life | Bertram's Blog

Resuming My Lonely March Into the Future

December 27, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Sometimes the hardest thing we have to do is keep marching into the future, especially when the person who connected us to the world lives in our past.

My life mate/soul mate meant more to me than anything or anyone else for almost thirty-four years. His death forty-five months ago brought me more pain than I could ever have imagined, and it still brings me pain, particularly when
I remember the reason he’s out of my life — that he’s dead. Death is incomprehensible to me, and maybe always will be. Even more incomprehensibly, he died relatively young. 63. That’s hardly any age at all in a time when so many live into their nineties.

I do well most of the time. I know I can’t live in the past, especially not the past where we were happy. (A lot of the time during the last decade or so as his health declined, we weren’t happy, but it didn’t matter as long as we were together.) I try to concentrate on today, make what plans I can for the future, add new people to my life in an attempt to combat my loneliness. Mostly, I try to become a person who can survive such a tragic loss, maybe even one who can thrive.

And yet, on Christmas afternoon, I couldn’t stop crying.

It’s odd — Christmas didn’t mean much to us. We weren’t big on celebrations or traditions, but by default, we created our own traditions. Since we couldn’t work or run errands or do any of our other usual tasks when the world was shut down, we spent the day watching movies and nibbling on finger foods — cheese, meats, crackers, fruit, vegetables.

I spent a quiet day this Christmas. I fixed a festive meal for my father, went for a walk, then watched a movie with a plate of food in my lap. And that’s when my forward thinking collapsed, and all I could think of was the past.

I’ve signed up for an online dating service, and even have been trying to connect with people, but today I remembered why I’m trying to move on with my life, and something inside of me rebelled. I don’t want to move on. I want what I had. I want to go home to him, ask his forgiveness for whatever I did that made him leave me, see if we can reconnect. But he didn’t leave me, at least not voluntarily. He died.

I’m tired. I’m tired of his being dead. I’m tired of trying to move forward alone. Tired of trying to fill a void that seems endlessly deep.

But what other choice do I have? I allowed myself that time of sadness on Christmas, but now that it has run its course, I’ll steadfastly resume my lonely march into the future.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: death of a soul mate, grief at christmas, grief at four years, living with grief. 18 Comments »

Holiday Greetings

December 25, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, Peace and Joy, Warmest Wishes, Happy Solstice, Good Yule, Noel, Good Cheer, Good Tidings, Merry Xmas, Happy Holy Holidays, Warm Greetings, Holly Jolly Holidays, Let it Snow, Ho Ho Ho, Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, Mele Kalikimaka, Buon Natale, Buone Feste Natalizie, Feliz Natal, Nollaig Shona, Fröhliche Weihnachten, God Jul, and all the other greetings of this day from those of us out here in the desert!

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: alternative ways to say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Holiday Greetings, Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings. 1 Comment »

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

December 23, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Jeff, my deceased life mate/soul mate used to love Christmas lights, so now every year as the holiday draws near, I take him for a walk to show him the lights. That’s not as crazy as it sounds. If, as people say, he still lives in my heart, he goes wherever I go.

The lights in this town are fantastic. Since there is no snow, few trees except palm trees, no real natural signs of Christmas, people seem to fill in the seasonal void with huge displays of lights. One house I saw a few days ago must have had ten thousand lights. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I don’t have a photo. And anyway, the poor little camera has a hard time figuring out how to make images of lights.

Still, I got a couple of pictures of small lighting displays within walking distance of where I am staying. I’m posting them here in the hopes Jeff might see them. (It’s possible. The photos exist as energy, and so does he.)

Wishing you all a happy and light-filled Christmas Eve Eve.

Christmas lights

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Posted in culture, life, photography. Tags: Christmas Eve Eve, Christmas lights, lighting displays, Merry Christmas. 2 Comments »

My Salad Day

December 22, 2013 — Pat Bertram

People who live alone, especially those who have such a state thrust on them because of the death of a spouse or life partner, often have trouble with meals. It seems silly to fix a meal for just one person — it’s so much easier to get take-out, heat frozen meals, or simply snack.

