life | Bertram's Blog

A Child of Grief

December 27, 2012 — Pat Bertram

My life mate/soul mate died thirty-three months ago today, and I found myself hesitating before writing this post. I worried it might seem as if I am trying to keep myself in the center of a drama, a drama that has long since lost its power and poignancy. But the truth is, even though I am not actively mourning — at least not often, and not much — grief still shades every moment of my life.

When people fall in love, when they are giddy with hormones, when they get caught up in the emotion of their love and the dream of a wonderful new life together, their friends and family never tell them, “Okay. Enough. It’s time to get over your love and move on.” The whole world celebrates their love (or so it seems to the new couple), and everything they say and do for the rest of their lives is shaded by this focus on each other.

Grief reflects this process, though through a dark mirror. The newly bereft are buffeted by hormones, caught up in the emotion and pain of their loss, tormented by a future that no longer has any meaning, focused on someone who is no longer there. The loved one might be dead, but the love doesn’t die. (What do you do with love when it is no longer needed? I never have figured that one out.) And the bereft are told, “Okay. Enough. It’s time to get over your grief and move on.”

Other people get tired of our drama, but for us, it is always there — a blankness in our lives. An absence.

I am doing well, trying new things, preparing myself for a future alone. I have hermit tendencies, so to make sure that I don’t stagnate, I am planning adventures — simple excursions and experiences for today and complicated journeys for another time. From the beginning, I embraced my grief, wanting to process the guilts and regrets, the anger and fears as quickly as possible so I could charge into whatever the future held for me. I am now more determined than ever to celebrate life, and yet . . .and yet . . .

I am aware that if it weren’t for his death, I wouldn’t need to worry about my hermit tendencies. We were hermits together, friends in our solitude. Until those last years when he could barely drag himself out of bed, we did everything together, so there was no reason to plan solitary experiences or excursions. Every day with him brought the possibility of something exciting, even if only a long rambling conversation through history, science, philosophy and back to history, so there was no need to find a way to keep from stagnating. But now there is.

Grief has shaped my life in other ways. I am here in the desert because he is dead. I am taking care of my father because I am not needed elsewhere now that my life mate/soul mate is gone. I made new friends through my attendance at a grief support group, and those friendships have long outlasted the group. I am taking yoga classes, learning to find a new way to open to the universe because he is no longer here keeping me connected to the world.

His absence is still a very real presence in my life. I don’t feel his total goneness as much as I did at the beginning, but I am aware of his absence. My yearning to see him once more doesn’t claw at me the way it once did, but I am aware that I will never again hear his voice or be warmed by his smile. I am far beyond the days where I curled up, cradling my new pain and sorrow as if it were some sort of new born creature, but what those days did to me — stealing away the last of my naiveté, lightheartedness, and innocence — will remain with me forever.

I am a child of grief. No matter how adventurous or fulfilling my life might end up being, no matter who or what I grow to be, something deep inside of me will always be aware of the death that made these changes necessary, the absence that made them possible.

***

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+

Posted in being me, culture, grief, life. Tags: death of a soul mate, grief and loss, living with grief, mourning, moving on, thirty-three months of grief. 12 Comments »

Christmas Traditions by Default

December 26, 2012 — Pat Bertram

For people in my “grief age,” those who are coming up on the third anniversary of grief, this Christmas wasn’t as hard as the previous two. All firsts are hard but that first Christmas was doubly painful because we were still steeped in new grief. The second Christmas was hard because we were reminded once again that we are without the one person who connected us to the world and to our traditions, and it set off an upsurge of grief. This year was difficult in yet another way — not as sad as the first two, perhaps, but more bewildering. Our loved ones have been gone a long time, and life is starting to close the gap where they were ripped from our lives.

It doesn’t seem possible that life can go on without them. It doesn’t seem possible that we can go on without them. And yet, here we are. Another Christmas without.

