Write for the Dead Whom Thou Didst Love

July 22, 2010 — Pat Bertram

 A voice calls, “Write, write!”
I say, “For whom shall I write.”
And the voice replies,
“For the dead whom thou didst love.”

—John Berryman

I read a novel the other day where the main character was a grieving widow with a young daughter, but neither character showed any symptoms of grief — at least not what I have come to know as grief. The only indication of their grief was a conversation about how the two needed to be strong and not cry.

If this is the way the non-grieving public learns about grief, no wonder so few of us understand what grieving means until we find ourselves immersed in this strange new world. Because of the lack of characters who grieve properly, I’ve been toying with writing a book about a grieving woman, even going so far as to write a few scenes while the emotion is still fresh in my mind (though I can’t imagine ever forgetting what it feels like to grieve for a soul mate — every single day in a thousand ways, I am reminded once again that he is gone).

After having written those few scenes, I now understand why it’s almost impossible to write a grief-stricken character. All the tears, the pain, the nausea, the inability to focus, the not sleeping or sleeping too much, the not eating or eating too much add up to a character who appears as a wimp and a whiner. We are so used to invincible characters who manage to fight despite grievous wounds or agonizing pain, that a normal character living a normal — though grief-filled life — comes across as a weakling. Another problem is that a character who cries at her own pain, who feels everything herself, eliminates the need for readers to feel that pain, and so they dissociate from the character. But the very nature of grief is feeling pain. It’s by embracing the pain, by letting the tears spill over, by giving in to the grief that we come to terms with it.

Perhaps that’s the way I should write the character — have her actively participate in her grief. Instead of being brave and not crying, she should embrace the pain, make grief a part of her life. And in doing so, she will show her strength.

Posted in grief, life, writing. Tags: , , , . 11 Comments »

Grief’s Milestones

July 14, 2010 — Pat Bertram

The first year of grieving is difficult, not just because the wounds to the heart and mind are so raw and the void where the loved one resided so dark, but because it is a year of firsts. And each of these firsts comes with a renewal of pain.

We — my life mate and I — did not celebrate our birthdays. We merely recognized them as a tally mark for another year gone by. Because of this, I had not expected to feel any deeper sadness today — his birthday — than I felt yesterday or the day before, but grief knows no logic. It doesn’t matter that we never celebrated his birthday — that was his choice. But that he is not here to make that choice does matter, and so I’m dealing with an upsurge of grief. We will no longer be marking his years. He will never grow older. Perhaps next year I will be able to let the day pass without making a big deal of it, but today is a first. One of grief’s milestones. His first birthday after death.

I know these days of refreshed pain are important. Too often I keep myself busy to minimize the pain, and there is no effective way to get around true grieving but to feel the pain and go through it. Or so I’ve been told. Reconnecting with the pain is also a way of reconnecting to him. The faster I go through the grief process, the further I get from him. The farther I get from him.

The earth hurtles around the sun at 67,000 mph. The sun hurtles around the galaxy at 140 miles per second. The entire universe is also moving and expanding, so today we are a very long way from where we were when he died. (Considering only the speed of the earth, he died 165,356,000 miles ago.)

And, considering only the surface distance, I am almost 1000 miles from where we lived. We planted trees and bushes around the house to keep it cool and to give us privacy, and that green world seems a million miles from the desert where I am staying now.

So, today I am celebrating his birthday, if only with my grief, because it helps me bridge the distance.

Posted in culture, grief. Tags: , , , , . 9 Comments »

Nor All Your Tears . . .

July 11, 2010 — Pat Bertram

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
     Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.

When I started writing, I often thought of the above quatrain from the “Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam.” It made me smile to reflect that this warning about the moving finger does not hold true when it comes to writing. We writers can — and should — rewrite and rewrite until the story turns out exactly the way we want it to turn out.

When it comes to real life and especially death, however, there is no rewriting. If the story does not turn out the way we want, too bad. And tears, as I now know from experience, will not wash away a single moment of what has already happened.

No matter how much I cry, my mate is still dead.

