Gathering Patience for the Lonely Years Ahead

November 25, 2011 — Pat Bertram

A major loss in one’s life, such as the death of a long-time mate, often changes a person. For almost twenty months now, I’ve been saying I’m no different than I was, but lately I can feel a small change. It started with his long illness, developed during his final agonizing weeks, and came to fruition in the months since his death. This change? Patience. An ability to wait.

I’ve never been a particularly patient person. I always open mail as soon as I receive it. (It used to mystify me how my late mate could let his mail sit for days without any inclination to see what the sender wanted.) I immediately begin to read books when I get them, open packages of snacks when I return from the grocery story, check my email first thing in the morning.

Well, I still do those things, but I am more patient with life’s vagaries and people’s foibles. There is no person I prefer to be with above all others, no place I want to be. If I have to stand in line at the grocery store, I simply wait without tapping my foot or wishing the line would move faster. If someone tells a long boring story, I simply listen without trying to edge away.

I’m not sure this is patience so much as resignation. When my mate died, he detached one of my connections to the world, and this connection has never been replaced. There’s something missing in me, some synapses that doesn’t spark, as if I am at one remove from the world. It’s possible this feeling of reserve comes from a new awareness of death or an awareness that life is not as it seems. Life isn’t all about shopping and what’s on television. It’s not about cars and clothes and things. I always knew that, of course, and because of it was already one step away from the everyday world.

My mate and I were not materialistic people. We lived in a world of ideas, of books, of films. Learning, research, discovery, growth were important to us. He used to say we were bad for each other — since we had someone to share these unthings, we had no reason to make a concession to the materialistic world. Though he’s dead, I’m still unable to connect to such a world. In fact, with my disconnect from him, I am now two removes from the so-called real world.

I’ve built new connections, made new friends, experienced new places and activities. I’ve become more aware of basic connections, such as the way my feet connect to the ground, or the way air flows through us, around us, connecting us one to the other. I’ve grown more empathetic and sympathetic. But still, there is no great attachment to any specific thing or any specific person. There is only me, and wherever I am, there I am, so there is no reason to be anywhere else.

This could change in the next few months, of course. I am almost two-thirds through my second year of grief, and the second half of the second year seems to be a limbo, a time for settling into this new phase of life, a time of gathering patience for the lonely years ahead. (The first half of the second year is often a time of re-grief, of having to deal with the horrible realization that even though you managed to get through your first year without him, even though you passed this test, your loved one is still dead. It can be a time of catastrophic pain.)

I’ve managed to come this far, and I will continue to manage. I’m from a family of long-lived people, so it’s a good thing I am learning patience (or resignation). I will need it.

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

Grief Doesn’t Take a Holiday

November 24, 2011 — Pat Bertram

I wasn’t going to write about grief this Thanksgiving (except for yesterday’s brief mention of the guests who won’t be coming to dinner) because I didn’t want to break anyone’s holiday mood. Then I realized this is exactly the attitude I’ve been fighting. We shouldn’t ignore grief just because it is inconvenient for others or because it might make them pause to reflect on the ephemeral nature of life. Grief is part of life, and for some of us, it is our life.

The truth is, a huge number of people in the United States will be crying themselves to sleep tonight. For some of those people, this is the first Thanksgiving since the death of a significant person in their lives — a spouse, perhaps, or a child. For others it is the second Thanksgiving or even the tenth. But the number of years that the person has been gone doesn’t matter when it comes to holidays. What matters is that our loved ones are dead. A happy occasion with family, friends, food, turns out not to be so much fun when an absence (or a remembered presence) looms darkly over our hearts. Or if the occasion is fun, and the bereft forgets the truth for a moment, the grief rebound can be painful.

I had a lovely time today. Three of my brothers and their mates came to have dinner with my father and me. They brought everything except the table decorations and the turkey. Those I did. (I didn’t actually cook a turkey. I cooked turkey tenderloins several days ago and froze them, then today I steamed the pieces and arranged them on a platter. I didn’t feel up to cooking a turkey, and anyway, the oven is on the blink.)

The talk was congenial, the company delightful, the meal delicious, the toasts divinely inspired (I toasted my mother, who would have been proud of her men. During her final weeks, she worried that the family would drift apart.)