My upsurges of grief the first two years took me by surprise. We didn’t celebrate Christmas, so there didn’t seem to be any reason for the holiday to affect me, and yet the day itself creates traditions even in those who don’t celebrate it. We couldn’t treat it like any other day because it’s a day out of the normal routine for most people in this country —- no mail deliveries, no businesses operating, few stores open. We usually spent the day just lounging around, watching our favorite movies, and eating finger foods (meat, cheese, fruit slices) — creating a tradition by default.

Yesterday, my grief was momentary and had nothing to do with Christmas, just one of those normal touches of sadness that I have come to accept as homage to him and our life together. I no longer feed my grief by holding tightly to thoughts of him. Such reminiscences don’t make me feel connected to him, don’t make me feel better about his being gone, so when the inevitable thoughts flow through my mind, creating sadness and bringing on tears, I let them pass. I used to worry that if I didn’t hold on to those thoughts that I was somehow negating him. If he only exists in memory, and I don’t remember him, then he is truly gone.

But he is gone from this earth whether I remember him or not. He is gone from my life whether I remember him or not. Nothing I do or think can ever change that. I still miss him. Always will. But as with yesterday, my missing him probably won’t have anything to do with Christmas memories or traditions, not even the tradition we created by default.

***

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: Christmas traditions, grief at christmas. 5 Comments »

Wishing you a peaceful day

December 25, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Wishing you a peaceful day

and all your troubles far away.

Snowy peaks

Posted in culture, life, photography. Tags: Christmas, Christmas wishes, mountain photo, snowy peaks. 14 Comments »

Celebrating the End of the Creeping Darkness

December 22, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I have always disliked the creeping darkness of fall, each day getting shorter, the nights getting longer, so I used to celebrate the day after the winter solstice — the end of the creeping darkness and the beginning of the brightening.

I didn’t much notice either the light or the dark during the past few years. All my days seemed dark, first with the long dying of my life mate/soul mate then with my grief after this death. But now that I am opening up to life again, opening up to a brighter time, it seems fitting that once again I should celebrate the end of the creeping darkness and the beginning of the brightening.

To that end, I have planted light. I wonder if it will grow.

Wishing you a brighter day and a new year filled with light!

***

Posted in culture, life. Tags: brightening, creeping darkness, days getting longer, winter solstice. 8 Comments »

One Thousand and One Days of Grief

December 21, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Although yesterday’s post 1000 Days of Grief — and this one — might make it seem as if I am still counting the days of grief, I actually stopped counting after the first year. Once when I could not imagine ever being able to get through another hour, I counted to the 1000th day and marked it on the calendar. It seemed like a significant number — a guidepost — and I thought I should know the date. It is astonishing to me that I have managed to survive so many days since the death of my life mate/soul mate, but in truth, I am doing more than simply surviving. I am living.

Of the articles I have recently written, posts about celebrating various aspects of life outnumber my posts about grief, which puzzles me since I am not feeling at all festive. When you lose the person who connects you to the world, you have to find new ways of reconnecting to life, and apparently those celebratory posts are indicative of the changes in me, of how on a visceral level, my focus is turning away from death to life.

For so long, I didn’t feel right about embracing life when he was dead. I knew he wouldn’t want me to be sad, but frankly, he had no say in the matter, and for the most part, neither did I. Grief is a force, like a whirlwind, and all I could do was endure as best as I could until it lost its power. Even when the power of grief began waning, I still didn’t feel right about embracing life. It’s not so much that I had survivor’s guilt (especially since I wasn’t sure I still wanted to be here), but that it didn’t seem fair. If life is a gift, why was it taken from him?

Maybe he got the worst end of the deal by having to die so young. Maybe I got the worst end of the deal by having to live. This conundrum of who got the worst of the deal tormented me for a long time, but now I see that it doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. He died. I didn’t. That’s the way things are.

I’m starting to see myself as just me now, not as a shattered, left-behind half of a couple; starting to feel that whatever our life together meant, whatever our connection, this is my life. Not his. Not ours. Mine.

