HAP

That's beautiful. Made me smile too. Harry

Friends, I have had to be away for the last week in terms of writing things here. Last week started the competition stuff for the newspaper I advise. That meant combing through all the papers we put out this year--we are one of the only daily high school newspapers in the country--and the job takes forever. My grades for third quarter are due a week from tomorrow. I have dropped in a few times just to read but it isn't the same as having the time to write what I am thinking and feeling. I feel I have moved backward a little over the last week--and I blame the fact I have been forced to ignore me and what I am feeling in order to deal with the needs of my students--and those of some of my friends in the non-digital world. Things are not likely to get better this week either. In addition to grades, a friend who is moving to Ohio called to ask me to come help do some packing this weekend. She got the flu last week and has fallen behind in her packing. She has bailed me out big-time on a number of occasions and has been among my best friends for ages. I will go there. I also have the MS walk next Sunday. That same day is Jane's four month anniversary. I am doing the walk in part as training for the Walk for Life in June. But a very dear friend of ours has MS and has had a particularly tough year. In the past we have simply made a donation--but this year I really want to do more than that. Some of my students asked me to join their team for the walk--when they asked i was deeply moved. It seems like a perfect storm--which is either going to be very good or very bad. I may get a hint of that tomorrow. It's my birthday. We had a thousand little rituals for each of our birthday's. I'd be ambushed by cards and small gifts throughout the day--starting with when we first woke up when she would give me a card and a wrapped present. There would be an inflated cake or blimp at breakfast. Then we would go out somewhere special for dinner. This year, her birthday dinner was in the hospital--but we still found ways to make the day special. She joked about how she had gotten a new heart for her birthday--and i gave her different cards over the course of the day. She did not remember any of that a week later--after to blood pressure crashes and two comas. But at the time, we were happy--convinced she was coming home--that she would be moving out of intensive care within a day or two. And then be home before Christmas and getting ready for the next battle in the war against the cancer. We were innocent of the days ahead. We had grieved her mother's death, but neither of us really knew what this kind of grief looked like--felt like. But I suspect tomorrow will be ok. I just got off the phone with her sister. She and their father have invited me over for dinner tomorrow night. The newspaper will get printed--as it always does. My students will keep an eye on me and won't likely let me get too down. I will visit the cemetery--even though it is supposed to rain most of the day--and spend a few minutes there remembering that we are all mortal--that we do not get to decide--except in rare cases--exactly how we will go out--and when and where. And that I am not the first--nor the last--who will feel this sting. And I will remember the knowledge we shared about life, the universe, and everything--and remember again that in the cosmic scheme of things this is no more of a separation than the average business trip. And I'll be ok--I think. Because every time I worry like this about how I will be able to get through the day, my expectations are so low that there is very little chance I will not beat those expectations in some positive way. And i will get through the four month anniversary on Sunday. People will find ways to keep me busy. And if they don't, I will. It is the regular days where the real ambushes lie for me: the short story that uses her name as the protagonist's, the carnations at the grocery store, or the mums at the florist, the chicken breasts on sale at the grocery, the piece of mail from city hall that still has both our names on it--or worse the statements from the insurance company or the bills from the hospital that arrive addressed to her, the random pollster or telemarketer that asks to speak with her on the phone. I want to scream at them--but i can't. They are working from a prepared list and following their prescribed script. They don't mean to rekindle bits of grief I thought i had put away into a compartment where i could examine it slowly and carefully--defusing it like the bomb that it is behind a blast wall of meditation and symbol. It feels, for now at least, as though I have developed a sort of armor for the big days. It is the little stuff that gets me--like the thin poinard the yeomen used on the French Knights at Agincourt and Crece. And i just never see them coming. Thanks for listening. Harry

