Pat Bertram's Blog, page 65

Twelfth Year

I got through the eleventh anniversary of Jeff’s death without a major upsurge of grief, just a feeling of nostalgia and a bit of sadness. For a moment, before I retired for the night, I wanted to cry if for no other reason than a recognition that he is gone, but no tears came. I think I’m cried out, which in itself is ironic because for so many years, it felt as if the tears would never stop.

I once heard a saying that I didn’t understand until after Jeff died: Nothing changes and then everything changes. For years, nothing changed in our lives. It seemed as if we would always be like that — him struggling with dying, me struggling with living. Then he stopped breathing, and in that moment, everything changed.

Well, not everything. One thing has never changed. After all these years, he’s still the person I most want to talk to. We shared so much over the years, it is bewildering to me that we can’t sit down and get caught up. Or stand up and get caught up — looking back, it seems as if we were always standing when we talked. Who better to help me make sense of our lives both before and after his death? I do talk to him, or rather to his picture, though my comments are nothing more than asides, mentioning my day, maybe listing something for which I am grateful, or asking him how he’s doing. It’s hard to have a deep meaningful conversation when it is all one-sided.

I discovered a strange thing this morning. Although I have picked a tarot card to read the first thing every morning, I noticed a blank spot on my tarot journal where yesterday’s card was supposed to be. My morning routine is quite rigid. I do some stretching exercises, make the bed, fold three origami cranes, then shuffle whatever tarot deck I am using, and pick a card. Somehow, after I folded the cranes, I must have become distracted, and spaced out the whole tarot thing.

It’s nothing major, just a weird lapse, but it makes me wonder if subconsciously I blocked it out. After all, the tarot readings are a sort of memorial to my brother, and he loathed Jeff. Or maybe I simply didn’t want to know what the card would say. Either way, it’s unsettling to me — I don’t like forgetting to do things that I thought had become habit. Though, to tell the truth, this sort of forgetting does happen with me.

When I was in my late twenties, I ran a mile every day for years, and then days would go by, and suddenly I’d remember that I’d forgotten to run. One day I stopped running altogether. I simply forgot. It’s the same reason I am adamant about blogging every day — if I don’t blog every day, the days might pass without my ever writing a word. I have forgotten to blog a couple of days, but remembered sometime the late in the evening, so I was able to do my daily stint. Would it matter if I forgot? Probably not, but I do like the discipline of writing something every day, and if I let a day lapse, and then another and another, chances are I won’t be as willing to get back to blogging. (If I do forget to remember to blog one day, don’t worry. It has happened in the past, and will probably happen again, though I do try to remember not to forget.)

But that’s not important. What is important is that today starts my twelfth year of living without the person I thought I’d grow old with. Well, I am growing old; it’s just that I’m growing old alone. I’m mostly okay with that, at least, today I am. Tomorrow might be different.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

What It’s All About

Today is the eleventh anniversary of Jeff’s death, and as with everything to do with grief, I am feeling a bit bewildered. None of it makes sense to me. 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 felt broken years 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 could that woman be me? I’m mostly living in a state of relative equilibrium at the moment, feeling more like myself than I have at any time since his death, which makes that bone deep grief I lived with for so long seem even more unreal. Sometimes looking back, it almost seems as if all that emotion was an effort to make myself seem important, and yet I know it was real. It came from a part of me I didn’t even know existed. It makes me wonder if maybe that’s what changed over the years — not that I became more used to Jeff being gone, or that time healed my grief, but that the part of me that surfaced after he died has simply sunk back into the muck from which it rose.

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 photo I have was taken about twelve years before he died.) And so the image of him in my mind now is the image in that photo. I remember the first time I looked at the picture after he was gone — I was shocked that it no longer looked like him. I put the photo away, not wanting that false image to be the only picture of him in my head, but when I moved here, I put his photo on the bedside table, finding comfort in that now familiar image. Does it matter if it didn’t look like him at the end? When I was going through his effects and found a picture of him around the time we met, I didn’t recognize that image of him either. And yet, they were both good images of him at those times. So what difference does it make how I picture him? He was all those men, and none of them.

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 a lifetime ago. 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 eleven years has blurred that edge almost to the point of nonexistence, adding to the sense of unreality.

