My widowed sister-in-law is here for the week with her two teenagers and we have had a couple of lengthy conversations about widowhood. Two themes emerged in respect to myself. First of all there is the ever annoying comments on my inner strength and determination which render me “amazing” and which I will never really understand I’m afraid. I am not special or amazing though I will concede on strong with the caveat that I see it as my dislike of giving in - I am a more stubborn person than anything else. Then there came the observation that my grief critics are critical because of this tough persona I have. This came during a point in the discussion this morning when I was talking about Will’s mother, extended family and friends. I conceded the point because I had to. It’s completely true that I do not like to admit total strangers into my emotional circle. And I don’t consider blogging to be a portal either. I have friends and good ones who read this blog and comment - some more than others, but the majority of people who read (and it’s not a sizable audience) do so without much interest in me as a person and without commenting. I read few blogs where I don’t comment at least occasionally, even if I don’t a warm and fuzzy relationship with the writer but I have come to regard other people’s lives and struggles as merely different from my own and not a direct reflection on who they are as people necessarily.
But getting back to ghosts. I find that each time I talk/write about my struggles and the residual baggage (as my sister-in-law terms it) that I feel like I have unloaded some and walked away from it. In some respects this as dangerous as leaving bags unattended in a airport because you don’t know who will find it and what the reaction will be or if you have left something of importance behind.
I have been thinking for a while now that perhaps it is time to walk away from blogging. I keep at it because I like writing but don’t know if this is the most productive use of my time and because it is a way for friends to keep up with my life and I have been horrid in the past for keeping in touch, so blogging you might say is my lazy answer to that. Still, it is stealing time away from real writing that needs to be done, and when I say “needs”, I mean I have a stories in my head screaming to be written. It’s funny how conversations can trigger all sorts of seemingly random reactions but this wasn’t isn’t that random at all. This blog, though it is mainly about my journey of the past nine months has me tied a bit to tightly to events that preceded it and it’s time to move farther away. Blogging is not a forward moving thing for me anymore.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
The Far Horizon where the Sidewalk Ends
A widow I don’t know personally, Alicia, but whose blog I follow wrote a piece today on the need people have to keep their heads down after a tragedy and simply put one foot in front of another for a while. I can’t say that I have ever felt that way myself. When they told me that Will was going to die and that the process could take years, I fixed my eye on the far horizon and seldom let it out of my sight because I wouldn’t have made it otherwise. If I had ducked my head and concentrated on my immediate circumstances only - watching my husband die - I wouldn’t have had the strength to do what needed to be done day after day or to plan for those events I knew where coming and had no one but me to do them. It wasn’t enough to know there was a horizon - a future. I needed to think about it and dream about it. Alicia’s sidewalk imagery reminded me of a poetry book that my sixth-graders of long ago loved so much
Where the Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
Shel Silverstein
But that’s not me. Measured and slow. It’s never been me. I am more like the line Yoda uses in his argument with Ben Kenobi about whether or not Luke should be formally trained as a Jedi.
This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph.
That’s me. Although I am more grounded in my present that I have been at any time of my life, I am still thinking about tomorrow, whether it’s next week or months or years from now. And I don’t see it as a bad thing or a running away thing. It’s just me. One of the many quirks that make me up and set me apart. Not far apart though. I am not the only one who looks forward to her future with anticipation, wondering how much of it I can actively shape and how much I will just have to accept (and if I can manage to muster up the grace to do so).
It’s not that I don’t feel there is a place for sidewalks or just breathing in and out. Sometimes it’s better to take the beaten path (or the poured one), but your toes will always be on the end of your feet. The horizon changes, especially when you aren’t watching it.
Where the Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
Shel Silverstein
But that’s not me. Measured and slow. It’s never been me. I am more like the line Yoda uses in his argument with Ben Kenobi about whether or not Luke should be formally trained as a Jedi.
This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph.
That’s me. Although I am more grounded in my present that I have been at any time of my life, I am still thinking about tomorrow, whether it’s next week or months or years from now. And I don’t see it as a bad thing or a running away thing. It’s just me. One of the many quirks that make me up and set me apart. Not far apart though. I am not the only one who looks forward to her future with anticipation, wondering how much of it I can actively shape and how much I will just have to accept (and if I can manage to muster up the grace to do so).
It’s not that I don’t feel there is a place for sidewalks or just breathing in and out. Sometimes it’s better to take the beaten path (or the poured one), but your toes will always be on the end of your feet. The horizon changes, especially when you aren’t watching it.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Bearing Witness
My widow friend, Andrea, in Texas recently posted a quote from a movie that sums up better than I have ever been able to what it is that goes missing from our lives when we lose our spouses.