Dear West, Lainey, and Michelle--and everyone, West is right--my students make me smile more often than not. They get me out of bed every morning--they and Jane--who just won't let me quit the work we did--and the work we have before us. But that will change some in June when we were planning to retire together--and when I will, in fact, retire. I have new work to do on at least three fronts. First, I swore to her Ii would find a way to kill this disease. That means going back to Dana Farber regularly--I went up there in January for the opening of the new Yawkey Building and cried my way through the tour. They have tried so hard to learn from every patient they have had--and the new building speaks to that. But so little is known about the cancer Jane had. Some of her doctors want to put together a Center for Carcinoid Research and Treatment at Brigham & Women's Hospital and I want to do all I can to make that happen. That means going back to the scene of all that struggle, but as Victor Laslo says to Rick Blaine in Casablanca, "This time I know our side will win." On that same front, I also want to do all I can to spread the gospel of the Family Support Center as they practice it there. It was, in part, how i got through that month she was in the hospital. They gave me somewhere to go that there was always someone to talk to. But i need to understand the process better than i do, so I want to volunteer there so I can see how it works from the inside. Second, my wife and I had planned to spend the next ten years teaching young teachers how to do the job we have done. Part of that will be finding places i can teach some courses in teaching, but the lion's share of that will be writing the books--as many as i can do on my own--which means some of the science books just will not happen. But even those i may try to find a way to do. The third task I will not raise here as it is not helpful to this group as it has nothing to do with grief, medicine or healing. But it does have to do with working with people to solve problems. That is what Jane and I tried to do in our teaching above and beyond the subject matter. We both believe that teaching people to use their brains and bodies to create solutions to problems is the fundamental purpose of education and learning. There are an awful lot of problems out there that need trained minds. Michelle, thank you for reminding me that i need to be thankful for the time we had. Listening to others on this site I often feel jealous about the shortness of our 21 years, three months and eight days. Our vision was that we would slowly decline together physically until we had to check into the rest home. I think we both dreamed of being like the Toynbees--a pair of married history professors who died in the same hospital on the same day within hours of each other. That vision is gone--but one of us had to stay behind to continue the work. And realistically one or the other of us was going to be here like this. That is cold comfort. But she is home and out of the struggle for a time--and i am glad for her. Now if I could find a way to be glad for me...But that sounds way too self-pitying and that is something I really have to find my way through. And Lainey--as always--thank you for your kindness in encouraging me to use whatever number of words it takes to get the emotions and ideas out. My wife sometimes said I talked too much to hold my audience--but that it was also the only way to get people to really understand the things i was trying to say. She wanted things quicker sometimes--but knew I was trying for clarity rather than brevity. We laughed about how many words I would use to say something she could reduce to a sentence and get people to understand. She was my first editor and was always looking for ways to help me be clearer. And thank you all for your words, thoughts, prayers, advice and meditations. I cannot tell you how much of a difference being on this site and reading the struggles we are all going through has made. Nor how much sometimes feeling that I am again of some use has mattered to my mental state. The peace i feel now will likely not last--I cried again this afternoon when a person i had not seen since the beginning of the year came to see me at work at the end of the day. But they were good tears that came of memory and were not fueled by anger or self-pity. That is a huge change for me in the last week--and this group has had a lot to do with that. I feel less alone, less isolated. You all know what I feel because you have been--and still are going--through it--just as I am. Our grief may have brought us together--and as everyone says, this is a club we would all prefer not to belong to--the initiation fees being what they are ( a little dark humor there)--but I am glad to have met you all. Reading these posts every night has lightened this burden. Spyder Robinson, a science fiction writer, has a series of stories about a place called Callahan's Bar. The drinking is not why people are there--in fact the second bartender is a recovering alcoholic. Rather, they are there because they have all experienced deep hurt that needs healing. They subscribe to a simple idea: That shared sorrow is lessened and that shared joy is multiplied. At school, I try to engrain that idea in my students. The newspaper i advise has that idea as its central credo. But I serve as Callahan there. I needed a place where I could come out from behind the bar. Robinson says in one of the prefaces to one of his books that when you need to find Callahan's, one will turn up. Here, I have found another Callahan's. MaryT: Thanks for giving me a place where i don't have to pour the drinks. So here's a toast to you all--readers, writers, listeners, but most of all--friends. Peace, Harry--Time that pseudonym went away--at least here.

Dear mfh, Hang in there.Today will be tough, but you will be in all of our thoughts, prayers, and meditations. HAP

Dear Carolyn, I slept last night for what feels like the first time since my wife went into the hospital. And i dreamed for the first time in ages as well. Amazing what a single night of real sleep has done for me. I feel almost human. I don't remember most of the dreams--only that one woke me up at 3:30 a.m. But for once I went straight back to sleep. But I remember the last one--for all that it was very short: I dreamed I woke up to a hummingbird in the house. It was floating just inches from my face--and neither of us seemed frightened. Then i really woke up to such a sense of peace that I have not felt since before she had the H1N1 in October of 2009. And that peace has remained all day. I went to her grave today to put a container of daffodils and pansies I had made up by the stone. Even there I felt a level of peace that was otherworldly. I know this will not last. Even as I write this I am tearing up a little--though even these tears feel different somehow. I do know there is grief yet to get through--but for today, I will take this blessing. May you find an equal peace and balance--if only for a few minutes--very soon. mfh has a good thought: let your pastor decide whether he is too busy. You need the help now. Waiting is unwise. Let him do his work. Consider yourself embraced. HAP

Bless you. Bless you for having the courage to risk your heart again. Bless you for the story you have shared. Bless you. HAP

