I'm falling asleep so I'd better post now

We got together in March 1979. I was 19 - he was 34. I was a student in one of his classes (in the 70s this was not considered inappropriate, dear reader, if you are under 30)
I say got together rather than started going out, as for the first three months, we didn't - not wanting to be seen in public while I was still in his class. I think that's one of the reasons we became so close: we had a lot of time to talk and 'bond' in our own little world at the start of our relationship without any other influences. And neither of us could quite believe what was happening - it seemed sort of magical, when on the surface we should have had little in common - he was a highly educated, sophisticated man who had travelled widely, had Socialist leanings, loved the outdoors, while I was a sheltered Catholic virgin who had never even been out of my own state, had been brought up in a very conservative family and wouldn't have cared if I never went outside again.
Anyway, the other day I suddenly thought of a weird and sad coincidence. The date we first made contact outside college, I asked him to come to a pub to listen to the folk group I played in, and then a friend of his called minutes later to ask him to the same pub - was the 23rd March. He died on March 30 2006. How strange it would have been if we'd realised on that magical night that he had exactly 27 years and 1 week to live.
Morbid, huh?

Roxanne ...

I've been trying for ages to describe what this sound of anguish inside my head sounds like (see my earlier post entitled 'The banshee's lonely croon'). It happens mostly when I think of Glenn, and remember past times vividly, almost as if he were still here, and then come back to the horrible reality. It's not a scream, or a howl ...
Anyway, the other day I bought the CD of Moulin Rouge. I've taught this film for a number of years - you know, the Baz Luhrmann film with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor? At the end of the Roxanne Tango, Christian, the Argentinian, and the Duke all .. whatever this sound is. Wail, howl, whatever. It goes on and on in a sort of downward cascade.
That's it. That's it ...

I told you so ...

Glenn's all-time favourite epitaph, which may be apocryphal, but appeared in one of those books on famous words carved on tombstones, was I told you I was sick. I thought of that tonight when I read this site, the link for which comes from www.widowsquest.com by Anna Farmery. It's an article about the high mortality rate among widows and widowers following the death of (particularly a long-term) spouse.
The link is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6583681.stm
If only I could be sure it was true in my case ...

If you could hear me now ...

If you could hear me now
Singing somewhere to the lonely night
Dreaming of the arms that held me tight,
If you could only see me now.

But I've been too long in the wind,
Too long in the rain,
Taking any comfort that I can
Looking back
And longing for the freedom of my chains,
Lying in your loving arms again.
("Loving Arms" by Tom Jans)

Heathcliff and me - two demented people

I think it would be easier to go on if I had any sense of Glenn being still around - you know how you'll hear people say that, that they feel the departed are still with them in some way. I haven't felt that for even a second of the past year. I said to Dr K this week that I'd like nothing better than to have Glenn return in any form - he pointed out that people's experiences of that weren't always very pleasant, but I said I wouldn't care. And I wouldn't care. I couldn't be afraid of him, in any manifestation. I don't even want to surrender his ashes, because it's him.

What's love got to do with it?

How can you love someone who is beyond any need for human love? If love is a decision to put another's welfare, if not first, then at least as a priority, to always want the best for them, etc etc - then how do you do that for someone who no longer has needs, who already has the best? So in other words, when you say you love someone who's dead, are you actually saying you love their memory, or that you loved them while they were alive? I suppose the emotional component of love can survive the other's death...

Random Email #3 - to S.K.

