Pat Bertram's Blog, page 180

Grief: The Great Learning, Day 383

I���ve saved the letters I wrote to my life mate/soul mate after he died, thinking that one day I would write a sequel to Grief: The Great Yearning, the story of my first year of grief. I���d planned to call the sequel Grief: The Great Learning, and detail the lessons gleaned from the second and third years of my grief. Because I no longer want to keep revisiting such angst, there will be no sequel, so I���m publishing the letters here on this blog as a way of safeguarding (and sharing) them.

Please note that this particular letter reflected what I was feeling three and a half years ago. I am not feeling sorry for myself now — at least, not much. I���ve found a new love (dancing). And although I will always miss him, always feel a void in my soul where he once was, I have largely moved beyond my grief. At the moment, the future doesn���t seem bleak the way it did on the 383rd day after his death, though I still don���t know what to build my life on,��and I���m still waiting for something to happen.

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Day 383, Dear Jeff,

I���m having a hard time coping, but maybe it isn���t necessary to be stoic in order to cope. Maybe tears and tantrums are my way of coping for now. If nothing else, those tears and tantrums help get rid of the terrible stress of grief.

I feel as if I���ve been abandoned by you. You were the only one who ever truly cared for me, and I don���t know how to be alone. I don���t mean physically alone — that I can do. I mean that mental, spiritual, emotional aloneness when there is no one in the world who cares on a daily basis. I know there are some people who care sporadically when they get a few minutes, but it sure isn���t something for me to build a life on.

I���m feeling sorry for myself. I keep hoping something good will happen. I need something to offset this pervasive sadness. The years stretch bleakly before me. It���s just too sad.

Adios, compadre. I love you.

***

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.

Tagged: aloneness, being alone, lessons of grief, letter to the dead, loss of a life partner, loss of a soul mate, writing to the dead

Waiting For Something to Happen

I���m trying not to think of my upcoming eviction. Well, it���s not really an eviction, more of a displacement. When my father���s house is put on the market after probate, I will be losing my place to stay. I���m trying to take each day as it comes, enjoying the peace that comes from completing a difficult task and the comfort of familiarity, but occasionally I give in to a moment���s worry about what is to become of me. I could have a lot of years ahead of me, and I have no idea what to do or where to go. I have no desire to live in any particular place��and no��passion for anything at the moment��except dancing.

I only know three things — I won���t be going home to my deceased life mate/soul mate as I yearn to do, I won���t have enough money to indulge myself (at least not for long), and I want to continue taking dance lessons. The normal thing to do, of course, would be to rent an apartment around here for a while, but I���ve been reading want ads for apartments, and oh, I so do not want to live any of those places. And affordable motels around here are . . . well, they���re not the sort of places one would want to afford.

I will need a place to sleep and to find respite from the frantic world, but the idea of settling down sends my internal alarms screaming. It���s not just the possibility of stagnating that concerns me, but also being stuck with a lease, utility bills, neighbors, barking dogs. It feels like entrapment and not at all the life of a wild woman or an adventuress.

It���s possible something will happen in the next couple of months to solve my problem, but waiting for something to happen is not much of a plan. For now, not to decide is to decide, but eventually, not deciding will mean living in my miniscule vehicle, and that is not possible. No internet. No bathroom facilities. No way to stretch out to sleep. (Notice my priorities? Internet comes first!)

Actually, if I have to leave here with nowhere to go, I���ll just get a motel room for a while, affordable or not. If nothing else, it would force me out of my routine, which might not be a bad thing. It���s hard to think outside of the housing box when I���m sitting in a shuttered room.

Since I can’t come up with a solution to my dilemma,��it���s best if I��continue trying not to��think. And who knows, maybe waiting for something to happen will turn out to be a good plan after all.

***

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.