In my case, I usually choose to snack, eating finger foods such as cheese, ham without nitrates or nitrites, fruit, vegetables with dips, in addition to all the tasty non-nutritional foods that are so readily available. It took me a full year before I could fix some of our recipes. (“Our” recipes because we created the recipes.) We used to cook together, usually some sort of entrée and salads. Since our salads were large, elaborate affairs with all sorts of colorful vegetables, it took two of us — one to wash the produce and one to cut it up.

During the past three-and-a-half years, I have often made salads. For some reason, salads were one of the few foods that we prepared together that I could eat — instead of making me feel sad, it made me feel closer to him. Still, it’s hard to fix meals. I just don’t want the fuss, so I revert to snacking.

Deciding to put an end to snacking, at least temporarily, I spent the morning making enough salads to last for several days. It was a great morning — just me and all those colorful vegetables. Now I need to make sure I eat them.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: fixing meals after the death of a spouse, salads, snacking. 8 Comments »

Wishing You A Day Filled With Light And Lightness Of Being

December 21, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The internet, especially the social networks, has made me aware of the entire world, not just my local hemisphere. (That’s a phrase you don’t hear everyday — “my local hemisphere”. ) I used to think today, the winter solstice, was a natural day of celebration since it signifies the end of the creeping darkness. For the past six months, ever since the summer solstice, darkness has been creeping into our days and stealing our light. Today we have reached the end. Tomorrow the light begins to grow, but only in the northern hemisphere. Down under, they begin a time of creeping darkness.

Still, since I live in the northern hemisphere, this is a day to celebrate the growing of the light.

Wishing you a day filled with light and lightness of being.

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Posted in culture, internet, life. Tags: growing light, northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, winter solstice. 4 Comments »

Perpetuating the Santa Claus Myth

December 17, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I don’t understand the whole believing-in-Santa-Claus thing. Well, from a commercial point I do. Since Christmas has expanded way beyond a holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ, big business needs a secular figure to personalize the day and make it special enough that people will spend money they don’t have on gifts. But other than that, no — I don’t get it.

I especially don’t understand why parents perpetuate the myth that there really is a Santa Claus. Many adults remember how betrayed they felt when they realized there was no such person living at the North Pole and dispensing gifts from a reindeer-driven sleigh, so why would they teach their children the same lie? To make the wonder of the season more wondrous? But the season is already radiantly wonderful with lights and gifts and delicious once-a-year treats. And it’s especially aglow for Christians as they celebrate the birth of the Son of God, which, after all, is the whole reason for the feast day.

I loved Christmas as much as any child, and I never believed in Santa Claus as a living entity — my mother was too pragmatic for that. It seems to me that most kids I knew weren’t taught to believe in a cartoonish jolly old St. Nick. We knew the real story of St. Nicholas (or at least the real legend.) We knew he was a Greek bishop and that he supposedly had a habit of passing out gold coins. Because of this, we believed the spirit of Christmas was generosity. We gave what gifts we could. We knew who gave us each of the gifts we received, and if we forgot, our parents reminded us when it came time to write thank you notes. Those thank-you notes were part of the season. Though they seemed laborious at the time, penning those notes taught us that the gifts were not a right but a blessing. It seems that a belief in Santa Claus fosters greed — a belief that we deserve gifts as a reward for being good, which is so not the spirit of Christmas.

I once saw a soldier talk about this very thing. He said that he had been a soldier in Vietnam. Although it felt like a war, and people died like in a war, technically it wasn’t a war — they weren’t allowed to win, only to occupy. They’d battle their way to the top of a hill then, when they’d gained the territory, they’d retreat, only to take the hill once more, or another like it.

One day as they sat on a hill they had just taken, he asked his buddies about the most disillusioning moments in their lives. He expected a heavy discussion on the absurdities of the war, or the shock of getting drafted, or the monumental stupidity of the military, but they all said the most disillusioning moment in their lives was discovering that Santa Claus didn’t exist.

And yet, people are still teaching their children that Santa is real. It’s amazing to me that children ever trust their parents after that.

