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''''...It's out of our hands now, I'm through worrying about it; just put
your arms around me every now and then...and don't forget me...''
DJ - 08/11
The other day, the local guy who patrols the neighborhood with his lawnmower and other gardening tools met me as I was getting out of the car; he asked if I wanted him to clear the leaves and cut the grass in front of our house. There were some leaves there and the grass was a bit overgrown...it has some brown spots too...I thought for a moment and then said ''..No...do it next week...''. As he moved on down the block, I went in the house, put away the things I had been carrying, and sat by the window, I looked out at the grass; I thought about how DJ would mostly cut it, it's a small area, and she would insist on doing it, cutting the grass and tending the flowers she had planted in the two pots which sit on the porch, leaving the larger, back of the house area to occupy my time. It had never looked liked it did now, not really bad but... not as when she was alive...but now I thought, it's alright for it to be like that...for a while. For me, in a way, it should look like that, the one who really took care of it is no longer here, and the signs of that, is the condition it reflects now, a bit unattended. As I looked around the room, more things appeared unattended...the now drooping plant she loved, tho not beyond hope, is not watered every day like she watered it...those pairs of shoes by the entry door, laying haphazardly are not lined up the way she might have had them, the thin layer of dust which covers some things in that room...and other things. But the thought that this was alright too, for a while... stays with me; see, I'm thinking that the grass and those other things should show the signs that something has changed, and changed profoundly...it could also be that it is an increase in my general laziness...but just as I have been unattended by her physical presence, and reflect that change in appearance and thought, it seems right to me that these other things might show the results of that un-attention also...it seems that's the way it should be...for a while...
It has been like that for me these past few weeks...small things like that adding to the general disorder that this time of the year is causing for me; last year this time we were watching DJ quietly slip away, the end was very near. Tho not crippled with pain like in those early days and weeks...I have to admit that despite my best efforts, I am feeling it; it is adding to the overall feeling of sadness for me, with spikes in the general background flow from time to time...remembering that time. It was around this time last year it was suggested that hospice should be contacted, DJ appeared to accept the notion with a few tears and a sigh, but I was terrified. All the things I had been thinking about, and fearing, were starting to happen...DJ could barely get around, even with help and had taken to laying down most of the time. Her food intake had dropped dramatically; she still talked, but said very little without prompting. Altho we had ample medication on hand, she did not appear to be in much pain, and only requested it occasionally, I am grateful that she did not appear to be in a lot of discomfort. The close relatives had been contacted, and there was a parade of them in and out of our room...for a while. They would mostly occupy the daytime hours, with the kids being with her in the evenings. But it was the overnights that I am remembering the most, the very quiet times when it was just she and I, and I would be thinking as I watched her sleep. Sometimes she would awake at 2 or 3 a.m. with moments of amazing clarity, and we would talk...defining...assuring, finalizing...later, when she would fall back asleep, this is when I did most of my crying during this time last year, for a while...
By this time, all the things we could say to each other, had mostly been spoken, it was down to reassuring her of my presence and reminding her about the miracles we had enjoyed in our life, how we had really practiced some faith in our lives and how it was that, the faith, which was carrying us now, and would continue to carry us. A lot of the things she had wanted to do,had been done in the years since the diagnosis; visiting her sister who lives in another state...seeing 'Vegas...a grand birthday party for her the previous year...our low keyed 2011 celebration having just passed this time last year; the early Thanksgiving and Christmas...she and I reaffirming our love for one another and agreeing that we had raised some hell, three children and had enjoyed doing both, with few regrets; by now, all done with by this time last year...for me, thoughts about those things can put away, away from the forefront of my mind anyway...for a while. The past few weeks have been a curious time, with me, trying to contain my anxiety about the approach of a calendar year since the day DJ died. My efforts to try and not let all this cause me any more anguish have been marginally successful, tho I must admit to a deepened sense of the background sadness and to being a bit more weepy, and tho not crippling, I am lot more aware that something has changed, as I remain, unattended. I imagine all this is natural, ha, normal if you will...and probably should be expected, for a while...