Karen, the psychologist, said something which I thought very insightful. She observed from things I'd said that Glenn allowed me to be more myself than I could be with most people, including (especially) my own family, that he loved aspects of me that had been disapproved of or discouraged in my upbringing - I related to him in a very different way from anyone else - not only in the obvious ways. Things like my natural tendency to be emotional, intense, passionate, whatever you want to call it, Glenn thought were admirable, exciting - but in the minds of most people, I'm either not like that, or I shouldn't be. And now he's gone, that part of me has gone with him - it's not part of the good little girl persona I'm stuck with, that I developed as a child to get approval. I had never looked at it that way - I guess I just took it for granted. It seems to me that you are the same with everybody, which is both admirable and well-adjusted. This theory explains why I feel as if I died when he did, even though I'm still walking around

All that Remains

What, I wondered in the shower tonight, do I have left of us? I have his name, our rings, and our three sons - three quite remarkable boys, according to more reliable sources than their mother. I have all our letters to each other, and the gold bracelet he gave me for our 20th anniversary. By the following anniversary, our marriage was over.
And I have the gift he & the boys gave me on Valentine's Day, six weeks before he died, two years and one month after our divorce. It was strange to receive it, as we didn't generally celebrate Valentine's Day. But that last one I received a tiny heart-shaped enamel box with two pink-jewelled flowers and an enamel butterfly on its lid - and a card which read, 'Still our Valentine'.

A ridiculous poem ...

By Anonymous
You can shed tears that he is gone
or you can smile because he has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that he'll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all he's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see him
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him and only that he's gone
or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what he'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

What complete and utter bullshit!

Random Email #2 - to S.

Written 4 months after G's death
I never expected that losing him would feel like this. Actually I never expected anything, as I hadn’t thought about how I would feel, having focussed on the boys all along. But if I had thought about it I doubt I would have come up with this.
Having lost R, I imagine you have a pretty good idea what I mean, but I am aware that some (including myself) might have assumed that because Glenn and I were divorced for the last 2 years of our relationship, his death would somehow be easier to bear. Apparently not. One of his friends up here put it quite well when she said, ‘Oh, it was always you and Glenn – the divorce was just another phase of the relationship you went through together!’
I just can’t believe I will never see him again. It doesn’t seem possible. I think of all the years when I took it for granted that he was just right there, and what wouldn’t I give now just to touch him one more time. How I wish I had gone back to the hospital the night before he died – but then, I’d seen him at lunchtime, and what would I have done differently? I have turned into one of those clichéd women who allow the same man to break their heart twice. And the second time is worse, because it includes all the pain of the first as well.
I kind of expected I would ‘hear’ from him in some way – but I don’t know what I’m looking for. There have been a few instances when songs have played on the radio or subjects have suddenly come up where I wondered … but it could all be wishful thinking. For instance this morning the CD player in the boys’ room came on by itself and got stuck on Track 29 of one of Glenn’s CDs (When a Man loves a Woman). And this morning while I was reading your email, the radio started playing ‘Tammy’, of all songs in the world – which is funny as the first assignment I did for Glenn included a recording made in a shopping centre, and Tammy was on the sound system in the background, and he made a sarcastic remark along the lines of ‘Only in Townsville would you get ‘Tammy’ playing in the shopping centre!’ to the class. Whereas secretly, I always loved that song but didn’t want to admit it.
Life goes on, and the boys in particular seem to be very good at going forward and not looking back too much – Thank God. I wish I could figure out how to do that. On the face of things I probably look as if things are pretty much normal. But inside sometimes – often – I feel like howling at the moon and yelling, Don’t you all realise what has happened here?! How can life just be going on without him in it?!
Fortunately, so far I have resisted the urge.

Random Email #1 - to W.

Glenn had been dead 4 months
You said you hadn't come to terms with Glenn's being gone. I think it is harder to realise it when you're not in daily or weekly contact. I know when my grandfather died it took me ages to believe it, because I was living so far away and saw him rarely, but when Grandma died, I kind of accepted it immediately because she was living here and I saw her all the time.

Despite that neat theory, however, I find I am further than ever from accepting Glenn's death myself. I just didn't realise it would be this hard. I just didn't realise a lot of things. He is just - so gone - I find myself having crazy conversations in my head where I try to figure out how I can somehow get him back to me. My psychiatrist assures me this is not crazy (and he does know crazy), just the bargaining stage of grief, but it seems pretty screwy to me. I feel like one of those butterflies on a pin - I keep squirming around trying to get out of this nightmare somehow, but there isn't any getting out of it.