On the other hand, considering how often life disillusions us, perhaps being disillusioned over something as innocuous as the Santa Claus myth is a good thing.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: disillusioned by Santa Claus, Jolly Old St. Nick, lies parents tell children, St; Nicholas, the Santa Claus myth, why teach children that Santa is real. 14 Comments »

Happy Friday the 12Ath!

December 13, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I have no particular opinion or fear about thirteen or Friday or Friday the thirteenth, though I do find a lot of irony associated with the avoidance of thirteen. For example, buildings with more than 13 floors don’t call the 13th floor the 13th floor, but instead skip the number and go directly to the 14th floor or call it 12A. It’s still the 13th floor, right? So do people simply fear the number rather than the actual floor? And if they fear the number, do they refuse to buy baker’s dozens of donuts or cookies? (Though perhaps that is dating me — I don’t think I’ve come across a baker’s dozen of anything in a long time.) And if it’s the number thirteen they fear, why is only Friday the thirteeth a fearful day? I realize it’s the conjunction of fateful Friday and the ominous number that causes friggatriskaidekaphobia, but still, for those with the simpler case of triskaidekaphobia, wouldn’t any thirteenth day of the month be cause for concern?

(Interesting side note — in many Spanish speaking countries, Tuesday the thirteenth is the unlucky day, so for them, the movie Friday the Thirteenth was renamed Tuesday the Thirteenth.)

If Friday the thirteenth were really an unlucky day as more than 20 million Americans believe, to be on the safe side, shouldn’t the calendar makers follow the example of builders and call change all 13s that fall on a Friday to 14 or maybe even 12A? And speaking of calendars, our current calendar was not universally adopted in Europe until the eighteenth century. So is our current Friday the thirteenth the real Friday the thirteenth? Wouldn’t the day fall on other dates using other calendars?

Today is an especially interesting day considering that it’s exactly thirteen weeks since the last Friday the thirteenth in this year of twenty-thirteen, but I don’t know if that makes it more it a more dire day or simply a matter of curiosity.

Whether or not you believe that Friday the thirteenth is bad luck (and if you do, please forgive my levity), I hope you have a fearfully wonderful day.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: 13th floor, Friday the 13th, friggatriskaidekaphobia, triskaidekaphobia, Tuesday the 13th. 2 Comments »

White Elephants, Life, and Other Gifts

December 12, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I went to a Christmas party last night, the first one in . . . well, to tell the truth, I can’t remember ever going to a Christmas party, though I must have sometime or other.

We were each supposed to bring a gift — a white elephant, they said.

The term “white elephant” is derived from the supposed Thai tradition of a king bestowing such an elephant on a subordinate he wished to ruin. The elephants were costly to maintain, didn’t do any work, and needed to be available to anyone who wished to worship the holy creature. A white elephant, then, is something unnecessary that is more trouble than it’s worth.

How that definition of white elephant fits in with a white elephant gift exchange, I don’t know, since the way the term is used now, a white elephant is simply something you have but don’t want, something you make, or maybe even something you buy that isn’t expensive. Some people at the party brought wrapped up junk — a bag of old video tapes, a cracked mug, long-expired candy. Others gave an elaborate gift like an insulated backpack or something special like a handmade birdhouse.

We played a game with the gifting. We each got a number. The first person picked a gift, and opened it. The second person could “steal” that gift if they liked it or pick a new one. The last person, of course, could choose any of the opened gifts or take a chance on the final unopened one. (If someone “stole” the gift you had opened, you got to choose another one.)

It was an interesting psychological study. Some people very boldly went and snatched the opened gift they wanted. Others did it timidly or apologetically. The rest just took an unopened gift, choosing one carefully after examining all the offerings, or simply picking one at random.