I didn’t really expect to grieve for him today, and I didn’t, though the day isn’t yet over, so there’s a chance a bout of sadness will visit me tonight as I prepare for sleep. What I did today is what I have done every day since he died — lived the best I know how, finding joy in simple things, finding life in novel experiences. He was so sick at the end, it seemed as by dying he set us both free — he from pain, me from a lifetime of servitude to his illness — and I have been careful not to waste that gift.

Today’s simple joy was the blossoming of the Glory of the Snow bulbs I planted last fall.

And the novel experience was getting to drive a baby John Deere. The worker who is laying rock around my house drove here in the tractor to make it easier to transport the rock from one side of the yard to another, and to my delight, he let me drive the thing up and down the street, and even showed me how scoop up the rocks.

Those two things in particular add to my bewilderment today about life and death and grief. If Jeff were still alive, I wouldn’t have had those treats. In fact, if he were alive, I would be someone else, more like the person I was eleven years ago rather than the person grief shaped me into.

Then I have to add in the aging factor to the bewilderment. He will always be the age he was when he died, and I am getting ever older. Sometimes I feel the injustice of it all — we were supposed to grow old together, and because of our healthful lifestyle, we were supposed to beat the odds and be vital to the end. And yet, he’s gone and I am trying to pick my way through the minefield of growing old by myself. I am glad he won’t have to deal with that. I’m also glad he didn’t have to deal with the angst of surviving the death of a life mate, though what do I know. It’s entirely possible, if the dead have any sort of consciousness, that they grieve for us as much as we grieve for them.

But what all this comes down to is that it’s been eleven years since he died, and I don’t have any clearer idea now of what it’s all about than I did back then.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Grief Eve

Today is the eve of the eleventh anniversary of Jeff’s death. For several years after the first year, the day before the anniversary was painful, but the anniversary itself was not as much of a problem. I don’t know why that was except that perhaps I’d been focused on the anniversary itself and so was prepared for that, but I wasn’t prepared for what I felt in the days leading up to the anniversary.

So far, today isn’t any different from any other day, which kind of surprises me. The calendar this year is exactly the same as the year he died, so I expected to feel something . . . extra. Apparently, he’s been gone so long that I no longer feel the “calendar” of his absence. During the first years, even when I didn’t actually check to see what day it was, I could feel the various anniversaries (his diagnosis, signing up for hospice, his dying) in the marrow of bones, in the depths of my soul.

Body memory such as I experienced is often associated with extreme stress, and the death of a spouse/life mate/soul mate is about as stressful as everyday life gets. Body memory is not a flashback, where you are actually experiencing the trauma again, though that re-experience did happen often during the early years. Nor is it simply a vivid memory. In fact, the body memory comes first, and only afterward do we remember why we felt such an upsurge of emotional and physical grief reactions.

I’ve always felt that my internal clock was reset on the day he died, so that ever after I talk about that day as “the beginning.” Back then, I meant it as the beginning of my grief, but learned to see it as the beginning of a new stage in my life, one that was dictated by his absence, my grief, my struggles to find a new way of living. Now that clock, or at least the internal memory of him and his dying days, has wound down. As you can see, I still count my years from that day, but it is a conscious count, not a body memory.

Many memories of my life before that delineation, that beginning, have faded with the years. It annoys my sister when she asks me about things that happened in our childhood and I don’t remember. (And it annoys me that she still asks, knowing that I don’t remember.) It’s as if those years belonged to someone else’s life in the same way the characters I have read or written weren’t actually my life. Truthfully, I don’t want to remember my younger years. Nor do I have any particular desire to try to remember my years with Jeff — I feel those memories in the void of his absence even if I don’t recall a specific incident.

For many years, every Saturday, the day of the week he died, was a sadder day for me. I could always tell when it was Saturday even when I didn’t know. (I’m one of those people who, if they were in an accident and a medical professional would test my cognizance by asking me the date or the day of the week, I’d fail.) But back then, I did know Saturdays. It’s been a long time since I “felt” a Saturday. All my days, at least as they pertain to Jeff and his absence and my grief, are pretty much the same now. There is a deep running current of sadness that will never leave me, but it doesn’t affect me the way it once did. I can still be happy, can still find joy in the little things of my life, such as the flowers poking their pretty little heads above ground.