On a larger scale, perhaps, there is no such thing as “my life” and “his life” and “your life.” Maybe we are all somehow connected, like books on a library shelf, our stories interlocking and making a whole. But I cannot think of that larger scale right now. I need to be me, or rather, to find a new way of being, and oddly, this seems to be a typical leg in grief’s journey. I am taking a yoga class (therapy yoga, a gentler form of yoga that allows for one’s imitations) as part of my effort to open myself to new possibilities, and I recently discovered that, coincidentally, all the women in the class have lost their husbands. Our losses vary from one to ten years, but we are all striving for a new way of being, a new focus. We are also all trying to learn how to take care of ourselves in our old age since we won’t be growing old with anyone.

Whether I count the days or not, time is still passing, and at an increasingly rapid rate. On September 16, 2015, it will be 2000 days since his death. (No, I didn’t count those days, I used a decimal birthday counter.) What will I be like in another 1000 days? What will my life be like? If the changes come as rapidly as in the previous 1000 days, I doubt I will recognize me. Whatever happens, though, the number of days since I was born into this new life that his death forced on me, has little significance except as another guidepost. Each day stands alone. Each day finds its own meaning. Each day is mine to survive, or to celebrate, as best as I can.

***

Posted in being me, grief, life. Tags: 1000 days of grief, 2000 days of grief, death of a spouse, grief's journey, my life, yoga therapy. Leave a Comment »

1000 Days of Grief

December 20, 2012 — Pat Bertram

1000 days have passed since the death of my life mate/soul mate.

1000 days. An incomprehensible number. At the beginning, I could not imagine living one more hour let alone one more day in such pain. And yet now 1000 of those days have passed and I don’t know where they went or how I survived them.

Even more incomprehensible, while I remember being in absolute agony those early months, beset by panic attacks, gut spasms, loss of breath, inability to grip things and hundreds of other physical and emotional affects, there is an element of blank to the memories, as if it were someone else in such distress. I remember screaming to the winds, though I can’t exactly recall what it felt like to be so stressed that only screaming could relieve the pain. I remember feeling as if I would die if I did not hear his voice, see his smile, feel his arms around me one more time. I remember the horrible feeling of goneness I was left with, as if half my soul had been wrenched from my body leaving an immeasurable void, but now I am bewildered by it all. Was that really me — staid, stoic me — lost in such an emotional maelstrom?

Most incomprehensible of all, as recently as a month or two ago, I was still subject to occasional flashes of raw agony, but even those seem far removed now. I still have times of tears, and probably always will have. How could I not? Someone whose very breath meant more to me than my own is gone — gone where, I do not know. But I no longer feel as if half of me has been amputated. I am just me now, not a shattered, left-behind half of a couple. Or maybe I have simply become used to this new state, as if this is the way my life has always been.

I still hate that he’s dead, but I’m also aware that his death has set me free. I spent many years watching him waste away, numbing myself to his pain, waking every morning to the possibility that he hadn’t lasted the night, dreading the end, worrying if I were up to the task of fulfilling his final wishes. All that is gone now, though the feelings of dread and worry and doubt inexplicably lasted way into this third year of grief. I used to think that grief was his final gift to me — despite the angst and agony, I embraced grief like a friend. I knew instinctively it would take me where I needed to go.

But now I know freedom was his final gift, though it was as unwanted and as unasked for as the grief. I haven’t learned yet what to do with this freedom. Perhaps if I embrace it as I did my grief, it will also take me where I need to go.

I’m still so very sad, though I am more at peace than I have been for a long time. In fact, the same photo of him that was too painful for me even to peek at for more than eighteen months after his death, now sometimes makes me smile. It might take me the rest of my life to puzzle out the meaning of our shared life, our incredibly bond, his death — if in fact there is a meaning — but what I’m left with right now is the knowledge that for whatever reason, he shared his life with me. He shared his dying. And then he set me free.

***

Posted in being me, grief, life, relationships. Tags: 1000 days of grief, death of a soul mate, gift of freedom, third year of grief, two years of grief. 24 Comments »

Desensitizing People to Violence

December 16, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Clint Eastwood posted a status update on his FB profile today. No, I’m not a “friend” or a fan, don’t “like” him or “subscribe” to him, but his comment is making the rounds of FB, and it ended up on in my news feed. Several times. I found the comment interesting because of my research for More Deaths Than One, a book about mind control, and what I learned about how the military desensitized recruits to killing.

