The Veil is Thin

The holidays are rapidly approaching. I have been shifting my attention to tasks that purposely take me away from traditional holiday festivities. For example, I scheduled the entire interior of the house to be painted the week after Thanksgiving. Not sure what I was thinking, except maybe I knew the disruption it would cause, and I suppose I welcomed it.

Thoughts of Joe, Mom, and Dad...I expect those this time of year. I expect to dwell on the family I have lost. But I lost someone else last year, my friend Tony. Tony and I met over 15 years ago. We ran in the same circle of San Francisco clubbers and Reggae on the River goers.  We were always up for a good time! It was a super fun and crazy phase of my life. He lived with one of my best friends, so I saw him once or twice a week for a period of 3-ish years. We stayed in contact over the years, long after our clubbing days had ended, but eventually contact became less frequent. Then I got a call last year that he had died. I was devastated when I heard, but if I'm super honest, up until the other night, it had been a while since I thought about his death. 

Last week I had a dream about Tony, a very vivid dream. In the dream Tony and I were laughing and hugging, dancing, just having a fun time like we used to, clearly at a party of some kind (no surprise there). It seemed like we were dancing for hours, but then Tony got this weird look on his face, like something was causing him pain...and he just collapsed. I went down with him and caught his head in my hands. I started crying and screaming, "Please don't leave. Please don't leave."  He looked up at me and said, "I'll never leave you; I'll always be with you." Then I woke up...

I was sweating and breathing like I had just run a mile, stuck in that brief space where your dream feels more real than the world you woke up to. I tried to make sense of it...then it dawned on me. Hadn't Tony died around this time last year? 

I reached out to a mutual friend of ours who confirmed that Tony had in fact died one year earlier...exactly one year! I don't believe much in coincidences, but I do believe in visitation dreams. I believe it is possible for those who have passed on to find their way back to us. I know that to be true in my heart.  But there's lots I still don't understand...

I don't know why Tony visited me the other night. Maybe he was just checking in or trying to remind me of the fun times we used to have. I don't claim to know the rules of the afterlife, but more than once over the past couple years a friend has reached out to say that Joe appeared to them in a dream, and told them to pass on a message to me. Why can't Joe visit me directly? I don't know, any more than I know why Tony chose me for his visitation this time. But man was it good to see him!

Then when I got in my car that day to go to work, I turned on the radio, switched through a station or two until I stopped on a familiar song, one that Tony used to sing, "Baby come back. You can blame it all on me. I was wrong, and I just can't live without you."  I just smiled. The veil is thin my friends, very thin.

Miss you Tony. Hope you are dancing and singing up there watching down on all of us. Catch you on flip side my friend. 

The Invisible Finish Line?

There is a piece of popular advice out there for widows/bereaved:

"Don't make any big life decisions for at least a year."

Why is everything always a freakin' year? What magical thing happens to a widow(er) a year after their spouse dies? What makes life safe to resume after the one-year mark? 

I'm still waiting to find out, because whatever it is; it didn't happen to me.

In all fairness, this warning sounds like it should be right.  Your partner died.  Your world has been turned upside down.  The answer must be to freeze and not make any sudden moves. But for how long? And wait to be, what, "done" grieving?  I'll never be done; I know that now.  Grief doesn't end, and in so many ways it doesn't even get better, it just gets different.  It's like a 300-pound gorilla on your back that you just learn to carry.  Maybe your legs and lungs get stronger in order to hold it, but the gorilla will always be there.  

But there might come a time that you want to make a change.  You will be compelled to make a change, to dip a toe back in the land of the living.  It might be something as seemingly small as going through your bathroom vanity and throwing out his shaving cream.  (Side note, that feels big.  It all feels big).  But it also might be something others perceive as a major decision like selling your home or quitting your job, and some well-meaning individual will tell you you're doing (fill in the blank) too hastily. Their answer is to sit tight and lock down. Like removing that final Jenga piece, the rest of your life could come crashing down the moment you take one step, and none of the onlookers are prepared to handle that.

Here's how I see it... 

