Closed Doors

 

John has been gone a month at the time I'm writing this.  One month ago today, I kissed his forehead and walked out of the room leaving his physical body, my dearest friend and great love, behind.  I realize now that I was in a state of shock.  Operating normally enough on the surface but reeling with sorrow underneath.  Holding myself together for the sake of my children, but bereft.  Probably not hiding it very well though I supposed at the time that I was.

But two things happened that I have not shared.  Two other griefs, which are wrapped up in losing my beloved.  The Sunday morning of his last day, when I'd been told he'd passed away, before I went in to see him and he miraculously regained consciousness, one of the first people I called was my brother.   I told him John had died. "Well Terri, it's going to happen to all of us at some point.  I'm sorry."    I asked him to please let Mama know.  

He did not.  

My brother will not call.  He does not call.  He does not acknowledge my existence.  Why I called him, I cannot tell you.  

That afternoon, as John was breathing his last breaths, Mama began texting me.  I explained to her that I was at the hospital and John was dying.  She kept telling me she couldn't come to the hospital, that she didn't know what to do.  I kept texting back there was nothing she could do, and I didn't expect her to come to the hospital. Eventually I passed the phone to Samuel who made some reply that seemed to satisfy her.  

On the day after John's death, while I was alone, I called Mama to tell her what had happened with John.  I assumed she'd want to know.  

We've had an ongoing argument for months.  All her calls go straight to voicemail, and her voicemail inbox is not set up.  I've asked repeatedly that she allow me to look at her settings, or for my niece to look into it.  She steadfastly refuses.  

So, I texted her and said "Mama, please call me" when my phone call didn't go through.  She texted back, "What do you want?'

I reminded myself not to read tone into text and was about to text her a reply when my phone rang.  She asked immediately, in a very hateful way, "What do you want?"  I told her I'd wanted to tell her about John.  "I suppose you want money for his funeral!"  "No, we've made all the final arrangements already."  "Well, I just knew you wanted my money to pay for his funeral.  I know you spent every last penny you had on redoing that kitchen!  You don't have a penny left."  All of this said in the most hateful tones.  And all of it the most erroneous thinking on her part!

I sat there stunned.  Hurt.  I know I spoke to her, telling her briefly that John had a heart attack, and I recall I said towards the end of the brief conversation that if she called me and I didn't answer, to please understand I didn't want to talk to her.  Then I hung up.

What I didn't say, what I couldn't say, was, "I just needed to talk to my mama..."  I couldn't tell her that. Not with her acting as she was.

Every time I think she cannot possibly hurt me more, I am surprised by the pain she can inflict. My husband had been dead 14 hours, and her biggest concern was for what my loss might cost her, nor for what I might be experiencing.  Never at any point in the conversation was her concern for me. 

I've not only sat with the grief that my husband is gone for the past month, but I've also sat with the grief that this woman I've called Mama has no compassion or love for me at all.  Nor does my brother have any familial feeling for me.  And to be honest, I had never felt so very alone as I did following that phone call.  Even losing John, knowing he was gone was not quite as lonely as knowing I had no blood relation, beyond my children, who cared one whit for me.  

I wanted comforting.  I wanted my mama.  I might be 67 and more than fully grown, but I needed the comfort that one expects from a mother.  

What on earth was I thinking?  Truly, what was I thinking?

And the contact she's made since has been to text, "I'm okay...Love you both..."  Perhaps she's forgotten. Perhaps she's doing it on purpose. I don't know.  I don't have it in me to try to sort it out.  But it's like a fresh stab each time she sends that message.

Last night I sat on the edge of my bed and cried.  I cried for the husband I miss and no longer have in my life.  I cried for the foolish woman who is little girl enough yet to think that someday her mother will display some sort of love towards her.  I cried for the birth family I have who are very much alive but truthfully are far more cold and dead to me than John can ever be.  

I have no choice in accepting that John is gone.  

I make the choice to accept that I do not want a relationship of any sort, not in name or in fact, with my birth family members any longer.  Not a decision I make lightly, but one I make for myself right now and in the future.  I can no longer willingly inflict that sort of pain upon myself.  

I've examined and re-examined myself over the past month. I've asked myself if hurt and anger have clouded my thinking.   But on this point, I am quite clear.

I do not hate them.  I do not harbor unforgiveness.  I recognize that I have no strong emotions, beyond my grief at how those two encounters played out.  I do have that.  But mostly, my overwhelming emotion is that I'm done.  I'm finished trying to pump life into something that isn't there.  I'm underwhelmed with my relationship despite the efforts I've made.  I just want it over and finished.   

