Grief: A Rambling Post For Father's Day

My understanding of the world of grief keeps expanding.  I kinda wish it wouldn't.  When I wrote about Mother's Day I was thinking about mothers whose children had died.  I wrote about the possibility of staying firmly in the good memory parts and how difficult or easy that might be.

Someone wrote a comment.  My post for Father's Day has to change.  Father's Day is like so many holidays.  They are everywhere.  You can't avoid them.  If they are a trigger for sadness or anger you either duck and run or deny or cry or rant or maybe all of that. 

My daughter's best friend died at the age of 36 in June 2012.  This is his father's first Father's Day without him. My daughter asked me what should say.  Something.  Say something. His Dad is going to be thinking about him. Honor that.  So many fathers crying for their dead children.  Hopefully they know it's okay to cry.

What I realized is that Father's Day is also a difficult day for many mothers.  How do you get through Father's Day if your husband has died and you have to explain to your children why their Daddy isn't coming home?  You have to deal with your own grief and your children's as well.  You have to find the energy to creatively comfort them while finding some comfort for yourself.  Come to us, comfortless comfort.

Father's Day can be a difficult day for little children who don't entirely understand about death.  It can be a difficult day for grown up children.  I saw a post on Facebook. Someone wished their father in heaven a Happy Father's Day and said she will always be Daddy's little girl.  Little sons and daughters need a father's love and advice but so do big sons and daughters.

Now I'm starting to feel like Mrs. Doom and Gloom. Honestly, I'm tired.  I just came home and I can't get used to coming home when Artie isn't here. My train was late and I had a big wave of self pity hit when I heard people around me calling their special folks to say they would be late.  How many times did I have the privilege - without knowing it was a privilege - to make that phone call to Artie. I'm feeling a bit out of sorts but didn't want to fail to acknowledge the date coming up tomorrow.

It doesn't mean we can't be happy.  It doesn't mean we can't throw steaks on the grill and have a picnic or see a movie.  It doesn't mean we can't tell stories.  I keep writing about these things because I want people to be aware.  Before you say, "Happy Father's Day", think about who you are talking to.  If you know someone who is struggling, don't back away.  Talk about the person that has died.  Offer to take a kid out somewhere to do guy things. 

I think I'm feeling grouchy today.  I want my words to smooth out and they won't.  Artie used to call it the rumbling under the volcano.  Death sucks.  That's the bottom line.

Remember that whether father, child, widow, they all remember.  You don't help by being silent.  Dead or alive Father's Day is a time to celebrate what the true meaning of fatherhood is.  Layers.  Holding it all.  Allowing other's to hold it all.

So...in this awkward post I'm myself again.  May you find the way to put the loneliness in the forgetting place and all the joyful and funny memories in the remembering place.  Fathers and daughters, fathers and sons.  If you were lucky enough to have that be a beautiful relationship for you treasure that.  Maybe I'm struggling because I didn't have a loving father. Maybe I'm struggling because it's my nature to struggle - and laugh at myself for still struggling.

Ramble ramble ramble.

 I hope on Father's Day something makes you smile, even if it's my own inadequate self.   xo

Grief: What Part Of Me Doesn't Know You're Dead?

The other night I had a dream.  Someone called and told me that you (my dead husband) were in California.  You were sick and wanted me to see you again and take care of you.  They didn't know where you were.  I searched and searched.  I called everyone I knew who knew you.  I hired a private detective.  I was so glad you wanted me to be with you again but I couldn't get to you, even though you needed me.  Finally, frustrated and a desperate kind of sad I woke up. 

It's been almost four years.  I know you are dead.  I know you left me because your body was too sick to stay, not because you wanted to.  I know how to change the course of my dreams, how to influence their content.  None of that matters.  I often dream a version of that dream.  I dream that I am looking for you and I can't find you.  One morning it was nice.  There was a pillow leaning against my back and for a minute I thought it was you.  Most of the time, though, I'm not dreaming that we are having good times together.  I am dreaming this fruitless impossible search.