But this is how I feel today. Tomorrow is the first time since he died that the anniversary falls on Saturday, so who knows what I will feel, what my body will feel, what I will remember.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Satisfying

There is something so very satisfying about living — and shopping — in a small town. A friend and I had an errand we needed to run, and on the way back, we stopped at the grocery store. After we walked out carrying our purchases, I noticed the truck of a dear friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, so I ran back inside to find her. We said a few words, exchanged a couple of hugs, then I had to get back to where the other woman was waiting.

I was almost to her car when I saw a neighbor drive up. I’d talked to him a couple of hours before that, and he had lamented that his hens were laying, four new eggs today, and he didn’t know what to do with them. He said he wished he knew someone who wanted them. I raised my hand, of course, and said, “Me!” Since he was busy and couldn’t get the eggs for me right then, we decided he’d come by later and leave them on the back porch. Which he did. So I made the detour in the parking lot to see him and thank him for the gift, then hurried back to my friend’s car before I saw anyone else I knew.

It’s very nice being able to see people I know when I’m out and about. I’ve never really lived anywhere, either in a smaller area or a larger city, where just serendipitous meetings happened. It’s these casual encounters, I think, more than anything, that make this such a nice place to live. Well, that and the frequent conversations like, “She’s the daughter of the son of the uncle of his cousin’s husband.”

It still surprises me, that in a town where people have lived for generations, people welcome newcomers. Other towns I’ve been to where the same families have lived and held sway for generations have been so insular, they never bothered to get to know anyone new, though of course, they sure liked the money newcomers brought in!

As soon as I finish writing this blog, I’m going to do another small town thing — walk to work and visit with one of those folks who have spend their whole life here.

Besides all that, the sun is shining, the air is still and warm.

Yes, so satisfying!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Seven Things Everyone Needs to Know About Grief

1) Grief belongs to the griever. It’s no one else’s responsibility. No one should tell a griever how to grieve, when to grieve, or how long to grieve. No one can bind grief or limit it, usually not even the griever.

2) All losses aren’t equal for the simple reason that not all relationships are equal. The more deeply committed the relationship, the more roles a person played in your life, the more you will grieve.

3) Grief for a life mate takes much longer than everyone assumes that it does. Many people find a sense of renewed interest in life or at least a sense of peace between three and five years, and even afterward, they can experience grief upsurges.

4) The most stressful event in a person’s life by far is the death of a life mate or a child. Such a loss is so devastating that the survivor’s death rate increases by a minimum of 25% percent.

5) Grief is normal. The whole chaotic mess of new grief, no matter how insanely painful, is normal. Whatever a person does to help get through the shock and horror of losing a life mate or a child is normal.

6) Grief is physical, too. People often tell the bereaved to put the deceased out of our minds (at the same time they tell them that the deceased will always live in their hearts), but that’s hard to do because grief is also in our bodies.

7) Anger is an effect of grief. It is not a stage of grief, not a complication, but an intrinsic part of the process. In fact, we don’t need to be angry at someone or something to feel anger as part of grief. It is the body’s natural response to a perceived danger.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Uninspired

Without any great traumas, or even small ones, without any new flowers popping up or more work being done on the house or travels, there’s not much to write about. I hadn’t realized how many different things I used to do simply to have something to say, such as hikes or get togethers, and now that I have no place to hike and the impetus to get out among people has faded because of the social restrictions the past year, the lack of stimulus is taking its toll. It’s not a problem for me, personally, you understand. I’m quite content on my own, but a quiet life without a lot of input for contemplation and deep thoughts isn’t very inspiring. In fact, the thoughts that do roam around my head are probably the opposite of inspiring, though the most recent spate of uninspiring thoughts might actually inspire me to do some work.

The workers who have been sporadically laying down rock around my garage and house have been keeping their wheelbarrow in my garage so it’s available when they need it. It wasn’t a problem in the winter because I was so seldom in the garage, but now that the weather is warming up, I might want to get to my tools and potting table and I can’t because that wheelbarrow is parked in the way.

I’d saved half the storage area in my garage for the workers to use, but that part of the garage has been filled up with various supplies and pieces of leftover wood. I really should go out there and try to rearrange the stuff to make a parking spot for the wheelbarrow because at the rate they work, this project could last for many more months, and I would like the wheelbarrow out of my way. Or maybe, the next time someone shows up, I should have them do the rearranging.

