Pat Bertram's Blog, page 302

Building Hopes and Creating Dreams

And so ends the worst year of my life.

Last year was a time of soul-shattering loss, grief, and strange blessings. It was a time of despair and self-realization, transition and adjustment. But of course, you know all that — I've made no secret of my ordeal, chronicling every painful stage of my journey. Many people endure worse traumas than the death of a soul mate, and they continue living without whimpering, which has made me feel a bit self-indulgent and whiny with my grief bloggeries, yet that was never my intention. The impact of grief after a major loss seems to be one more thing that has been discounted in our discount culture, and I simply wanted to tell the truth.

Oddly, I still don't know the truth of it. It seems unreal at times. Was I really that woman? That woman who watched a man slowly die, who wanted the suffering to end, yet whose love was so ineffectual she couldn't make him well or take away a single moment of his pain? That woman so connected to another human being she still feels broken nine months after his death? That woman who screamed the pain of her loss to the winds?

I've always considered myself a passionless woman, so how can that woman be me? During periods when I don't feel the weight of his absence (I never feel his presence, though sometimes his absence feels normal, as if he's simply in another room), during periods of emotional calm, my stoic side rules, making my grief feel fake, as if it's something I'm doing to make myself seem important. Yet other times the desperate need to go home to him, to see him one more time, claws at me, tearing me apart.

Making the situation even more unreal, I can barely remember what he looked like — I do not think in images, so it's understandable (though distressing) that I have no clear image of him in my mind. Even worse, I don't have a photo that matches what I remember of him. (The only one I have was taken fifteen years ago.)

Nor do I have a clear sense of time. Sometimes it feels as if he died just a couple of months ago. Sometimes it feels like years. The demarcation between our shared life and my solitary life was once so stark it was like the edge of a cliff. All I could see was the past and what I had lost. The living I have done in the past nine months has blurred that edge, adding to the sense of unreality.

I have learned much this year. I learned the importance of importance. If there is nothing of importance in your life, you have to find something and make it important. I learned the importance of goals, even if it's only the goal of getting through one more day. I learned the importance of hope, though hope for what I still don't know, but that is part of the journey – building hopes, creating dreams, finding reasons to live.

And so begins a new year.

Tagged: building hopes, creating dreams, death of a soulmate, grief, impact of grief, loss, new year, trauma, truth

I Am a Nine-Month Grief Survivor

Thirty-four years ago, I walked into a health food store, and my world was never the same. It wasn't love at first sight, this first time I saw the man with whom I would share more than three decades of my life. It was a primal recognition. Something deep inside me, something beneath consciousness, wailed, "But I don't even like men with blond hair and brown eyes."

I had no expectation of ever spending my life with this radiantly wise and intelligent man. It was enough to know he was alive. The world, which had seemed so inhospitable, became a place of hope and possibilities simply because he lived. Over the months our connection grew, and gradually our lives became entwined.

It confused us at times, our connection. Neither of us were particularly romantic, and we didn't bring each other fairy-tale happiness. But we were together, and in the end, as at the beginning, being together was all that mattered.

But we aren't together any more. Nine months ago, he died. And my world will never be the same.

I am doing okay — can even go for a week or two at a time without a major grief attack — but I still feel as if parts of me are missing. Grief shattered me, and I've put the pieces back together as best as I can despite those missing pieces. I now get glimpses of hope, of possibilities, of building a new life for myself. I know  there will be times of overwhelming grief and times of peace, times of sorrow and times of gladness. But he isn't here to share those times. That I cannot comprehend.

Until I became one of the bereft, I thought grief was self-centered and self-pitying, and there is some truth to that. I do feel sorry for myself at times, but mostly I struggle to comprehend the meaning of our connected lives, his dying, and my continued life. I struggle to accept that while (perhaps) there is a second chance of happiness for me in this life, there is none for him. I struggle to understand his goneness. Sometimes the need to go home to him overwhelms me, and I have to learn — again — that his being gone from this life means I can never go home. He was my home. Someday I might learn to find "home" within myself, but until then, I am adrift in a world that once again feels inhospitable.