We lived together in a house in Carmel, CA.  After Artie died I packed up and put the house on the market.  I always loved NYC and we fought about where we should live - because Artie loved Carmel.  I came to live in an apartment I already had in NYC.  One he never visited because as much as he loved NYC he was afraid to travel once he found out he had a wonky heart.  A man with only half of one artery open in his heart who died of cancer.  How ironic is that?  I packed up and moved fairly quickly.  The house was too empty and too painful without Artie in it.  I went back before it sold because I hadn't said goodbye properly.  I did a funny thing before I left for the last time.  I looked for him.  I knew he wasn't there.  I knew he was dead.  I looked in all the closets.  I even looked places he couldn't fit, like the cupboards under the sink.  I wanted to make sure.  I didn't want to leave him behind.  The last place I looked was in the mirror where he shaved every morning.  I wanted to see his face in the mirror.  In a phone call with a medium (Yes, I do that once a year on our anniversary which is my birthday.  My birthday present in 1996 was to get married.) he said to me, "The reason why you didn't see me in the mirror was that I was standing right behind you."

I know Artie is dead in my mind.  I remember those last weeks, those last moments, that last breath.  I remember the men from the Neptune Society (who cremate you) coming to my door.  I told them, "I know he's dead but he's my husband.  Please don't call him "the deceased" or "the remains".  He has a name.  Call him Artie."  Before they wheeled him out the door I said to him, "I'm sorry I'm not coming with you but that would be stupid because you're dead."  I can't remember what I did yesterday but I remember that last night and day in vivid detail.  I stood at the door and watched his body being driven away.  When he exhaled his last breath I watched him - I want to say fly - so I will - fly away. 

I know Artie is dead in my body.  I haven't been held in almost 4 years.  I haven't looked into his eyes in almost 4 years.  I feel as though, as comfortable as my new apartment is, I haven't relaxed physically in 4 years.  I miss his touch.  I miss his smile.  I miss his every thing.  I even miss our ridiculously terrible arguments. 

I know Artie is dead in my heart.  I keep him alive by remembering him but there are no new memories - only the old ones.  There is hope that he looks over me and holds me in whatever his new form is.  There is hope that one day we will be reunited...but my heart grieves because the form that I so loved is gone.  His face, his voice, his body are gone never to return.  All the pictures I have are of a dead man.  When I die those parts of me will be gone too.  But I'm still here on earth so I crave earthly things.  My heart knows that I am in love with a dead man.  It even questions if that is the right thing to do.  Should I be looking for a living man to share the rest of my days with?  What does loyalty and marriage mean when Artie is definitely dead. 

I don't know what part of me still thinks he's alive.  Awake, I feel like I have no denial.  I have the illusion or truth of communication with his spirit.  Awake, I know that communication with his spirit is not the same thing as communication with a living being.  I even sense when I think certain thoughts - that he might like a TV show or a t-shirt - that he says to me, "No body."   Still, in my sleeping state, I look for him everywhere.  Gore Vidal called them frustration dreams.  Dreams where you are pursuing the impossible with increasing levels of dis-ease.  Who am I without my husband?  I'm living more of my life in the alive side of grief and yet...

The fourth anniversary of Artie's death is July 17th.  Is the dark side of grief pulling me towards it, even now?

All this, no matter how I analyze it - remains a mystery.  I don't know, I only believe.  Is Artie's spirit reaching for me?  Does he miss being alive with me?  Does his spirit need me to take care of it?  Am I limited in my understanding of the way he takes care of me now?  Am I limited in my understanding of the way he needs me to take care of him now?  Can a spirit need to be taken care of?  Can a spirit be jealous? 

This is a post about questions - not answers.  If I had a secure faith there might be answers but for me there is uncertainty.   All I know is that Artie will never come home to me in the way I want him to.  I have to continue this life journey without my alive him.  I have to be brave when I am frightened.  I have to deal every day with the unthinkable.  My dead husband is very alive to me.  I can't bear it any other way.   Someone said, "My past is my future."  In my love life that might be true.  Sometimes that is okay, sometimes it is incredibly lonely.  Most of the time I can hold both.

That's the part I always try to end with (begin with?).  Now that I've written this all down - I can get up and get dressed and be present in my life today.  Ready.  Steady.  Go....                xo

Grief: What Is A Grief Warrior?

Grief can take you down.  Way down.  My husband was 20 years older than I was.  When I first met him, he lied about his age.  When he admitted his real age my first thought was sickness and death.  People would ask - how can you be in love with someone so much older than you are?  Then I would show them his picture and they would know.  He was handsome and charming and until the end didn't look his age.  I didn't wake up one morning and decide to fall in love with an older man.  I woke up one morning and this older man walked into my bookstore and we knew that one way or another we would be together forever. 