Afterward, two by two, the guests headed home. My father lay down for his nap. And there I was, alone, with no way to go home. My dead mate was my home, and even after nineteen months, I haven’t been able to find “home” within myself or anywhere else for that matter. I stood for a moment feeling adrift and sorry for myself, then set my father’s house to rights — taking the extra leaf out of the table, putting away the dishes that had been washed, doing all the other after tasks.

And then . . . in the quiet moment before I focused my mind on another activity, grief — that great yearning — burst over me. (For those of you who worry about me, there is no need. I am okay. Truly. These grief bursts, which relieve the stress of my sorrow, are how I keep on being okay.)

He is gone, and there is nothing I can do about it. I keep re-realizing those two simple facts. I do not think our brains are wired to understand the sheer goneness of death. Someone emailed me not long ago, expressing her admiration that I can talk about grief without feeling sorry for myself, but honestly, except for isolated moments, which I refuse to feed, I don’t feel sorry for myself. A lot of grief has to do with the mind disconnect that happens when you realize your loved one is no longer here on earth. It’s as if for a second you open up to a cosmic reality or an eternal truth. The façade of life shatters, and through the cracks you can almost see, almost sense, almost know . . .

Then you are back to yourself, and you don’t see, you don’t sense, you don’t know anything but that — holiday or not — you are alone.

To all of my bereft friends, who are struggling with the challenges of this holiday, I wish for you a peaceful night.

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Waiting For the Guests to Arrive

November 23, 2011 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been staying with my almost 95-year-old father, not to take care of him so much as to look out for him. Last year, the two of us spent a quiet Thanksgiving. He wasn’t up to company and neither was I since it was the first Thanksgiving after my life mate’s death. This year, a couple of my brothers (who perhaps had no more exciting plans) decided they wanted to get together for dinner, and one fast-talking brother conned . . . er, sweet-talked . . . my father into letting them come here. This brother also negotiated a deal where up to six people could stay for two hours. (Which worked out to be three brothers and their mates.) If you knew how quickly that many people would wear out a 95-year-old recluse, you’d understand what a great concession my brother wangled. (BTW, I really admire this brother’s negotiating skills. I once saw him talk a clerk at Office Max into giving him an extra l0% discount, and the guy agreed to it for no reason that I could see.)

The last time I spent Thanksgiving with any of my siblings was four years ago, a couple of weeks before my mother died. We’d come to spend a final Thanksgiving with her, but she was too sick and too weak to join us. Still she was glad we came. She always wanted her children to be close, and she worried that after her death, we would drift apart. Now here I am, in her house, and she is not here.

She’s just one of the guests who can’t come because of cosmic impossibilities. My next youngest sibling died the year before she did, and her grief at his dying helped bring on her own death. And then there’s my life mate. I doubt he would have come (he couldn’t the last time because of his own illness), but it saddens me that he doesn’t have the choice. Makes me even sadder that after the holiday, I won’t be going home to him.

I set the table today to lessen tomorrow’s commotion, and I used my mother’s china. (Sorry, BBB. Paper plates just won’t cut it!! And yes, I will do the dishes.) I want the day to be special because how many more Thanksgivings can my father have? And if he’s blessed with a dozen more, who knows whether even my brother’s vast negotiating skills will gain such concessions again.

And it pleased me to be able to do this small thing.

Afterward, I was overcome with a burst of grief (to be honest, it wasn’t so much grief as plain old feeling sorry for myself.) My brothers will be at dinner with their mates, and I won’t be with mine. Still, I had him for all those years, and for that, I am truly grateful.

(And never mind trying to figure out how many siblings I had. For most of my years there were too many, and now there aren’t enough.)

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: , , , , , . 14 Comments »

Giving Thanks for Words

November 22, 2011 — Pat Bertram

Every day I find something to be grateful for, even if it’s only that the sun is shining, that the pain of loss is muted, that I once had a great love, that I have open spaces to explore (both in my head and in the world). Even when all else seemed bleak these past nineteen months, even when I had no hope, there was always something to be grateful for (most often that my mate was no longer suffering), so I don’t need to set aside a special day of thanksgiving.

Still, during this season of giving thanks, there is something I am especially grateful for, something worth celebrating . . . words.

