The Lost Husband

I lost my husband
but unlike a cellphone
or a pair of glasses
I won't find him.
Unless, perhaps,
he shows up:
in my daughter's sweetness,
or my son's competitiveness.

He is missing; he won't be recovered
until I stand in the garage to ready the bikes,
water the plants inside the house,
or tackle the weeds with gloves and clippers.

I will never again live with his patience, his understanding
except for when I use
the good deal he left to me,
finally just keep my mouth shut,
choose kindness, be an optimist.

Never again will I see him
proud on Damen Avenue,
or perhaps in my repetitive dreams,
arising in the building where he invested his hope
where our niece lives now,
where we lived once, where we got married,
where I try to keep the dream alive,
even when it scares me
when I don't understand why I am alone in it.

He died at the Evanston Hospital
which is just down the street from our house.
Every time I go there
for an appointment, or to visit the sick,
or remember how I gave birth to our children there,
he wavers and shimmers
like a ghost, here and gone.

He will be absent at graduations, weddings,
vacations, family meals, health scares, proud moments,
storms, and floods.
Then I will say or someone will think
that you should be here, and you arrive.

In Santa Fe once we fell in love
with a painting we didn't buy.
I can still see it hanging over our mantel
where I still admire it
where it makes us happy,
where it never was,
where it never will be again.

You're Gone. You're Here.

I journal a lot about loss. The pain goes into the writing so the happiness and joy can exist out in the world. For me, writing has been my #1 tool for easing the pain of grief.

I don't care if I'm writing gibberish, random phrases, single words, stories, memories, poetry, fears or dreams. Getting the thoughts out on paper is what helps me. I just commit to sitting there with my journal, try not judge what comes out, and write for at least 30 minutes. Often one thought leads to another, and sometimes even poetry eventually comes out.

The other day I was thinking about whether or not I'm ready to "let Ken go". I was ruminating on how joyful it is to be in a new relationship, but how sad it is that Ken has to be dead and missing everything here in the world. I decided that whatever it means to let go of him, I'm not there yet. All that musing led to this poem:




Still

I'm not letting you go

You are still needed,

still giving, still providing.

Still. So still.

I'm not letting you go

either.

I could listen to you talk endlessly,

further, deeper, more.

We have movement

but he's got staying power

still.

Still, I'm not letting you go

until we stop moving forward,

stop laughing,

stop talking.

I can't imagine it.

Still, it might happen.

I won't let you go.

I'll let him slip and fade

If that's what has to be.

You can stay. You can go.

We're moving toward each other

in a room, in a house, in a city

in a new life.

I'm with you

While I'm here in this coffee shop.

You're not here.

I'm still with you.

He's still with me too.

He's still.

You and me?

We're moving.

I'm going with you.

He's gone. He's staying here too.

Relit and Realistic

Delighted now
Or should I say
Relit?
After your ashes spread
I scattered
away from the sun.
Artificial, indoor light
bulbs burning all night long
through the winter
after you had gone.
Spring 2006 came on
like a dirty rat,
revealing everyone's bliss,
my empty, messy lot.
I didn't want to look,
didn't have the right lens,
needed a box with a pinhole
to take in the brightness
shining off the more fortunate.

Delighted now
Or should I say
Reignited?
Years of energy preserving
left me
flickering on and off
high and low
desperately working the bellows.
Until,
willing to be still,
accepting less warmth, less everything,
I invited in emptiness.

Delighted now
Or should I say
Revived!
By your new love
that I stare at open-eyed
not believing
we will always be healthy
always be here
always be alive.
Delighted now.
Relit! Reignited! Revived!
Realistic.

Wedding Anniversary

I did not mention it aloud

this year.

It was terrifically cold that day.




In our dining room

women played recorders.

Tom juggled.

Alyse had a bad cold.

My parents looked sharp

in their great clothes.

Naomi was pregnant;

so was Shereen,

who organized

some picture taking.

Pat recorded it on video.

Susan chatted, whispered.

Mark observed.

Anna played "Skye Boat Song"

on her new clarinet.