”We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'."
Shall We Dance, 2004
I had never really thought about it in just that way. Funny how sometimes just what you need to know or see or do will arrive via a movie or the daily horoscope in the daily newspaper. A song will come on the radio and something that a moment before was an insurmountable problem or an inscrutable dilemma melts away into clarity.
I have been puzzling in my head how to best remember Will on the second anniversary of his death this coming January 23rd and was not satisfied with any of the ideas I was coming up with thus far. I started a memorial page for him on FaceBook but realize now that this was not something that many people who knew him would ever see as I am the only uber-geek of the bunch. None of his friends or family would have much use for a social networking internet site. Try as I might, I have never been able to capture him in words to my own satisfaction though I have written about him, I have never painted his picture with a thousand words.
I’d thought about a memorial in the Des Moines paper where we lived, but again, no one who knew him would see it. Sadly, few of them read or keep abreast of the world outside the bubbles they live in. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. His best friend going back to childhood called my parents house the other day to find out my number because he and his family would be back in the Des Moines area for Christmas and wanted to drop a present by for Katy. He must have called the old number and discovered it was disconnected and thought we’d moved or something. I don’t know what he thought when my mother gave him my new cell with a funny area code but he called it and left a message. I gave it a bit of thought before returning the call. It was apparent he didn’t know I’d remarried and moved out of the country. I suppose this was mostly my fault for not calling to tell him last spring, but he’d pretty much dropped out of our lives after Will died. I heard from him once the May after when he called wanting to know where Will was buried. There was no “how are you?” “how is Katy?” just asked for the location and I haven’t heard from him since. I did see his wife and mother-in-law last Christmas. She called and asked if I could stop by to pick up a gift for Katy, which we did. During our little visit, I learned that Doug wasn’t handling Will’s death well at all and at the time couldn’t bear to talk about him. He kept the ball cap and the pool cue of Will’s I had given him hanging in the cab of his truck and no one was allowed to touch either. I felt at the time I heard this, and still do, that this was really no excuse for avoiding me or Katy, who is his goddaughter. Will wouldn’t have done that if the situation was reversed. I was/am a bit tired of his family and friends laying claim to grief for my husband as though it was some kind of contest.
I didn’t get a hold of Doug. I called him but his voice mail picked up. I gave the abbreviated version of the past year and haven’t heard back. I guess that tells me what I need to know.
Sometimes I feel that no one knew Will at all until I came along. His family. His friends. If it weren’t for me, who would bear witness to him in a true sense? I still haven’t figured out how best to do this however, but I have not quite another month to think on it. I think though that the way I have lived and moved forward, building a future is a best testament to him so far.
”We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'."
Shall We Dance, 2004
I had never really thought about it in just that way. Funny how sometimes just what you need to know or see or do will arrive via a movie or the daily horoscope in the daily newspaper. A song will come on the radio and something that a moment before was an insurmountable problem or an inscrutable dilemma melts away into clarity.
I have been puzzling in my head how to best remember Will on the second anniversary of his death this coming January 23rd and was not satisfied with any of the ideas I was coming up with thus far. I started a memorial page for him on FaceBook but realize now that this was not something that many people who knew him would ever see as I am the only uber-geek of the bunch. None of his friends or family would have much use for a social networking internet site. Try as I might, I have never been able to capture him in words to my own satisfaction though I have written about him, I have never painted his picture with a thousand words.
I’d thought about a memorial in the Des Moines paper where we lived, but again, no one who knew him would see it. Sadly, few of them read or keep abreast of the world outside the bubbles they live in. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. His best friend going back to childhood called my parents house the other day to find out my number because he and his family would be back in the Des Moines area for Christmas and wanted to drop a present by for Katy. He must have called the old number and discovered it was disconnected and thought we’d moved or something. I don’t know what he thought when my mother gave him my new cell with a funny area code but he called it and left a message. I gave it a bit of thought before returning the call. It was apparent he didn’t know I’d remarried and moved out of the country. I suppose this was mostly my fault for not calling to tell him last spring, but he’d pretty much dropped out of our lives after Will died. I heard from him once the May after when he called wanting to know where Will was buried. There was no “how are you?” “how is Katy?” just asked for the location and I haven’t heard from him since. I did see his wife and mother-in-law last Christmas. She called and asked if I could stop by to pick up a gift for Katy, which we did. During our little visit, I learned that Doug wasn’t handling Will’s death well at all and at the time couldn’t bear to talk about him. He kept the ball cap and the pool cue of Will’s I had given him hanging in the cab of his truck and no one was allowed to touch either. I felt at the time I heard this, and still do, that this was really no excuse for avoiding me or Katy, who is his goddaughter. Will wouldn’t have done that if the situation was reversed. I was/am a bit tired of his family and friends laying claim to grief for my husband as though it was some kind of contest.