Dear Carolyn, I suffer from the opposite problem. I subconsciously avoid sleep. When I finally crawl into bed I sleep for a few hours, then pop wide awake. I used to remember my dreams. Now my nights seem dreamless and my days endless. People tell me both wanting to sleep and not being able to sleep are normal for a while after losses like these. If the problem persists, then in either case it becomes a health problem. Because of a family history of addictive personality syndrome the idea of drugs scares me badly. But eventually my need for sleep is going to trump even my fear of addiction if I cannot find another solution. It is why I have gone back to walking--even in the cold and rain and snow. If your desire for sleep has become an ongoing issue, then I think kayc raises an important issue: We are not here to sleep away the time that remains. We need to finish the race as strongly as we can. Yes, a piece of our life has ended--a piece of our soul is gone. But our life is not over. And a piece of our soul remains. Remember the story of the talents the rich man leaves with his servants. Those talents must not remain lodged with us useless, to paraphrase and quote John Milton slightly out of context, lest God returning chide. Find a counselor or a therapist. If you have to take a prescribed drug to get you out of bed--then do it. If regular walking--or some other form of exercise will accomplish the same end--do it. As someone elsewhere on this site wrote, we are alive--and our spouses would not want us to act as the one who is dead. I hope this does not come across too strongly. Depression terrifies me. I have lost too many friends to it over the course of my life--and I have watched too many of my students suffer with it over the course of my career. Yet I know that depression is also very much a part of the process of grief--and that we all have to deal with it in our own way. Every step of the process is different for each of us. But please do not get comfortable with depression. It is a seductive drug that is every bit as dangerous as heroin or cocaine. It will not get us where we want to go--or need to go. Sleep is a good thing in the right quantity. But too much or too little is not. Please take all of this with the love intended. What you have said here worries me. HAP

Thank you all. I cried my way through all of these a couple of hours ago to the point I had to go for a walk to clear my head before I could respond to what you have said. And now I find I have no words for the kindness you have shown me here. Thank you all again. HAP

[We have changed fundamentally from a "we" to just "me" and it is devastating.] I spent all those words to say what this one sentence says. It is us that is so hard to let go of. We rarely used I or me with people--it was always we or us. And now I still can't get used to the idea that we is gone--that us is no more. I am back to I and me--and I cannot accept that--at least not yet. It is, in many ways--the source of all my grief. Thanks, HAP

