#SOL16: let her paint

let her paint (M.A. Reilly, 2016)

...sometimes this is the only thing that makes sense,

 the only thing...

#SOL16:The Boy Who Lost His Father

One Boat (Alaska, 2007)

I.

After the shock wears, a moat opens up and fills--separating me from most everyone else, save Devon.

How are you doing?
How do you feel?
You okay?
You'll feel better soon.
Time to move on.
Are you planning to sell your house?
Don't make any changes for the next year.
You'll love again.
I'm sorry for your loss.

Normal is so far away.
A boat in a bay I cannot reach.

II.

Devon started back to school on Tuesday and the night before we talked about Michael.

"Michael," I tell him, "was a high school student more than two decades ago. He told me months after he came back to school after the death of his father that I was one of the few teachers who didn't situate him as 'the boy who lost his dad.'"

"Yeah," says Devon.

"I get it that you don't want to go back to school and be that boy. The boy whose father died. I imagine your teachers will not limit you to that role. Let them know. Be kind."

We don't say a lot more, but sit together for another hour.

III.

"Call Rob," I tell the machine in my car. I have just left work and push the button in my car to call my husband like I always do--to let him know I am on my way home.

I am on my way. On my way and I have forgotten and then remembered.

Later, I join a few other women, all widows and more for aren't we all more than the boy who lost his father. I join the women in the late afternoon before the sky darkens and rain falls.  This is a grief group.

I have wandered a bit and found a place that almost feels like home or at least like home as I kind of remember it.

IV.

Nothing is complete. Nothing. 

#SOL16: The World Is Too Much With Us

Rob at home in December.

Today, I repeatedly had to inform strangers that my husband was dead. A week ago he was still living.  This morning I learned that the death benefit for the surviving spouse via social security was $250. I could not access those funds though, or find out how to begin benefits for my 17-year-old son because the social security worker kept dropping her phone, dropping the call, and when we reconnected finally said I should just make an appointment.  I didn't get to make the appointment either as she hung up.  I had to transfer car, utilities, and cable from Rob's name to mine and all these representatives were lovely although they each ended the call with some variation of:  "Have a nice day." I finally gave up on trying to change the Verizon account on the phone after  90-minutes and went to a store in person where Devon and I were helped and the process was completed. I also disputed a $26,000 bill for spinal surgery (insurance already paid 27,000) that never worked.

The world is too much with us.

In between trying to have accounts changed from Rob's name to mine, I realized that the last social outing Rob and I did was on September 11th and he brought a tank of oxygen with him. He was still recovering from the 7-hour VAT biopsy he had two weeks earlier. We received the diagnosis of stage 3 or 4 lung cancer on September 8.  By September 14th, Rob was contracting staph from an infected port a careless surgeon had inserted into his chest earlier that morning.  From that point forward, Rob did nothing less than fight for his life. It was a battle royal.

During the six months from diagnosis we had just a handful of days that were relatively normal--less than a week. As I think about the events I can't help but wonder if Rob might have been better off not being treated at all. He would have avoided three major staph infections, the weeks of antibiotics for each, thoracic surgery, removal of a rib, losing capacity to walk, spinal surgery followed by rehabilitation that never work, heavy doses of steroids and radiation and two chemo treatments.

My husband never stood again, let alone walked, after December 30th and he died on March 8th.  How much worse could it have been had he said, No to medical interventions?

#SOL16: Now

Trying to Get Home (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

Now, the house is empty.

For the last few months there have been so many wonderful friends and family, Hospice caregivers, and others in and out of our home and I have had so much to do for Rob while he was here or when he was hospitalized that now with such empty time before I feel adrift, unmoored, unanchored. My true north, my Rob is gone.

Now, others tell me it is time to begin to grieve.  And I guess I am. But unless you have lost your husband I don't think anyone can quite grasp how devastating this is, how I naturally slip into anticipation. I know he has died, but I still turn to the front door, expecting Rob to come through it.  I look at my phone expecting to see a text message or receive a phone call. I notice his briefcase by the couch and expect him to ask for it.  I made a meal last night and suddenly recalled that it was the same meal I made on December 28 for Rob and Devon. Then it was our 25th wedding anniversary.