During those first days and weeks of struggling to survive grief, I kept screaming to myself, "I can't do this." I still feel like screaming those words occasionally, but I have learned that yes, I can survive this, because I have. And I will continue to survive.

Tagged: dealing with grief, death, death of a mate, grief, grief attack, loss, surviving grief

A Gift For You!!

Wishing you a warm and safe holiday weekend and a new year filled with possibilities.

 Click on the gift to open. Have fun!

Tagged: gift, holiday weekend, new year, possibilites

Getting Sass From My Character

Sometimes when I can't think of where I am going with a story, I talk to my characters. Sort of. My characters don't take on a life of their own — I am always aware they are my creations — but sometimes when I begin to make choices for a character, the character seems to be determining her own fate. If a character has a particular daughter, a particular problem, a particular job, then all those things bind the character and make her act a particular way.

In the case of poor Amanda, the hero of my newest work in progress (the one that got its start as a NaNoWriMo project), her life is bound by a dead husband, a rebellious twenty-something daughter, and an online lover she's never met. Once a preacher's wife with an entire support system, she now has to deal with everything on her own. In addition, she's going to have to leave the parsonage where she's lived for the past fifteen years, and she barely has enough energy to get out of bed in the morning. All these problems bind the poor woman, creating more dilemmas than she can handle. Still, with all her trauma, she seemed boring to me, so I sat her down and tried to find out why I am having a problem with her. Don't know if I solved the problem of why I find her so boring, but at least I got a better understanding of who she is and where to go with the story.

Bertram: I can't get into writing your story. You're nothing special, just a woman grieving. Boring.

Amanda: Sam thinks I'm special and unique.

Bertram: Who's Sam?

Amanda: Don't you know?

Bertram: Of course I know. I created him. I just wondered if you knew.

Amanda: I know he's a special man. We met online at a support group for people whose mates are dying of cancer. His wife and David—my husband—were both told they had three to six months to live. Having something so real to talk about cut through all the usual crap people go through when the meet, even online, so we got to know each other very quickly. And we fell in love. Took us both by surprise. Neither of us were looking for that, and we didn't know you could develop such powerful feelings without ever having met.

Bertram: What happened to Sam's wife?

Amanda: She rallied. Is in remission right now. Still not well, but doesn't seem to be terminal. Sam is staying with her. We want to get together, but he lives halfway across the country. In Ohio. I need so much to feel his arms around me. I am stunned by the depth of my grief for David. I thought I was over him—he took such a long time to die, you see. Over a year. I thought I'd finished with my grief and moved on, but when he died, it felt as if I were dying, too. If I didn't love Sam, I couldn't have gone on.

Bertram: I don't understand how you can love one man while mourning another.

Amanda: I don't understand it either. Sam says I'm a complicated woman. He says that there's a part of me that will always belong to him, a part David never knew. Apparently I need to men to fulfill me. Yet here I am . . . alone. And grieving.

Bertram: What part belongs to Sam?

Amanda: The passionate part. I always thought I was a passionless woman—I'd have to be, being David's wife. He wasn't much for sex. I think it had something to do with his childhood, something that happened to shape his life, but he never talked about it. I'll find out, though—it's important to the story. See, when I find out that he's different from the man I knew, then I panic and wonder who I am. For most of my adult life, I defined myself by my relationship with him. He gave my life focus and meaning. Which is why finding out the truth about Davis is important. I need to know who he is so I can find out who I am.

Bertram: And who are you?

Amanda: I don't know. Isn't that your job, to create me?

You can read the entire conversation here: Pat Bertram Introduces Amanda Ray, Hero of a New Work-in-Progress

Tagged: character, creating a character, creating interesting characters, grieving woman, NaNoWriMo, work in progress

The Gift of Possibilities

I have been given a very special and unwelcome gift this year — the gift of possibilities.