It is my honest belief that I have tried to use the past year well in dealing with DJ's death, following a lot of the suggestions offered here, and elsewhere, and for the most part having reached a place of some peace and and at least a point, where the beginnings of acceptance has started to creep in. I understand the healing is not complete as I don't feel I will ever be totally healed, but most of what I set out to do, I have accomplished; to gain some understanding about the effects DJ's death had on me and our family, and to learn the things necessary for me to live forward, in a different life and away from that open window. Finding safe places for the memory of the life DJ and I shared has been the keystone in any mental stability I might display these days. By now I had expected to close these pages...be done with the remembering...the thinking and rethinking, the purging; and altho it has been rewarding and healing in many ways, I originally thought that by now, the exercise would have been performed enough; I have found it both revealing and exhausting. But these past few weeks have shown me that I may need to do more self examination, a little more placing of memories in those safe places, at least for a while...
My final image of DJ, lying on her lounger dressed in her fine black lounging outfit comes to me without the pain it once carried with it. The memory of me watching her leave our house for the last time, watching as they took her out into the early morning with that fine mist falling and me thinking,''...damn, even the sky is crying today, baby...'', does not force me to take to our bed and sob for hours on end. The thought of what the uncut grass, drooping plants, dis shoveled shoes all imply, and yes, even how only a few of the things she planted, managed to sprout this season, are still offering me lessons, and may mean there is more for me to understand. The question as to the why of all of this left me early on, I made some answers for myself on that point and I am comfortable with them today; putting them down here would serve no good purpose as they really may only make sense to me, but in this that's all they have to do...make sense to me. I am finding that many of the answers and solutions regarding this grieving has come down to that as far as I'm concerned, finding and keeping personal answers, many of which could never be explained to anyone else; and I think that's alright too, for a while...
It is a curious place to arrive at...being alone after so many years of being with someone; adjusting to a new way of thinking, a new way of living. At this point in my own journey, I am thinking, all the questions, and many of the answers don't matter...it boils down to being left alone to plot the road for the different life ahead. Over the past months, because of all the thinking, all the remembering, I have been led to new ideas and ways of defining not only moving forward in the different life, but to new ideas about living at all. Before, with DJ, it always about the two of us, what was best for us; these days there is no longer a need to do that, but the exercise is no less demanding. It has taken time to become even somewhat stable in the basic day to day living, the simple acts of getting out of the bed, working, paying bills...even considering making the various family functions of a family which genuinely cares for me deeply, are all major decisions, long before any thoughts of just how and what one will do about looking further down the road of this different life. Often I am asked about things related to this grieving, for some reason there are folks who think I may have some answers, or maybe just a better approach to it all...I am not sure about this, I'm thinking many of the answers I've chosen to accept only apply to me; altho not really knowing, I still talk with them and express what I believe has helped me to get to any point of stability I might display; maybe it helps someone, then, good...even if, just for a while...
Now, with many of the why's and awhile's having been dealt with to some extent and reasonableness and sanity attempting to make a comeback in my everyday life, I'm finding myself quietly optimistic; that in the midst of all of this, the fact that I may have someone to consider as my secret keeper, is making all this a bit easier to come to terms with and accept, is a plus I had not counted on, but is welcomed nonetheless. This October 29th marks 41 years together for DJ and myself, having experienced the results of one ''forever'' already, cannot make me shy away from living this different life forward to the fullest extent, as what has happened in no way involved halves; an entire relationship was developed with DJ, a whole lifetime together was fought for, shared, cried about, prayed on, lied to, reborn and ultimately lived to it's conclusive forever, fully and complete. So there can be no lamentations of having lost half of me, or some notion that a better part of me is off somewhere, lost in the mysteries of the common idea of an afterlife; be that so-called half, better or worse. It is my belief that my different life requires all of me to be fully present and to participate, all in...to live it. For me that living means the doing of all the things as before, not necessarily in the same way, and definitely not in the same frame of mind; we are different now too, and the different life should reflect that, for a while...
The following week, the roving gardener returned and did a fine job of cutting my green and brown grass, he cleared a few small tree-like plants which had begun to take root...even used an edger. The front of the house looks a bit better and somewhat different now, I have moved some of those pairs of shoes, and have attempted to water that plant at least once every day; these things are now small parts of the new routine I'm trying to live. It should be noted that I do not relate all these things in some sad, wistful manner...this is being reported with quiet optimism and hope; what I'm trying to say is that I'm finding the way forward promising and filled with opportunity, the inner sun is shinning again and I'm finding myself dancing at strange times, and...enjoying it all.
So we continue into the different life, not broken as I once feared, but, as I am finding, only slightly bowed, and then, only for a while...
for you DJ,
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