Check the Box

After you died, my role as your caregiver was over.  There were no more doctors’ appointments, researching miracle cures, e-mailing your primary care physician, oncologist, cardiologist, nephrologist and naturopathic. No more updates on symptoms, asking questions, and advocating for appointments, imaging, and medication.   

I got so used to checking the boxes each day:  take your blood pressure (check), weigh-in (check), morning meds (check), doctors’ appointments, drive to the pharmacy, oh and scratch your back (check check check). I wanted to take care of you the way you had taken care of me - with love, respect, and total dedication. I didn’t want this to end with us feeling like there were stones left unturned or options left unexplored.  It was all-consuming…and truthfully one of the greatest honors of my life.  

Then one otherwise ordinary March afternoon, you took your last breath and that was that.  There was initial chaos...but then things got still.  Then they got real quiet.  Medical equipment disappeared, doctors stopped calling, meds were thrown out, family dispersed, and schedules were forgotten.  I ignored the constant buzz of my phone.  I didn't know what to say to people and didn't want to talk to anyone but you anyway.  So what was the point? Finally, the phones went silent too.

No one tells you when the love of your life dies, when it’s all said and done and you've done the impossible together, that's not the worst of it.  In a way, it's only the beginning. 

I made the initial calls to make arrangements for services, of course.  I met with the funeral home director, scheduled your cremation, all the things you're supposed to do.  COVID-19 put a prompt end to planning an actual service.  But then people started asking me if I had called our bank, notified my retirement company, cancelled your credit cards.  “Don’t wait too long.”  “You’ll want to make sure Jacob is protected should something happen to you too.”  

Wait, what? 

 

Let me pause here a moment to give you a glimpse into life without you. 

I don’t believe you died.  

I don't mean that figuratively, I mean I literally can't believe it, I've tried.  Denial is a real thing and man does it mess with you.  I wake up every morning and see the sunlight coming out from under the bathroom door and think you'll come walking out of the bathroom (naked, no shame 😄), with your reading glasses on, having just finished your morning Facebook scroll.  You'll say something funny, kiss me on the cheek, then hop back in the bathroom to take a shower. 

I go to sleep and dream vivid dreams like life has carried on right where we left off.  Last night we went on a motorcycle ride.  I swear I could feel the rough mesh of your motorcycle jacket as I wrapped my arms around your waist.  I could smell the road.  It was real wasn't it?  It feels real.  It's the waking hours that don't.

Sure, there are tiny moments throughout the day when reality sneaks in through little holes in my delusion, and with it comes sharp agonizing pain in my throat and chest and I can barely breathe.  This is my actual life now? No. Unbelievable.

Nothing could have prepared me, however, for the list of tasks I had ahead of me, the ones asking me to check here and sign there. They all wanted me to wipe you away like chalk dust.  

I started with an e-mail to cancel your monthly donation to KQED, a call to K-Love (Christian radio) for the same thing. I mean c'mon, so sweet!  But then came the bigger calls to our bank, which immediately resulted in forms and packets being sent, asking me to send your death certificate to prove to them that you were gone.  My husband's not dead.

One bank offered the option to check single, married, or widowed.  At least they acknowledged there was a difference. There is a certain sensitivity in that.  Retirement accounts were harder.  California State law requires that you make your spouse at least 50% beneficiary to your retirement account.  So when your spouse dies (and you've been reminded that you could go at any time), and you need to ensure that your 5-year old won’t end up a penniless orphan, you come across a form that doesn’t allow you to ease into your new life, like “widowed” did.  I had to check “single.” And it felt like a betrayal to our marriage.  It felt like I was betraying you.

That box was taunting me.

I was instantly reminded of how long it took me to find you, all the heartbreak we experienced before we ended up together, the confusion, the sea of crappy dating experiences (Lord!).  I recalled the relief I felt when you were finally mine, my person. Memories of our courtship bubbled up - getting to know each other, the intense attraction, letting down walls, trusting and starting a family together.  We cultivated a healthy, loving relationship over almost 11 years. I felt safe and protected, and looking forward to our future. I was so damned sure of everything.

Now, looking at my computer screen, I was supposed to check a box that cleared it all away, erased it (erased you).  It made me feel like we didn't exist anymore.  I was transported back to the starting line, totally alone, and this time knowing exactly what I had lost...us.

That box is hostile.  It hurts. But I checked it.  And I'm sorry.  

For the record JoJo, we are still married.  I'm wearing my ring. I am still crazy in love with you.  I talk to you every day, and I believe you can hear me. We are still married. 

Period. 

 

Choose Joy Tomorrow

I am going to risk being wildly unpopular here, in the hopes that someone else needs to hear this.  

It is okay to NOT "Choose Joy."  There I said it.

I know this is the opposite of what's in your social media feed right now.  "Choose Joy" has become the trendy new catch phrase splattered on t-shirts, mugs, and in inspirational memes everywhere.  Personal growth celebrities blast out joy rhetoric into the world like confetti.  So I'm going to dive into this real quick, because maybe you're feeling like me - maybe joy isn't on the menu for you right now.  Today (and tomorrow), let's give ourselves permission to choose what rises up, even if it's not pretty, even if it makes your closest family and friends uncomfortable, even if it's scary.

I understand the joy mantra, I really do.  It is meant to keep us searching for the good in every day, right?  But doesn't it also imply that if we can't conjure up joy like pulling the proverbial rabbit out of a hat, we have failed?  