Some doors are shut for us, without any willingness on our part to shut them.  They are not going to open again, not in this life.  But some doors we have to choose to close behind us forever,   

No goodness is going to come, nothing worth having will ever come out of that door. I choose to shut it tight, lock it and walk away.  And I do it without any remorse, or anger or regret.  It's time to let go of things that were never mine to hold.

Coffee Chat: How I'm Really Doing

 

Dear Friends, 

I'm going to change the pattern of posting on you all for a little bit.  I feel the need to not be a writer but to be open and honest about how I feel just now.

No great revelation to any of you, I'm sure, that I'm grieving.  

Grief for me might look different than it looks for someone else.  I am not wailing and gnashing my teeth.  I do cry at times.  Little things, little tears.  And one stormy evening of wrestling with the real pain of grief and loss and longing to turn back time.  Those 34 years of John were far too short!  They went too quickly.  I wanted more.  I thought we'd have more.

Architect of My Soul

 

This evening on the way home from a day of appointment, errands, and a family visit, I finally put in the CD of John's music that he'd recorded and put in our safety deposit box.  I found myself singing along, smiling, raising a hand in worship at times, and thinking deeply about what a journey a life can be.  What we are truly building as we go is a Soul, that mysterious inner being that is so connected to heart and mind.  With the building of our Soul, we become our own three-in-one self.    

Hard Things

Fact of Life:  When you lose your husband, the world expects you to step up and adult even if you don't want to, don't feel like it, are anxious about it, or dread it because it's dang hard stuff you must do.

And it sucks.

But you get up each day, and you do it anyway, because no one else can do it for you.  Oh, they can...But how selfish to expect anyone else to stop their lives to do it for me simply because I feel lazy or low, or fearful, or whatever else emotion I might cough up.   I mean, they all have things they must deal with and attend to and face their own loss at the same time...surely, I can do just as much. 

Reflections on Loss

 

Does Loss count as a big emotion?  By definition it is not. The emotional response to loss is grief.  You grieve over a lost mate, a lost pet, a lost job, a major change in life, losing anything that you valued or held dear.  Grief is the big emotion.  But purportedly loss is what has happened to you, not what you feel.  So.

I cannot determine if I am numb, or if this past year, all the conversations John and I had, all the things we did to secure our future, my future, so prepared me for what lay ahead that I've accepted that easily that I am now alone.  I have discovered what it is to experience loss of someone who was so much a part of my life that I truly felt he breathed out and I breathed in.  

I've tried to contemplate what it means to remove John's things from this house, the home that we shared.  I find that I cannot bear the thought of moving John's things at the moment.  Oh certainly, I can tidy and put away what normally would be put away.  But picking up a book he kept beside his chair...I put it back down.  Clearing the top of his chest of drawers?  Nothing moved except clothing which I put into his dresser drawer.  Remove something of his from the music room?  I can't bear it.  I can't.  It's as though I am erasing him.

And that's when I know I am not numb.  Because the thought of my home without anything of him in it is too painful to even contemplate much less do.  It is the home we put time and effort into, a home which was very much his because he had a vision too and tastes of his own and he insisted that he be part of the process.  He also had a motley collection of things in the music room that consists of obituaries and pictures, posters, signed Cd's from artist he'd met or followed, and tools and music stuff.  I can imagine that room as a guest room, but a decidedly John sort of room, not a Terri sort of room.  But not yet.  Not now.  So, his things stay.  Even though some have asked for something of his, something to remember him by, I can't part with anything. I will.  I know I will come to the time of letting go of the remnants of his physical life, but right now...  No.

The house is quiet, too quiet.  No tv running all day long, no music pouring forth from the music room, no constant conversation.  I've put on a few of the videos we watched together, those that we both enjoyed.  I think I might add some of my favorite vloggers to the line-up on YouTube...but I hesitate.  I feel my breath catch at the back of my throat.  If I do those things, then this means he's gone.

I know he is gone.  But I find myself skirting about the spaces that remind me too hard.    

I didn't feel lonely at first.  I felt...bored, I'd say.  I do the few chores required, I've made meals for myself but beyond the necessary living chores, everything seems pointless, silly.  How can I possibly enjoy the junk journal when John will never again be here to listen to me chatter about it?  How can I possibly sink my teeth into a book and escape when there's no noise to escape from?  How can I possibly sit and color or play a game or arrange furniture when there's no one to talk to, no one whose opinion matters on the subject of whatever it is I've done?

And then one night this past week, loneliness hit me.  An ache I can't describe.  Because no one else can fill that space that he's left behind.  