While he was living I imagined his death.  The age difference meant that he would probably die before me.  I thought I would be very sad but also that I would have a certain freedom to live the way I wanted to.  Then Artie got very sick.  For six weeks he was misdiagnosed with diverticulitis by a very bad doctor who didn't listen to me and some how missed the fact that Artie had stage 4 cancer that had spread throughout his body.  He was dead six weeks after he was examined by a good doctor. Unfortunately the misdiagnosis took away his chance to fight.

I never understood when people said they were surprised when someone who was dying actually died.  I do now.  No matter how sick someone is, no matter how long they have been sick, you don't expect them to die that minute, that day. Artie had two friends visiting him in addition to his caregiver.  His hospital bed was in the living room of our house. We enjoyed holding hands and listening to music.  (Artie was lucky to have a good death - if there is such a thing - at home.)  I went out and bought CDs.  Jazz musicians he loved.  New artists I though he might like.  The bag of CDs stayed unopened by the front door for many days.  When I went out I thought we had time.  I came home and he was spiraling down.  If I had known he was going to die that night I would never have left his side. I didn't know he was going to die that night. If I had know that I wouldn't have gone  He died in July, I had thought August. I was lucky though.  Artie and I got to create lovely memories while he was dying.  I didn't have the traumatic experience of having him walk out the door and never come back.

I used to say "we died" instead of "he died".  Part of me still feels that way. I did a funny thing - I put my clothes on backwards.  I would look and see where the tags were and still have to turn them around three or four times to get them right.  I lost interest in everything.  We had this rule, nobody leaves.  He didn't leave because he wanted to; his body was too sick to stay.  His last words to me were, "I love you."  My last words to him were, "I love you too."  I couldn't understand why he didn't come back and get me.

Now over almost four years later I wake up every morning and my first thought is, "Artie's dead."  Then I have to figure out how to live my life again without him.  One day at a time.  I can't explain why some people don't react this way.  I want to be as accepting of their process as I want them to be of mine.  Secretly, maybe unfairly, I think the depth of grief is a measure of the depth of love.  I didn't grieve for my parents.   They weren't nice people, to me or to each other.  I grieve for friends, but not the way I do for my husband.  He is my soul mate.  We called each other "raison d'etre" - French for reason for being.  He leaves a place in my life that even if I were to fall madly in love again (could I?  would I?) that will never be filled.  I know many people who are happily remarried and still miss the spouse that has died. If you have 10 children and one dies you miss that child.  If you buy a new puppy you miss the dog that you love that is dead. I took my wedding ring and his wedding ring (he never wore one in any of his other marriages and he had other marriages) off for a while but I put them back on.  I like wearing them. 

So many words without answering the question.  I call us grief warriors because we do battle every day.  Some days we win, some days not so much.  I have heard from people who 10 or 20 years after a death say that the battle continues.  The battle isn't so much with grief as it is with the dark side of grief.  There is a side of grief that mimics depression.  It makes you want to die.  It makes you want to never do anything ever again because it all seems pointless.  That is not the only side of grief.  There is another side which I call being alive with grief.  That is the side of grief that lets me know how lucky I am to have that kind of love in my life.  It is the side of grief that inspires me to live life fully because I live for two.  My husband loved life and he would hate me wasting mine.  It is the side of grief that inspires me to create meaning in my life in honor of my husband.  It is the side of grief that says laugh with me, dance with me, let me motivate you to be fully alive while you live.  

Sometimes being a grief warrior means taking a shower.  I still some times think, why should I take a shower?  Who cares if I do?  Artie used to have a note that said, "Take a shower."  As a recovering alcoholic he knew that taking a shower was a sign that he was taking care of himself.   My husband is dead.  I am alive.  I take a shower.  I put on earrings.  The why bother? question keeps coming back.  I need to have as weapons good answers for it.  You need to have your own answers.  Create them.  If you have one - find one more.  If you have ten, find ten more.

Since I started writing this blog I have learned that there are a lot of people who pretend to be fine.  Their grief is secret.  That is okay.  It can be exhausting trying to explain to others what you are feeling when even if they love you, maybe because they love you, they don't want to hear about it.  However because I keep talking about it people tell me things they don't tell anyone else.  I had a TSA agent stop me and tell me that her husband died 11 years ago and her grief never stops.  She had just gone to a wedding and it brought it all back.  Going through customs in London, the customs agent told my about her father dying.  A woman in a grocery store check out line (in my dear NYC where we aren't very chatty with strangers) told me her husband had died.  I told her everything she was feeling was normal.  This anecdotal evidence proves that there is a wide range of normalcy in grief.  It also proves that grief isn't about stages and recovery.  It is about riding a wild bull; accepting the dark while learning and using techniques that allow you to spend as much time as you can in the alive part. When you get thrown off yet again, you will be able to get up more quickly and stay on longer.

