin to imagine what she was feeling, seeing me with Rob, but I am sure that it hurt - though she really didn’t let it show in my presence. At the time my thoughts were that Shelley had to have been an even more amazing person than I had originally suspected to have family who were so willing, and able, to put their own grief aside for Rob’s happiness. And I still think that to a degree though since meeting more of her extended family I have modified my thoughts a bit because hers seems like one of those families for whom closeness is a natural and a good thing. Not that they don’t have their moments, like all families do, but what I have seen and learned leads me to believe they are a pretty great group overall.

The last time I saw Leona was in September when the family gathered at her brother Raymond’s farm for the scattering of his ashes and for the internment of some of Shelley’s ashes under the tree in the front yard where she and Rob were married. Again, it had to have been an extremely tough day for her. And again she was wonderful. I am not sure I could have risen to meet such circumstances so well. Indeed I am sometimes very humbled by the grace and generosity with which my husband’s late wife’s family has demonstrated.

Not long ago, it was discovered that Leona had not had a stroke but was suffering from ALS and that the form of the illness that afflicted her was one of the aggressive types. Rob and the girls went up north yesterday to see her in the hospital because she had taken a turn for the worse over the last week and it was unlikely she would survive to see them at the Christmas visit that had been planned.

I didn’t go along, though I wanted desperately to do so. It is hard enough to be away from Rob under ordinary circumstances and much more so when I know that he needs me. And though I don’t push myself on either of the girls, because I am not their mother, it doesn’t keep me from worrying about them or hurting for them. But I had to make Katy the priority and stay behind. We agreed that she couldn’t be subject to another death from a close up perspective at this point in her life.

Rob called me this morning very early. He hadn’t been to bed. I had last heard from him a bit after midnight when he and the girls were leaving the hospital to head out to the farm to get some sleep. His tone made my arms ache to be around him. I could feel how much he needed to be supported through his voice. He told me that Leona’s laboured breathing was stirring up memories of Shelley’s last hours and I knew what he meant without further explanation. It takes very little to bring those last hours and minutes of Will’s to my mind. He told me that they had no sooner gotten to the farm then they were called back to the hospital because Leona had died. All I could do was tell him I was sorry and listen to him talk a bit. The only other thing would have been to take him in my arms and I wasn’t there to do that. He gave me the number he could be reached at and promised he was going to go straight to bed to sleep. For how long I don’t know and worry that it won’t be long enough. My husband is a rock that too many people lean on, me included and I worry.

Leona is with her daughter now, hopefully enjoying their reunion, and her suffering is over. But, like most people, I don’t understand why this has happened or timing of it. Fairness is once again called into question and I wonder if there is even such a thing or did humans simply make the concept up to express their frustration with the ways and whimsy of this universe?

On My Own

This weekend will mark the first time in about six months that I have been on my own. A family crisis has called Rob away and I will be holding down the fort. I put on a brave face and told Rob not to worry I could handle everything. Which is in fact true. There is little I couldn’t manage should it come up and the odds of anything out of the ordinary arising are, as we all know intellectually, amazing small. Still, I am not all that brave or all that resourceful or even all that at ease with being just me and child for a even a couple of days.

The key, of course, is to keep busy and there are plenty of things that need to get done. It’s not that easy at night however. Once my daughter is asleep and it is just me and this computer and all the creaks and groans of an old house out in a rural hamlet. Sounds I normally don’t pay any attention to because they have become so familiar are suddenly unrecognizable and even menacing. I have already fallen back into my old habit of leaving all the hall lights on. I even caved in to my little one (after telling my husband that I wouldn’t) and she is curled up asleep next to me.

Once upon a time, I slept blissfully alone in my own home. No husband or child or cat. What happened to her I wonder?

Soon it will be two years

Last night as I was driving home from town after writing group, I finally realized why I have been having troubles with my stomach again. Troubles reminiscent of last fall and winter when nearly everything I put in the mouth resulted in pain that eventually got so bad I was living off soda crackers and Cream of Wheat. The doctors diagnosed a malfunctioning gallbladder and removed it last November and while that did wonders, it didn't quite rid me of the stomach pains that stress of just about any kind has caused me since I was a teen truthfully. Last year this time was a difficult time in terms of my grieving for my late husband. All the big anniversaries, the first, seem to fall in the last two months leading up to the anniversary of this death. I got through it, just it seems, and since I have seen steady improvement though by no means does this imply that life has always been easy or magically free of the grief or other problems that crop up simply because we are human and live in the real world as opposed to a TV sitcom where troubles manifest and are solved within a 30 minute time frame.

The realization I came to as I drove down the pitch black road to Josephburg that seemed to be running straight into the star dotted night sky on the horizon was that in about 8 weeks my first husband will have been dead for two years. Now, I hadn't forgotten when he died but I had gotten so caught up in my present and planning for the future and loving my husband and caring and worrying for our collective children that I hadn't really been emotionally aware of the significance of some of the anniversaries that have been flying by like so many fence posts on the roadside. It will be two years is what my stomach has been trying to tell me for the past month. Two years.

