So. Over four months now. Seems like less. Maybe half that time. Still raw, still tears, still anger and self-flagellation. The quickening in my chest when I think of what happened is gone, gone for a month or more.
I don't want to "heal." I don't want to "get over it."
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
cry
I cry for the pain my wife felt in her last hours, for the personal indignities and violations of medical treatment and death.
I cry for the things my wife saw and did and will see and do no more.
I cry for what she did not live to see and do.
I cry for myself and the vast desolate emptiness that is left of me.
I cry for the things my wife saw and did and will see and do no more.
I cry for what she did not live to see and do.
I cry for myself and the vast desolate emptiness that is left of me.
run
One can only run or bike so far, or work so hard, before thoughts catch up. One can't run away, not for long.
On the bicycle, when that feeling rises from my chest I can punch up the tempo and run from it -- which is probably what that feeling is, a call to fight or flee -- but I can't keep it up. A minute or two and I am gasping for breath. It helps, but not for long.
Just about everything and anything in my home, my environment, city or in the news starts it, and if I do not hunker down on the floor and sob then I have to run.
On the bicycle, when that feeling rises from my chest I can punch up the tempo and run from it -- which is probably what that feeling is, a call to fight or flee -- but I can't keep it up. A minute or two and I am gasping for breath. It helps, but not for long.
Just about everything and anything in my home, my environment, city or in the news starts it, and if I do not hunker down on the floor and sob then I have to run.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
relearning
A little over a month ago I relearned how to cry. Yesterday I relearned how to sob.
Piss-poor effort really, somewhere between hiccups and repeated belching.
Piss-poor effort really, somewhere between hiccups and repeated belching.
Friday, July 27, 2012
okay
I suppose that at this point what I'd most like is for my wife to pat me on the back and say "Good boy. You're doing okay. Keep it up." Is that so unreasonable?
days
One month ago, 31 days, the world turned upside down.
Not a good day today, but there are no good days. There are worse days and worst days.
Which brings up the conversations I had and still have. "I'm sorry for your loss," they say. Or, "My condolences." Then when signing off they say "Have a great day!" Or, "Have a wonderful day!" There are no great days any more, or wonderful ones, and the worst days of more than a month ago seem beatific in comparison.
I wish I could turn back the clock. When I look at something dated, bearing a date more than a month ago, I yearn for the past, to become part of the past, to live there forever--or to change certain critical events that led up to what happened a month ago.
My link to reality is less strong than it probably looks. I could so easily drift into a universe where my wife is alive and a month ago never happened or happened differently. Or I could talk to my wife and hear her answering me and walking beside me. So tempting to just let that happen. But I know she is gone and morover I feel she is gone. The presence that was there in my head up until a month ago is not there now. Which is probably just my way of looking at things, though I send out tendrils of thought to explore and searh for her presence; I await the ghostly brush of her hand, her presence in dreams, the sound of breathing next to me. I don't remember any dream I have had recently, but I don't think my wife was in them. I wish she were.
One aspect of my unstable grasp on reality is that I have never had a personal loss anywhere like this before. My grandfather died 52 years ago; that is my only experience with something like this. It is hard for me to understand fully that I cannot change things by closing my eyes and crossing my fingers and hoping very hard, or by pressing a reset button on a game machine. But no, that doesn't work here. Wish it would.
On my way downtown today I passed the newly landscaped building that my wife wanted to take a picture of a couple of days before she left on the plane. I walked on the same sidewalks that my wife and had walked on. Probably there are residues from our shoes that linger in those places that bloodhound might scent and identify. I went to the bakery that I liked to take my wife to. Everywhere memories.
I saw a construction sign that read "Delano & Mackenzie." Flashback to 2001 when my wife and I were walking on a street in Miami at night. Across from where we walked, a big block of stone in the shadows of the evening, there was the Hotel Delano, that we looked at curiously.
I could leave town and go somewhere neither of us ever went before and she would still be there. There is no escape.
There is little that I do that does not evoke ghosts and memories of my wife. I did pick up a book by Lincoln Child that kept me distracted, until it grew weak at the end. Some of the other books I have been reading were read by my wife, which is little help at all.
Not a good day today, but there are no good days. There are worse days and worst days.
Which brings up the conversations I had and still have. "I'm sorry for your loss," they say. Or, "My condolences." Then when signing off they say "Have a great day!" Or, "Have a wonderful day!" There are no great days any more, or wonderful ones, and the worst days of more than a month ago seem beatific in comparison.