Words convey thoughts, ideas, hopes from one person to another. They connect us from continent to continent, enabling us to bond with like-minded people all around the world. I have exchanged words — and friendship — with people from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the Nederlands, India. And for this I am grateful.

Words allow us to read and to write, to find entertainment and enlightenment in worlds created out of nothing but letters strung together. Words allow a story, concocted in one mind, to come to full realization in another. For most of my life, these worlds of words have been my life, or at least a major part of it. Now that I too am a world-creator, I am grateful for the words with which I build my stories.

Words give comfort, especially when distance (either geographic or emotional) does not allow a touch of commiseration. I am especially grateful for all the words of encouragement you (the readers of this blog) have given me during my time of grief, words that touched me. I hope some of my words touched you.

Words mean hope. With words, there is always the hope that we will be able to come to an understanding of each other, and perhaps find peace. (Of course, people would have to shut up long enough to listen to each other’s words; one-way words cause conflict and confusion.)

Words mean community and continuity. Words, both spoken and written, presuppose that there is someone to listen, and that is community. Telling our his-stories and her-stories to each other creates both community and continuity. They tell us who we were, who we are, and who we hope to become.

If there were no one to hear our words, if we existed solely in ourselves, we’d still need words to communicate our feelings and ideas to ourselves. This ability to put our thoughts into words gives us the power to know ourselves and to understand greater truths.

So this week, whether you celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving or not, stop for a moment to give thanks for words. They are we.

Posted in culture, life, relationships, writing. Tags: , , , , . 25 Comments »

Today I Am . . .

November 21, 2011 — Pat Bertram


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System Restore for Our Lives

November 20, 2011 — Pat Bertram

When it works right, System Restore is a wonderful computer feature. If something goes wrong, if your computer gets a virus or starts acting abnormally, you can choose a restore point, and go back in time to the way your computer was on a previous day.

My computer got a virus of some sort that generated hundreds of tiny .png files that looked like the French flag. I have Trend Micro, but the full scan takes more than a couple of hours, so I most often do a quick scan, and somehow that virus snuck through. Anyway, since it seemed to elude the program, I did a system restore and voila! All of a sudden it is October 11, 2011 again. At least in my computer.

This made me think: if I had system restore for my life, would I use it? And if so, what restore point would I use? I’d choose a point before he (my life mate) got sick, of course, but he was sick for so very long, we’d have to choose a point many years ago, and I’m not sure I’d want to relive all those years. Would we do anything different to prevent his dying? I doubt it — he always took care of himself — eating healthy, exercising, taking various supplements that improved his situation. I don’t know what else we could have done (especially since, once we were restored to that point, we probably wouldn’t know that we had been living in the future, and hence wouldn’t know to try anything else).

Instead of condemning him to relive all those years, maybe I could choose a restore point closer to his death, but that would be so unfair of me to put him through that again just so I’d get to see him one more time.

And, here’s the kicker. System Restore doesn’t always restore exactly. (Firefox stopped working, and my Trend Micro crashed when I tried to do a full scan.) These computer problems are fixable — I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, and I’ll probably do the same with Trend Micro — but what if we, after life’s system restore, weren’t exactly restored to the condition we were back then? What if we picked up a glitch, with one of our organs deciding not to work properly? The thought makes me shudder — it was hard enough living those years the first time.

I guess, in the end, I would choose to leave things as they are. Perhaps he’s better where he is, assuming he is anywhere, and me? Well, I have enough glitches in my computer. I don’t need any more of them in my life.

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Grief Bursts

November 16, 2011 — Pat Bertram

From the beginning (the beginning of my grief, that is) I’ve talked about various aspects of grief, even the parts I thought made me look weak. Today’s topic — grief bursts — is one I was going to keep to myself, but it’s an important one so I’m going to risk seeming weak once more.

I’ve often said that the trouble with grief is that it doesn’t stay gone. You think you’re doing well, settling into your new life, accepting your situation, and then zap! It hits you, generally when you’re least expecting it. One of the worst of these zaps occurred after my life mate had been dead for five months. I dreamed that he died, and in the dream I woke to discover that he was alive and getting better. I could feel the tension of grief draining out of me, and it felt good to just be . . . me. I awoke for real with a smile on my face, glad he was still alive, and then I was sucker punched by the truth. I felt the way I did the first time I realized he was dead, and it set off an upsurge of grief that lasted several months.