Eastwood wrote: With a lot of thought on this in light of all the shootings in the past few weeks I am very concerned that the left is now going to hit hard on pushing the 2nd Amendment over the cliff.

This is the only amendment that the ‘O’ can attack with any chance of repealing. If this, and God help us if he does, will lead to a barrage of attacks on all the amendments and socialism will be a forgone conclusion.

If anything should be shut down it should be the violent video games. Really, and I know everyone likes their electronics but these are the things that are taking kids and young people out of interacting with society and their peers.

I know I will probably take a lot of flack for that last observation but I’ve taken the flack before.

Have a great Sunday and hug your family.

I’ve written about this before, most recently in If Everyone Wants Peace, Why are there Wars? As I said, many of today’s — and yesterday’s — video games were developed by the military because studies had shown that repeated images of violence and death inured people to killing. During World War Two, as many as 85% of soldiers fired over enemies’ heads or did not fire at all. After World War Two, there was a concerted effort by the military to overcome this natural reluctance to kill, and apparently they succeeded because during close combat in Vietnam, only about 5% of soldiers failed to aim to kill. These same desensitizing “games” were later released as toys for children. Is it any wonder that many people — teens and adults — now seem desensitized to violence? They are playing games that were purposely created to foster killing.

I am not a fan of guns, though I have attended a couple of shooting clinics sponsored by a local gun club. As an author, I thought it important to know how it felt to shoot a weapon at a target. The targets we used were the round kind rather than a silhouette of a human. (Not so incidentally, those human-like targets were also created by the military to get soldiers used to firing at people.) I enjoyed learning how to shoot, but handling the pistols, revolvers, shotguns and rifles did not create in me any desire to shoot at another human being. Guns by themselves do not encourage violence or a desire to kill. Certain video games do. Sociopathic tendencies do. Psychotic characteristics do. Military think tanks do.

Author Lee Child says that we don’t write what we know, we write what we fear, and that certainly is true in my case. I fear the machinations of the powerful, deadly, and calculating men and women who control our lives behind the scenes. And I fear politicians and celebrities who use tragedies to further their own ends.

***

Posted in books, culture, life, writing. Tags: Clint Eastwood FB status update, desensitization, desensitization to violence, mind control, More Deaths Than One, video games and insensitivity to violence. 29 Comments »

12/12/12 — A Wonderful and Wonderfully Mystic Day

December 12, 2012 — Pat Bertram

12/12/12 is a date that comes around every hundred years. Today should have been a mystical day, a momentous occasion with awesome happenings all over the world, though for the most part, it seemed to be a day like any other.

Twelve is a number steeped in our culture, in our heritage, in our very lives. To the ancients, it was a divine number. There were twelve major heavenly bodies in our solar system (the sun, the moon, the planets, which included Pluto and a far-flung planet as yet unknown to modern man, though currently hypothesized as Planet X). There were twelve gods. There are twelve signs of the zodiac, each representing 30 degrees of the heavenly arc. (Thirty is another divine number. If you are expecting the present era to end this month as the Mayans supposedly claimed, you will be disappointed. The Mayans used a mystical calendar with 360 days — 12 x 30 — rather than our 365.25 days. Hence, the so-called Mayan apocalypse won’t happen until 2087.)

There were twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, twelve disciples of Mithras, twelve stations of life in Buddhism, twelve labors of Hercules, twelve sons of Odin in Norse mythology, twelve knights of the King Arthur’s round table.

Twelve is also a practical number, the lowest number with multiple divisors, making it a preferred method of organization, such as a dozen doughnuts or a dozen eggs; twelve colors on a color wheel; the twelve numbers on a clock face, the twelve inches to a foot, the twelve months in a year.

I’m sure there are dozens more instances showing the specialness of twelve, so why isn’t this day of twelves a momentous day of mystical happenings?