Eventually, perhaps, all the work will be done and I won’t have to worry about extraneous stuff in the garage. Well, actually, I don’t have to worry about it now. I don’t have to worry about anything. I just do. Besides, the wheelbarrow is really not a problem. It’s just that an empty mind often gets filled up with frustrations; at least mine does.

Luckily, there are plenty of bulbs coming up to give me something more energizing to think of, and it appears as if the lilacs are greening up. I even see a tinge of purple on some of the baby bushes, though I would have thought they were too small and too new to have blossoms. But who knows — most of what happens in my yard surprises me, whether it’s workers showing up or flowers blooming or weeds plotting to take over.

Luckily, there are always books to keep my mind occupied so I don’t fill my head with unproductive thoughts, but most books don’t provide fodder for blog posts.

Come to think of it, I should be glad I don’t have anything to write about it. It means there’s nothing I need to get off my chest or out of my head. It means my life going smoothly. And though a smooth life might not be inspiring, it’s a good thing.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

A Thrill of Rain

It rained last night and most of the day. The dreariness of the dark clouds and the windblown drops could have made this an unpleasant day, but instead, there seemed to be a feeling of excitement, as if the sodden ground was thrilled by the possibilities of spring.

Or maybe it’s just me feeling thrilled. After the dryness of the past years, seeing so much rain is a joy. Besides, the chance of seeing green shoots this year, perhaps some flowers, adds a bit of effervescence to the grayness, though I don’t want to get too excited. After all, there are still weeks of possible freezes coming up, and around here, any freeze after the start of spring can kill off incipient blossoms or keep them from budding in the first place.

Still, it’s fun dreaming of greener days.

During the fall, when the workers were here putting in the sidewalk, they used a skid steer, which pretty much tore up my lawn, though lawn is a misnomer. Since I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the yard, last year I didn’t water what grass there was, so basically the workers just created more bare spots in the brown grass.

People tell me that Bermuda grass is hard to kill, so I’m hoping the rain will resurrect the grass in the dead zones. If not, I’ll think of something to plant once the pathways are in. That way, I’ll know where to plant things so I can take care of them. The scattershot approach to planting bulbs seemed like a good idea, but without knowing where I’d planted things, I didn’t know where to water when rain was scarce. This year, every time I see a bulb, I mark it with a stake, so I’ll know where to water. For now, the clouds are doing the watering for me, dumping plenty of moisture on the grateful ground. We won’t be warming up too much in the next few days, so perhaps the ground will remain wet for a while, giving any lazy bulbs time to wake up.

The gray day put the croci to sleep, but one more dwarf iris did find its way to the surface. A pleasant surprise in a surprisingly pleasant day.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Croci

The plural of crocuses can be crocuses or croci, but either way, a plurality of crocuses is a beautiful sight.

I didn’t realize it, but crocuses are from the iris family. Even more interesting to me is that crocuses were originally grown as a spice — saffron — though not all crocuses yield saffron. Saffron only comes from the saffron crocus, a fall blooming crocus.

I don’t know why, but I never particularly liked crocuses. Maybe they weren’t showy enough for me or too low to the ground or some such, but now I am delighted with mine, especially since the blooms were a surprise. Only yesterday, the plants looked like tiny tufts of grass, and considering my non-green thumb, I wasn’t expecting anything from them, though did I hope they might bloom eventually.

When I stepped outside this morning to see if there were any new signs of life, the croci were in bloom, a welcome splash of color in my otherwise drab yard.

I made my rounds, checking the ground for other signs of life, and found another area where crocuses might be coming up. It’s like an Easter egg hunt, though I don’t collect the plants, I merely mark them so I don’t end up walking on them.

I planted the crocuses this past fall, and I spent a lot of time digging a flower bed, measuring the proper depth, and making sure they had enough water all through the winter. In the rest of the yard, the shoots digging their way up to the sun are a surprise since so few of them came up last year, and because of the drought, I figured they’d all died. Such a surprise to see so many potential flowers!

