cleaning up the past

August 25, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Many people I know seem to be suddenly delving into their past — getting DNA results to see their ancestry, trying to trace their family trees, or even doing past life regressions.

At one time I was interested in my roots, even kept a few notes from conversations with my parents, but now, I don’t really care. Since I know who my parents were to a small extent, where they came from, what their medical history is, I realize I have the luxury of not caring. Those who don’t know their parents, such as adoptees, lack that luxury.

My non-caring is more than simply indulging in such luxury, though. It’s about being who I am, not who I am in relation to who I used to be or in relation to everyone around me, but who I am right now. Today. This minute. Once I was a newborn, a child, an adolescent, a young adult, a part of a couple. Today . . . none of that matters. None of those permutations seem to have anything to do with me, as if somewhere, light years behind me, each of those people still has some sort of existence separate from me.

I started shredding my past yesterday, and continued with the exercise today. Things that once were important no longer seem to have any meaning at all. I have a hunch it’s because whoever I was in that past is gone. I am changed beyond anything that erstwhile “I” would recognize.

This disconnect with the past began when my life mate/soul mate died. (He was only 63. Seems so very young!) And somehow taking my dysfunctional brother back to Colorado finished the disconnect. For the past four years I’ve felt as if somehow I was born anew. Back then, I was born into the world of grief, but now? Maybe I’m becoming who I was always meant to be. Whatever that is.

I will keep a lot of stuff, of course. Someday I will have to settle down, and it will be good to have essentials such as pots and pans and towels, perhaps even some fripperies to remind me of my past. Or not. Without a special someone to love, without something to hang on to, I might just be blowing in the wind.

For whatever reason, it feels good to be getting rid of things. Very cleansing. Periodically, I consider getting rid of everything I own, and maybe someday I will do so. But not today.

***

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 being me, life. Tags: cleaning up the past, clearing out stuff, disconnecting from the past, living for today. 4 Comments »

Shredding the Past

August 24, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Four years and three months ago (a mere fifty-five days after his death), I cleaned out my life mate/soul mate’s “effects.” It was truly the worst day of my life.

You would think the worst day would have been the day Jeff died, but that was a sadly inevitable day, one I actually had looked forward to. He’d been sick for so long and in such pain, I was glad he finally let go and drifted away. But the Thursday I spent cleaning out his stuff broke my heart. I cried the entire day, twenty-four sleepless hours. I have never felt such soul-wrenching agony. I didn’t want to block out the pain — didn’t want to risk becoming hardened and unable to feel — but I sure as hell don’t want to ever go through anything like that again. (The only good thing about living the worst day of your life is that every day afterward, no matter how bad, will be better than that day.)

I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of all of his things on that fateful day, so I’ve kept several cartons in storage. I knew I’d have to sort through those boxes someday, but I hoped it would come at a time when it wouldn’t hurt.

Well, today was one of those somedays. And it didn’t hurt.

A couple of weeks ago, when I had to make a copy of his death certificate so I could finally get his name removed from our joint account, it struck me that I shouldn’t even have the certificate. It belongs to him, and he no longer belongs to me. (Not that he ever did belong to me, but we were connected in a very profound way that neither of us ever understood.) All these years of grief and all the effort to regain a new interest in living and trying create a new life for myself has severed the feeling of connection.

It seems strange now to remember that I was once so connected to another human being that his death shattered me. It seems strange to think of how I screamed my agony to the uncaring winds, how I spent hours every day in the desert walking off my sorrow. How I wept so uncontrollably for hours, days, weeks.

Now, whoever he his, whatever he is, wherever he is, he is his own being. He lent himself to me for more than three decades, for which I am eternally grateful, but life and time have separated us. (Odd that I wrote that “life and time have separated us” rather than that “death and time have separated us.” Just another example of how much I’ve changed during the past four years and five months.)

Today I sorted through some of the stored boxes, and disposed of much of the contents. Files of our old bills (well, they weren’t old at the time I saved them, though they are old today). Our joint bank statements. Notes he’d made. Magazines he’d started to read. Lists of books he’d read or wanted to read.

Our life. His life.

The past. Ripped to shreds.

I threw away a lot of other things such as boxes of music he’d taped from the radio and our old rotary phone.

I have many more boxes to go through — his, mine, and ours — but I stopped when both the trash bin and the recycle bin were full. And not a teardrop in sight.

It’s still possible the sorrow will hit me a bit later, but if so, it will only be for a minute or two. My current life with my aged father and my recent dealings with my dysfunctional brother have been so traumatic that I can barely remember the life I shared with Jeff. (I keep his picture to prove to myself that I once loved, once was loved.)

None of us know where the future will take us, but in my case, I won’t be dragging the past along. Or at least not as much of it.

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Posted in grief, life, relationships. Tags: cleaning up the past, death certificate, death of a soul mate, disposing of loved one's effects, dragging the past into the future, soul connection. 4 Comments »

Letting It Be

December 11, 2010 — Pat Bertram

My previous post chronicled my thought processes as I watched the video “Let It Be” that is making the rounds. As I said in that bloggery, At first I thought that perhaps this was the answer to my confusion over the death of my mate of thirty-four years. Just go on with my life and let it be. Forget my grief. Forget the pain of losing him. Forget trying to make sense of it all. Just . . . let it be.

When I first wrote that a few days ago, something in me let loose, and though I claimed I did not want to let it be (whatever it is) I haven’t been the same since. At least not exactly the same. I still had my usual Saturday upsurge of grief (preceded by a late night — I don’t seem to be able to go to sleep until after 1:40 am on Friday night, the time of his death) but I felt sad rather than soul-broken. I’ve even had a few moments when I could actually feel glimmers of life.

I can’t forget my grief or the pain of losing him, though both are slowly diminishing. And I can’t stop trying to make sense of my life. That’s who I am and always will be — a truth seeker. But I can let go of trying to make sense of his life.

It has haunted me all these months — the dual vision of the young radiant man he was when we met and the skin-covered skeleton he’d become. Were all those years of illness worth living? He was often in pain and wanted to be done with life, yet he kept striving to live until the very end. I remember those last years, months, days, and I still cry for him and his doomed efforts. But he doesn’t need those tears. His ordeal only lives in my memory. And that is what I am letting be. It is not for me to make sense of his life or his death. It is not for me to keep suffering for him now that he is gone.

A fortune cookie I read the other day said, “Cleaning up the past will always clear up the future.” Much of my grief has been about cleaning up the past — coming to terms with small every day betrayals, with dreams that never came true, with leftover worries. I have cleaned up the past, gradually worked through those conundrums. What is left is the habit of dwelling on the past, and that I can let be. It does neither of us any good.

Will it clear up the future for me? Perhaps. At the very least, it will help me face the future. Whatever that might be.