In a poetry workshop a woman wrote, "My mother always dies in March."  If you ignore the darker side of grief your body will tell you it's there.  You will lose things.  You will get sick.  You will find that you are exhausted.  Find someone to tell the truth to - even if it is the pages of a journal.  I have a friend I e-mail almost every day.  I can tell her I wish I was dead, that life is impossible without Artie and she understands.  I'm giving voice to the dark side.  Then I can go on and have happy moments.

That is where the showing up comes in.  Putting yourself over and over in places where life is.  Doing things that you have lost interest in - or trying new things.  Thinking about how many times you laughed today.  Looking around for something beautiful and sharing it with yourself.  Waiting, maybe, for the day you will be reunited with the people and animals you love - but making the best you can of the time you have left here on earth.

If you are reading this you are a grief warrior.  Every breath you take is being a grief warrior.  You build from there.  I'm breathing.  Now what.  I'm so sad.  What else?  I have a rule I'm only allowed to stay in my house one day in a row.  Sometimes I set the alarm for 10 minutes and turn over in bed and do nothing but miss my husband.  Sometimes I set the alarm for another 10 minutes.  Then I get up and try to do something that I feel would make Artie proud. I want to look back on my day and feel that I have done at least one good thing - no matter how simple.  Sometimes I don't make it.  Sometimes I do.  In some ways time going by makes it more difficult. Almost 4 years of missing my darling husband.  When I was in England I saw the gravestone of the Queeen Mother.  She waited 50 years to be reunited with her husband.  She appeared to be full of life.  Like Betty White.  Like so many other people.  How do they do it?  I would say I don't know - but I do.

They do it by stringing together as many happy moments as they can.  They acknowledge those moments as well as the sad ones.  Usually they do something to help other people.   I saw on television a man who had been a child during the Cambodian genocide.  He plays the flute.  He said -
"It hurts.  I can't ever bring back my little sister and brother."  Then he talked about how there is a whole generation of Cambodians missing.  He uses his music to feel better himself, but he also teaches others.  He teaches them to create beautiful music, but he also teaches them to be teachers.  He is alive with grief. 

Don't compare yourself with others.  Don't make the mistake of thinking big things are more important than small things.

That is what I wish for you, and for me.  I wish that the darker moments of grief take up less space in your day.  I wish that the inspiring parts of grief allow you live your life in ways that feel increasingly full (without guilt).  If you had a happy moment today - notice it.  Water it.  Nurture it.  If you didn't - look for one tomorrow.  Sometimes happy moments are all around us but grief becomes a blindfold and we can't see them.  If we see them we can't feel them.  Let happy moments fill you up the way the sadness does.  There is room for both.  What you are is enough.  What you do is enough.  My granddaughter hurt her leg going down a slide and she stopped walking for a while.  She was scared to put her foot down. Even when it didn't hurt as much as it did the very idea of having her foot on the ground set her shrieking.  A horrible wounded sound.  Then she tried it.  Then she held someone's hand and took a step.  Now she's walking again.  Being a grief warrior is like that.  Shrieking may be part of it - but so is learning to walk again.  Learning to skip and jump and run.  With love.  xo

Grief: Memorial Day

There was a time when Memorial Day was about picnics and family get togethers. Memorial Day was first enacted in memory of the soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.  Later it was expanded to commemorate the soldiers who fought in all wars. I have been on battlefields and cried.  I am grateful for those who gave and still give their lives that we might live.  I never forget they make my sunshine freedom day possible.

Without taking away the special status of those who fight in battle, for me every day is Memorial Day.  Every day is for remembering and honoring and cherishing.

When Artie died I had a plaque put on a bench in Central Park.  When Erin's best friend Jon died I had a plaque put on a bench in Central Park.  When I walk through the park I stop and read the plaques.  I think about the people they represent.  I know that Jon's family gathers at his bench.  I know that I am comforted by the plaque on Artie's bench.  I want people to remember.

I talk about Artie all the time.  People that have never met him feel that they know him.  He had things to share and teach and I don't want that to stop.  I used to say he was the most alive dead person I know.  It's not true.  I know too many people who laugh, love, cry, and joke with their dead.  Sometimes a memory can seem more real than the present.  Sometimes the present is infused with a memory.  That is love.