Evan announced time to begin.

A famous Chicago judge

Jewish for my father

declared us married.

The littler ones threw confetti,

Rebecca had a new sister-in-law

married to the identical twin of her husband.



Alan and Linda and Paul were happy

not to know

that in thirteen years

this pair (these pairs)

would be halved.


We spent the next two nights

in a beautiful suite

at The Drake Hotel.

Far below

our warm, elegant room

we watched

little cars, workers,

travel north and south

on snowy Lake Shore Drive.


To the east, reliably so,

great Lake Michigan,

beautiful, huge, dark,

familiar,

unpredictable.

Stopping in Peace

Going through a major traumatic event is exhausting. Losing someone you love is devastating. I find that almost five years after my husband's death, I avoid stress wherever I can. Contentment matters more to me than ever before. It feels essential to my well-being. I might as well be a hippie carrying a multi-colored sign that reads: PEACE + LOVE cause that's all I want anymore.



I am not ready to stop
Being content, to change.
I will not give up my peace.
After years of spinning,
Reaching for light,
Returning to darkness,
With every revolution,
Lightheaded yet grounded,
Tied to the wheel
As it turned us over and over.
We became thinner, more fragile.
I trusted the inner ear
To maintain balance, to know up from down.
This spinning can't go on endlessly.
Eventually slowed to an absolute
Halt. Where I find myself now:
A still, calm, silent rock on the ground.
Flung from the heavy wheel
Sprouting shoots, tendrils, soft moss
Fingers, arms, muscles, fists, hands
Held to the sun
Which has never, ever felt as warm
On this cold surface
Heating up. Transforming. Growing subversively.
No longer empty, barren.
I am not ready to change,
Ideally suited to my current environment.
No more spinning, please not yet.

Waiting on the Runway

Your death grounded me,

Left me flightless, stuck,

Couldn't get out, had to stay here

Where the weather was unpredictable, rough.

I sat on the runway

Couldn't take off for years.

Even when it started to clear up,

I found I had forgotten how

To start my engine.

Not ready to fly, admittedly,

I examined the weeds

Along the cracked, cold, concrete.

I searched the sky for a sign,

Tripped, stumbled, lived in

The quiet, the silence

That fell when you disappeared.

Clearing, clearing.

There are several planes in front of me still,

A back up.

It feels like it will never be my turn

To lift off,

But I can see it coming.

It's in front of me now.

Progress Examined Further

Progress?
Breath by breath,
shower by shower,
dish by dish,
skin sloughs off,
pain doesn't hurt as much anymore.
I don't want to say it:
You're becoming an abstraction,
where once I was in your orbit, solidly,
my life
without you
lacks gravity,
a center,
a home.
Your absence has become
its own revolution.
Your hand on mine
kept me solidly on earth.
I won't forget that
as I drift away, spinning, searching,
no longer held by your heavenly body.
Without your weight, I'm shrinking.
No one can hear me when I call your name
inside myself; it echoes.
I am getting smaller and smaller.

This is progress.
In your absence, skinned, weightless, lessened,
I rise and shine. I bounce.

Toleration, Sufferance, Endurance

Toleration. Sufferance.

1. Patient endurance, especially of pain or distress.

Feel like bursting out of my skin.
Maybe I already have,
And there's nothing left.

Can't stand it anymore
This uncomfortable spot.
Sometimes too cold, sometimes too hot.

How long do I have to live this way?
How long must I wait?
Itching. Painful. Sore.
Edges raw.
Healing takes infinitely longer
Than I knew.
But then,
this is my first major catastrophe.
It hurts everywhere
I am exposed.


I'd give anything to be elbow to elbow with you again.
In quiet consultation, head to head,
Your steady hand on mine.
Two worldviews meshing.
The tight fit.
The safe zone.
Our place.
The length of you covering the length of me.

No more.

Endurance. en·dur·ance

n.

1. The act, quality, or power of withstanding hardship or stress: A marathon tests a runner's endurance.

2. The state or fact of persevering: Through hard work and endurance, we will complete this project.

3. Continuing existence; duration.

But truthfully,
and, also,
I like myself.
I love my kids.
I like my house.
I like this world.
There's more to see.
There's more to write.
I still have an appetite.