Well, for one, our calendar is arbitrary. The year could have started at a different time, perhaps in tune with the seasonal cycles where the first day of the year was the first day of spring. In certain cultures, the new year does begin on different dates, for example, the Chinese New Year was on January 23 this year, and the Jewish New Year was September 16th. The year itself is an entirely arbitrary number. Though this common era supposedly begins on the birth of Jesus, he was born no later than 4BC. (Though of course, back then, they would not have called it BC since the current calendar had not yet been invented.

And for another, this is a momentous day of mystical happenings. We are alive, aren’t we? That in itself is an awesome, momentous, and mystical experience.

Wishing you a wonderful and wonderfully mystic day.

***

Posted in culture, history/myth, life. Tags: Chinese New Year, divine number 12, Mayan calendar, Planet X, the number 12, twelfth planet, twelve. 5 Comments »

Celebrating Life and Offbeat Occasions

December 11, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I like to celebrate offbeat occasions, or at least acknowledge them. For example, I celebrate the anniversary of my connection to the internet with a sacrifice to the online gods to ensure the safety of my travels in cyberspace. In other words, that’s the day I renew my virus protection. It’s also the day I celebrate the birthday of my online persona, “Pat Bertram.” (The persona I established then has now become the real me. Odd that. The name, of course, has always mine, or at least a version of it.)

And just few days ago I celebrated my father’s 35,000th day.

Years before these celebrations were other offbeat parties. One of the most fun was the long ago day my best friend and I had a birthday party for a tree. There is (or was, anyway. I don’t know if it is still there) a stunning elm in the corner of Denver’s City Park at Colorado Boulevard and Seventeenth Street. A plaque beneath the tree said “Shakespeare Elm: The scion from which this tree was grown was taken from the tree at Shakespeare’s grave at Stratford-on-Avon.” The plaque also noted that the tree was planted on April 23, 1916, which is exactly 300 years after Shakespeare’s birthday. (April 23, 1616).

How could such a momentous occasion not be celebrated? So my friend and I baked elm tree cookies, made a “pin the leaf on the tree” game, stirred up gallons of green punch, even baked a tree shaped cake with candles. We sent hundreds of invitations to friends, family, Denver notables, the media, but on April 23, only family and friends showed up. And two cops.

The cops stood apart from all of us, though they did nibble on cookies and take tentative sips of punch. At one point, one of the cops turned to the other and said in amazement, “They really are having a birthday party for this tree.” Apparently they had been dispatched to the site in case we were staging a drug rendezvous or some such. As it turns out, it was lucky that no one showed up. Since it ended up being simply a family picnic, we weren’t fined for putting on a public event without a license. Whew!

Another idea my friend and I had was for a restaurant in the mountains. I don’t remember much of those elaborate plans, but I do remember that the menu was going to feature Alferd Packer pancakes and democratic sausages. That still cracks me up.

Well, life had its own plans, and when we grew up, it flung us separate ways. Over the years I looked for her, but it wasn’t until recently, thanks to the internet, that we reconnected. (See why I celebrate my connection day? What a wondrous thing the internet is!) And now we are planning to meet in person next year.

I wonder if she still has that creative mind and wacky sense of fun? I wonder if I do?

At the very least, it should be a great celebration.

(BTW, I am on the left in the photo. My friend is on the right.)

***

Posted in being me, culture, internet, life, relationships. Tags: connection to the internet, Denver, offbeat parties, Shakespeare's Elm. 2 Comments »

The One and Only 35,000-Day Celebration

December 8, 2012 — Pat Bertram

In a previous post, I talked what I could do to celebrate my father’s 35,000th day because truly, such an astonishing number should not go unacknowledged. I finally decided on 35,000 KJBs (his initials), one to represent each of his days. Took me twelve hours to cut them out, but it was worth it to see a visual representation of all those days.

Other gifts were 35,000 “I love you”s from my sister, and 35,000 sequins to add sparkle to the day from my brother. (I covet those sequins. They are all different shapes and sizes, such as butterflies, flowers, stars, and teardrops, and definitely should add plenty of sparkle to . . . whatever. Any suggestions?)

More than anything, I got a kick out of making a deal over the day. I mean, really . . . how many 35,000-day celebrations have you attended? I have a hunch this was the one and only such party.

party