It doesn't mean that the picnics should stop.  It doesn't mean that families shouldn't get together.  It does mean that in the midst of the good food and the fun we should take time to remember, not only our own dead but those many others.  I have read that the dead are called the great majority.  There are a lot of people who have gone before us to show us the way.

When I was in England I passed monuments, plaques, and books that listed names.  The names are mostly of the men who died in WWI and WWII.  It is England, though.  There was a book at Windsor in St. George's Chapel that lists the names of gallant knights.  The tour guide talks but I stop and read the names.  I try to read them not with my mind but with my heart.  I stop in church graveyards and take pictures.  I am cheered by the stones that are chiseled, "Reunited."

I went to the car park (parking lot) where the bones of the English King Richard III who was killed at Bosworth Field in 1485 were recently found.  I was excited to be at this place I had heard about.  I went back later to acknowledge that this archaeological hole in the ground covered by a tent that you could not approach was in fact sacred ground.  A man's bones had lain here for over 600 years.  Was he of his times?  Was he good or evil?  No matter.  He was a King killed in battle and even this many centuries later his descendants are in High Court defending his right to be reburied in York where they think he would have wanted to be buried.  (He was discovered in Leicester and Leicester wants him buried there.)

There are too many graves.  There are too many ashes.  It is, of course. quite the natural process.  We live and then we die.  Our brains know that.  However, our eyes weep and our hearts break.

People keep telling me how happy I look.  I am happy.  I am happy about many things.  I am also happy that I am sad.  I am happy that I remember.  I am happy that Memorial Day has a depth of meaning for me it never had before.  My own sorrow gives me greater empathy for the sorrow of others.  My own sorrow gives my greater compassion for the families of those who send their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers to war - not knowing whether they will have the earthly reunion they hope for.

We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain? — Wilfred Wilson Gibson, Lament

Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;
Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth… — Thomas Moore, How Oft Has the Banshee Cried

Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?— Henry Ward Beecher

May this Memorial Day have room for both tears and laughter.  May your dead speak to you with words of inspiration and encouragement so that you can find your own heroism no matter how small or how large your battle.  I promise my husband and every man and woman that for me remembrance is holy.  Healing, moving on do not mean I forget you.  

Memorial Day is a day of gratitude, sorrow, joy and hopefully...even peace.  xo 

Grief: Why Is It So Hard To Understand How I Feel?

I didn't realize the post about other people being unable to understand our grief would be a series.  I thought I had it handled.  Like many aspects of grieving all you have to do is think you have it handled for it to come back over and over again.

I talk about it.  I write about it.  I am surprised when people who are close to me don't understand that grieving doesn't stop.  They don't understand that it is always one of the layers of who I am.  Hello.  I'm writing it again.  My daughter (who is 38) did a very good job of supporting me when my husband died.  Then, most sadly, her best friend was killed by cancer.  Now she understands.  She knows that no one will ever replace him.  She knows that things will happen in her life that she will want to share with him and she is heartbroken that she can't.  She looks at her daughter and thinks of how she wanted - and he wanted - to be there as little Gwendy learned everything new thing.  Gwendy will only know him through stories and pictures.

I didn't start with this in mind - is it possible if you haven't experienced death that matters yourself you cannot understand?  I hope not.

I wrote in a previous post about my good friend who I sat down and asked to stop saying "We create our own reality."  and "Everything is all right,"  because in my life that makes me sad.  I didn't create my own reality.  If my husband could create his own reality he would have beat cancer rather than die from it.  With Artie dead nothing is ALL right.  It can be partly right but never ALL right.  I felt good that she respected what I said and changed her behavior.

Then, one friend went home and I was joined on this lovely in many ways trip, by another.  We were sitting in a restaurant having a delightfully sinful dinner of hot chocolate and pastry.  It had been a long day of touring and I was tired.  If I wasn't I might not have jumped at her quite so strongly.  This lovely older man sat down at a piano and began to play.  The first song he played was As Time Goes By.

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is still (just) a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

And when two lovers woo
They still say: I love you
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by

Moonlight and love songs - never out of date
Hearts full of passion - jealousy and hate
Woman needs man - and man must have his mate
That no one can deny

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Artie used to hold me in his arms, sing that song in my ear and we would dance.  He was very rhythmical and I am clunky.  We called in thug dancing.  I shared this with my friend.  I was surrounded by memory. In my head I was struggling. I tried with all my skills to roll my memories back and make myself feel as loved and happy as I had in those moments.  The memory kept coming back to the pain of the present moment.  Never again will I dance with Artie.  Never again will he sing to me (and listen to my off key singing).  It is over.  Done.  Time has gone by and my husband is dead.  "Go back into the happy column!" I silently ordered the memory as the music played.  Out it popped again into the painful column.