And honestly?  It feels as though he's been gone for weeks, months, years.  The distance between him and me unfathomable.  In my heart, I know he's just beyond the physical realm of this life/universe.  I know he's there in heaven, but at times, as the days drift by, I feel the separation more and more.

So, I talk to him.  I tell him I miss him and that I'm lonely.  I tell him how silly everything seems without him here to share it.  I tell him I love him.  Because I do and I always will.  And I tell him I know he loves me, because I've felt it at times.  I can't really describe it but it's there in the atmosphere around me.  

I talk to him about the day, about the children when I'm worried over one or the other, about how proud I was to do something that I'd dreaded doing, or how upset I am when fear has grabbed me by the throat, and I face uncertainty.  

There's a point in almost every day when I sink into this loss and just sit with it. Not depressed, not blue.  Just absorbing the reality of it.  Saddened by it.  Accepting of it.  

And then, rising to live. Not reluctantly, but willingly.  Pushing to move forward, to continue because John would want that.  I want that for myself.  

I go on.

This New Season

 

In March, as I worked through big emotions and sorrow, I wrote out the posts and pre-scheduled them to publish.  I finished them a week before John died.   Since then, I've been doing a lot of writing.  The two posts published on this blog and on Blue House Journal about John's passing, posts for April, in my journal.

Writing being the cathartic exercise that it always has been for me; I'm finding my way as I go into this new season of life alone mostly by writing, not by word or book.  I don't know what it is I feel.  I'm having to stop and exam it as I go.  

Promises for April

 

1.  I promise to start reaching OUT to people when they are reaching out to me.  John and I tended to be selfish with our time together.  There's no one there for me now.  I'm not slighting my children.  They are being so supportive and would happily fit me into their lives even more than they did in the past.  But they have their lives.   I owe it to John, I owe it to them, and most of all I owe it to me, to not give in to the easy thing.  I need a new support system; one I'll build for myself.  I need to be open to people and stop thinking everyone is highly suspect and likely to hurt me.

2.   I promise to choose carefully who I allow to enter into my life.  That may sound contrary to the first promise but it's really an extension to it.  I attract needy people.  People are attracted to my co-dependent nature.  I want HEALTHY personal relationships in my life, not someone who will reduce me, use me, trap me in their dependency.  

Big Emotions, Pt. 3: Sorrow

Sorrow sits at the bottom of the deep river of all unplumbed emotions.  Grief, despair, hopelessness, anger, shame, hurt...They are all mixed up in sorrow and get dredged up to cloud the water and alter the current's flow.  This river has a power of its own, moving at will along the path it carves.

Many times, when I lie down to sleep, when I just start to drift, I see a very real flood behind my eyelids, sweeping me along with it, sometimes confined within riverbanks, sometimes spreading rapidly across the landscape of life. I have no control whatsoever over my vessel, swept along without any way to stop it or slow it, completely vulnerable to the whims of the water beneath me. 

Sorrow, I know.  

Big Emotions Pt. 2: Shame

 

When I first began this journey, it began with a dream in which I appeared unclothed before a crowd.  I walked without any embarrassment or sense of shame, quite at home in my own skin.

But the most often experienced emotion I've felt over the past few years has been shame.  I've written about it both in my journal and here.  I've examined it until I have felt I was going to go mad.  I've ignored it only to have it rear up and strike at me hard.   

In Week Three of The Artist's Way, two of the emotions we examine more closely are anger and shame.  Today I want to delve into the emotion of shame as I have experienced it.

The Unexpected New Season: Joy

 

This weekend, the unexpected happened.  My husband, who has never been seriously ill in all of our thirty-four years together, who never needed to see a doctor for anything but routine labs, died.  

In the midst of the month when I've had big emotions, when I've written and have upcoming posts already written about big emotions, this comes into my life.  Nothing you've read prior to this and nothing you read after this for the month of March is about the most mysterious thing of all, and that is Joy.

Yesterday I was a married woman.  Today I am a widow.

Big Emotions Pt. 1: Anger

As a child growing up in what at best could be described as an angry household, anger was the most punishable offense we children could commit. Looking back now, I find that ironic to say the least.  Why should it be so?

It was how anger was handled in our home that seemed rather messed up.  No slamming of a bedroom door, no raging at the adult who was calling us out on our actions.  That part was reasonable.  What was less reasonable was the expectation that we'd show no emotion at all, never admit or own to any anger at any time.  Injustices were to be suffered in silence, without speaking up.  If we did, then we were punished physically as well as with verbal and emotional abuse.  We were meant to simply accept the situation and immediately correct our actions to suit the controlling adult.  All anger you see, was seen as disrespect.  And disrespect was always followed by punishment.