I worry sometimes about talking so much about my crying for him (and for me). Perhaps people will see me as weak since people often equate tears with spinelessness and immaturity. There is certainly something babyish about crying for that which one cannot have, for wailing against that which one cannot change. Sometimes I think I should be braver about this traumatic turn my life has taken, or more stoic. Still, tears are the only way I have of momentarily relieving the terrible ache of his absence. And this reason for tears is true not only for me.

I met a woman who cannot cry over the death of her husband, though she wants to. People have suggested that she cut onions to stimulate tears, but research shows that tears released by such irritations are different from those released because of emotion. Dr. William Frey, a biochemist and director of the Dry Eye and Tear Research Center in Minneapolis, says that people “may be removing, in their tears, chemicals that build up during emotional stress.” So crying is not a sign of weakness. Abstaining from crying is not a sign of bravery.

Tears are simply that — tears — though I wish with all my heart they were more, that they had the power to wash away the past and bring my mate back to me, healthy and happy.

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Rewinding My Life

July 8, 2010 — Pat Bertram

I ended my last blog post with: And so I trudge the hills of grief, and treasure the moments of comfort I find. I meant it both figuratively and literally — I spend a couple of hours most days wandering in the desert hills near where I am staying.

I feel at times as if I am rewinding my life, our life. When the man I was to spend more than three decades with first came into my life, it was such an awesome change, that I felt restless. I would walk for hours trying to get used to this new vision (or version) of me. I wrote. And I read copiously. Now that he has left my life, it’s such a traumatic change that I feel restless. I walk for hours trying to get used to this new vision/version of me. Instead of walking through the tree-shaded parks and parkways of Denver, however, I tramp through the desert a thousand miles from where I started. Instead of poetry, I write prose. And I read copiously. These are the bookends of our shared life.

During the years of his illness, when I tried to imagine how it would be to live alone again after his death, I never imagined, never could imagine, the sheer void of his absence and with it, the absence of meaning. 

Before I met him, I used to wonder about the meaning of life. Now, once again, I am wondering about the meaning of life. I hadn’t realized until after he was gone that during all those years we were together, I didn’t worry about meaning. We were together. That was all that mattered. Now that I am alone once more, the void of meaningless haunts me. Where am I going? And why?

I did have a bit of revelation out in the desert the other day. Instead of a stroke of clarity, I might have had heat stroke, but the end result is still the same. I walked for hours along a path because I was curious where it went, curious to see what was around the next bend, and it occurred to me that this experience could be a metaphor for my life. Perhaps finding meaning isn’t important. Perhaps it’s enough simply to follow the days and see where they lead.

(If you’re interested in seeing the photos I take on my mystical walks, you can find them here: Wayword Wind.)

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Grief Has It’s Own Logic

July 6, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Grief is not a gentle slope. It does not start at the top (or the bottom) and gradually diminish. It comes in peaks and valleys. And sometimes it comes when one least expects it. I was okay for a couple of days, successfully bypassing the minefields of memory — I’ve learned what of our things bring me comfort and what brings me pain — but then yesterday the grief spiked, and it’s as it was in the beginning.

It was such a silly thing that set off this new spate of grief. I washed our comforters, and as I was folding them and putting them in the zipper bags they came in, I thought how nice and fresh they will be when my lifemate and I get back together. Then it struck me — again — that he is gone. We’re not taking separate vacations, nor I am waiting for him to come home from the hospital, but apparently, somewhere in the back of my mind, that is what I believe.

One of my blog readers recommended Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking, which was written the year after Joan’s husband died. My blog reader hoped the book would bring me the comfort that it brought her. And it did bring me the comfort of knowing that this illogical thinking, this magical thinking, is part of the grief process. Although Joan had no trouble getting rid of her husband’s clothes, she could not get rid of his shoes, because he might need them. Although I got rid of my mate’s car (I donated it to hospice, thinking that since I took him there, that is where his car should go) I could not get rid of his extra set of keys because he might need them. I got rid of brand new television but could not get rid of a pencil stub because the stub seemed so much like him — he used up everything, wasted nothing. I could not get rid of his eyeglasses, because how will he see without them?

I am not a bubbly, rose-colored glasses sort of person, but I always managed to find an “at least” in every situation, an “upside.” Until now. This is one time when there is no at least. (Yes, I know at least he is no longer suffering, but he shouldn’t have had to suffer in the first place.) There is no upside. I know I will eventually find my way to a new life, perhaps even happiness, but it does not change the fact that he is dead.