_____________________________________________________

What are you tolerating? What is uncomfortable? What must you endure? Take 5 minutes and write about it.

Crossroad to a Different Life

I am at a crossroad.

Down one road is my old life--the one that began when I met Ken. Down this road is the memory of a life once lived.

I'll never forget the day he buzzed up, walked the steps to my apartment, entered my world with his kind eyes, compassion, and soothing voice, and changed it forever. Three months after I met him, I wrote these words.

"I can't believe I've found you. My whole life feels transformed--everything softer, everything whole. I would have settled for less and thought I was happy. That's a scary thought. I think into the future. I imagine that we can have 50 years together and it sounds too short. I imagine you dying, and me never feeling quite as alone as I did before I knew you."

Just 13 years later, confronting the medical reality that he was almost certainly near death, we talked in his hospital room at MD Anderson's stem cell transplant unit. It was the end of four years of cancer treatment which began when he was 48 years old.

"I don't want to feel all the pain I'll be in if you die," I said. "What if everything falls apart?"

His simple reply:

"Sometimes it will feel like it's falling apart."

Those feelings have found their place for me in The Heartbreak Diary. Often, the only way I can relieve my pain and create meaning out of what happened to me, to the man I loved, and to our young children, is to keep on writing about how this loss makes me feel. My heart was shattered by Ken's death. The life I'd hoped to lead was taken away from me. I am heartbroken still, but the only way I can come to terms with it is on paper. In my everyday life, I keep putting one foot in front of the other, my children walk in the door looking taller than when they walked out, and though I'm moving forward, in a way I'm still living in the past. If I can write about my loss, I can keep on living.

No matter what type of loss you have endured, when you commit to keeping your own Heartbreak Diary you have a place to unload your sorrows. It creates a map made of words where your deepest feelings can be recorded to reveal their wisdom. It's like a roadmap out of sorrow to new hope.

No one can understand your own brand of pain as well as you can. You are the one best suited to honor your grief, respect your strength, pay tribute to your sorrow, and then watch as your words lead you to a new beginning. All you have to do is begin. Fifteen minutes a day. You need show it to no one.

I am at a crossroads. One road takes me back to the life I had before I lost my husband.

Ahead is a different road altogether: the road that moves forward, past the life-changing moment that was Ken's death. I want to believe there is more for me in this life. But it's hard. It's hard to imagine any kind of complete life without Ken. I'm going to have to be dragged by my hair, or under the chassis of a hooligan's truck down this new road. Only I'm the one who has to do the pulling and the dragging because no one else really cares what I do for the next forty years of my life. Like it or not, I'm like a pilgrim, a gold rush girl, a new immigrant crossing the sea, a colonist in a wagon heading West. This road has a new trajectory, (though from time to time it runs along the road of memory). So I stand here at a crossroads. One foot on each road. Pushing, dragging, propelling myself forward.

_______________________________

Moving beyond pain requires acceptance. Acceptance of what you've lost, acceptance of what you have that is good, and acceptance of a future that is unknown. What do you accept in your life right now?

I accept that Ken is dead.

I accept that my life with him is over.

I accept that my life as his wife is over.

I accept that I am a single woman with two children.

I accept that my children are my number one priority.

I accept that I have absorbed a lot of loss and disappointment.

I accept that my life has not turned out the way I had hoped.

I accept that it is very hard to find a good partner at this stage in life.

I accept that I am increasingly lonely.

I accept that I am lucky nonetheless.

I accept that I am in good health.

I accept that I must work hard to recreate my life.

I accept that I don't know what the future holds.

____________________________________

At a Crossroads

Moving into the future

without you is impossible

but necessary,

necessary to my existence

on this earth,

earth where you are scattered.

Once you were the most solid one

I knew here,

here where I must

move forward in pieces

on the unsteady ground

in the dark, alien landscape

you left with your light.

Light return.

