#SOL18: After Great Loss Comes Acceptance

Moon Over Field (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

For the first 18 months I was very, very careful. It wasn’t as if I understood the care I took. Rather, it was something that felt essential.  I lived by some adages those first months after Rob's death:

Ensure Devon is well protected, well loved.
Stay healthy.
Minimize risk.
Avoid drama.
Be positive.
Fill life with what is most good. 

I avoided mishaps as best I could because each problem felt so devastating regardless of the problem's actual weight. After such a loss, the smallest concern would derail me. There’s a vulnerability to being sick, to having problems that exacerbated my sense of loneliness.  Each sniffle, cold, or disappointment triggered a feeling of loss. In the aftermath of great loss, life is more tenuous than reliable.

Like water through splayed fingers, that protection slipped greatly these last six months. Acceptance took hold even when it did not announce itself. It came after a challenging fall when I had been sick much of October, November and December with blinding headaches, congestion, and difficulty breathing. I had been seen by an ENT, suffered through a lung x-ray to rule out lung cancer, and swallowed several rounds of steroids and antibiotics that failed to even temporarily fix the sinus infection. It wasn’t until the second ENT said, “Something isn’t right. I want you to take the medicine I’m prescribing and after you finish it, get a CT-scan. Something is causing this infection to resurge.” A day after the scan the doctor phoned and told me there were no blockages and that he thought the source of the infection was an abscess tooth.

“My tooth?”
“I’m not a dentist so I can’t say for sure. But it does look like that on the films. Upper right.”
“I have a tender tooth there. I figured that was because of the sinus infection.”
“When were you last to the dentist?”
“Six months ago. I had a full set of x-rays, no cavities and my teeth were cleaned. I guess I need to make an appointment.”
“Yes, as soon as you can. I’ll have the office put aside your films so you can bring them to your dentist. Let me know what happens.”

A week later my dentist confirmed the abscess and a week after that I had root canal. I returned to the ENT who confirmed the infection was still present and he prescribed more antibiotics and a steroid and told me to come back in two weeks. I returned to have another CT-scan and was able to see the extraordinary difference between the first set of films and the second.

I cried easily those three months, missing Rob deeply. I tended to isolate myself at first because I felt miserable and then because the isolation felt like comfort. What I did not know was I was saying goodbye once again to my husband.  By the second year, Rob was more memory than body.  He was removed from my day-to-day life.  Life resettled and hope once again felt palpable. Acceptance wasn't a decision as I first thought. It was more a process that arose in time.

That adage about time healing all wounds feels wiser these days.

#SOL17: The Soul of the Whole

The Familiar Falling Away (M.A. Reilly, 2011)

In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters down, if you drop with them farther over the world's rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power of evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned. 

—Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk 

I.

For the last few days, I have felt pummeled each time I become aware--almost as if it is new knowledge--that Rob is dead.  It comes upon me frequently for there are a million reminders of Rob and these also are reminders that he is no longer alive.  I will be painting and a particular color triggers a memory of Rob's last moments before death. Or I pick up a magazine and on the cover is a quote by Haruki Murakami, Rob's last favorite author. Or I am out walking and I see a cardinal and it reminds me of the weeks after Rob's death when I would see a lone cardinal winging in and out of our yard. The memories are brief punctures that come on and end with a quickness that in itself is unsettling.

There are more ways of knowing grief than a widow could count.


II.

Acceptance seems like a simple concept. Something is acknowledged and it is then accepted.  Yet how we think a thing into existence requires its own acceptance and is dependent upon the specific language used.

Language changes everything.


III.

Rob is dead is different than Rob has died. And these are different from Rob is no longer alive or Devon's dad has died. And all of these statements are different from Another spring has come and Rob is still gone. 

The more ways we name, the more ways we need to accept.


IV.

These language moments reveal the disorder that is usually so well hidden.  And yet, within all that disorder, one constant remains--one unified field: our capacity and need and willingness to care for one another leads us to create and recreate ourselves.

And all of this: the languaging, caring, the unified field--are other names for soul.


V.

There is something holy in this journey. Something much larger than myself. Something that connects me to you and to those who have come before us and will come after us. Emerson called it an Over-Soul. He wrote that within us "is the soul of the whole; the wise silence" (from here). Patti Smith in a recent interview names this unified field as well.  In speaking about death, she says,

All these people that we lose, and this is what I mean by experience, they're all within us. They become part of our DNA. They become part of our blood...and I feel them within me. If we keep ourselves open, they will come. The Italian filmmaker Pasolini said, 'It isn't that the dead don't speak, it's just that we forget how to listen.'