I am a 58--soon to be 59 year old-- school teacher in a rural school district where both my wife and I taught together for the last 25 years. She taught chemistry, physics and AP Biology--and is one of the three smartest people I ever met. I teach AP English, Journalism, and whatever else they need me to do. This year that means teaching English Lit to high school juniors. In June, my wife and I had planned to retire from teaching. We planned to write a series of books on teaching in our areas. I still plan to retire this year. I will write the books I can and spend the next few years trying to teach the next generation of teachers. And I plan to do some volunteer work with the family center at Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston. My wife and I met in the copy room at school about a week after I began teaching there. I was looking for a thermal master to print a quiz on. She came up behind me and asked what i was looking for. I turned around, our eyes met, and we both knew. But we were so terrified that we would screw things up that it took us another two years to start going out together. And it was three months after that we kissed for the first time. We were both in our 30s. We had no children of our own. But we have had many children of the mind--the kids who needed us to help them find their way to a career and a life through the minefields of broken homes and broken parents. Our students meant so much to us that Jane kept putting off going to the doctor so that they could be ready for the AP exam--or her chemistry or physics kids would have what they needed for the careers they wanted to pursue. I'm not sure getting to the doctor much sooner would have made a real difference. They kept telling her that her problems were based in anxiety and all the time she spent on her feet. The cancer she had was so rare and so strange that even better doctors would have been baffled. As her surgeon said to me the night before she died, "We spend years teaching young doctors that when you hear hoofbeats you should not look for zebras. A zebra killed your wife." He is one of the best heart surgeons in the country--and while that quote makes him sound awful, he really is one of the most caring people I have ever met. He was wonderful with both of us--and cried when she died. All of her doctors did. Nurses drove the 60 miles from Boston to attend the wake and the funeral--as did one of her doctors from Boston. And her primary care doctor and his entire office and nursing staff came as well. More than 700 people attended the wake. 300 or more attended the funeral. She had a huge impact on everyone she met. Former students came up to us regularly--even before she got sick--to say that their image of marriage--how they treated their spouses and expected their spouses to treat them--was based on what they saw of how we lived our married lives. The people in the hospital told us similar things. She inspired me and made me better than I was--better than I can ever hope to be again. She would not be happy with how I am handling this grief. She would say I am being selfish--that she is the one who has died--and that I should be rejoicing that she is in heaven rather than rolling around in this grief. She would remind me that our bodies are only vessels for the soul to journey in. And that in the eternity of time this separation is no more than a business trip. But I miss her body lying next to me in the night. I loved waking up ahead of her in the morning. I would lie there in the dark with my hand on her thigh just listening to her breathe. The light would slowly come into the room and I could see her head on the pillow. I miss they way we woke up together and rolled into each other in the morning, sharing nothing more than a long hug that was every morning's good morning. Going to bed at night was the same: a long hug and a snuggle into spoons that took us to sleep. Other times we would sit on the couch and I would massage her feet at the end of a long day as we stole an hour to watch television after grading papers and preparing lessons. On Sundays we would clean the house together. On Saturdays we would do the shopping--a task we both hated but that was made bearable because we were doing it together. It is that absence of together that makes this so hard. I can hear her voice in my head. But I cannot feel her pressed to me, cannot feel her lips on mine, cannot rub the aches out of her back and legs after a long day of yard work or tennis. We both loved to cook and to eat what we grew in the garden. The food does not taste the same, does not look the same, does not feel the same. The table is empty without her at it. I rearrange the furniture, the cupboards, the appliances on the counter, hoping that it will not hurt so much--her not being physically here if I can just make the place look and feel just a little different. But the house is still too quiet, the space in the bed next to me too empty. I have sown the seeds for the new year's garden, designed the new flower beds we had talked about in my mind. But the cutting garden was supposed to supply fresh flowers for the house that we lived in. Now some will decorate her grave. I will put some in the house--but will I be able to use the vases the faculty gave us when we got married--or that we bought together for the flowers that did not feel right in those vases? We built this house 16 years ago. We made every decision about what to buy together. We made every decision about where to place things together. We decided on the colors and the cabinets and the floors--agonized over ever tiny decision because we wanted everything to be just right--together. Now every decision leers at me, reminds me of what is lost. I don't want to turn the place into some kind of monument to her or to us. I can't live in a tomb. But I don't want to leave the place either. We built here for a reason. And the logic of those choices has not changed just because she is absent. The house has good bones--and as I read somewhere this week, there will come a time that I will want the memories this piece of land--this huge small house--holds. I said as much to our neighbor when she asked me if I thought she should sell her house after her husband died a dozen years ago: that the house held memories and visions of his life she might want back some day if she sold it. I don't know if she listened to me--we never brought the subject up again--but she and her children live there still--and I like to think she takes some comfort in the trees she and her husband planted there. The day may come this house does as much for me. I will build her a memorial garden this summer. I will fill it with mums, and glads, and lilies--and all the other flowers she loved--and the flowers that will bring the hummingbirds that we have both loved all these years. I wrote a poem for her every year on our anniversary--and others for other events. The last I wrote for her focussed on the hummingbirds and our relationship with them. The final couplet is "We tend a greater vineyard when the fall wind blows/We tend a greater vineyard than the hummer knows." We both knew then that the deck was badly stacked against us--that she might fly off like a hummingbird before their small forms returned north again--though we both believed devoutly to the day she died that she would beat this thing. I gave her the poem just before dawn on September 2. She read the piece and we folded into each other's arms and wept. The figurative vineyard is still there. I keep working in it, trying to do the work we once shared so gladly and so well. But for now, it is all dust and ashes. I know it will not always be so--that the hummers will fly north again, will fight their little wars, and raise their children before my eyes. This year will be different--harder, perhaps. But they will still need their nesting materials and the feeders will have to be filled. Their lives, my students lives, my life, will go on. And I will find again some joy in it. But not tonight. Not his week. Not next month. But someday I will again be surprised by joy--like that day in the copy room, when I had given up all thought and hope of love, and found it staring back at me out of those root-beer-barrel brown eyes. HAP

Thank you all for your kind words and positive thoughts. It has been about a week since I joined this group and I cannot tell you how much better writing to you and listening to you has made me feel in that time. I know there will be hard days and weeks ahead, but I feel a bit more confident that I will get through them because of this group and these experiences. I have my third support group meeting tomorrow night. Those folks have also been very good for me, but because the group only meets once a month the impact of that time is somewhat more limited. But having a physical presence also has great value for me. I am not going anywhere, but I've always believed in the importance of thanking people--even when they say they are just doing their job. And you have all been doing far more than just a job. Thanks, HAP

Dear Melina, I can't tell you how glad I am to read you are feeling better today. HAP