Then last spring, at about the fourteen month mark, I was walking, collected and serene, down a suburban street carved out of the desert,  and I was blindsided by lilacs. He loved lilacs, and we’d planted lilacs all around our property. The year before he died, the plants were tall enough to create an oasis of privacy, and when they bloomed, we’d go outside and bask in the heavenly scent. When I came to the desert, I  never expected to encounter lilacs, but there they were, growing wildly in a vacant lot. That familiar scent, coming toward me when I was unsteeled against a grief upsurge, did me in for a couple of weeks.

The last big upsurge of grief that stayed with me for more than a day or two came at the eighteen month mark. I still don’t know why — there was nothing in particular that set it off, and a year and a half doesn’t seem like a special anniversary, not like the first year anniversary or the second. Eighteen months just sort of hangs innocuously in the middle. Or it should have, but it didn’t. Well, I got through that grief upsurge like I did all the others. (How? Glad you asked that. The only way to get through a grief upsurge is to feel it, process it, and when it begins to abate, let go.)

Mostly now, I’ve settled into uncoupled life. I miss him, of course, and yearn desperately at times to talk with him, but I’ve accepted as well as is possible that I have to continue on with my life. I feel like myself again (meaning I don’t feel weighted down with grief all the time, nor do I hold myself tensed against possible upsurges of pain).

What I do experience are grief bursts — brief bursts of grief, with all the angst I felt at the beginning, that last but a minute or two. These bursts come a couple of times a day, generally after I’ve been concentrating on a project (such as writing a blog or reading a book), and in the moment when my mind is not otherwise engaged, I remember that he’s dead, and grief bursts over me. I cry for a minute or two as if my heart will break (though I know it won’t. It’s already been shattered and glued back together, stronger than before). And then I’m fine again with no lingering aftereffects.

Of all the strange stages of grief I’ve experienced, these grief bursts are the strangest. Like being skewered with a burning poker and then healed a second later. This particular stage, or so I’ve been told, can last a long time. Even decades after a significant death, you can experience bursts of grief. I’m sure, like all the other phases of grief I’ve gone through, these bursts will diminish in frequency, perhaps even diminish in intensity, but oddly, this is one stage of grief I don’t mind. It reminds me that he was worth grieving for, that his absence from this world matters, that he once was part of my life.

***

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 grief, life. Tags: , , , , , . 18 Comments »

Proving I Am Human

November 14, 2011 — Pat Bertram

My email provider has apparently decided I am not human. Every time I try to send an email, it posts strangely twisted letters for me to identify to prove that I am not a machine. Since I have a hard time seeing some of the twists and turns, occasionally this email provider kicks me off its site for not being human.

Does anyone else see the irony of trying to prove to a computer that I am other than it? And losing?

Perhaps the computer should be trying to prove to me that it exists. Or at least that it knows what it’s doing. My email provider says there has been too much spam being sent from my IP address, which is why they need this proof of humanity (as if humans never send junk email) but the IP address they say is mine, the email address all that spam is originating from is in Kansas City. Huh? What does that have to do with me? I am more than a thousand miles away from Kansas, though maybe I fell down a rabbit hole without being aware of it? No, wait . . . rabbit holes have to do with Wonderland, not Kansas. Must be all this email jabberwocky that’s confusing me. Or perhaps to a computer — which I may or may not be — Wonderland and Oz are the same place.

I do understand the rationale behind the captchas — spam is getting way out of control. In the last few weeks, three people I know had their email accounts hacked, and two lost the accounts and everything in them. At least a dozen Facebook friends had their profiles hacked in the past couple of days and naked photos were posted through their accounts (photos that have over five hundred thousand likes, I might add — apparently I’m going about social networking all wrong. I’m lucky to get five likes per post).

And on top of all this, every few minute a png file tries to open itself on my computer, files with bizarre names such as jkjsylddw.png or qwxxcvjks.png. Perhaps a computer or two has decided I’m one of them and they are coming on to me?

Ah, well, I’ll just have to continue traveling the twisted path of trying to prove I am human. But I still think it’s bizarre I have to continually prove it. I mean, whatever happened to “I think, therefore I am”? Shouldn’t that be proof enough?

