This is not a story about my colonoscopy…
This is not a story about my colonoscopy, but there is a colonoscopy in it. Actually, there are two. The story begins in 2006 when my late-husband, Anson, turned 50. When you turn 50–just something for those of you under 50 to look forward to– the universe rewards you with an invitation to join AARP and a reminder to get your first colonoscopy. I drove Anson to the hospital, dropped him off, did some shopping, and went to pick him up two hours later. He was lying on a bed wearing a johnny in a room with other patients and I remember the room smelling vaguely like…well, farts. He was groggy and uncomfortable, and I felt sorry for him lying there. This was the most vulnerable I had ever seen him–drugged, half-naked, surrounded by strangers in a room smelling like farts. When he felt clear-headed enough to get dressed, we left the hospital and went right to his favorite diner for lunch.
Five years later, I was a widow. The surrealism of the years just after Anson’s death are difficult to describe. The pain, the loneliness, the profundity of grief are too great for me to go into here. Suffice to say that there are thousands of details about life that you don’t think about when you are married but that suddenly come to the surface as a widow. Who do I call to fix the drier? If my car is being repaired, who will drive me to work? Will anyone want to date me now that I’m 46? Is there anything I can do about the skin on my neck? Does anyone realize how lucky they are to be alive? And for some reason, one of the questions that bothered me the most was “Who will drive me home from my colonoscopy?”
I actually brought this question up with a man I dated shortly after Anson died. This man had never been married, had no children, and was five years younger than me. When I told him that I worried about who would drive me home from my colonoscopy, he grimaced. “I don’t even want to think about that stuff– I do enough of that for my mom, I don’t need to do that for my girlfriend.” Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last long.
I’ve said many times since Anson died that I feel like my foundation is gone. When you are married, even if it is a difficult marriage, there is a sense of continuity, of stability. You have a go-to person, and if your spouse can’t help you with a certain task, they can at least help you find a stand in. As a widow, I feel like each scenario is up in the air– who do I ask for help? And if I ask person A for help this time, I’ll have to find person B for next time so that I don’t wear out my friends’ goodwill. Who among my friends would be kind enough to meet me at the hospital and see me half-naked in a room that smelled like farts?
Last year, I turned 50. I got my AARP invitation and my colonoscopy notice. My health insurance company even offered me a $50 gift card if I got the colonoscopy within a year! What a deal! Because I am a “good patient,” I scheduled the consultation and procedure right away. My 21-year-old son agreed to drop me off at the hospital and pick me up a few hours later. The preparation was no fun, in spite of all the peach iced tea and Sprite I bought to try to make it more enjoyable.
On the day of the procedure, as I lay on the gurney waiting for the gastroenterologist to begin, I fought back tears. Lying on a table in a hospital johnny open in the back, surrounded by strangers and cold machines made me feel vulnerable and small. I didn’t want the anesthesiologist or nurses to think that I was scared– I wasn’t afraid of the procedure. I just hated the fact that I was alone. I had been there for Anson when he came out of the anesthesia. Why couldn’t someone be there for me?
But anesthesia today is so lovely! One deep breath and I was out. I woke up a few minutes later in the recovery area– no nausea like I remembered from the anesthesia of my youth. The nurses were warm and funny and they were checking on me and bringing me water. They told me to go ahead and fart– it was good to fart! But the room didn’t smell bad the way I had remembered with Anson’s procedure. There were other patients around me; some had friends picking them up, some had spouses, some had adult children. I had survived! I actually felt great. And all these people, at different phases of later adulthood, with different life situations– we all had found rides home. The nurse called my son; he was on his way to get me, so I got dressed and waited for him. Other than riding down to his car in a wheelchair, I felt as normal as could be.
So it was over. My first colonoscopy! (By the way, SURPRISE! You have to have one EVERY FIVE YEARS!!!) I had done it without a spouse or a boyfriend to drive me home. It was not a big deal. So, this is not a story about my colonoscopy. I had been a widow for four years, and this is a story about learning that I was going to be okay, alone.
Clouds and Lilac
I recently read about a formula for happiness developed by Mo Gawdat, an enigeneer and Google executive. Put simply, the formula is this: “Happiness is equal to or greater than the events of your life minus your expectation of how life should be.” Gawdat’s formula resonated with me as someone who has learned to accept a life less-than-perfect. “Why me?” I used to think. Now I say to myself, “Why not me?” Why did I assume that no tragedy would befall me? My expectations, pre-grief, were unrealistic. As the saying goes, “Into each life a little rain must fall.”
Today is the anniversary of my husband’s death. I posted a picture of him on Facebook this morning with one of my favorite quotations about grief: “The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.” (Colum McCann)
I thought about Gawdat’s formula as I got ready for work, the grey cloud of grief hovering closer and closer to my head. “Ugh, not again,” I thought. “Do I have to go through this every year?”
I looked at the weather forecast to help me decide what to wear. Sixty-nine degrees and cloudy, with rain possible this afternoon. It’s the weather, I thought. Just the weather alone brings me back to Anson’s death. It’s always so humid in the spring. It rains way too much– the air is cool but moist, my hair always falls in my face, and I’m sick of wearing sweaters! When will it be summer?!