Tagged: finding a place to live, shuttered room, thinking outside the housing box, waiting for something to happen, wild woman

Learning to be Open and Unafraid

A friend wrote me yesterday and told me how much she appreciated my openness in talking about my grief and other traumas and added��that it was a learning experience for her. To tell the truth, it���s been a learning experience for me, as well. For decades, I���ve kept my private life private (secretive, some people say, though why they would think they have a right to my privacy, I don���t know), but things change. I changed.

I was more open when I was young. I remember writing long angst-ridden letters to friends when I was in my late teens and early twenties, but stopped abruptly when a friend found one of the letters I’d written to her years previously��and read it to me on the phone, laughing the whole while. She thought I���d find it funny, but I didn���t see the humor, only the betrayal. I never wrote another such letter to anyone. Although I talked about my feelings and situations, I��didn’t want��anyone to��have written proof of my follies. And yet, here I am.

When I first signed up for the internet seven years ago, I didn���t quite know what to do. I figured I���d pay for a year and then if I still hadn���t found a way to make use of the resource, I would disconnect. Within a mere four months, though, I���d entered a contest, made online friends, and discovered blogging. Blogging was my way of getting people interested in me as an author, so I wrote posts about writing, reading, trying to get published, and anything else loosely pertaining to my writing life.

Even though I was living through the trauma of a dying life mate/soul mate, I couldn���t write about my life or his illness. He was afraid people would think less of me if I mentioned his being sick, but even if I wanted to mention our situation, I wouldn���t have. His illness didn���t belong to me. I am intensely loyal and my loyalties were with him. Besides, I mostly took his ill health and our strange half-life for granted and didn���t have much to say about either. I can see now how numbed I was��by his dying and the trauma of my life, but back then, I accepted the situation as simply the way things were. Since I was online only to try to promote myself as an author, I tried to be professional — I was disheartened that many people used online forums to whine, and I didn���t want to be another whiner.

After he died, well, none of that mattered. I no longer needed to be loyal to him (the way I figured it, if he didn’t want me talking about��our life, he shouln’t have died) and��I��was so stunned by the way I felt that my feelings just burst out of me. I couldn���t believe the exorbitant pain of grief could be so unknown (unknown to me, anyway), and it seemed important to chronicle what I was feeling. Now talking about my emotional traumas has become a way of life. I am comfortable with writing about my feelings, though I am amazed (and so very grateful) that people don���t tell me to shut up and quit my bellyaching.

And if they did? Well, I’ve accepted that possibility as the price of��learning to be��open and unafraid��online.

***

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.

Tagged: being open, blogging about truamas, blogging and writing, loyalty, opening up

Dona Nobis Pacem

Thousands of bloggers from all over the globe are Blogging for Peace today.

One subject. One voice. One day.

Words are powerful . . . this matters.

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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.

Tagged: blog blast for peace, blogging for peace, Dona Nobis Pacem, words are powerful, words matter

Adventurous?

A friend recently complimented me on my adventurous spirit, but last night while driving back from the ocean, I had to wonder if, in fact, I have the spirit of an adventuress. I was cold, tired, hungry, driving in an insane amount of traffic for a dark Sunday night. I felt desolate and isolated, and very grateful��to be��headed for a warm house and a familiar bed.

I tried to imagine what it would be like if there was nothing familiar on the other end of my journey, and all I could imagine was even more desolation and isolation than I already felt. Despite all those miles of civilization alongside the road, I didn���t see motels, camping spots, or even any place to pull off and hunker down. Even worse, though my poor ancient VW had zoomed to the beach without a single hiccup, it began backfiring and sputtering (something to do with the spark plugs, I think, even though they���d just been replaced).

Luckily, I didn���t have to worry about being stranded on that six-lane highway. The car sputtered and coughed and fought me all the way back but didn���t completely die until it was safe in the garage. I was safe, too, and a few minutes later, I was also warm and fed, but still, the thought lingers about my suitability for an adventurous life. I like comfort too much to enjoy being cold and alone in the vastness. I���m also too much of a natural hermit — I could (and probably would) surrender to isolation, which would be even worse than the stagnation I fear would ensue from a more settled life.