Me? I acted true to form. When it came to my turn, I chose the nearest unopened gift. There was one opened one that I would have liked, but someone had already stolen the gift — an insulated back pack fitted out with accoutrements for a picnic — and I knew she wanted it. I could have stolen it from her, of course, but any pleasure I would have derived from the gift would have been dimmed by her disappointment. There were a few other gifts that might have been nice to have, but the truth is, when it comes to life and other gifts, I will always choose a mysterious unknown over a mediocre known, even though I know there is a good chance I will come out of it badly. (As I did — I got a bottle of men’s cologne, which I have absolutely no use for. I ended up giving it away.)

Even though I came away without a gift, I’m grateful I didn’t get stuck with a real white elephant. The zoning variances alone would have cost a fortune!

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: Christmas party, gift exchange, white elephant gift exchange, white elephant meaning. 7 Comments »

And oh, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive

December 10, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I went to a dance recital at the college the other day, and wow, those kids could fly! So young, so fit, so lithe. None of the dancers would have even a glimmer of clumsiness while doing the sitting test with incredible ease. Of course, the test is geared toward older folk, but even when I was young I didn’t have the strength and agility those kids had.

The first dance is the one that had the most impact on me, probably because it was the first. I’d never seen some of the stunts they pulled. Although dozens of dancers were on stage at all times, not everyone performed the same steps. It seemed as if two or three dances were going on at the same time in a dizzying blur of interconnected motion. But one thing they all did at one point— lie down as if they were going to do pushups, and then, on hands and toes, hop to the side again and again.

It was a very powerful dance, and no wonder — the song they danced to was “thatPower”. Not a song I was familiar with. Not one I would ever have willingly listened to. Most of it was . . . well, to be kind, let’s just say it’s not my kind of music. The chorus, however, is haunting me, and I’m allowing it to play in my mind.

In the midst of the non-song, the chorus (sung by Justin Bieber) was surprisingly tuneful and uplifting:

And oh, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive
And oh, I can fly, I can fly, I can fly
And oh, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive
And I’m loving every second, minute, hour, bigger, better, stronger power.

Usually I can’t stand when a song plays itself repeatedly in my head and do what I can to remove it, but I like this message, this affirmation. I am alive. I can fly if only in my thoughts and dreams. And while I might not be loving every minute, I am living every second, minute, hour. And I am getting better and stronger, more powerful. Sometimes I can even feel the power, though I don’t know where that power comes from. The earth maybe. Grief maybe. Myself maybe. I do know I am more confident than I’ve ever been. More accepting of life and its ups and downs. Enjoying being alive — coming alive — for the first time in many years.

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Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: And oh I'm alive, dance recital, haunted by a song, Justin Bieber, song in my head, thatPower. 3 Comments »

Wise Women of Cyberspace

December 9, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’ve met many wise and wonderful women online while struggling to find my way through grief, women who gave me the courage to do what was necessary — accept the pain, feel each emotion as it arose, and somehow find a way to live with it. One such woman and I would talk on Facebook about grief now and again — she was three years ahead of me in the process, and had found a new direction in her life, which gave me hope that someday, I too, would manage to find peace and even renewed life.

She posted one of her comments from our conversation on her blog today, Patience, Wallowing and Defragmentation, and explained how the lessons she learned while dealing with grief have helped her in dealing with health issues.

The conversation she referred to in her blog took place two years ago, but that wasn’t the end of our discussions. Just a couple of months ago I wrote: “It is sinking in that I couldn’t make him well when he was alive, and I can’t keep him with me now that he’s dead. As much as I hate his being dead, in a way, it has nothing to do with me.”

She responded:”That’s the toughest part — realizing that their death has nothing to do with us and that we are all, while connected through a web of energy, uniquely created beings following our own individual path. Regardless of how connected we are to some people in some ways, their path is theirs and ours is ours.”

It’s this knowledge that his death belongs to him and my life belongs to me that has helped me move beyond my mourning. My grief for him cannot make him alive once more, cannot change one facet of his life or his death. Of course, I had little choice in my grief — it came from somewhere so deep inside that I’d never know such a place existed. Grief still wells up on its own now and again, but I don’t try to hold on to it, don’t try to hold on to the past, don’t try to hold on to him. And perhaps, that takes the most courage of all — letting him go.

Lucky for me, I had such a wise woman giving me counsel.

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