Dear Michelle5, I am also pretty new here. You have landed in a good spot. These folks are truly caring and supportive. The story of your husband's passing is very similar to that of my wife's--far too quick and far too out of the blue to make sense. I understand too well that part of your pain. But my loss is closer in time than yours is. I wear my wife's rings around my neck and my wedding ring is still on my finger. I told her I would move my ring to my right hand when she died, but I have not yet had the emotional strength to move it even that far. I thought to put her rings in her jewelry box, but they lived in a plastic bag in my pocket for weeks--again because I could not bear to be apart from them--they are a connection to her and who we were together. The chain around my neck feels better. Some day the strength will be there to do what you have done--but not yet. But I have to disagree with you on one point: your unconditional love for and from your husband is not dead. And you are entitled to his unconditional love--that does not go away just because his body is no longer there. You have your children as signs of that love. And they bear you the same love--even if as teenagers they may no longer have the ability to express it as clearly as you would like. Don't lose sight of that in the pain you are working your way through. My wife and I had no children. But we were --and I still am for a little while--teachers. The outpouring of love we both received from them in the last weeks of her life buoyed us up in those weeks--and has carried me through much of the time since. Some drove hundreds of miles to be there at the wake and funeral. And many of both our former and current students check in on me regularly to make sure I am still a going concern. If teenagers can have that degree of love--and give that kind of support-- to two teachers that they are not related to, how much more love would they have for their parents? Trust me when I say that your children love you far more than you know. You say that this is the first time you have reached out for support. I take it that means you have not sought out either a physical support group or an individual therapist. While I have not yet been to a therapist, that is high on my list of next steps. My physical support group only meets once a month--we meet tomorrow and I know Ii need to be there--but it has been good to listen to what others are experiencing--and discovering that my experiences are not outside what others are feeling. Please think about those two actions. They will be helpful. I am so sorry for your loss and hope you will find the kind of help and support here that I have. HAP

Dear Melina, I feel the same way sometimes. But i am not sure that is entirely what Buchwald meant. That's the danger of quoting him out of context, I suppose. Two days ago I felt myself sliding into that hopelessness. I am still trying to get used to the new mouse on my computer. I tried to do a page sweep and ended up near the bottom of the groups page. There I found a group called New Beginnings. I went in and just read a few of the topics. I'm not ready for what they were talking about, But it was a relief to find people who were not just laughing again but were, in fact, "looking ahead with happiness and expectation." Do I expect to get there any time soon? No. Jane and I found each other in our 30s. We had both given up on ever finding love. And we were terrified to discover each other in that copy room that morning. It took us two years to get to the point we could even go out socially together--we were that frightened we would find a way to screw this up. We had no children other than our students. We were each other's world--just as it seems you and your husband were to each other. And God this is harder than either she or I ever could have imagined. She said before she died--just before she went into the hospital--that if she died I was to go through her things and give them to whoever needed them within a couple of months. I periodically open a drawer with the idea that maybe this time I will be able to empty it. I fail nearly every time. And even when I succeed, the box never makes it out the door--and the temptation to unpack the box is still enormous. Our failure was that we did not understand the process at anything beyond the theoretical level. Living this is unlike what you can read in any book. But neither of our spouses would be happy with the thought of us becoming frozen in time. We are not ready to thaw yet. But spring will come. The crocuses are already out of the ground here, literally. My wife and I planted them years ago. And most years the bunnies eat them to the ground so that we only get a faint taste of what they are. This year they are a glorious show of purple and gold and white. And while the early flowers have not yet emerged in my soul, I know they are there--waiting for the fullness of time--and that once they emerge the ground will warm and I will again look ahead with happiness and expectation. It will be different. It will be colored by this experience. The innocence I knew before will never return. This new knowledge will put paid to that. Those same flowers reside within you. Otherwise your posts to others would not be as they are. But the English poet William Blake saw experience as more valuable than innocence. Innocence is free. Experience exacts a sometimes heavy price. But it is the experience that prepares us for the work that still lies before us. And like a fine wine, we can only truly taste joy through an experienced palate. This is our time of vinegar. It saddens me that you have no real social support. We all no doubt wish we could give you the real hug you need today. This electronic one will have to do. HAP