Listen.

#SOL16: Acceptance is Slippery

Devon at 6 months. Rob took this picture. We got little sleep then.

I am writing a response to Bonnie who commented on another post and I find myself writing about acceptance.

Acceptance is slippery. I filter many events and situations through the acceptance of Rob's death. Today is mother's day and my husband is not here with us. Each event and many small inconsequential situations pull me head first into the reality that Rob has died. I thought we would have at least another 25 years together. I hope acceptance comes. This is very hard.

Acceptance is slippery, elusive even, especially on holidays. I am realizing that most every event gets filtered through the truth that Rob has died. Rob is dead. He is no longer here with me or Dev. And though these are often gut wrenching thoughts and days, it is the small seemingly inconsequential happenings that slay me most.

For example, today on my way home from the transcendental meditation class I am finishing up, I stopped at our pharmacy to get Allegra D for Devon. He took the last pill this morning. He suffers with seasonal allergies this time of year and though they end as quickly as they arrive, he is now in the thick of it. At the pharmacy, I learned I could not buy the over the counter medicine. Due to a federal pseudoephedrine drug statute, the amount of product sold over the counter is limited by the amount of pseudoephedrine that can be purchased in a month.  Having bought a 10-pill package 10 days ago, I have hit the limit.

Denied.

In the past, this was never an issue as Rob and I would take turns purchasing Devon's allergy medicine. Now with Rob gone, there isn't anyone else at home who can help. Next year Devon reminds me that he will be 18 during allergy season and with a license he can purchase the medicine himself.

So I was a bit lost standing in the pharmacy wondering how I was going to make sure my son had the medicine that most helps him right now. I was quickly remembering the year Devon spent 5 days in the hospital due to a severe asthma reaction to seasonal allergies. Then, Rob and I took turns sleeping in the hospital next to our son. What could I do today? Understanding the dilemma, a person who was also at the pharmacy told me quietly that she would buy the allergy medicine for me and we could exchange goods for cash outside. This person's kindness undid me and after giving her cash for the purchase and taking the small bag in hand, I sobbed all the way home, having to turn off the road and sit for a bit before traveling on.

I felt so lost and yes, I felt sorry for myself, imagining so many celebrating the day with families intact. But feeling sorry isn't something I do for any length of time. It is simply too destructive. So after crying a bit and returning home, I decided to take a walk and even though I was an emotional mess, I stopped at my neighbor's home across the street and she hugged me and listened. Touch matters so. For awhile, I just couldn't stop crying. People's kindness seems to make me cry more. What with it being Mother's Day, my mom's death anniversary this week, and of course, my husband's death two months ago today I was a mess. I hadn't even noticed today marked two months since Rob died. I think the body knows what the mind blocks.

Devon's gift that I love.

The anniversary of my mother's death has often hit me hard. Last year in April, I wrote about her passing in the post, What it Was I Was Listening For and back in 2012 I wrote about her death in the post, Loss is the sound without word.   Rob helped me through my mom's death--immediately after and in each of the fifteen years he lived beyond her. During the last two years, he helped me to see that how I respond to her death each year is a choice I make and last year, Mother's Day was peaceful and one I spent gardening. This peacefulness that Rob helped me to achieve was a gift I could not know then would be so special.

This year crashing into Mother's Day and feeling the loss of my husband, I found talking with my neighbor helped. Being vulnerable, sharing the pain is cathartic. We stood outside in her garden and I cried off and on and we just talked until the tears were gone. Awhile later, I was on my way to walk, feeling calmer, more settled. When I returned home, Devon and I talked and it was a delight when the bell rang and I received a gift from my son--fresh fruit from Edible Arrangements.

I want you to know that there is no consistent recovery from a husband's death, especially a husband who dies several decades early. The shock obliterates. There is little emotional consistency at all in my life. I cry every day, but I find these days that I only sob out of control 2 or 3 times a week. The only way through this immense loss is to continue to feel what I feel, to talk it out, to write, make art, love my son, and walk. I realize as I write this that in the time since Rob's death I could have walked nearly to Montreal as I've walked so much.

Grief makes life unsteady. I'm reminded of the mantra Rob lived by: The only way out is through.