NowHere

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

                         -Bob Dylan - 1964

  

So the calendar year date has come and gone since DJ's death and for all intents and purposes, my emotions were only slightly raised above what has become normal. I am sure this is because of some of the work I tried to do during this year, but mainly the coming and going of that date was made easier by the support of new friends I have met here and elsewhere; having been a long time skeptic of online friendships, I have had to adjust, one-hundred and eighty degrees...changes. As I say the emotions of the actual day were pretty much steady state, with spikes of joy as I received gifts and cards from a few new friends in the mail, tokens of their thoughts for me and our family; and there was not a great increase in the anxiety, as in the weeks before which had been somewhat trying...of course during that time I had been feeling a bit more reflective, and more weepy. Then, a few days before the actual date, my phone crashed...normally a disaster requiring all manner of cussing and whatnot, but now, no big deal, I have backups so...I chose a saved backup to restore from and the data was retrieved. As I re-started the phone and checked things out, I realized that the restore date was from Feb. 2011; among the contacts, appointments and other things, there is almost and entire year's worth of text dialogue between DJ and I there, I immediately transferred all the backups from the phone to my desktop, laptop, and to a flash drive I keep on my car key ring; burning them to a cd is next, and no, I am not paranoid, just experienced...

As I reviewed those text messages I thought of how that time has passed, has become for me nowhere, and that really is now and here...there isn't any earth shattering conversations going on between us, just the everyday things our lives had become up to that point; DJ: 'Pat (DJ's sister), is stuck in her driveway, can you get by there?' ...  Me: ''...will b here about 20 more mins, will do...love you....''  a bit later the same day,  DJ: ''...I won't be downstairs until about  1:30, don't rush...'', that in response to me asking when I should pick her up from the clinic. I purposely read through every text, feeling the need to somehow relive those moments, thinking about what I was doing when I read her's or my responses to them...as I read, I could recall every last one of them. Reading them caused me no great pain or meltdowns, I viewed them and thought about how this is a slice of what we had lived, of what our lives had become up to that point, just the day to day living. Today I can place reading those messages in a safe place as with other things I have done over the past year to try and understand the journey.  Today, after a year, I no longer have to think and say, ''...this time last year, DJ and I were...'' or ''...last year we were doing ...at this time with DJ...'', the time for those types of things to be true has passed...forever, tho the memories remain. Up until about a month ago I had slept each night since her death on the lounger on which DJ last laid ...I'm sure some clinician could give a detailed and accurate accounting for this in terms which would thrill the hell out of a symposium somewhere, but I think it's simply because it made me feel closer to her somehow and it allowed me to be assured that the wallowing I started out to do, was complete. But keeping the lounger as a focal point had another purpose; it allowed our 5 year old grand daughter, Ms. McKoKo to stay comfortable with everything which has happened, at least I think so; she and DJ logged a lot of time on that lounger watching TV and playing games, I did not want to suddenly remove it from her life, not as it must appear to her, the same way DJ had been removed; I am sure it holds special memories yet to be revealed, for her also. I did not want it to become something she only associates with DJ's dying. Now, at times, she will join me in the bedroom and lay on that lounger and become engrossed in what is being played out on that same TV; often I'm tempted to ask her what she's thinking as she appears to be caught up in what she is watching, but I don't ask; I do not think it would be fair to do that as she may not know how to put into words what she is actually thinking...feeling, she's only 5; it could lead to frustrations she does not need and somehow I feel I might be imposing on something that she is experiencing which is very special to her.  

And the changes continue, early in the year I had taken to using a different route to come home, from where ever...I have kept to it for the most part; the Sunday paper is no longer part of my life, as I have stopped buying one since my first attempt to go through it alone, it's  just not the same as when DJ and I would sit and peruse every section.  Of course I don't eat, sleep, or spend idle time the way I once did, all that has changed too, but I think that's really what this is all about...this grieving time I mean...about making the changes, about coming to terms with the fact that everything in our lives has changed and we will never be the same again. I have returned to actually going through a routine at bedtime, and altho it appears, like the waters Dylan speaks of, seem to have grown and reminds me, yes, our very cores have been drenched; this in and of itself does not necessarily have to be a bad, or a sad thing, just something different. It is my thought that we have to be aware of the expanding waters; being no longer restricted to the private cove DJ and I created, now I must deal with the open sea of different life things, things we had not given much thought to before and it can be scary.

There were other items in the back up, a few voice mails, one with her giving me a bit of hell for being late in picking her up...another one, saying she liked me, 'just because'...I can listen to them today without falling apart as we have videos which has her talking, and I have watched them a few times, my attempt to keep her voice in my head...those voicemails will be going to cd also. Until I restored that phone I had not really thought about the magnitude of the change, or the multitude of the various things...in some ways, portions of this past year are a blur, even some of the parts I thought I was actively grieving on, hard...but most of the lessons learned have remained; fortunately, through the fog, I was able to hear much of what I needed to. Without those lessons and the information learned here, and the support from friends, I am not sure that neither I or the phone would have survived that restore; in my minds eye I can see it shattered , much as I felt I had been early on, in a hundred and one pieces after having been hurled against the nearest available wall, with the fact that a lot of the business info I work with is on there not being a barrier to such a hurling. Instead, I looked through the texts and listened to the voicemails and enjoyed...those seconds of hearing her voice erased a lot of sad thoughts in my mind, and for a while, all was serene.

With the Holidays nearly upon us, I have determined that mine will be the best I can make them, regardless of what is going on...I reason I can be sad anytime I choose to, thus I can be happy by the same reasoning, it's my choice. There is still much living to do, and thinking I have a fairly good start on finding safe places in my mind for the life that was, is making this idea of living forward easier and more appealing. I'm taking Dylan at his word when he speaks about our time being worth saving; either we start swimming in those expanded waters or for sure, we will sink like a stone; perhaps we can ride a boat in them. Of course not all of us are ready to do these things...not right now anyway, being at different points on the journey requires different things, but I think the lessons remain valid; at some point, if we are fortunate, we may need to remember these simple ideas of trying to live forward...I don't think that the grief is static, non-moving, I'm looking at my own as dynamic, energetic, able to assail me at any time, so, I must be prepared for it, using the tools and lessons learned which will allow me to move forward into whatever future may lie ahead with some degree of confidence and hope...always hope. 

So, encountering the texts, hearing the voicemails, the lounger, my thinking of DJ and Ms. McKoKo, the Sunday paper, sleeping rituals, all of it, these things do not send me scrambling as they once might have; going over what all of these things might mean, or adding to or subtracting from them causes no great pain. Today I am able to look at all of them in an entirely different light, a light I was unaware of only a few, short months ago. In part it may be a testament to the human spirit, or the passage of time or it may be my sincere desire now to live the different life. Whatever the reason, I feel prepared not only to meet the coming festive season, but also greet what festivities may be in store in living forward beyond it; I hope this is something we all can feel and believe in at some point in our own, personal journeys and in our own time. Along with all the good, the bad, the unknown, the sadness, through it all, I hope we can emerge on the other side with ideas of promise and hope flourishing.

I think one thing is for certain, ''..the times they are a-changin' '', will we?