At that point my friend said, "I'm so glad that all your memories of Artie are good ones."  What?  How did she get there?  She said, "Because you cherish him."  I was astonished.  I asked her, "Do you read my blog."  "Yes."  But still...she doesn't understand.  I apologized after because I didn't let her off the hook.  I told her the following. 

I make a point of saying over and over that I want to remember my husband as he really was - not as some fictional idealized creation.  I remember the beautiful moments.  I also remember the screaming, the lack of understanding.  I remember turning away from him when I should have turn towards him.  I remember when he did the same to me.  My first thought when I found out he had cancer was, "Wow.  We really messed that up."  We did have a perfect love but we had an incredibly imperfect marriage.  I cherish him.  I regret all the moments we threw away because we were both damaged people and were too often very bad at expressing our love.  All my memories aren't good ones.  The beauty of our love  -  what I cherish about it - is the fact that in spite of anger, disappointment etc... it is steadfast.  Even death can't touch it.  We made a promise, "Nobody leaves.".   Forgetting the bad memories would dishonor that commitment.  It would dishonor the miracle of someone loving you not at your best - but at your worst.

The second part is that if you are truthful you might not have all good memories of whoever has died.  The reason is that some times the good memories hurt.  The good memories accentuate the loneliness, the waiting, even the despair.  I have talked about techniques to get those memories into the happy feeling place they belong but it isn't always automatic.  Now, almost four years later when I think of living Artie often and many memories make me smile - I still at times - like listening to that song get hit by flying pain arrows.  

When we left the restaurant I thanked the gentleman for being so delightful.  I said, "You played a song my husband used to sing to me when he was alive."  The gentleman was quite happy to receive a compliment and asked me what song it was.  I said, "As Time Goes By".  I left the restaurant to that song.  I live my life to that song.  Sometimes it's a good thing.  Sometimes it's a terrifically lonely thing.

Then my friend - who I hope if she reads this knows I love her (and if you think it's you it could as well be someone else) saw my new apartment for the first time.  I am grateful for my new apartment.  It is a beautiful and cosy space.  She said, "I'm so glad things are better for you."  My poor friend.  I said, "My husband is still dead.  Nothing is ever better."  I don't even mean that in a bad way.   

All I want is for people to understand that I am now layered.  In one of those layers always lies pain, loneliness, sorrow and sometimes anger.  It's not my only layer.  I have many layers.  I have many happy moments.  I especially adore my granddaughter.  I arrange my life to have happy moments.  I do more now than when Artie first died.  I have accomplishments I am proud of.  That is why I call it Alive With Grief.  I have taken many of my resistant parts that want to stay dead and be with my husband and taught them how to appreciate and find joy in the present.  Should I have faulted my two friends for making the mistake of having a good time with me, seeing me laugh with genuine feeling, and then thinking that I am better or things are all right?  My truth is I never, even for one moment, forget that my husband died and without his being here in his physical body I am forever wounded.  Even if I remarry I will be wounded.  If I forget for a while with my conscious mind, my unconscious mind and my body remember.  

Being so deeply wounded is because I was given the gift of loving deeply.  Our tour guide - a wonderful woman said, "Queen Victoria made mourning into an art."  I thought, but didn't say, "That's because when the tour is over you will go home to your husband.  If he dies - then you will understand."

So...a short post turned into a long post.  I will keep speaking out.  It's my job.  I want to be understood.  I also want my close friends to remain close friends and if you don't understand this basic part of me you don't know me.  I want to be known so much I am known by strangers.  Often, it is the strangers who understand.  I want my friends to understand too.  

I honor the struggle each of you go through every day.  I honor and acknowledge the pain and the loneliness and the stumbling.  I also honor - and hope for life to be there as well.  We are like flowers that push their way through rough ground.  Purple flowers I saw growing through ancient stone castle walls.  A bright yellow dandelion growing in the small space in between sidewalk paving stones.  A brilliant pink flower emerging from a prickly cactus.  Those are our moments of happiness.   I know how hard the ground can be - may the amount of flowers it produces ever increase and surprise you.  May, in flowering, you have those many moments of happiness that your beloved dead would want for you.  xo 

Grief: A Heartfelt Thank You To Rosie O'Donnell Who Tweeted About This Blog and Those Who Retweeted - How Did This Happen To Me?