Every day I feel his absence. Every day, in some way, I try to rework the events of the past few months so that he really will return to me. But that is not going to happen in this lifetime. And so I trudge the hills of grief, and treasure the moments of comfort I find.

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 8 Comments »

Thank You For a Heartwarming and Heartbreaking Day

June 30, 2010 — Pat Bertram

On Monday when I logged into my wordpress account, I discovered that my I Am a Three-Month Grief Survivor post had received thousands of views and dozens of comments. A quick check of my stats showed that most of the views came from WordPress. Imagine my surprise when I saw that my post had made the home page. Whew. Took my breath away.

Then I read the comments, and that was the end of breathing for a while. I was awed by the willingness of people to support me in my grief and overwhelmed by the generosity of those who shared their own stories of grief. So much pain. So much sadness. So much love.

One woman posted a link to a list of online communities that could potentially help, so if you are grieving, be sure to check it out. http://www.anachronisticmom.com/Medical-KK/Grieving.html

Another woman posted a quote:

Here at the frontier there are falling leaves…although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away…there are always two cups at my table. – Tang Dynasty

And a third woman told me about “Death is Nothing at All,” a poem by Henry Scott Holland that might offer comfort:

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

It was an incredible day for me,  heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Thank you, everyone, who stopped by to read or to comment.

Posted in blogging, grief, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

I Am a Three-Month Grief Survivor

June 27, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Grief plays tricks with time. The past three months have passed in the blink of an eye, and they have lasted forever. I never thought I’d last three weeks let alone three months — at times the pain was so unbearable I wanted to scream. So I did.

Yet here I am, a thousand miles from where I started, and generally I’m doing okay. Grief grabs me a couple of times a day, but doesn’t hang around long, mostly because I take long walks and look at life through the lens of a camera. I find solace there, and peace.

This morning, however, I woke in tears because of this new milestone — three months since his death. I needed to scream, to be alone with my pain, so I headed out for a walk. Wandered in the desert. Cried in the wilderness. And screamed. Haven’t had to do that for a while — I’ve been keeping myself too busy to feel much, so it was good, in a strange and agonizing sort of way, to reconnect with my grief.

I’m still going to a grief support group. It does help to be around people who understand this journey, to hear how others are handling their loss. (Loss. What a odd way to describe death, as if the person is simply misplaced, like a ring, and will soon be found.) Each week there is a special focus of attention, a lesson. The lesson for the grief support group last week was about finding a sense of purpose:

 “Each phase in my grief journey allows me to explore where I am right now. By accepting that I am where I must need to be, I am free to live today. The place I am today can become friend instead of foe. The journey into my loss has already created change, and the present and future will create more. Now may be the time to examine my expectations of myself, and accept that I am where I need to be for now.”

I’m not sure that I am where I need to be, either mentally or geographically, but that sentiment hit a chord with me. I am trying to trust in the rightness of my path, and that I will know what to do when the next step comes. What bothers me is that by trusting in the rightness of the path, both mine and my soulmate’s,  it means that it was right for him to be sick and die, and that I cannot accept. But maybe it’s not up to me to accept the rightness of his path, only the rightness of mine. 

As for change? If I were writing a novel about a character who has gone through what I have these past months — first the diagnosis of his illness, then his too quick death, then sorting through the accumulation of decades, and moving from the house where we spent the past twenty years — she would have grown stronger perhaps, or wiser, and changed in some fundamental way, but I don’t feel any different. I’m still the same person, though my situation is completely different than it was six months ago.

But perhaps it’s still too soon for any change to appear. In the world of grief, I am still a toddler.

Posted in culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 118 Comments »

Wisdom of the Wombats

June 25, 2010 — Pat Bertram

I belong to an online group called The Writin’ Wombats — a convivial group of writers, readers and critics supporting each others’ work and sharing news, gossip, rants and triumphs. (You can join, too. Everyone is welcome.) The Wombats have been supportive of me in my grief, encouraging me with wise words and virtual hugs. I would like to share with you a comment one of the Wombats left for me on the last thread. It helped me, and perhaps it will help others who are also grieving the loss of a loved one.