Dear Melina, Two things: When my wife was in the hospital I met a woman who had been through what I was going through then. Her husband kept talking about how she had helped him--and what I had to do to help my wife, but when he went away to make a phone call she told me, "You also have to do some things for you. When this is over--no matter what happens, you have to laugh again. Rent some really good comedies--something that will make you laugh. It sounds stupid, but it was how I survived--it kept me going even when things were really dark." For the first few weeks after Jane died I ignored that advice--and it seemed to be fine. But then I had my first nasty meltdown. I felt like i was never going to laugh again--never going to smile again. That woman's words came back to me. I bought a copy of the original M*A*S*H* film and cued up the football game that is the climax of the film. Once it made me laugh. This time it made me smile--and that was a start. Last Sunday, when things were really dark, I put in The Blues Brothers. It took me away from the darkness for a couple of hours--and when I came up for air I had the energy to think about what I needed to do to try to break out of this. I went looking for this site and found it. But i don't think I would have come back to rational thought enough to realize what I needed without that healing laughter. I don't know what made you laugh before you lost your husband--and you may have to go back to something that was funny before you met him--that's what i had to do with Jane. I don't think I am ready for a comedy we saw together and really liked. In another post, you talked about wanting to see him again and your uncertainty about the possibility. Neither Jane nor I were traditionally religious, though we had a deep faith in something greater than ourselves. The night after her funeral my youngest brother and I sat up far into the night. At about 2:30 a.m. we were sitting in the living room. I saw a flash of light down the hallway. My brother had his back to that end of the house, but right after I saw that flash he said, "She's here...my back just went cold. I'm getting chills all over." I was feeling the same thing and said so. Then the room filled with the smell of frankincense--and we both smelled it. We kept no perfumes or incense in the house. There was no place for that smell to come from, but it was there all the same. The house had felt empty since the night I came home from the hospital without her. Since that night the house has not felt quite so empty. Fifty-two days after she died i awoke to the smell of frankincense again. We both believed that 52 days after a death the soul moves on to start building a new body--or doing whatever it is that comes next. Sometimes when I am fighting off the blues I remember that night--and I know that she is ok--and that eventually I will be ok--different than I was--different than I am--but ok. I don't always remember that--but when I do, it helps. The satirist Art Buchwald told a story about he and two other columnists after the death of John Kennedy. Buchwald said to the other two, "Will we ever laugh again?" And one of them replied, "We'll laugh again--we'll just never be young again." This loss has changed us. We will never be young again in the sense that we now have knowledge that is fundamentally changing us in significant ways--that those without this experience do not understand. For a time, I expect to feel dead the way a caterpillar must feel dead after it enters the chrysalis. But eventually the time will come that that butterfly emerges. This time of testing and learning will be over. Who we will be, what we will be --and what we will do--is currently beyond our comprehension--just as the caterpillar cannot imagine what it is to be a butterfly. But all learning is painful--especially learning that forces us to examine every aspect of who we are and what we believe--especially learning that comes from profound loss. And can there be any loss as profound as the love we have chosen and lost--not through inattention--but through death? Only the loss of a child could be worse--though I cannot say it is or isn't, having never experienced it as a parent. This is the pain we confront now--and it is more than enough to deal with. But we will move through it. Others have done so--and they were just as human--just as overwhelmed--just as crushed--as we are now. The grief may swallow us for a time--may seem beyond our strength--but what others have done we can do. The only difference between those who have done so and us is that they have had a longer period of time to do it in. We just have to be patient with ourselves and with those around us. A friend sent me a card two days before the three month anniversary of my wife's death. It had a small kitten clutching desperately to a slender bit of rope. The caption read: Some days...it's tougher to hang in there than others. She had written as part of her note, "Don't forget to lean on us." One of your posts was, I think, the first I read here. What you wrote sang to me and gave me the strength to write my first post. This is a place where everyone seems to lean on each other. Today, it is your turn to lean. Hope this helps. HAP

This makes me really appreciate my friends and family who, at least to this point, have been very good about making sure I stay in whatever loops there are. People tell me that by this point people stop calling, stop doing the things that have kept you sane. I have two friends with mothers in nursing homes who are on the edge one way and another. We went out to dinner last night and each of us had time to bring the other two up to date. They both have built in excuses for not seeing me that are absolutely legitimate, but there they were. Someone at school sees me every day, just to check in. On Friday's someone makes sure to tell me where staff is meeting after school to grouse about the week. Another friend's daughter is home from college this week, but she still took the time to call and check on how I was doing. I am truly blessed by the people around me in ways I did not entirely understand until now. But DV they were trying to do what they thought was the right thing. And of course they got it wrong. Who knows us like our spouses did? And even knowing each other as well as we did, we sometimes did the wrong thing. At least I did. And when I am honest with myself and not putting my wife on the pedestal I sometimes now put her on, I know she miss-guessed stuff as well. It still has to hurt. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And this is clearly one of those times. But that won't in any way prevent you, now that you know, from providing the support that those people need. And you will be better able to give that support because of what you have experienced. You know parts of the road they still have in front of them. You will do it because it is part of who you are--and it is part of who you were. You helping them may help you reclaim a part of your self. Just after my wife's funeral, one of my friends called to tell me that her husband had been suddenly hospitalized and that they were not sure exactly what was wrong. The two of them had sat in my living room just the week before offering all the support they could. Now she needed what help I could give--and in the same breath was giving me even more support: "I now really understand where you and Jane were in August. This not knowing is awful." We talked for a long time that night on the phone. And we both went away from the call feeling significantly better. Her husband is now home from the hospital, but his recovery has been very slow--and they still are not sure exactly what caused his problem--nor if it will recur. Helping the two of them get through the emotional fog of both the initial shock and the still-not-knowing has helped me to deal with my own grief. It is good to feel useful and not like this pure ball of hurt that needs help all the time. We may be hurting, but we all need to feel of use. And in being of use we can, perhaps, begin to get our humanity back. Unfortunately, most people see grief and just want it to go away, apparently. They want to avoid causing us more pain--and in doing so they sometimes deny us the very experiences that may help that pain to lessen--or at least help us better come to terms with who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming. I am finding all of the posts here very useful in getting me to think more clearly about what it is I--indeed all of us--am going through. I hope my posts are being equally helpful. But DV, this one has really struck a huge chord in my head. Thanks, HAP