Return me to a point

where I can at least begin,

begin to remember

I have my own light

that once brought you to me

where I stood

at a crossroads.

Me Alone

No one is coming for me. At least no one I can see right now. It's like I'm waiting for a taxi to take me to the airport for a long awaited adventure; I'm standing in the street, a little desperate, as my window for catching the plane grows smaller and smaller. I contemplate missing the plane altogether.

Once upon a time, we loved to go biking in Wisconsin, just the two of us on road bikes in the beautiful countryside of the Kettle Moraine. We were happy buzzing down the roads, endless fields of corn and soy beans growing beside us, red-winged blackbirds chirping on the wires. 

The stones on the road crunched and danced under our wheels until the time my tire blew out. There was nothing to do but wait for you alone on the side of the road with my lame bike while you rode yours all the way back to the house to bring back the car for me.

It would take a while for you to come back to me sitting there all alone on the dusty, quiet, lonely road. It was a lovely solitude knowing you'd soon be back. I could look down the black top and see you coming long before you were even in sight because you always came for me, patched my tires, heard my cries, saw my view.

You're not coming this time. The scared feeling I woke up with this morning is all mine to tolerate. I'm alone on this road as far as I look down.  I'm the one who's coming for me now.

_________________________________________

Try this:

Imagine a moment in your life when you felt completely cared for by another person. What did he or she do to make your needs met, to make you feel secure?

Now remember a time when you made yourself feel comfortable, strong and safe in your world. What were you doing, thinking, and feeling?

What action can you take now to make yourself feel safe?

What thought can you hold in your mind to encourage and remind yourself of your own strength?

How does it feel to be here to take care of yourself?

________________________________________

Now I Will Be the One

I will be the one who is here

Now I will be the one who is

coming when I call now I will be

the one I depend on when

scared or sad or nervous or

inspired now I will tell my story

now I will speak aloud now I

will be heard now I will help

others alone in pain now I will remember

you now I will know you

are not coming for me

now like you did back then

now it's me not you anymore

now I know it's true it's me

Now.

Respect Your Loss

It can be easy to find oneself lost in grief. Maybe it's even necessary at times to disappear into it altogether. If the magnitude of your loss is big enough, I think it's fair to say we might owe it to ourselves to give over to it for a time.

Let's look at the opposite of grief. What if I was newly fallen in love, or attained an important goal, or succeeded in accomplishing a great career move, or bought a piece of land to fulfill a long-held dream, or finally found myself a published (and critically successful) author? I would allow myself, and others would understand if I gave myself over to my newfound joys.

Don't our losses deserve the same kind of honor and attention? Turning our back on them too early before we've integrated their meaning can leave us cut off from important parts of ourselves.  It's natural to want to celebrate a win, but losses ask for our respect too. They are just as much a part of a life well-lived.

I think I might hear an objection. Are you wondering what good it does to dwell on difficulty? I am not asking you to dwell or to feel sorry for yourself. The request is to take a very small amount of time each day to reflect on what you have lost. If you are willing to do this, I believe that instead of being diminished by your loss, you will give yourself the insight to grow from it. You will fully realize the strength and power that can be released when you honor loss as much as you honor success.

Here's a question to ask yourself: How can I honor my loss? Spend a few minutes answering this question and see where it takes you.

I will honor my loss by not turning my back on it.

I will honor my loss by using the wisdom I've gained.

I will honor my loss by writing about it.

I will honor my loss by saluting my strength in surviving the loss of my husband and the father of my two young children.

I will honor my loss by trusting myself to take care of my family.

I will honor my loss by using it to help others as I write my way through it word by word.

Surviving your loss:

The most impressive

feat of bravery

I've ever achieved.

Neither willing nor ready

Not prepared or experienced.

Kicked, shoved, beaten down

to the hard, concrete bottom

of the base truth: one life is over.

Slept fitfully or not at all

on the cold, empty floor 

where I owned it all in disbelief.

Awoke to the sound of my own words:

I am still here,

ready, willing.

What Have You Lost?