I think that is the longest title ever.  I am in London and when I saw my blog statistics I wondered what had gone wrong.  (The power of negative thinking.)  Someone was kind enough to let me know that Rosie O'Donnell had tweeted that griefspeaksout.com is a wonderful blog on grief.  My daughter was more impressed when Cyndi Lauper retweeted.  I am still surprised and humbled that my words can bring some measure of comfort to people at a time when comfort seems impossible. I am grateful that more people are being reached and I want to say again that any post can be used with or without attribution.

I want to tell you how this rather surreal thing happened.

I often talk about showing up.  When Artie first died I wasn't interested in anything but I made myself go places.  I waited for life to seep back in, and wondered if it would.  For example I used to love theatre.  I went.  I slept.  One night Carrie Fisher kept me awake. She made me laugh.  It was a beginning. I could give many examples.  I still at times have to force myself to show up.  One of things I did was get involved with Rosie's Theater Kids.  That organization supports children not just with dance, music, acting and other theater arts classes but academically and emotionally as well.  I have been consistently impressed with both the staff and the students.  I have never met Rosie O'Donnell in person. 

I often talk about discovering and creating meaning.  When Artie first died life didn't seem to have any meaning at all.  I seriously considered suicide for about three months.  I couldn't believe he wasn't going to come back to get me and thought as a loyal wife I should go to him.  I was wrong.  I didn't want to hurt my daughter, most of all, but also other friends and loved ones.  It seems I have work left to do.  My husband was a recovering alcoholic that failed at a lot of things but always helped other alcoholics and addicts.  I decided to honor him by being available to other grieving people.  I started writing this blog.  I thought it might reach one or two people and that they, like me, would have experienced the death of a spouse.  I am always touched at how many people it has reached. 

Grief has universal challenges.  I had been in therapy with a lovely woman when I was told that I had "morbid grieving".  Being sad and missing my husband after six months had been turned into a mental disorder.  Thus came my mission in life - to keep repeating that putting a time limit on grief is a big lie.  Grief doesn't have stages, it is a revolving door - a roller coaster.  Someone posted on FB that love and grief go together.  They do.  When a person or a pet dies you grieve for the rest of your life.  That is normal.  My goal is not to get over Artie's death (how could I? why would I want to?) - but to be ALIVE with grief not deadened by grief. 

I am shy about what feels like self promotion. I try to remember that telling people about this blog isn't about me - it's about the blog.  I have e-mailed Oprah and others and never received a response.  I realized that I knew people that were connected to Rosie.  I had to shake off my I'm not good enough, it's bad to ask for things self.  I was given a contact for her assistant.  I asked if Rosie would be willing to mention my blog.  I took an action.  I am so grateful that I did, and I am grateful that she responded.

Yesterday was a good day.  I am in what seems to me the very odd position of having famous people mention my writing.  I got a ticket to a play that was impossible to get.  My friend who I asked not to say "Everything is all right." and "We create our own reality." because those sentences remind of how impossible everything still seems without Artie here sent me a loving e-mail.  I was afraid she would be angry but she has accepted me for who I am. 

A good day.  My husband used to talk about not giving up failure without a fight.  Sometimes it is difficult to rest easy in a good day.  A day that aligns itself with life and gives you joy.  How can I call my husband and share the fact that people are reading what I write and that I have created meaning for myself when it is the very fact that he died that made this possible.  It is good that I have allowed his death to inspire me in this way.  It hurts my heart that he is not here physically and yet I feel that his spirit is proud of me.

I still have to say hello to the pain and the loneliness.  I still have days when hello isn't enough - when Artie's death whacks me on the head and in the heart and sends me to bed.  Maybe that's okay.  Maybe what I tell everyone else is true for me too.  Wherever I am - there I am - and it's okay.  If I don't like how I'm feeling and acting I can use all the techniques I have to build something else.  But...not before I pay respect to my feelings.  We are given a full rainbow of feelings.  We are depriving ourself of our humanity if we only want to have "happy" ones - especially if those happy ones are gained by lying to ourselves and others. 