My wife wanted to add my name to her family's stone,. She told me this the weekend before she went into the hospital. When i told my in-laws, my father-in-law said, to my sister-in-law, afterward--"He's still a young man. He might remarry. We should not do this." I will be 59 in just over two weeks--too young, apparently to be a widower--and in my mind way too old to be a bachelor. And I very much doubt i will ever see my wife's like again. She defined the term soulmate. When we met, it was love at first sight. We felt from that instant that we had known each other from the beginning of time. I chalk his thought up to his pain at the time.People in pain are not always as sensitive as we might like. There was a sign in the family center at the hospital Jane was in that said: Be kind to everyone you encounter because you have no idea what difficulties they are facing." That reminded me to keep my mouth closed about his remarks. He was in pain and had no other way to express that pain than by lashing out without thinking about the pain those remarks would cause me when I heard them. In a similar way, I expect that part of what the non-widowed are engaged in is a kind of whistling by the graveyard--they want to believe that if this awful thing happens their lives will return quickly to normal. We have all been conditioned by television to think that even the most horrible problem can be solved in something like thirty minutes to an hour. People want to believe that. The existence of those of us in the throes of grief--who do not get over it in a month or two--an enormous amount more time than we are conditioned for--force people to confront their deepest fears about their own confrontation with the death of a loved one. In us they see the awfulness that their own lives could turn into--and it terrifies them. So they ask us, often first explorers of this land at least half the population will eventually inhabit, to reassure them that the experience is not that bad. They are seeking reassurance--and when all we can offer them is our pain, they want to run away less from us than from the evil fruit we bear. God knows I did not have any idea what this was going to be like before I got here. And if you had told me what it was like I would have had a very hard time believing what you told me. It is not, ultimately, that they are bad--it is merely that they are ignorant of the land we inhabit. And they would very much like to stay that way. Given that none of us would wish this on our worst enemy, I would just as soon they remain ignorant--though I do wish they would not have such unrealistic expectations of us. Or at least not vocalize them. HAP

I went for a walk each of the last three days. Before Jane got sick it was something we tried to do as often as we could. In the winter we would go to a local mall. ( I went to a different mall when I melted down this weekend. I wasn't ready to deal with our regular walk. Not yet) As the weather warmed we would walk around the neighborhood, sometimes going 4-5 miles in a single trip. When we had to pay city bills we would walk up to City Hall and then take the long way home, wandering through other neighborhoods and looking at the changes that had taken place since the last time we had gone that way. When summer came she would go off in the morning to play tennis with her sister and i would go for a run, then come home and work in the yard until she got back. In the evening we would go for another long walk, working over the things we had to do and the things we had seen when we were apart. The first walk was awful. Every step reminded me she was not there. And I forgot the route I had chosen, though not our normal route, had been the one we both realized something was really wrong on. She's had to sit down on the curb and rest after less than half a mile. We both thought it was just leftover weakness from the H1N1 she had gone through the previous fall--but it determined her that she would go see the doctor earlier than she planned. But I read somewhere that walking would help clear my brain--and a neighbor who lost her husband a dozen years ago had told me that walking had helped her get through the worst months after his death--so I kept going, changing as much about the rest of the walk as i could. The second night was a little better. I avoided going by that spot, but took the route we usually walked when she was healthy. It was hard. I debated a thousand ways of looking at what happened and another thousand ways i should go in the future. But i felt better at the end. And it gave me the strength and the focus to write what I set down last night. I went again tonight, though I got home later than usual and was tempted just to stay home and grade papers. I am glad I made the effort. My mind seems a bit more settled tonight. The walk was more meditative--the way my walks were when I did them by myself if she had to be somewhere else--or early in the summer when I was just building up my legs toward being able to run. Coming up the stairs, knowing she would not be here, was hard. But I got through that tonight, too. When i was very young my great aunt Lulu died. I was very sad about that. But both my grandfather and my grandmother said anyone as good as she was went straight to heaven. Anyone as good and kind and dedicated as my Jane was I know went straight to the same place. But that knowledge does not fill the empty spot in the bed. It does not give me the hug at day's end nor the one when we first awoke nor any of the conversation and small touches that filled our days. Half my soul is gone. HAP