It has taken me about this long, three and a half years, to be willing to look more closely at WHAT I LOST. After Ken died, and during his illness, I worked very hard to stay strong, and this meant and still means only tolerating the reality of my loss in small pieces. It was easier for me to tell myself and others that even though I had lost big, I was still better off than many others. Viewing myself as fortunate despite my pain kept me from falling to my knees when I had children who weren't all that much taller than my knees. Now that my kids are bigger, now that time since Ken's death has grown longer, I am more capable of acknowledging the magnitude of losing Ken.

What does your loss look like? Does that sound like an obvious question? Understanding your losses, acknowledging them, and giving yourself credit for surviving them, can help you move forward. Writing about your loss is a powerful tool for recovery akin to exercise, or meditation, or talking to a supportive friend or therapist. It is a tool you can use to improve your life. It can free you from the heaviness of pain so that after spending 10 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour a day writing about matters of deep importance to you, you can move on with your day, your goals and your plans. Making your thoughts visible, makes your own wisdom available to you. Devote 15 minutes a day to healing your loss through writing. Keep a Heartbreak Diary. Write it out. You'll feel better.

____________________________________________________________

Can you "play" with the concept of loss? I think so. What does your loss look like? Describe it for one full minute, whatever comes to you, sensical or non-sensical, let's go:

My loss is a wall that cuts me off from the rest of the world.

My loss is a red light flashing on my head that screams: "Look at me, I'm a widow."

My loss makes me feel unlucky, unhappy and lonely.

My loss is a dream that more and more becomes my reality, but it takes a long time to wake up to this new life and accept it.

My loss won't break me, won't kill me, won't beat me down.

Let's "play" a little more. The flip side of loss is gain. What have you gained through your loss? Give it another minute and see what you come up with:

I've gained a sense of fearlessness because I know that loss can be managed.

I've gained a sense of resignation -- Aha! Life can be very cruel and there's nothing I can do to change that. I have to accept that.

I've gained a willingness to tackle more challenges because I have to, because it is necessary, because I want to.

I've gained a large, encompassing sense of peace.

I've gained a better perspective.

____________________________________________________________

I get it now.
You are really gone.
Grasping your infinite absence:
Like trying to understand
We're part of the Milky Way
While we stare at it overhead
On the darkest of nights.

You aren't coming back to me ever
Even if I hold your memory like a baby,
Even if I never stop writing you onto these pages.

And you are never leaving me either.
I can't write you out of me
Or find you when I pin my hopes
On the wrong guy over and over, I try.

You're staying here
Where you entered,
Where you launched
The gentlest, most peaceful takeover in the history
That continues word by word.

In the darkest night I am
Always alone now.
You are everywhere and nowhere.
I am lost in your magnitude
As I have been since the day
You crossed my threshold
And the night you crossed yours,
Never and completely disappearing.

Obsessions

checking email checking email checking email
checking facebook
I'm a widow I am involuntarily single
calling friends
checking email
looking for jobs I'm not ready to take
checking facebook
worrying about money
worrying about my kids
checking email
checking facebook
madmen
feeling unworthy
feeling worthy
looking for jobs I'm not ready to take
scheduling
planning
politics
checking email
checking facebook
reminding myself that I'm OK
I am a widow I am involuntarily single
checking on people who aren't OK
trying to contribute
checking email
checking facebook
growing older/feeling better/getting stronger
push-ups
squats
kundalini yoga
toning muscles
staying healthy
call my sister
call my brother
write it down
write it all down
men are not on my list of obsessions
men do not appear on this list
checking email
checking facebook
call a friend
tone my body
do some push ups
write it down
fix the house
checking email
checking facebook
check the answering machine
sleep

Poems of Partial Understanding

I STILL (love you)

CAN'T (don't want to)

BELIEVE (the truth)

YOU ARE (still here)

GONE. (forever)



************************************


DEATH (sucks)

ISN'T (fair)

ONLY (lonely)

AN ENDING. (finito!)

IT'S (metamorphic)

THE BEGINNING (not again!!)

OF

SOMETHING (what?)

COMPLETELY (lacking)

DIFFERENT (not at all the same)