This morning I met the historian Alison Weir who is leading a tour I am taking about Lancaster/York.  She gave me a big hug - remembering me from last year.  This is the dilemna we all face.  So many things to do, so many things to experience...and yet how long do we have to wait to be reunited with those we love - hoping that in fact we will be reunited.  If you see me, if you know me, you know that I am happy, sad, angry, lonely, loved all at the same time and that is what I want.

Magic doesn't happen just for me.  I'm not different than anyone reading this.  Magic is hard to find sometimes but you can find signs of it.  You don't have to give up anything - just add in a little possibility.  Add in a little giggle.  Sometimes it might be all right - some times it might suck.  You can learn how to hold both.  You can learn how to be alive with your grief.  xo

Grief: Taking My Grief to England

Yes.  My grief comes with me everywhere like a familiar companion. There are so many rituals of travelling that don't exist any more.  I used to call Artie when I arrived.  Then I used to talk to him once in the morning and always to say good night.  I knew he was waiting for me at home.  We liked spending time apart (which is hard not to regret now) because we liked missing each other.  When I came home he loved hearing all my stories.  He always left a welcome home love note on the door.  It was the first thing I saw.  Then I would call up the stairs to his man cave to say I was home and down he would come to hug me and kiss me. 

I'm having a good time.  I am.  But I'm sad. Everything I do is lessened by not being able to talk to Artie about it.  It's just the way it is.  I wrote - as requested - about what other people say.  The lovely woman I was with at the beginning of the trip (hello - if you are reading this) is someone I love.  She is someone who is very spiritual and says things like, "It's all right."  "We create our own reality."  After a couple of days I had to tell her that every time she said those things it hurt me because my inner voice responded by acknowledging that my husband is dead and nothing will ever be all right again.  If I could create my own reality he would walk in right now and kiss me on the neck.  I wouldn't say - honey, I'm busy - I would stop what I am doing and be with him completely because now I know those moments are no longer possible.  At first she said that I shouldn't give that much power to other peoples' words.  I explained because I valued our friendship I had to be honest about my response.  I want to accept people the way they are and mostly I do but in this case I felt I needed to tell her how I felt.  She understood and stopped saying those things out loud.  Sometimes simple, non judgemental communication works.

I wish that people understood that grief doesn't have an end point for a lot of us.  It isn't a bad thing or a good thing.  It just is.  She also asked what she could do to help.  Nothing is the answer.  I think that is what hurts our dearest friends.  They want to help and we tell them it's impossible.  I love my friends.  I love my family.  I'm grateful for them.  None of them is Artie.  I miss Artie.  In some ways, now that he has been dead for almost 4 years, I miss him more not less.  I've racked up more days and nights of loneliness for him and that takes its toll.

I miss my granddaughter too.  Not that I don't miss my daughter - but she won't change in three weeks - Gwendy will.  Her laughing big blue eyes that demand - Granny Jan - be with me here in the present.  Play with me.  Laugh with me.  Cuddle me. 

And yet...there is always the and yet.  I am still alive.  I am travelling again.  I have seen some beautiful paintings and some wonderful plays.  I have laughed at Eddie Izzard who Artie and I loved to watch on DVDs but who is even more brilliant in person.  I am doing what I say.  Showing up and having new experiences while sometimes taking a moment to cry or curse.  I saw a window display that said, "Stay calm and love M&Ms".  I was on the way to the Queen's Gallery and accidentally saw and heard the Changing of the Guard.  At the Queen's Gallery there was a painting by Rembrandt that was so beautiful I sat and looked at it for quite a while.  I had great fun with my friend and when she left I am still doing things on my own.  Tomorrow my other friend will arrive and we are doing a historical tour on Lancaster/York.  After all these centuries they have found the bones of Richard III.  I love history. There is much more but then this would be a travel journal.

Sadness through the centuries.  Joy through the centuries.  Sadness through my day.  Joy through my day.  I don't ever want to deny the sadness.  I think that by making room for the sadness I make even more room for the joy.  Artie holds me through both.  I even miss his ashes.  I know he's not in them - but they are what I have left to welcome me home.

Someone said, "Wherever you go...there you are."  I saw an amazing exhibit on David Bowie.  There was a big sign that said, "David Bowie is someone else."  Jan Warner is someone else.  We are all someone else - partly in that we are more than we think we are - partly in that we never completely know another person.  One of the things I miss about Artie was how much of me he knew - and he loved/loves me because of and in spite of it all. 

Remember sometimes to wrap your silver lining around the outside of your dark cloud so it can glimmer in the sunshine and the starshine.  xo