Lainey, I am going to a grief group. It has been helpful, but the sessions are a long way between. I am looking into a grief counselor for some one-on-one work. School, so long as i stay out of her part of the building, is actually being very helpful. We both have many friends there and they try to keep an eye on me on a daily basis without being overly obvious about it. Actually, one of the worst times I had was over February vacation when I did not have those folks and my students--bless them, they really do look out for me every day--to help keep my mind occupied. But i may try taking an extra day off here and there when things get overwhelming. The teacher gene is the big problem. I hate missing time with my students. I'm not sure I can explain how important our students are to both of us. Many of them came to both the wake and the funeral crying s though they had indeed lost a parent. They really are our children. But I will take your advice beyond that. Clearly you have been on this path a lot longer than I have. I have to take care of myself if i am going to be able to continue to take care of others. Thanks, Harry

Melina, My wife and I would go grocery shopping every Saturday morning, The first time I went to the store after she died to do my regular shopping I had to retreat to my car in the parking lot to get my head back together. It is still very hard to walk into the market. HAP

My wife died three months ago. And i lost my mother in February 2010. My father was the second person I called after my wife died (I called her sister and father who live in the same house first). The first thing my father said was, "And now you know that there is nothing anyone can say to you right now that will really make this feel any better." He was right about that--but I wish he had not been quite so blunt about it. But his loss was still--and is still in many ways--as raw as mine. And we tend in my family to say what we mean, even when it hurts. It was his way of trying to say he understood that moment. My wife was diagnosed with neuro endrocrine cancer that had metastasized to her liver in August. She went into the hospital November 14 for open heart surgery to replace the valves in the right side of her heart that the serotonin from the tumors in her liver had destroyed. There were some early setbacks, but by December 5 her doctors were convinced that we had turned the corner--that she would be in rehab by January 1. I had not left her side in intensive care except to eat and once every 8-10 days drive home to get clothes and pay the bills. I went home on December 7 to do that when friends came up to visit. I brought enough clothes to last to Christmas. December 9 she wanted to take a nap. An hour later the nurse tried to take a manual blood pressure reading because the regular cuff didd't seem to be working right. It was. Her blood pressure had dropped badly. Just before noon her oncologist came through the door. We had asked all her doctors to be straight with us and not sugarcoat any situation. Jane woke up long enough to hear the doctor tell us, "There is nothing more we can do but make you comfortable." She woke up again just before 6 p.m.--and stayed awake just long enough for us to say our good-byes. She died in my arms December 10 at 7:57 p.m. When i got home the house had an eerie silence to it I had not felt before. But there was a funeral to plan. One of my brothers came out from the west coast and helped me find the flowers and make the collages for the wake--my hands were shaking too badly to tape the pictures down. I talked with the priest and the funeral home. I helped carry her casket--I said i had carried her over the threshold the day we married--and i was going to carry her over this threshold as well. A few days after the funeral I went back to work. My wife and i were both school teachers in the same building. We saw our students as our children--and Ii told my principal our kids had been without their father long enough. Besides, I could hear my wife in my head saying, "What are you going to do here? Stare at the walls?" I got through Christmas and New Years by going out west to visit my family. My friends have been great. They call me. they invite me out for dinner, they continue to send me cards and emails. People tell me I am incredibly brave and strong. But I don't feel either one. I put on a good face every day. And some days I actually felt like I was doing ok. But the truth has been something else. I read about the grief process. I keep taking baby steps every day--sometimes it is second by second. My body craves escape, but I know i can't drink--my family has big addictive personality issues. But i had a healthy addiction to my wife. I expected Valentine's Day to be awful. I wrote my wife a poem--as I did every year for both Valentine's and our anniversary. I put it on her grave with a card and some flowers. And it wasn't the best day of my life but I got through it. And for the three month anniversary I did some similar things--and i got through that day, too. But last weekend--on Saturday--I was washing the dishes and staring out the window--as I have done many times in the last three months--and suddenly the numbness was gone and the dull ache exploded into searing, mindless emotional pain. I stood there crying uncontrollably. When i finally stopped I got in my car and went to a local mall and just walked incircles for a couple hours. On Sunday i was picking up her craft room. There was a bag on the floor. I opened it. Inside were the clothes she had worn the day she went into the hospital. They still smelled like her--and i could not stop crying. I went back to work on Monday. "What are you going to do here? Stare at the walls?" But I am writing this instead of putting together the test I have to give tomorrow--instead of grading the papers that have been stacking up on my desk all week. Because suddenly the numbness is gone and the stitches I have put into my soul to hold it together have all ripped out. This is not something I can say to even my best friends who have not been here and do not understand that there really is nothing anyone can say that will make this feel any better--and that every platitude just makes the whole thing feel worse. So thanks for listening. There is some relief in being able to set my feelings down on paper and share them with people who actually know what it is I am trying to say. Sorry this is so long. It started out to be much shorter--but once i got started it was as hard to stop as those tears this weekend. We will all get through this. HAP