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Here is My Point: There Needs to be a Point When it Comes to Writing

November 13, 2011 — Pat Bertram

I saw an indie movie yesterday that was so indie it could actually be considered self-produced. Well, truthfully, it was self-produced — and it went straight to video without a big screen debut, which is something you should all be thankful for. The only reason I watched it was that it was filmed near where I am staying, and I had fun trying to figure out where all the scenes had been filmed. There was no other reason to watch it. The actors were terrible. (I’d read once that a good actor was one who acted natural on the screen. These folk were so unnatural as to make paper doll cut-outs seem life-like in comparison.) The plot was derivative. (You know the story — drug dealers, undercover cops, only one cop left alive at the end and you wish he’d died along with all the rest.) The camera work was appalling — looked as if it had been filmed with a cell phone (as one of my fellow movie watchers put it).

So, here’s my question. Why did they make that particular movie? What were they thinking — “Let’s make a movie that’s been made a zillion times before, but let’s see how bad we can make it”? I know they weren’t trying to showcase talent — there wasn’t any. They weren’t trying to have fun with dialogue — it was stilted and silly at best. They didn’t show the drug dealer vs. cop conflict in any new light. So, what was the point? I still don’t know.

This is the same question I ask myself about many of the books I read, and I get the same response — I don’t know what the point is.

But here’s my point — there has to be a point, especially when it comes to books, because if there is no point, why would anyone read it? A writer can write for herself, of course, which might be the point of writing the book, but we readers need a reason to read it. Even if it’s a light romance or a cozy mystery written only to entertain, there still has to be a reason for it. People do read for entertainment, but if a book gives a reader nothing new — no new experience, no new understanding, no interesting character or situation, no wit or humor, just a rehash of what has been written too many times already — there’s not even any entertainment value in it.

I recently read a well-touted book from a debut author, someone I had met on facebook.  I looked forward to the book since this woman posted such interesting and witty remarks that I thought for sure her book would be as interesting. It was, to a certain extent — it was well-written, the dialoque was sort-of snappy (though it often came across as contrived) and the story was okay. But it was only okay, nothing special. There was no spark of originality, no reason to care about the character, nothing that explained why hundreds of people wrote glowing reviews. I might be getting to be a bit of a curmudgeon, since obviously I was one of the few who found the book disappointing, but the truth is, I was disappointed. All the way through, I kept thinking, “Why am I reading this? What’s the point?”

Books don’t need to have a message — in fact, books with messages are often not worth reading — but there has to be a reason for the book to exist beyond an author’s imagination, even if it’s just for us readers to see what happens to a character we care about.

Posted in books, life, writing. Tags: , , , . 9 Comments »

Is It Necessary to Want Something?

November 11, 2011 — Pat Bertram

The other day I told a friend about the feeling of expectation that accompanied my grief and how empty I felt when nothing wonderful happened to me.  She said we have to make wonderful things happen, we can’t just wait. Then she started quizzing me on things I wanted to do. I couldn’t come up with anything. I’ve never really wanted much, never had big dreams or wild fancies. I do want to want something, though. It would give me a goal, a reason to be hopeful, an investment in the future.

But here’s the conundrum:

We’re told that we have to want something, have to try to reach beyond our comfort zone so that perhaps wonderful things will happen to us. At the same time, we’re told that all things come to those who wait.

We’re told that dreams are important, that we need to have something to live for. At the same time, we’re told to be grateful for what we have, to live for the day.

We live in a society with an economy that is built on the principal of wanting. The more we want, the more we buy, the more we use, the more we help the economy. At the same time we’re told to be frugal, not to waste, but more trash automatically accompanies more goods. I had to get rid of so much of our stuff when I moved out of our house, that it makes no sense to buy more stuff. So, where does wanting to want something fit in with that situation? I sure don’t want more stuff to eventually have to get rid of!

And then, there’s the Zen philosophy that we should neither want nor not want.

So what is the answer? Wanting? Or not wanting? Going after something or waiting till it comes to you? Having dreams, or being satisfied with what you have?

(After the conversation with my friend, I did think of something I wanted. I always wanted to make a gingerbread house, so I made a little one. I don’t want to eat it, though. But still, I can cross it off my list.)

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