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.