What I know these days is  something so small and slim, you might write it on a slip of paper and fit it into your back pocket. When I cry, scream, and sob--when I talk to photographs of Rob,  or kiss one photograph of him--I feel better.  That's it.  I notice that when I don't try to stall the tears for fear that I will disturb others, the crying comes to a natural end and I find myself on the other side of a very dark and terrifying tunnel and my stomach calms for the moment. 

#SOL16: Goodbye Rob

Rob at Play with a Friend. 

Yesterday, friends, relatives, former students, parents and educators who offered tribute at my husband's funeral helped to characterize the man I have known these last 30 years. He was one of a kind. A master teacher. A loyal friend. A man who showed he cared with each gesture. A man who loved deeply and inspired love. A man who knew how to play and enjoyed doing so.

One former student handed me a notebook she had kept from when she was a student in Rob's English class. "His writing is in it," she told me as she cried. "He saw something in me I'm still trying to find." This woman was Rob's student a decade ago.

Another student, now readying to leave high school--the last students Rob taught while a middle school teacher--said simply, "Mr. Cohen was the best teacher I have ever had. The best." Later when he was exiting he asked me, "What books do you think Mr. Cohen would recommend I be reading now?" I invited him to come to our home and peruse Rob's library and help himself to some books.

A principal who we worked with in Newark spoke. She began by saying that often her students are not seen as having a lot of potential. She added that one of her teachers had the opportunity to observe Rob while teaching and this teacher brought back to the faculty important techniques and the more important belief that helped them to deeply know that all students can achieve, regardless of circumstance. Our friend, Laconia Therrio who officiated, summarized this belief Rob held so closely well. He said, "Rob didn't see at risk students, he saw at potential students."

I hoped as I listened that Rob had an ear to the ceremony. That he could see how much he mattered and continues to matter to those present. His legacy lives on in the work he did.

Towards the end of the funeral service, the song, Maybe I'm Amazed was supposed to be played. Instead, Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused came blaring through the speakers. No one seemed to know how this happened as the songs that were to be played were on the desktop of the computer. Nonetheless, we all shared in the humor of that moment.

I'd like to think it was Rob's way of having the last word.  Love you, Rob.

#SOL16: Letter to Rob

My Dear Rob,

Today we say good-bye formally.  We lay you to rest. And as I told Devon there will be time enough to mourn your death, but today I would like to celebrate your life and perhaps in celebrating lighten, even temporarily, the terrible weight your passing has brought.  During the last few days, people I have known for a long time, others I only recently have met, and some I have never met have reached out to share their favorite "Rob stories." In each story I see the man you are: the caring and 'out of the box' teacher, the comforting and loyal friend, the intellect, the humorist, the artist, the best friend, the compassionate giver, the trickster, and more. How diverse and loving you are.

Your friend Charles from L.A. texted me yesterday to share how the first person he reached out to after the sudden death of his older brother was you. He wrote that "you seemed to arrive within seconds of hanging up the phone." You were each just 21 years old. 

Two days ago after we failed to bring the clothes you needed to be dressed in for the funeral, my brother Brendan  said he would take them on Thursday. He left the house forgetting a second time and when he returned to our home again he said to me, "You know Rob's in heaven looking down at us and laughing."

And I suspect he is right. Humor resonates for you.

A parent of a student you taught sent me a list of Facebook tributes from parents of students you taught. One wrote upon hearing the news of your passing that she was "heartsick. He lit both of my daughters up so much with an inner fire." On the GoFundMe site, a parent wrote, "Rob shared with me his sensitive soul after the loss of my son." Another sent a message directly to Devon, writing, "Devon, we want you to know your father touched our students with his humor and love of teaching. Your father was a great mentor to our teaching staff and his legacy will never be forgotten." I can remember being outside of a school where we worked in Newark when a group of middle school boys yelled down the street, "Hey, Mr. Cohen" and came running up to high five you. "You're the best."

And you are.

Rob, emails, letters, and texts have arrived from your former students too as they have learned of your passing. These enumerate the many ways you have touched their lives--not simply when you were their teacher, but perhaps more importantly how that influence continues to inform their lives as adults.  So many write that what they learned with you has held them in good stead throughout their academic careers. Even Devon's teachers have communicated their feelings about you.  One writes,

"Although I only met Rob a few times, I felt a kinship and common understanding of the beauty, absurdity and complexity of life. I would have liked to know him even better than I did and for those of us who believe so, I will.