The temperatures, the rain, the smell of lilac– all of it brings me back to the week of his accident. We were separated at the time, and my son was just about to graduate from high school. During the night of May 23rd, I had a dream about my son– he was floating down a river, buoyed by a puffy red jacket that was acting like a raft. I was walking quickly along the side of the river watching him and he was calling to me “Look mom! Look at me!” He was happy and excited to be moving so fast. Then he floated toward some rapids and he was suddenly pulled down into a whirlpool. I could see his red jacket, but his head and face were under the water, and I couldn’t reach him to help him. More water– the uncontrollable river of life rushing on, my son drowning in the changes thrust upon him by life and his imperfect parents. My heart raced and I woke up in a sweat. I went to school the next day, May 24th, feeling anxious and tired. The day slogged on. And at 10:00 that night, the police knocked on my door to tell me that Anson had been in a car accident and had not survived.
The cool and humid weather of spring brings back those memories almost subconsciously. As I looked through my closet this morning, I thought “the word to describe spring in the Berkshires is ‘bloated.'” It’s almost oppressive– the cool humidity, the clouds, the smell of lilac. Graduation weekend is always wet. The students and parents stand in puddles of wet grass or inside the pavilion if it is still raining. I taught at the high school for 20 years, I should know this by now. This is spring in the Berkshires. Do I expect something else?
Maybe I do– maybe I’m hoping for the dry, cool springs of my childhood in Indiana. The end of school, when you are a child, means carefree days of sun, grass, swimming, bikes, and fireflies. What lightness! Is that what I’m expecting? Am I lowering my happiness by expecting spring to be something that it is not?
And then we add grief–can I learn to accept that I will feel this oppressiveness every year around this anniversary? Will I be happier if I don’t expect to feel better in May, just because the days are longer and there’s no snow on the ground? I don’t want to set myself up to feel bad, but would I feel less sad if my expectations for how my life is “supposed to be” made room for grief? Spring in the Berkshires is cool, it is wet, it is overcast with clouds and grief and it smells of lilac. So be it.
Every, Every Minute
Last night at a dance, a friend of mine asked me why I hadn’t been out lately. I knew I would hear this question– I had been dancing only once since February and here it is mid-May. I told him it was because I had been feeling more and more lonely at dances and after them. Of course, he couldn’t understand that feeling as dances are social events and because he is married, so he dances and then goes home with his wife of 35 years. I tried to describe the odd loneliness that comes from being single at 52, being hit on by married men or men much too young for me, and he told me I should consider it a compliment that men find me attractive. Then he said what many of my married friends have said to me: “If something happened to my spouse, I don’t think I would even bother with dating. I’d be happy to be alone.”
I said this too once, to a single friend of mine. I regret saying it now, although, at the time it felt true to me. That idea– that after 35 years of marriage he would be happy being alone– falls into the same category as “You don’t need a man,” and “Aren’t you lucky to be able to do your own thing?” Well intentioned sentiments, but they miss the mark for me.
First of all– I know there are true introverts in the world who relish their alone time. I like some alone time too. And maybe there are people in the world who truly don’t want to live with another person for the remainder of their years on earth. Could be. I’m just not one of them.
Secondly, as a person fascinated by social psychology, I know that we are social creatures. We like contact with other humans. Solitary confinement kills our souls. This is not just a matter of personal preference, this is who we are as a species. To tell someone “You don’t need a man” is true– I don’t need a man to complete me or to make me “valid” as a human being– but it ignores the basic instinct that I have as a hetereosexual woman to be in contact with a mate. I won’t pretend that I don’t have that drive.
And lastly, what bothers me about people’s well-intentioned admonitions is this: I don’t think married people understand what it means to be alone for years at a time. I don’t think people can fathom what it means to come home to an empty house day after day after day after day after day. Not just for a week or two while your spouse is away on a business trip, but day after day after day stretching out with no end in sight. In my world, the sweetest four words I can think of are “How was your day?” If I could just hear those four words every day– how rich I would be!
Last summer, my dance teacher asked me to dance with him at “Third Thursday”–a street party in our city that happens every summer. I was thrilled– not only would I get to dance on stage, but we would be promoting our new dance group and maybe inspiring people to take up salsa. There was a live band playing, and several of the people from our class danced in the streets while Alan and I danced on stage. Other women came up and danced on stage with him too, and then we all joined in a conga line and wove through the audience and around the street picking up willing spectators as we went. It was exhilarating– the band fed off of our energy and vice versa, the audience cheered for us and smiled, we had a blast and people were impressed by our skills. After the performance, people from our class stood around and talked with the members of the band and each other. Alan’s whole family was there– his wife and four of their kids, including their new baby. His aunt and uncle were visiting from Spain as well. We talked for a few minutes and then the kids started tugging on Alan’s hand and asking for food, so the whole family set off together looking for dinner. The other students from class found their significant others in the crowd and two by two, they wandered away. I found myself standing in the middle of the street alone as the next performers set up on stage. Should I walk around Third Thursday alone? I wondered. I went half a block up the street looking for a food vendor, and then felt awkward, so I turned around and went to my car. I drove home feeling a wave of loneliness building. What a blessing to have someone who you can turn to and say “How did I do?” or “Did you see that??” To hear someone say “You were awesome! You did great!” Such a simple exchange.
How many people notice those exchanges as they happen? I’m often reminded of the line from “Our Town” when Emily goes back to a normal morning from her childhood and watches her family interacting. She says to the Stage Manager: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?” He responds: “No. The saints and poets, maybe–they do some.” Well, I am definitely not a saint and I am sure I lack the patience to be a poet, but here again is one of the gifts of grief– to appreciate those small, every day exchanges and niceties that so many people miss or take for granted. To my married friends, I say this: You may not be able to help me find a partner in life, but please–at least–as a favor to me–be grateful. Realize life– and love–while you live it– every, every minute.
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