Thirty-seven weeks ago my life mate — my soulmate — died. During the previous few years, the constraints of his illness bound our lives, and it felt as if we were doomed to an eternity of decreasing possibilities. Every day he became weaker, could do less, had fewer options. We could not plan for our future, knowing each day was all he might have. We could not even spend much time together — it took all his strength and concentration just to make it through another hour.

And so we lived. Waited.

His death brought enormous changes to my life, but during these months of grief, I have focused on the  impossibilities. It is impossible for him to come back to me and it's impossible for me go home to him. It's impossible for us ever to have another conversation, watch a movie, play a game, take a trip, start over in a new location as we so often did during our decades together. It's impossible for me to stop missing him, impossible to conceive of living in a world from which he is absent. It's been impossible, too, to concede that perhaps my life could be easier without him. What difference does that make when our being together was all that ever mattered to me?

And yet, and yet . . .

I am getting glimmers of myself now, myself alone. I no longer have the financial and emotional burden of his illness. I am no longer weighted down by my own grief, though it is still a part of me, and probably always will be.

I still feel as if I am waiting, but I'm beginning to feel as if I'm waiting for something rather than simply waiting, though I don't know what I am waiting for. I do know that — slowly — the world of possibility is opening up to me again. I might not be able to do whatever I want — people are so wrong when they say anything is possible — but many things are probable when you've been given the gift of possibilities.

Tagged: change, death, death of a mate, gift, grief, illness, impossibility, loss, possibilities, starting over

Time to Change Your Password!

The most used passwords at Gawker Media were recently released. These are the top 10:

123456
password
12345678
lifehack
querty
abc123
111111
monkey
consumer
12345

Also on high on the list were: princess, 1234567, f—you, and michael

Last year, the most used passwords at RockYou.com were posted on the internet. These are the top 10:

123456
12345
123456789
password
iloveyou
princess
rockyou
1234567
12345678
abc123

Also on high on the list were: monkey, querty, and michael.

Last year, the most used passwords at hotmail.com (perhaps hacked from a phishing kit) were posted. These are the top 10:

123456
123456789
alejandra 
111111 
alberto 
tequiero 
alejandro 
12345678 
1234567 
estrella 

Also high on the list were: iloveyou and 12345

Not sure what this means, except that if you use any of these passwords, perhaps it's time for a change!

Tagged: 12345, 123456, most used passwords, passwords, querty

Unexploding a A-OK Life

I had to check my spam comments today to see if anybody's contest entry ended up there by mistake. (If you add more than a link or tow to your comment, it's sure to be classified as spam). I thought I'd share some of the canned crap I found.  If these absurdities aren't enough to ponder here's something I just discovered: On average, 3.8 cans of SPAM are consumed every second in the United States. Yikes.  

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If you haven't yet entered the Second Wind Publishing contest to win free books for a year, you can enter here: Free Books for a Year!

Tagged: canned ham, Contest, rotting fish, spam

Win Free Books For A Year!

Everyone who leaves a comment on this post will be entered in Second Wind Publishing's best contest ever — a chance to win a copy of every title Second Wind will publish in 2011.  (Your choice of ebooks or print books.) This will include a copy of my upcoming novel Light Bringer, which is scheduled to be released in the spring of 2011. (Suzanne Francis, author of The Song of the Arkafina Series, and first person ever to read my new book said Light Bringer is "brilliant." My favorite word!)

Light Bringer tells the story of  Becka Johnson, who had been abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Chalcedony, Colorado when she was a baby. Now, thirty-seven years later, she has returned to Chalcedony to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? Why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen? Who is Philip, and why does her body sing in harmony with his? And what do either of them have to do with a shadow corporation that once operated a secret underground installation in the area?

So be sure to leave a comment. If you don't want to receive mailings from Second Wind about other promotions and new releases, let me know. You will still be entered into the contest. Also, three people chosen at random will win an ecopy of one of my published books — your choice! (Pick from the three on the right sidebar of this blog.) Both contests end at midnight on December 30, 2010.