He broke my heart when we divorced, but this is much, much worse - and seems to have tangled up both, the divorce and the death together. I feel like such a fool, because I really thought I was over him in the two years since the divorce - that what I felt was sort of a residual fondness for the sake of everything we'd shared before. But as it turns out, that was a comforting illusion. And what haunts me now is, I wish I had realised before he died that I was still in love with him – even the day before, if I could have told him, that last time – but I really didn’t realise it until the moment when I turned to follow his coffin out of the church, and it felt as if they were carrying my whole life away from me. It was all I could do to restrain myself from turning into another cliché and throwing myself on top of it. Yet I had seen him lying still and quiet in that coffin the day before and I knew perfectly well that what was in there wasn’t Glenn any longer. But it was all I had left. If only I could have told him I loved him – or if I could just believe he knew it, but I know he can’t have, because even under the best of conditions he had trouble believing I loved him – that anyone loved him, I think. God, I would give anything to have him back, even for an hour – what you said about his voice being quiet now really hit me, because there are so many things I miss, things I’d come to take for granted – if I could hear that husky voice again, look into his eyes, feel his arms around me just once more, I think I would give anything – you know that line from Me and Bobby McGee: I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday …

I’ve been re-reading all our old letters to each other – most were written in 1980 when we were apart, the year we got engaged – and all it’s done is reminded me how great it used to be between us, and also, how much he loved me once. That comes through really clearly to me now – right from the very beginning, while I was still skittish and teenage and neurotic and unpredictable, he was always steadfast in his feelings for me. I wish I could have remembered that and been more patient with him when he became irrational and difficult and acted as if I were the worst in the world. I should have known he didn’t really mean it. I wish I knew what his feelings were towards me these past few years. All the things he did for me – paying to have my house airconditioned, washing my car, buying me lovely gifts from the boys – lots of little and big things, which others have pointed out were not usual behaviour for an ex-husband, but I assumed he was just being decent and kind, because he was like that. Now I don’t know. And will never know.

I know traditionally the children are meant to be a ‘comfort’ but I’m afraid that isn’t true. I love them for themselves of course, but having them makes no difference to how I feel about Glenn being gone. I just want him back. In fact every time I look at them, I feel like howling: How could you leave me? How can I do this alone?

You see, I have become a Mills and Boon romantic cliché. This is what I’m reduced to!

The banshee's lonely croon

'Rumours ran along the valley like the banshee's lonely croon ... ' (The Rising of the Moon)

A "banshee" from the Gaelic "bean si" means "old woman." In Irish mythology, the banshee is a spirit, thought to take the form of an old woman, who would foretell death by mournfully singing or wailing outside a person's house.

I have a banshee in my head. I hear her wailing at all sorts of hours and in all manner of places. I'm carrying on a conversation with somebody, or standing in a queue somewhere, and all the while I can hear this howling and wailing. What sets her off isn't easy to predict, but naturally it's always something to do with Glenn. I read one of his letters, or I drive past the road to our old house, or think of something we did together, or remember the way he called me 'sweetheart', or remember the way his skin felt under my hands - and suddenly, there she is again.

I know that when people hear voices in their heads it usually means they need locking up. Of course, those voices usually seem to tell them things. Apparently auditory hallucinations are considered much more sinister than the visual variety - presumably because most of us at some time have sworn we saw something that we couldn't have seen. But I've never heard of anyone else hearing a banshee. They're supposed to herald a death, not remind one of it, I believe.

At least, I think it's a banshee. It's the only explanation that makes sense. I wish I could download it to an MP3 file and broadcast it, let everyone hear what it's like in there, when all the time I'm walking around, going on with my tedious life, letting the world think I'm getting on with it, moving forward, letting time heal all wounds, believing everything happens for a reason ... let them hear the shrieks and howls of denial and loss and fury and betrayal.