Once my paths are in place, I might even find the courage to plant more bulbs this fall. Or I might chance planting a few bulbs this spring in the hopes of summer blooms. The problem is that because of our winters, the spring-planted bulbs need to be dug up every fall and replanted in the spring, and I haven’t want to do that, but as time goes on, and I get more comfortable with gardening (and the plants stop taking one look at me and dying in despair), I might be more willing to do the work.

Meantime . . .

Croci!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Spring!

Spring slipped in between a couple of storm systems today, fully equipped with sun, warm air, a few fluffy clouds in a bright blue sky, and even a flower! I was so shocked to see this bright purple bloom I couldn’t for a moment remember what it was or where it came from, then I realized it was a dwarf iris from a bulb that I’d planted a year and a half ago. (I don’t know why it appears blue here. Maybe it’s my computer.)

Although I was disappointed in the dismal appearance rate of the bulbs I planted that fall, many seem to be coming up this year, and in fact, seem to have propagated themselves. Now it remains to be seen if I will have any blooms beside this one cheerful iris, though with a new weather system moving in, it’s hard to figure out what will happen. If it remains above freezing and we just get rain, the bulbs will probably have a growth spurt, but if it snows, all bets are off.

I’m hoping the storm holds off an extra day because I have an appointment with my mechanic on Monday to have a new carburetor put in my bug, and that’s the very day the storm is expected. Luckily, I’d only have to drive a quarter of a mile, so it shouldn’t be a problem, but I am not used to driving in inclement weather. Given a choice, I prefer to drive on dry streets, but this is one time I will have to deal with whatever the weather decides to do. Because of my work schedule and the mechanic’s, Mondays are the only days for the work to get done, so unless the weather is truly appalling, I will have to keep the appointment. I suppose if bad weather hits, I could reschedule for the next Monday and hope this isn’t a repeating weather pattern, but I do need to get the car fixed. I don’t mind not being able to drive, but in case of an emergency, I’d have to beg someone for a ride, and though they may be willing, I’m sure it would be an imposition, and I don’t like imposing on people.

But all that’s a consideration for another day. Today the sun is shining, spring is here, and I have a flower in my yard.

Life is good.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Letting Life Do What It Wills

Perhaps, as some people have suggested, I think about getting old too much, but when one is alone, there won’t be anyone to help when the time comes, so it’s important that I think about these things and make plans when I can. It’s not that I am specifically preparing for old age, but anything I have to do the house, I make sure it will accommodate me if I develop problems.

I’m not the only one who, when changes have to be made, make those changes with age in mind. That these people are generally widows or widowers might have something to do with it, perhaps because we know how life can change in an instant. I haven’t broached this subject enough to know the truth of it, but those I know who are still mated don’t think about these things as much as we who are alone.

My preparations started back when I was healing from a devastating arm/elbow injury. The surgeon told me there was nothing I could do to hurt the arm but that others could, so he cautioned about letting people get hold of my hand or arm. And he told me, flat out, “Don’t fall.” To that end, I removed any loose throw rugs, which are some of the most common fall hazards, and I made sure that my shower has hand rails since bathing and showering are dangerous not only to older folks, but to anyone.

It’s not that I’m paranoid; I’m simply aware of fall hazards. Besides, it’s so much easier to remain healthy if one remains upright. Too many older people begin a downward spiral after a fall.

The workers who come (occasionally, anyway) to help fix up my house and yard understand my wariness because they have elderly mothers with mobility issues. In fact, the fellow who came today brought his mother’s wheeled walker to make sure the paths we (I say “we” as if I am doing part of the work, though I am merely the check writer) are putting in are wide enough for walker use. To be honest, I don’t intend ever to have to use a walker, but neither did anyone who now needs one. It’s just that if I am going through all the trouble and expense of making my yard not just attractive but safe, I might as well look to the future and do the job once rather than finding out in decrepit old age that the paths are too narrow to do me any good.

The walkers with a seat are really great; I wish my father had consented to use one. He did walk inside the house, but he refused to walk outside. He said he got too tired. But if he had used a walker, he could have gone for a pleasant walk and then rested before he returned home.

Again, it’s not that I am planning on being decrepit; in fact, I am doing whatever I can to ensure that I’m won’t be, but life has a way of turning out vastly different from what we planned. By doing this work now, I can forget about it and let life do what it wills.

Of course, I reserve the right to whine if my life turns out to be something other than what I might wish for.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.