Best of luck to all of you.

Tagged: Contest, free books, free books for a year, giveaway, Light Bringer, Second Wind Publishing, Suzanne Francis

Excerpt from Light Bringer by Pat Bertram

Light Bringer is my latest novel, scheduled for release by Second Wind Publishing in March, 2011.

Description of Light Bringer:

Becka Johnson had been abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Chalcedony, Colorado when she was a baby. Now, thirty-seven years later, she has returned to Chalcedony to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? Why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen? Who is Philip, and why does her body sing in harmony with his? And what do either of them have to do with a shadow corporation that once operated a secret underground installation in the area?

Excerpt (Prologue):

Helen Jenks gripped the steering wheel and squinted into the darkness beyond the beam of the Volkswagen's headlights. Nothing looked familiar. Was she almost home? The snow had stopped falling, but in these hills so far from town, the county didn't bother to plow. She didn't know if she drove on the right road, or any road at all. There were no other cars, no tire tracks.

Where was everyone?

She sighed. Home in bed, probably, where she would be if she hadn't pulled a double shift at the hospital.

Hearing an odd drone, she cupped a hand behind an ear and tried to isolate the sound from the rumble of the Volkswagen engine. Was something wrong with the bug? Oh, please, no.

All at once the sky lit up. She leaned forward for a better view and caught sight of a brilliant star that seemed to throb in time with her heartbeat, growing brighter with each pulsation.

She sat back and rotated her head around her stiff neck. Maybe it was Venus. Hadn't she read that at certain times of the year, under certain conditions, Venus could be as big and as bright as the moon?

Leaning forward again, she saw the star pulse one last time, then wink out. As she became used to the darkness it left behind, it reappeared, darted toward the horizon, and vanished. So, not Venus. Perhaps a meteor or two.

She listened for the drone, but no longer heard it. Good.

Ten minutes later, she noticed a pin prick of light in the distance: her porch light. Her car slid to the side, and she gripped the steering wheel harder. Be careful, she cautioned herself. You're not safe at home yet.

When at last she parked in front of her old frame house, she pried her fingers off the steering wheel and stumbled out of the car. Except for the dings and pops of the cooling engine, the world was silent, appearing so new and un-touched, she hesitated to mar the opalescent expanse with her footprints. Then her eyebrows drew together. The snow wasn't untrodden after all. Tracks led to the house where a small gray creature huddled against the door.

She clapped her hands. "Shoo. Shoo."

The creature did not stir.

"Go on. Get," she shouted.

The creature still didn't move. Was it dead? This wouldn't be the first time a dying animal had been attracted to the warmth seeping from beneath the front door.

She approached gingerly, relaxing when she saw what appeared to be an old gray blanket that had somehow ended up on the stoop. She bent over to collect the wad of fabric, then straightened. Bad idea. Who knew what vermin had taken refuge in the folds.

Before she could figure out what to do, the blanket moved. She jumped back and stared at it. The blanket moved again, giving her a glimpse of a coppery curl.

She lifted the bundle, cradled it in her arms, and drew back the blanket. Two dark eyes, shining with intelligence, gazed at her.

She sucked in a breath. An infant, no more than nine months old.

As the infant continued to gaze at her, its eyes brightened to gleaming amber. Then it beamed at her—a welcoming smile, both joyous and knowing, as if it had recognized a dear friend.

Helen's face felt tight. "Who are you?"

The baby chortled in response.

"And who left you here?" She glanced at the tracks. They led in only one direction—toward the house.

Feeling dizzy, she crouched to examine the tracks more closely.

They were footprints. Tiny footprints in the snow.

Tagged: Colorado, excerpt, fiction, Light Bringer, mystery, novel, search for identity, Second Wind Publishing, shadow corporation

Letting It Be

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.

Tagged: cleaning up the past, clearing up the future, death, fortune cookie, grief, Let it Be, life, loss, making sense of life