It���s strange to think I once dreaded coming here to my father���s house to look after him and stranger to think that now I dread leaving. But I don���t have to worry about that tonight. Nor do I have to worry about possible isolation or stagnation, adventure or inertia. For now, I still have a familiar place to stay and tomorrow I have dance classes.

***

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.

Tagged: adventuress, adventurous, adventurous spirit, isolation, love comfort, natural hermit

The Perfect Viewing

I hadn���t planned to go to my father���s viewing tonight, but when my plans for a private memorial with my father���s long time health aid didn���t work out, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to drive the two hours to where my family was gathered. In the end, though, I couldn���t force myself go to the viewing. I���d said my goodbyes during the hours before he died and then during the hours afterward while we waited for all the end of life tasks to be completed (pronouncing him dead, arranging for the mortuary to come get him, etc.), and anything else would seem like voyeurism.

When everyone took off for the mortuary, I headed down to the beach, watched the eternal tides washing up on shore, watched the sun set. As I stood there, I could feel the cycle of life, could see that all things end, not just the day, and so after all, it turned out to be the perfect viewing.

***

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.

Tagged: sunset, viewing, viewing the dead

Blogging For Peace

On Tuesday, November 4, people all over the planet blog for peace. This year, I���m going to join the the Blog Blast for Peace, and you can join the movement, too. You make your own peace globe/statement or simply choose one pre-made at http://blogblastforpeace.com, and become a peace blogger. The theme this year is “Words in the hands of love,” meaning��that what we��say or write should be��offered with love.

Peace bloggers believe that words, especially words written with love,��are powerful, and that this event matters. If you’re not a blogger, you can still join the movement by posting an appropriate status or photo��on Facebook or Twitter.

So, check out the above website or check out the��Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BlogBlastForPeace.

How To Blog For Peace The short version:

1. Choose a graphic from the peace globe gallery http://peaceglobegallery.blogspot.com/p/get-your-own-peace-globe.html or from the photos on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlogBlastForPeace#!/BlogBlastForPeace/app_153284594738391 Right click and Save. Decorate it and sign it, or leave as is.

2. Send the finished globe to blogblast4peace@yahoo.com

3. Post it anywhere online November 4 and title your post Dona Nobis Pacem (Latin for Grant us Peace)

Sounds cool, doesn���t it? See you on November 4!

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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.

Tagged: Blog 4 peace, blog blast for peace, November 4, Peace Bloggers

Happy Halloween

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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.

Tagged: halloween, happy halloween

The Day My Father Died

Something profound happened the day my father died, something I���m not sure I understand. I was holding him because he was too weak to sit by himself, and he couldn���t breathe when he was lying back against the pillows. I told him it was okay to die, that his wife and son and God were waiting for him. He said he knew that, but he didn���t know how, then he added, ���Help me die.��� ���Okay,��� I said. I told him I would be fine, not to worry about me, and I could feel him relaxing into what seemed to be acceptance. I laid him back on the bed, gave him his full morphine and haloperidol doses, which I had been hesitant to give him, knowing the sort of disorientation they could cause. The doses were fairly minor, not at all the massive doses that would be prescribed later, but they calmed him. Shortly afterward, his blood pressure began falling, and he never moved again. Just slowly slipped away during the next twenty hours. (I never had to give him the high doses of morphine and haloperidol — he was too far gone by then and besides, he couldn���t swallow.)

He died when I went to take a nap, but it didn���t bother me that I wasn’t there. It seems that he had died when he was in my arms, and all that was left was a body running down like an old wind-up clock that had reached the end of its coil.