“Pat B–Love is so awesome, so overwhelming and filling and all-encompassing. So, too, is grief. It touches all those same places touched by love. When that love was every place in you, you can’t help but be attacked by grief in those same places. And so the grief is overwhelming and filling and all-encompassing as well. But it can’t overpower the love. It can overshadow it. But it doesn’t have the same strength, the same staying power, that love holds. After the grief eases, the love will again shine. No, you won’t have J. And that’s the cruelest, cruelest loss. But you will have his touch all over you, through you, from where his love lived with yours. And it once again will be good.” — E. A. Hill

I’ve come to realize that hate is not the opposite of love, grief is for the very reasons that Ms. Hill stated. Love and grief are the bookends of a relationship. The two clearest memories I have of my mate are the day I met him and the day he left me. After almost thirty-four years, I barely remember who I was before we met, and I don’t yet know who I am now that he’s gone. So much of my life was intertwined with his that it could take the rest of my days to pick the pieces of myself out of  the “us” that we created. And maybe it can’t be done. But as time passes, and I experience things we can no longer share, I will become more of me and less of us. Yet the love will remain. And I hope, as Ms. Hill says, that once again it will be good.

Until then, and long afterward, I’ll be soaking up the wisdom of the wombats.

Posted in grief, internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 18 Comments »

Staying in the Moment

June 24, 2010 — Pat Bertram
I’m mostly doing okay, though it’s going to take a long time to get used to living without my life mate. I keep thinking that I’ve been good about dealing with all I’ve had to deal with, so now it’s time to go home to him. I’m not sure what will be worse, still feeling that I can go home, or how I will feel when I get to the point where I know deep down that I can’t ever go home. Maybe by that time I’ll find my home within myself, but I am a long way from there yet. I am going through the grieving process way too fast, though. I see our life and my connection to it and him moving away from me at ever increasing speeds. It scares me, the thought of losing that connection. Scares me even more to think of growing old alone. I’m okay now, but what will I do when the physical limitations start? 

I came across an interesting comment in a book today (Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons):

“Only the very young and old know the tranquility of the moment. The contentment of living each day as it comes to them, wholly and with all senses. The young do it because they know nothing, yet, of pain and fear and the transience of their lives; the old because they know everything of those things and can bear them only by staying in the moment.”

I’m not exactly old yet, though I too need to deal with life only moment by moment. Otherwise the pain — still! — is overwhelming, as is the fear. I can live this day, accepting what comes, even the tears. In the end, that’s all any of us have while we are alive — this day. If we can’t carpe diem, the next best thing is just to survive it.
Posted in grief, life. Tags: , , , , . 7 Comments »

Twelve Lonely Weeks

June 20, 2010 — Pat Bertram

It’s been twelve weeks since my life mate died — twelve lonely weeks that I’ve spent wishing he were here, wishing that we had our life back, wishing that he hadn’t been sick so much.

I’m beginning to understand, though, that to wish things were different is to negate the wisdom, courage, and determination with which he faced his life and death. Until the very end when he was imprisoned in bed by drugs (they did not know how else to handle his terminal restlessness — the restlessness that some people experience near the end — so they tranquilized him into a coma) he was determined to live his life to the fullest he could. He was so weak, so befuddled by the drugs and the metastases in his brain that he could not do much, yet his courage and determination were as strong as ever. Sick of being in bed, sick of being sick, he set up an office in the living room and set to work planning his schedule. That was the last night he was awake. He lived through five more nights and days, but he was not conscious. Or at least I hope he wasn’t. He would have hated being a helpless invalid, so it’s a good thing he only had to endure five such days.

I really was glad — or perhaps relieved is a better word — when he died. He’d suffered so much and that determination of his not to waste a single moment of his life, not to give in to the disease, kept him going long after he was ready to die. Later, as the reality of the situation hit me, as grief devasted me, I began to wish things had been different.

He’d been told he had three to six months to live, but he only had three weeks. I’ve been wishing we had those months — but even if I had a choice, there is no way I could justify putting him through that extra pain so I could have him in my life a little longer.

And yet . . . and yet. I still wish things had been different. I wish he’d had a long, healthy, happy life. I wish we still had “our” life.

I wish I could hug him one more time.

I wish . . .

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: , , , . 12 Comments »
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