I wish I could turn back the clock. When I look at something dated, bearing a date more than a month ago, I yearn for the past, to become part of the past, to live there forever--or to change certain critical events that led up to what happened a month ago.
My link to reality is less strong than it probably looks. I could so easily drift into a universe where my wife is alive and a month ago never happened or happened differently. Or I could talk to my wife and hear her answering me and walking beside me. So tempting to just let that happen. But I know she is gone and morover I feel she is gone. The presence that was there in my head up until a month ago is not there now. Which is probably just my way of looking at things, though I send out tendrils of thought to explore and searh for her presence; I await the ghostly brush of her hand, her presence in dreams, the sound of breathing next to me. I don't remember any dream I have had recently, but I don't think my wife was in them. I wish she were.
One aspect of my unstable grasp on reality is that I have never had a personal loss anywhere like this before. My grandfather died 52 years ago; that is my only experience with something like this. It is hard for me to understand fully that I cannot change things by closing my eyes and crossing my fingers and hoping very hard, or by pressing a reset button on a game machine. But no, that doesn't work here. Wish it would.
On my way downtown today I passed the newly landscaped building that my wife wanted to take a picture of a couple of days before she left on the plane. I walked on the same sidewalks that my wife and had walked on. Probably there are residues from our shoes that linger in those places that bloodhound might scent and identify. I went to the bakery that I liked to take my wife to. Everywhere memories.
I saw a construction sign that read "Delano & Mackenzie." Flashback to 2001 when my wife and I were walking on a street in Miami at night. Across from where we walked, a big block of stone in the shadows of the evening, there was the Hotel Delano, that we looked at curiously.
I could leave town and go somewhere neither of us ever went before and she would still be there. There is no escape.
There is little that I do that does not evoke ghosts and memories of my wife. I did pick up a book by Lincoln Child that kept me distracted, until it grew weak at the end. Some of the other books I have been reading were read by my wife, which is little help at all.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
diligence
I am trying to make my wife proud of me. Not that I believe she knows what I do or do not do. It's more of a testament or the performance of an obligation or a memorial. Something like giri.
Out of my need for distraction, preferably simple physical labor, is born, I hope, diligence.
My wife was a worker in a different class from most of us. When she was in her mid-teens, she was holding down 1-2 jobs in addition to going to school and getting good grades. From that time until she was in her late 30s, she was never without at least one job for more a day.
While in college and in labor before the birth of one of her children, she is said to have called for her books so she could prepare for a test that was coming up. I believe it. Over ten years ago when she was hospitalized over a vomiting spell she asked me to bring her computer and papers to her room so she could get some work done.
Her work normally required several all-nighters a month, and sometimes two or more weeks of working on 2-3 hours sleep a night. And that did not include her investment plans and property management, which took up more of her time. This year was especially severe. She basically worked herself to death. I urged her to get up and walk a few blocks several times a day. She felt there was no time.
I told her recently that she and her health were most important and that she needed to look out for No. 1. She looked at me like I was some alien form of life and snorted.
Taking it easy has never been a problem with me. I am unable to work through the night, and will quit by 1 a.m. even when the work must be done. I can work up quite a sweat, sometimes, but that's about it.
In this time of crisis, surrounded by evidence and artifacts of my wife's labors and plans, I am trying to change, a little. To make her proud of me.
Out of my need for distraction, preferably simple physical labor, is born, I hope, diligence.
My wife was a worker in a different class from most of us. When she was in her mid-teens, she was holding down 1-2 jobs in addition to going to school and getting good grades. From that time until she was in her late 30s, she was never without at least one job for more a day.
While in college and in labor before the birth of one of her children, she is said to have called for her books so she could prepare for a test that was coming up. I believe it. Over ten years ago when she was hospitalized over a vomiting spell she asked me to bring her computer and papers to her room so she could get some work done.
Her work normally required several all-nighters a month, and sometimes two or more weeks of working on 2-3 hours sleep a night. And that did not include her investment plans and property management, which took up more of her time. This year was especially severe. She basically worked herself to death. I urged her to get up and walk a few blocks several times a day. She felt there was no time.
I told her recently that she and her health were most important and that she needed to look out for No. 1. She looked at me like I was some alien form of life and snorted.
Taking it easy has never been a problem with me. I am unable to work through the night, and will quit by 1 a.m. even when the work must be done. I can work up quite a sweat, sometimes, but that's about it.
In this time of crisis, surrounded by evidence and artifacts of my wife's labors and plans, I am trying to change, a little. To make her proud of me.
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