I didn’t get a hold of Doug. I called him but his voice mail picked up. I gave the abbreviated version of the past year and haven’t heard back. I guess that tells me what I need to know.
Sometimes I feel that no one knew Will at all until I came along. His family. His friends. If it weren’t for me, who would bear witness to him in a true sense? I still haven’t figured out how best to do this however, but I have not quite another month to think on it. I think though that the way I have lived and moved forward, building a future is a best testament to him so far.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
My Child
I knew before she was even born that my daughter was going to be difficult. Some might say that the fact that she is challenging is a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy, but I don’t. She was stubborn and defiant and determined, and I could feel that in her long before I even knew what she looked like. Her personality was so strong it just radiated through me. And she has done nothing to dissuade me from this stance even once in the last five years.
Sometimes I wish, as much as I love her, that she was like other people’s children. You know, the children who are sweet and easy-going. The one’s that sleep through the night from month one and were never bothered by tags in their clothing or socks that weren’t put on just right. These children were perfect angels in public regardless of the circumstances, went to bed on time without struggles every night by 7 even though they took three hour naps every afternoon. They weren’t messy at the table and didn’t mark every inch of the living room with toys. Never grumpy or sassy, they were just joyful sources of pride that validated the great parenting they were receiving. Katy never slept more than a few hours at a time when she was a baby and the situation hasn’t improved much in the ensuing years. Tags, creases, long sleeves, fabric, just being dressed in general can still send her into a tizzy. At one time she did go to bed early but she has never willing napped - ever. She is the messiest eater and like a tomcat she claims space with her markings - toys. Toys are everywhere. She is grumpy in the morning (just like her dad which is ironic since she never knew him as a well man) and she is as sassy as I am, which I don’t find the humor in as often as I should. All in all, I feel like a pretty crappy parent about half the time.
This morning’s attack of grumpiness and the tantrum/tears that ensued when she was sent to her room is a direct result of Christmas hyper-stimulation and sleep-deprivation, but it doesn’t make it easier to deal with or make me feel better. When I finally went up to check on her (Rob went initially until it was time for him to go to work) she tried to play the grief card on me and blame her tantrum on being “sad about Daddy Will being dead”. I really hate when she does that because she knows what she is doing and I will not allow her to grow up to be one of those people who blames ever misfortune or just a bad day on past grief. She is too little to know that it hurts me when she does this, but she does know it generates sympathy and in the past as allowed her to have her way. It’s hard to know however when she is truly grieving or just playing the card.
I told Rob that I understood why my own mom hated Christmas vacation more than she hated summer vacation.
Sometimes I wish, as much as I love her, that she was like other people’s children. You know, the children who are sweet and easy-going. The one’s that sleep through the night from month one and were never bothered by tags in their clothing or socks that weren’t put on just right. These children were perfect angels in public regardless of the circumstances, went to bed on time without struggles every night by 7 even though they took three hour naps every afternoon. They weren’t messy at the table and didn’t mark every inch of the living room with toys. Never grumpy or sassy, they were just joyful sources of pride that validated the great parenting they were receiving. Katy never slept more than a few hours at a time when she was a baby and the situation hasn’t improved much in the ensuing years. Tags, creases, long sleeves, fabric, just being dressed in general can still send her into a tizzy. At one time she did go to bed early but she has never willing napped - ever. She is the messiest eater and like a tomcat she claims space with her markings - toys. Toys are everywhere. She is grumpy in the morning (just like her dad which is ironic since she never knew him as a well man) and she is as sassy as I am, which I don’t find the humor in as often as I should. All in all, I feel like a pretty crappy parent about half the time.
This morning’s attack of grumpiness and the tantrum/tears that ensued when she was sent to her room is a direct result of Christmas hyper-stimulation and sleep-deprivation, but it doesn’t make it easier to deal with or make me feel better. When I finally went up to check on her (Rob went initially until it was time for him to go to work) she tried to play the grief card on me and blame her tantrum on being “sad about Daddy Will being dead”. I really hate when she does that because she knows what she is doing and I will not allow her to grow up to be one of those people who blames ever misfortune or just a bad day on past grief. She is too little to know that it hurts me when she does this, but she does know it generates sympathy and in the past as allowed her to have her way. It’s hard to know however when she is truly grieving or just playing the card.
I told Rob that I understood why my own mom hated Christmas vacation more than she hated summer vacation.
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