Words on a stone

[HAP]

Dear friends,

I went to the cemetery yesterday morning. I go there every Saturday, usually in the morning. Jane and I went there most Saturday mornings when she was alive. We went to her mother's grave. Her mother always liked to hear people talking, so we would talk there. It was always quiet.

We would water the flowers we took there. We would water the flowers on other nearby graves if they looked dry, pick up the vases and pots that had fallen over in the wind. We did not stay long on any given day--and less on days when it was cold or rainy. Her mother, Jane would say, would understand.

Some day this week, the engraver came through. He incised the date of Jane's father's death on the stone and added the date of Jane's death at the same time. It's been nearly five years since Jane died--and I kept forgetting to have the date of her death put on the stone. Her sister suggested we do it when her father died.

I admit that I've avoided doing that--not so much consciously as subconsciously. Nearly five years of weekly visits, nearly five years of visits on the tenth of each month, nearly five years of visits on her birthday, on our anniversary, on Valentine's Day--on all the small dates of remembrance that make up the memories of a marriage--and I have not yet really come to terms with her death.

I saw those words on her grave yesterday and I cried. Once again, I was back on the day she died, on the day we buried her, on the day she was diagnosed, in the waiting room of the hospital on the day she was operated on, in her room during the onset of each of the carcinoid attacks and comas, and holding her hand through that long last day when there was no longer any hope.

I visited my sister-in-law afterward. She said she thought this would finally give me closure--finally let me accept Jane's death and move on with my life. Part of me hopes she is right. I'd love to stop crying out of nowhere; I'd love to stop having days where I wander aimlessly from room to room thinking I need to do the laundry, vacuum the floors, write this letter, draft that article. Then I look up and the day is gone and nothing is done.

But I also know she is wrong. I know too many people who have suffered this kind of loss. One of my neighbors lost her husband more than 15 years ago. The tears still hit her. The aimless days still come. It still hurts. Nothing cures this. There are only things that mask the symptoms for a time. There are only coping mechanisms we get better at employing over time.

Sometimes, Jane and I would look at the words on the other stones in our little section of the cemetery. We would note the spouses who were still alive and those who weren't, how long they had gone on without their other half. Some were gone in a year or two. Others lived for decades. We wondered how they endured that much time. Neither of us could imagine losing the other.

And then, I had not just to imagine it, but live it. I keep looking for words--and there are none. One moment, you are sitting in a room holding her limp but living hand. The next, there is a catch in her breathing and you are holding a hand that has no soul attached to it. You are alone in a way that cannot be described--only experienced. And it is an experience you would not wish on anyone.

A wife or a husband is the family member you choose to give absolute and unconditional love to. When you are hurt, they nurture you; when they are are hurt, you nurture them; and there are no questions asked in those hours of need. There is no birth connection there--only a conscious decision that you will share your lives with each other, no matter what comes.

And then death comes for one or the other of you--and no words can console the survivor; no physical or emotional gesture changes any of that vast emptiness. It is a pain so great and so deep that often, at the moment it happens, you feel nothing at all. Only months later, when everyone else has gone back to their lives, does the real pain begin. You face that, as you faced the moment of death, alone--alone in ways that cannot be described, only experienced.

The words on the head stone that describe the date of Jane's death may signal closure for her sister. If they do, I am glad for her. For me, they are only another reminder--like the emptiness in the soul of this house--of all that I have lost. They are words--and nothing more.  

Peace,

Harry

[scba]

Dear Harry, thanks for sharing these thoughts. 

You put down in words what I have tried, with no success, to explain to my friends, who cannot understand the deep of my loss (my boyfriend, my love, passed away a year ago)

Personally, I have decided to choose the word "integration" rather than "acceptance" or "closure" to describe this process. 

[kayc]

Harry,

I long ago accepted the news that George died, but I can't say as I've moved on from it...moved on to what?  There's nothing to make up for the loss, although I try to fill my days as best as I can.  My mom never moved on from my dad's death, although she lived 32 years beyond it.  I try to live in the here and now and yet a part of me won't feel complete until I'm with George again, I just feel it and accept that it is so.  Closure?  For me, every day without him is a reminder...

[HAP]

Precisely, Kay.

Harry

[Gwenivere]

Closure?  Really?  If I am expected to find closure after spending my adult life with the person that brought me to who I am today then I will surely fail.  Closure is for disagreements, buying a house, forgiveness, etc.  My life will be forever changed.  In time I hope to rejoin the world, but for now I am watching from the outside like some kind of stranger on a strange planet.  It looks familiar, but I'm so out place.  I've lost my partner.  There is nowhere I go and where I live that is devoid of his presence and energy.  Aside from losing a child, I know this will be the biggest change I will ever face and it will be with me til I die.  I accept that.  I do not accept I will find the worlds definition of closure.  Out 'there' people want us to move on.  I don't know if it because they lose patience or we are a reminder of what can happen to them.   I don't really care.  I like scba's word better.  Integration.  There is no denial our loved one is gone, but my hope is to find a way to live with that and the void it creates....forever.

[Harleyquinn]

I think I've accepted I'll never have closure.