I���ve made no secret of the rocky relationship I���ve had with him. (For��most of my life, I did keep that secret within the family. It seemed to be one of those unwritten rules we lived by, though none of us knew where those rules came from, what they were, or why they existed.) I came here to my father���s house after the death of my life mate/soul mate partly because my mate wanted me to — he needed to know I would be safe before he could leave his diseased body — and partly because I wanted to resolve the complications with my father. I knew I���d be starting over when my grief waned, and I didn���t want to be dragging old pain, bitterness,��and conflict with me into a new life. My time with my father seemed to add to those conflicts, though for the most part we got along okay. (Largely because I left him alone so he could pray in peace.)

But now, there are no conflicts. It���s as if by helping him die (though I didn���t really do anything specific), by releasing him from his fatherhood, leaving only our two souls locked in some sort of compact with death, that I also released myself from my past.

The focus, control, and insistence on having his way that made being his daughter difficult also made him a man whole unto himself. And in the end, that is what he is/was. Not father, son, husband, grandfather��but a man unencumbered, rushing to meet . . . whatever was waiting for him.

It seems almost mythic, his passing. Mythic for him, perhaps, but certainly for me, as if I���d been on some sort of hero���s journey, and in the end I’d accomplished my quest. I���m not sure I���ll ever understand all the permutations of what has happened during the past four and a half years here — my grief, my father���s aging, my dysfunctional brother���s presence, the terrible journey to take him back to Colorado, my father���s dying, and my being set free — but I don���t think it matters if I understand. I just need to process it during the next couple of months of peace, and then go on from here as a woman unencumbered, whole unto herself, rushing to meet whatever is waiting for her.

***

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.

 

Tagged: being whole, conflicts with father, day my father died, day of death, death of a father, mythic journey

In Between

I���m sitting here at the computer, playing endless games of solitaire, and dozing off. I didn���t even know it was possible to fall asleep at the computer, but I have a hunch I could fall asleep anywhere right now. The long days of caring for my father must have been more stressful and exhausting than I thought. Or maybe it���s that for the first time in more than a decade I don���t have to listen for calls of distress from the old and/or dying. There is only me in this borrowed house (borrowed from my father���s estate pending probate and sale). There are no life or death matters to take care of, nothing major for me to accomplish (though I have a few minor obligations and things I promised to do).

During��these years of caring for my father,��I often blogged about my plans and possibilities for after he was gone, but at the moment, I have no desire to do anything but just float through my days, dealing with whatever comes my way. And to dance, of course.

Someday soon I���ll have to pack and put my stuff in storage in preparation for . . . I don���t know what. But now, there is no reason to do anything unless I feel like it.

I���ve always loved these in-between times. I remember as a child only being happy walking to or from school. It was a joy to leave the house in the morning, and a joy to leave school in the afternoon. But being either place didn���t particularly thrill me.

Some of the best times Jeff (my now deceased life mate/soul mate) and I had were when we packed up all our stuff, moved out of whatever house or apartment we were living, and headed across country to find a new place to live with no clear idea of where we were going. Leaving gave us such a wonderful sense of freedom that was all too soon offset by the need to find a place to live. I remember a truck stop in Utah, a motel in Iowa next to a rain puddle as big as a pond, a traveler���s oasis in Nebraska. All prosaic places that brought us a night of happiness.

And now here I am, in transition once more.

I understand now why I don���t want to settle down anywhere, why no place (except the dance studio) brings any thought of joy — being settled seems to be a sort of entrapment for me, and I am through being trapped. I suppose it���s silly to think this way — we are trapped in so many different ways — trapped in our minds, our ever-aging bodies, our society, our laws — that the secret must be to find freedom and wonderful possibilities within the entrapment.

But tonight is not a time to think of such things. It���s a time to bask in the quiet freedom, to know that these walls don���t bind my life, to feel the flutter of possibilities. And, apparently, a time to fall asleep at the computer.

***

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.

 

Tagged: dancing, death of a father, finding happiness, freedom, future, settling down, what to do after father dies