...and On and On and On and...

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

It’s interesting how the different things of life and the minds of people appear to work…or not. How some appliance, gadget, dod-dad or a person’s emotional flow,  makes the decision to quit operating in a normal manner at any given time in response to occurring events. I mean it’s not hard to understand, things and people age, their components and mental makeups can weaken. But I’ve found it curious just how and when this appears to occur. Years ago, for awhile, DJ and I had a mild running debate about just such occurrences. One morning she had turned on a countertop appliance, toaster oven or some such, and poof, a puff of smoke and the device operated no more. Having studied the operation of gadgets and the circuits that control them, of course I looked at it and determined the heating element was fried and announced it was time for a new one. Recently thinking about that time and how things and people function, and their tendency towards failure or shut down, led me to muse about it in terms of my emotional operation, not just now, during this time of grieving, but overall.  As our debate about how things worked and stopped working, and their causes developed, DJ and I covered a lot of ground over time. She seemed to always approach it from the angle that mechanical and electrical items we created to stop operating just as she was about to use them. My own narrow range of observations led me to notice that many things failed at the moment of being turned on…or off. We go to turn the TV on and it briefly blinks, perhaps a thin white horizontal or vertical line…maybe that all telling “zzzzzztttt” sound, often followed by a puff of smoke and then, nothing, it’s dead. Or, when you press the power button, it doesn’t respond at all.

Trying to explain my highly unscientific theory to DJ, I suggested that the circuits of many of the items we used were designed to run…that they were made to operate, to perform a particular task. That maybe the constant turning on and off might affect their service life. She listened politely and said “Well...all I know is that this stuff is supposed to work…and for my money, for a lot longer time than most of them do”. Deciding to keep the rest of the theory to myself for a while, I let the conversation go. But recently as I thought about that conversation, I thought about my own emotional operation. How normally it had been pretty even in responding the everyday flow of life, moving along with the peaks and valleys, but how the sudden jolt of rushing emotions resulting from DJ’s death had put me in a tailspin. I wondered, if like some of those circuits, which are infused with the sudden influx of current from being turned on, or the immediate loss of that power from being shut off, my mental components were weakened and maybe some actually damaged. I’m not sure the process matters at all as the results are the same; an interruption to normal operation, but the thought did occur to me. Now, there is one TV in our house which is rarely turned off on purpose, it runs constantly and has been doing so for quite some time. It’s the one I used to watch any programs that might catch my eye, without clashing with DJ’s viewing interest. We’ve had it for several years, but I cannot say for a fact that it’s life is any more longer or shorter than any of the other appliances we own, who knows, but I like to think that it remaining in the state it was designed for, on, has helped.

Of course our mental circuits are always on also, evidently even sometimes even when we sleep, so I have to stretch my on/off theory a bit when it comes to the notion of a ‘jolt’ to the system. But I can honestly say that the powerful stream of thoughts and emotions which seemed to fill my mind, not only as I watched DJ leave, but afterwards as I struggled to comprehend what had occurred, for me, can be compared to the most spectacular flash of lightning ever seen. Being stunned into near oblivion is putting it mildly; feeling as tho every nerve ending in our brains are being overloaded we truly are shocked. This scrambling of thought patterns and the distress the mental loading brings on has to be endured to truly have any meaningful idea of just what a state we are left in. And, for most of us, not for a short while either. Today it is 18mos since that life switch was thrown and the power of grief was turned on for me and our family. For the family members left, the shocks continue to affect our mental parts and the fact of grief being turned on for us is still quite evident and in some respect I am not sure it will ever be turned off.

Recently my oldest daughter and I were talking, just talking about general things, commenting on how despite everything which has happened, we could still name many things we are grateful for also. In a flash, grief’s power was revealed as she burst into almost uncontrollable tears; knowing there were no words, I simply put my arm around her and we sat for a bit. I’m sure the fact that it is a year and a half since DJ died, and the approach of Mother’s Day played a part, but still, the effects remain. I’m thinking, for her, the thoughts of DJ and all that is now, no more, appears to have overloaded her emotional circuits as it sometimes does for all of us and the circuit breaker of tears was necessary. It is my thought that those tears allow us to disconnect for a while, from the emotional grid of grief and to bleed off that energy which otherwise will have us otherwise locked in a state of permanent disruption. It has occurred to me that this entire line of thinking is of no critical value to anyone except me, that these thoughts and ideas are just my mental musings in an attempt to understand something that will never totally make any sense to my limited abilities. It would not be the first time. It could all be in line with my ideas about the  fallacy of logic and that's alright too. At times I would tease DJ that most electrical gadgets were powered by smoke and that if she didn't believe me, she should name the appliances that continued to work after smoke had been observed coming from them. One could make the case that smoke was the power factor in these devices, but it would be untrue. You can imagine the look I got after that one. But even if this line of thought is faulty on my part, I can only say the exercise does give me an opportunity to continue to process and give position to some of the many emotions that have been generated since her death; in short, it helps.

So, as the time passes and I try not to let the recurring switching of the mental states over take me, I attempt to remain on; on, about this being part of the natural flow…on, about facing the challenges of the different life…on, about staying positive, when everything around me want to appear in a negative …on, about taking the good days as they come and trying not to squander them…on, about believing that the sheer impact of realization I am feeling this year will not take me under…on, about trying to be honest in walking what I talk these days…on, about being grateful for those people and things which have made the journey tolerable to this point…on, for the continued good fortune me and our family enjoy…on, about knowing that the time DJ and I shared was the greatest time of my life and I would not trade one second of it for anything that exists in this world…on, about knowing that we loved one another whole heartedly and totally and understanding that is what is making this all the more difficult…and lastly on, about knowing that the goal of having all the memories without so much of the pain is happening, and reveling in the fact that the joy her memory gives me these days cannot be turned off, at least, not yet.