Rob asked me if it will always be this way. The heightened emotions. The sadness. I think so though I haven't any real examples of this from my own growing up among, what I realize now, was a helluvalot of widowed people. If any of them were laid out by grief periodically every year, I never realized it because they never let it show. I think of my father's mother who despite losing a baby, her husband when still in their sixties and her youngest son who was just 39 when he died, was someone who concentrated all her love and affection on those who meant the most to her and her warmth and friendliness was given freely to just about everyone else. Despite a brief bout with depression a few years after my uncle died, I can't think of an anniversary or holiday that she didn't see as an opportunity to celebrate those she lost and count herself lucky for the love she received and gave in return. And I know this couldn't have been as simply or easy as she made it seem. I know that because I know what I feel myself. Still, it's a better example to work towards in my opinion, and I think I can acknowledge without falling prostrate and rending my garments and smearing dirt upon my face.

The truth is that I love my life and as much as I loved Will, I am more engaged in my now than in my memories of that long ago time when he was well and loved me and we believed that the future was ours. It doesn't mean that it is easy. That anniversaries or holidays or my little girl's struggles with putting her half-remembered memories of her dad in context aren't sometimes hard to bear. It doesn't mean that I don't fell my husband's struggles with his own grief or that I don't worry and hurt for his girls when they struggle. It doesn't meant that new losses, because they are part of life, won't bring up old grief. It does mean that I recognize that there is ebb and flow and on-going negotiations and incorporating and dealing and sometimes tears and I am okay with that.

Soundtracking Your Life

My wife Ann wrote a blog piece a while back about music and its relationship to and description of her life at various points over the, well, course of her life. She called it "Soundtracking My Life". I guess I can relate. Certain music pieces are forever associated with certain events and times in my life too. Sometimes the times were such that listening to those tunes can be a bit painful. Other times, the tunes can call up happy memories.

A couple of fairly recent examples, if I may:

I had started listening to some Coldplay in the last months before Shelley died. A couple of the more oft listened-to tunes were "Green Eyes" and "Warning Sign"; while the lyrics did not exactly fit the situation, I came to relate those songs closely with Shelley. Although I did not really think I would lose her as I did, I think subconsciously I knew it was possible. I listened to those tunes - a lot - in the weeks after Shelley's passing. There were others that became my grieving tunes also: "Gone Away" by the Offspring, "Slipping Away" by Sum41, "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips (thanks to Jordan for that one), "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana, "I Am Mine" by Pearl Jam (thanks to Cory for that one), and a few more from Sum41's "Chuck" album. I actually created a CD entitled "Rob's Melancholy Mix" with these tunes on them. Nowadays, I find it difficult to listen to any of these tunes plus a few others. Mostly because they can catapult me - emotionally - back to that time when Shelley was wasting away and eventually left me alone in this physical plane.

Tool. I had been aware of Tool...well, that Tool existed...since the '90's when my girls - first Farron and then Jordan - became fans. They had tried to "convert" me, but I resisted. At the time I didn't give Tool a chance to prove that the music had redeeming qualities. In spite of the ravings of my then-teenagers. Then came the first Thanksgiving we had following Shelley's passing. The three of us trekked up to my in-laws to spend Thanksgiving with Shelley's family. "10,000 Days" had come out a little before that time and one of the kids had brought along a copy. We were listening to Farron's CD's mostly on the long drive up to the Peace River country and eventually "10,000 Days" made its way into the rotation. The stereo system in the old Avalanche was "pretty good" (6 speaker Bose) and we cranked it up. I liked it. I bought myself a copy of "10,000 Days" and listened to it day in and day out. The CD went with me on my healing road trip through November last year and it got a lot play during that month. When I returned home I went on-line to Amazon.ca and ordered up the rest of the Tool CD releases plus all the releases of A Perfect Circle (Maynard James Keenan's other project).

A Perfect Circle. The girls recommended "Mer de Noms" but I found that I really liked "Thirteenth Step". I listened to that CD a lot in the early months of this year. The time I associate most with these tunes is the weekend I met Ann for the first time in person. That was in Idaho Falls, Idaho during a wintry February weekend. The CD was in the player and we listened to it during the times we drove around during that weekend. I mostly remember the drive out to Menan and back; we went out to Menan to visit my friends Tee and Dee. I wanted Tee, especially, to meet Ann.

And so as it happens I was listening to "Thirteenth Step" this afternoon and in an idle moment I was transported back to those first days with Ann. When we started to really get to know one another. And when we basked in the natural feeling of being together. And feeling that we somehow knew each other. A feeling of being comfortable.

And I was compelled to write it down.