Choose joy, at least to me, means choose it over anything else you might be feeling.  Let it lead, let it trump all the other emotions, let it always ride shotgun in your life.  Make joy the highest priority, at all costs...and there is a cost. 

Does this mean I don't feel joyful in small moments throughout the day?  Of course I do, and it's important to enjoy those moments and give yourself permission to experience them fully. Playing with my son, hearing him laugh, those things bring me joy, but those moments are little breaks from what lies underneath; extreme grief, loneliness, confusion, anger, and sadness.  And if I ever want to have extended periods of joy again, I better pay attention to what lies underneath.

If you are in the depths of acute grief, suffering racial inequality, depression, systemic discrimination, loss of financial stability, and so on, what then?  Can we simply choose joy? Is that even an option?  Can you really fake it 'til you make it?    

I am an optimist at heart.  I've kept gratitude journals for years.  I have faith in the Universe and believe that our God, Source (however you define it) is inherently good and wants to lead us to a higher level of existence.  I think emotions are like little nudges from the soul, inviting us to get curious about what's behind them, to be still and listen.  But what if we ignore the call?  

I was assigned the role of peacemaker as a young girl, and I ran with it.  I had a wonderful childhood, for the most part, but when we hit any rough patches, I was the rock, the strong one, the one who jumped in to ease the friction.  I was a joy ninja.  Really, all I was doing was helping to keep up the appearance of joy.  I learned the art of keeping things comfortable for those around me over feeling anything authentically for myself.  I chose joy over anger, over sadness, and over courage. 

Then in 2004, at age 24, I lost my Mom to breast cancer.  She was 56 years old.  The bottom dropped out, the metaphorical walls of our house fell, and my Dad, my sister and I were left in the smoking rubble to face it, and each other.   And you know what?  All three of us did an about face and ran.  Losing Mom broke us in that way.  It was too painful to face, so we didn't, and there were consequences to that.

I moved out of our family home (I had moved home 3 years earlier to help take care of my Mom) and actively pursued numbness for several years after she passed.  I built up noise around me, diversions, walls, until I couldn't feel the pesky nudges anymore.  And the harder I tried to project joy and happiness, the more disconnected I became.  During that time, I also let creative outlets die away.  No more writing, or painting, no more playing guitar - it all seemed meaningless.  

So I packed creativity away inside a room in my heart and turned out the lights - much safer that way - but so much dimmer.  I thought if I could just run fast enough, it wouldn't catch up to me.  If I could appear like I was fine, then maybe one day I would be - just keep up the appearance of joy.  

It will come as no surprise that I landed myself in a job that, while lucrative, was a 180 opposite of what you'd imagine a naturally creative person doing.  I became an analyst.  Yep, a number crunching, paper pushing, contract analyst.  And with each passing year, the nudges got fainter.  Every now and then they would surface and I would push them down.

Several years in, however, I fell in love with one of my co-workers (Joe).  By 2009, 5 years after my Mom died, the numbness was starting to wear off and I was ready to start living again.  But I still hadn't done any work to reconnect to myself.  

Joe busted through the walls, threw open the door of my heart, and flipped on the lights.  He saw past all the noise, and invited me into a relationship filled with mutual respect, love, humor understanding, and spirituality. He saw me.  We said yes to life together, in every way, and joy became real for me, and it felt like (finally) I was on the right path.  He helped me to heal what was broken.  

Fast forward to 2 months ago, March of 2020, I lost Joe to Stage 4 carcinoma.  He was 56 years old.  The bottom has dropped out again, the metaphorical walls of our house have fallen down.  And now I'm left in the smoking rubble with our 4-year old, to face my old companion grief.  

Here we are again old friend.  But I warn you, it's different this time.  I will not run.  I will be still and listen.  This time I will not be broken.  I will break open instead.

Elizabeth Lesser wrote an entire book on this concept, called Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.  I highly recommend it.  In it she says, "How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change.  And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be."

Translation: even the shittiest feelings lead to meaning and growth, probably even more so than the pleasing ones.  That's the silver lining here.  

But I've been here before, and now I know we don't get to find the meaning, unless we wade through the muck. So this time, I'll sit in the muck and respond to each emotion that nudges.  That's the work I need to do, and it's not fun, it's not joyful.  Frankly, it sucks. 

I think the trick is to feel what you need to feel when you need to feel it, but try not to shape-shift the feelings that bubble up into joy, or anything that isn't true for you.  If it's joy, great, if it's not, don't make it seem like it is. 

Just like the lotus flower that starts as a seed in the murky mud at the bottom of a pond, then grows towards the light; it can only appreciate the joy of sunshine on its petals, because it once knew the cold depths of the darkness.  That is gratitude.  Don't cheat yourself out of the muck (I point my finger at myself here).

I'm not a therapist or a spiritual guru, or anyone really, but a regular person in acute grief.  But maybe, like me, you need these words...

• We have permission to choose the emotions that come, whatever they may be.  We can trust that they are there as an invitation to something more.  So let's be open to sitting with them, uncomfortable as they may be, so that we can find meaning in all of this pain.  Otherwise what is it all for?  

• Let's agree to seek professional help and community with each other when the bottom drops out and we can't tell which way is up.  

• Let's be graceful with ourselves, we're all doing our best. 

• Let's choose to explore the depths of every emotion, even if they aren't the pretty ones.

 Put that on your tshirt!

Today it's sadness I sit with, yesterday it was anger. There will always be time for joy...tomorrow.