So much was left unsaid....since his death I've repeated the words over and over again that I wish I had said to him. I've cried them...I've yelled them. I've thought them silently in my head.

All hoping repeating the words would help bring some healing....but the fact is, I'll never be able to look into his eyes and tell him how sorry I am. How much I love him. How wrong everything went. How it was never supposed to end this way for us....how he was my soulmate and part of me. 

every night i tell him i love him.....does he hear me? Does he still love me wherever he is? Does he forgive me? Will i be with him again when i pass? 

these are all the questions that keep me from having closure.....

[Wifflesnook]

I detest that word closure. My life with Pete lasted fifty years. I've now lived almost four without him by my side. I know I shall never stop grieving for him, missing him, feeling the pain of his absence. My life is so diminished by his loss I can't express it. I live on, I keep busy, I know people around me think I'm 'over' the grief. How wrong can they be? It's just that we keep our pain private because we know that no one who hasn't suffered the loss of their soul mate can understand. Thank you for putting this into words Harry.

[Gwenivere]

I have the same questions you do, Harleyquinn.  I always wonder if Steve is somehow aware of the intense grief I am going thru losing him.  Does he hear me cry?  See how this has brought me to my knees in indescribable pain?  Will I ever see him again?  I never believed in an after life.  This experience has me questioning that because I cannot fathom the energy force he was being snuffed out like it never existed.   I hear all this 'they are alive thru our memories'.  Yeah yeah.  I don't him to feel bad, he already felt that so intensely when he knew it was ending  I just want him to know that the love I have for him is even more than I knew.  

Wifflesnook, I now keep much to myself when in the outside world.  To them, a year or more is long enough.   I can understand that because their lives move on.  But when someone really want to know how I am doing, it feels like a gift.  In essence, it still feels like it is Steve and I when I go thru the gut punches of a grief attack.  Ironically, he is the only person who could truly comfort me.  

[Guest]

I also have those questions, the ones we will never know for certain in this life.  I like to think Deedo is there watching me when I'm being brave, compassionate, kind, thoughtful.  It terrifies me that she might be there when I am collapsing from grief; or when I am acting like a jackass; when the weight of things build to a point the world seems to be collapsing in on me.  Today started so well.  Lots of walking in the woods; nine miles before noon.  And then came the phone call, the innocent yet ignorant comment; the trigger.  Boom!  I can't stop sobbing.  Maybe they were right! Maybe I could have done more, been a better caregiver, a stronger advocate.  Maybe if I were a better person things might have been different.  It's times like these I pray Deedo will never know about; they would destroy her.

[kevin]

Brad, we all think we could have done something different....I feel that way and always will. It would not effected the end. I wish I loved her more, made her smile more, and let her eat more Chocolate.  When the second and third parties chirp in with derogatory comments, I don't give them the time of day........If we have  found peace with our efforts, that is all that matters.

[Harleyquinn]

... I've always made the best decisions I could at the time I had to with the information available...

that goes for all decisions in my life.  sometimes it means nothing and guilt is so strong it's overwhelming, other times it brings me some peace. 

[Gwenivere]

Brad, those triggers you posted.  It constantly amazes me how for a brief moment I think I actually may be OK.  Then wham!  The slightest thing or thought (my brain and I seem to be at war, it wanting to flood me with the bad stuff) can turn everything upside down.   People and what they say to try and 'fix' (which many call help) are the worst.  It is why I don't talk to many about Steve anymore.  But no matter what, someone pops up and says something that can totally derail me.  The thing I am finding is not to let them have that power.  I've created lines I won't let people cross anymore.  Fortunately no one has made me feel the need to defend myself, but if they tried, they would fail.  We all did the best we could at the time.  And one thing we don't need is to ever 2nd guess that.  It's like back seat drivers.  They think they know more, but in reality they cannot see what we do.  We sit in the seat of our personal journey.

[Queeniemary]

Harry, I understand.  I have owned cemetery plots for years, my baby is buried in one of them.  Mike will be gone 6 years in January, and I have yet to put a headstone in place.  His ashes are resting in a red rock urn from AZ on my bookcase.  Dates are on that urn, but somehow putting up a headstone, with his name and dates is just something I have not been able to do yet.  Mike did not like funerals, he did not want to be buried, he wanted to be cremated.  I have send his ashes all over (or taken them myself), when friends were traveling to different places, Belize, Alaska, Mexico...etc. That is something that he would love. Someday I will buy the headstone, and will put our names and dates on it (or maybe I will just wait and let my children do that).  Then our ashes will be mixed together and buried together next to my little son.  The date that Mike died is burned in my mind and heart, I don't need to see it anywhere to remember. And I know Harry, it is the same for you. There is no closure, there is only learning to live with the pain and the grief, and the guilt.  Yes, guilt, that I am still alive, and he is not. Tears still come unbidden, unexpectedly, no warning, but that is my new normal.  As was said earlier, people think I am "over" the grief, but we all have become very adept actors. I will never be over this grief, I have just learned to make it a part of my life and continue.

QMary

[HAP]

Pretty much, QM.