Joe's death set off an atom bomb that blew life up into a million pieces. That bomb left the dust of our former life in its aftermath.  Something completely beyond our control happened. In an instant, life as I knew it was obliterated. It happened physically, emotionally, financially, mentally, spiritually, and it all happened without my consent.  There was no choice given in the matter.  Joe wasn't given a choice. I wasn't given a choice. No life change I initiate going forward is going to compare to that...it just won't.

Huge shifts happen in life.  Some we assume we're ready for, maybe even planned, like having a baby.  Some happen in a moment and leave you wondering what the hell happened to your life: your future, your mind, your sanity... (I suppose also like having a baby😉). Either way, those shifts can leave your skin crawling with the need to make changes that you initiate, to take some small power back after feeling powerless.

There is a reason new moms chop off their hair after having a baby, or cancer survivors get a tattoo when they finish chemo, or divorcees sleep around after their divorce.  In our most pivotal moments, when there is a life altering shift, pushing back against that feeling of powerlessness can be a step towards healing from trauma.  

Because here's the kicker...freezing in place after loss, won't protect you from suffering another one. Please read that again.

Five months after Joe died, my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and I was thrown right back into the depths of being a primary caregiver. No hunkering down, no holding back, no putting off major decisions would have kept me safe from that.  Life is going to happen, whether we're rested and ready or not.  

If you aren't throwing yourself into financial ruin, or risking your personal safety, I don't think you need to hold off on change, when you are ready.  Buy the car. Quit your job. Go on a date. Sell your home. Move cross country. Being bold can be a strategic move to take back a small piece of the power you've lost, to catapult yourself into something completely new, to remind yourself that you are still alive. Because, if you're like me, most days you'll feel lost somewhere between Earth and the Afterlife, stuck in some middle ground between life and death.  Remembering that you're alive won't always be obvious. 

I have said it before...you don't have to be an expert in grief to be an expert in your grief.  Don't let anyone try to put a timeline on your process, or judge it, or comment on it at all.  You have the right to grieve in your own way and in your own time. And mark my words, if you wait "too long" to make a move, people will also start commenting on that. It's a lose-lose situation.

I must have missed the memo from the elusive "Department of Socially Acceptable Grieving;" the one that dictates the proper timeline for all this stuff:

I imagine those memos would go something like this...

First Notice:  "Your husband just died.  Sorry, that must suck.  Don't move, don't breathe, don't make any big decisions.  Just stay home and don't come out until you're done being sad."

Second Notice - "One year has passed since your husband's death. Congratulations! You have grieved sufficiently.  You're done! Feel free to commence living. You can stop being so sad now. Maybe go on a date."  

Third Notice One Week Later: "You should have received a Second Notice in the mail alerting you to the end of your grieving period.  You are now past the appropriate      deadline.  Everything happens for a reason. Buck up!"

 

Yeah....

You can't win.  So, to hell with it.

There is no invisible finish line, over which your grief magically dissipates.  There is no one moment that will make you want to live again.  You just wake up, put one foot in front of the other, breathe in and out, and do your best.  Some days your best will be getting out of bed; other days you will be able to experience real joy and laughter without the  immediate guilt that your person isn't there to experience it with you, and that will be a good day. 

Here's to more good days. Go out and grab them!

 

Three years is three years too long

I suppose this is my version of “How it started. How it’s going.”

Today it’s been three years since you took your last breath.  Three years and I am still left with the desire to retreat to the life we shared together.  But like returning to a town reduced to rubble in the aftermath of war, that world doesn’t exist anymore; there’s nothing to go back to.  I reach out for you, hoping to meet you somewhere only I would know to go, to find you dancing in the stars…but I can’t get to you. Love should be able to take me to you, but it doesn’t.  

It was real wasn’t it?  You were here.  We were us. I was still the me that existed in your eyes…adored and loved beyond measure.   She is gone and someone new is emerging.The pendulum swings back and forth, pushing me to move forward, then pulling me back. 

So where does this leave us now my love? I hold onto faith that we continue to exist between here and there, where time can’t hold us hostage.  One blink, and we’ll be us again forever.  But I promise to live until then, to laugh with our son, to experience new people and places, to have new adventures.  I know you expect that of me, so I promise to do my very best not to disappoint you.

I continue to love you without end JoJo. I always will.