Maybe none of this would have happened if only I'd remembered to close the curtains before lighting the lamps. Everyone knows that you have to do that if you want to keep the banshee away from your home.

Via Dolorosa

In the weeks leading up to Glenn's anniversary, things became even harder, though that had seemed impossible. Somebody told me that the time immediately before the first anniversary was usually very difficult. It sure was.
Apparently there is still a street in Jerusalem called the Via Dolorosa (way of sorrow), and it's traditionally the route taken by Jesus Christ on the way to His crucifixion. Or maybe it's called something else by the Jews and Arabs now. But every year on Good Friday the faithful walk this road as a sign of devotion to, and I guess solidarity with, Christ in His suffering. In Catholic and Anglican tradition the journey is commemorated and participated in as the Stations of the Cross, a ceremony which involves walking around the church stopping at each of - is it 12 or 14? - paintings or engravings on the walls and meditating on each step.
Sounds kind of blasphemous, but that's kind of how I felt. Like I was walking the Via Dolorosa to an inevitable, horrible ending. Last year at least, until the day Glenn died I didn't really know what was going to happen - or at least, when or how it was going to happen. Now, of course, I know and remember every little detail of that day and the days following. And a little like rewatching a sad movie and desperately hoping it will end differently, I kept going over scenarios in my head as if in some crazy way I could prevent it in retrospect.
When the day came last Friday, hardly anyone except me remembered - or if they did, they didn't say. I was angry and relieved at the same time. Expressions of conventional sympathy, though well-meant, are often worse than useless, I've found. And very often they're not really about making the bereaved feel better, but about making the person who's uttering them feel good or allaying their feelings of inadequacy or embarrassment in the face of death.
Time heals all wounds.
Your children must be a comfort to you.
God never sends us more than we can handle.
Everything happens for a reason.
Bullshit - crap - rubbish - drivel. Wrong, wrong, WRONG!!
If you're reading this, it's probably because you too have lost your husband. Do these platitudes help anybody? Of course when they are offered I usually smile weakly and agree. What else is there to do, after all?

If you leave me, can I come too - and other impossible requests.

In ‘A Grief Observed’, C.S. Lewis starts by saying he didn’t know grief felt so much like fear. My experience is that it feels like a range of things. One of its manifestations feels like something very destructive – a daisy-cutter bomb, for instance – tearing you apart inside, and all you want to do is howl in anguish. But of course you just have to keep going on, and on … you may have fantasies of what would happen if you suddenly stood in the street and wailed at the top of your voice, but you don’t do it. Sometimes it hits so hard I almost stagger with the physicality of the pain.Ritorna me - come back to me – hoki mai ra – I’m sure every language includes that phrase. Lewis also said that it was the worst kind of selfishness to ask the dead to return. I’m guilty of it, then – just one day, one hour, ten minutes – come back, or take me with you – just don’t leave me here without you. In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff says to Cathy after she dies, ‘Do not leave me here in this abyss, where I cannot find you!’ The idea that the dead stay dead and gone is quite a recent one. As one of my colleagues, who happens to be an Anglican priest, said to me, ‘Requiescat in Pace (rest in peace) on a tombstone was not always just a pious hope – until recently it was more of an instruction to the recently departed.’Then why can I not find him? Can it really be that all I am to have of him, forever, of my only love, is the box of ashes still sitting on the top shelf of my closet? He was the least peaceful of men – he didn’t even sleep peacefully – how can he now be somewhere resting eternally? Does he see me now? If one believes in Heaven – and I do – then he is supposed to be happy for eternity. Could he see me here, see how my heart is broken, and be eternally happy just the same?
Labels: grief, loss of loved one, widow
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by Sempre
3/19/07
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