Your light, your very caring self that never stood on any ceremonies connected with others so well, so immediately.


I also recall the more private person, the father and the husband. This morning I am remembering the man who so carefully drove through an ice storm to get our son to the hospital. The father who sat holding Devon in the steam-filled bathroom at 3 a.m. to calm his croup. The dad who fiercely loves our son not for what he accomplishes, but simply because to not deeply love him would be an anathema. 

This morning I am remembering the man who an hour after hearing his cancer was no longer treatable, that he would die--turned to me after I said, "I can't imagine a future without you," and told me to "Live brilliantly. Don't you dare hide yourself. Don't you do that. Live brilliantly. You and Devon need to live brilliantly."

This morning I am remembering the poet--the man who wrote me love poems, who so carefully edited my writing, who championed my every new effort, who believed I could make art when I was so filled with doubt.  The man who held me when my mom died and the world was wobbly and so out of focus, the man who talked hours with me about big ideas and who sat in comfortable silence with me when talking was no longer needed. The man who a few days before he would die caught my hand and with great difficulty said, " I don't know if you can know how much I love you. Be the best mom for Devon. Protect and love him." Such clarity amid the ramblings as you edged towards death and I so needed to hear those words.

The poet, Rumi wrote, "Lovers don't finally meet somewhere/They're in each other all along" (p.106). You are in me Rob, forever.  I will live brilliantly. I will fiercely love our son, protect him, champion him and get out of his way so he can soar as we both know he will. 

I love you my dear friend, my lover, and my husband.  Your love humbles me.

Mary Ann

#SOL16: Loosed From This Earth

Rob

I.

Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" has been keeping me company as I make my way through the first day after Rob's death. It is the poem I have selected for the 'prayer' card for his service. This is a day filled with tentative steps for nothing feels secure, known, or familiar.  And so I recognize that it is not so unusual that I have felt unmoored, loosed from this earth--a wild thing with a frantic heart.

My husband, my anchor is gone.
We no longer breathe the same air, nor are we bound by the same constraints of space and time.

We no longer touch, or kiss, or gaze upon the other.
We no longer offer, nor receive, simple gestures.
We whisper nothing is one another's ear.

The absence of such simple corporeal matters highlights the incongruities of body and spirit.
The moment Rob died, his spirit vanished. Left behind was a body I did not know.

II.

A Kindergartner's Response: What do you do when your heart hurts?

The mail most days is filled with catalogs in both our names. The mailbox is often stuffed--over stuffed. One set of catalogs for Cohen and an identical set for Reilly.  Most days there are catalogs I don't want and medical bills I can't afford.  So it was a pleasant surprise when I returned home after seeing to the funeral arrangements to find a thick manila envelope mixed in with the bills. Inside was a card and a collection of young children's drawings and writing. A friend, a principal at a school in Newark, NJ sent Rob and me this package. She wrote,

Since I know how much you both love children, I figured I'd ask some kindergartners what they do when their hearts hurt.

What can I do when my heart hurts is no academic question.  I eagerly viewed what each child drew and read what each wrote. I read as if each text was a hieroglyphic to decipher; a language for which I was uninitiated.

What can I do when my heart hurts?

Each paper was an answer and as I read I thought how Rob would have enjoyed these too and what we might have learned from the minds and hearts of these youngsters. Each child's work seemed to repeat what Oliver tells us at the beginning of the poem: "You only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves."

Love what it loves.

For the children their loves included candy and rainbows, rain, sun and hugs.

III.

Rob is gone from the earth, gone from the familiar world we have composed, gone from the daily care my hands showed him these last few weeks when he could no longer care for his own body. As I watched him die I knew when his spirit left his body. It was a definitive moment--perhaps the definitive moment. A light switch turned off.

Now I am left with a looming darkness I am seeking not to fill--at least not too quickly. An emptiness that is more about the necessity of love than not.

For isn't it mostly always about love?

And in the late afternoon light, the same light that saw the end of my husband's life a mere 24 hours earlier, I realized that I had misplaced, perhaps forgotten how the soft animal of my body loves what it loves.

Loves what it loves.

There's no turning away from such truth.