Dear Friend of a Facebook Friend
Dear Friend of a Facebook Friend:
I said I wouldn’t do it any more, but I did. I commented on a political post on Facebook and when you responded, I engaged. I knew I shouldn’t– my stomach hurt when I read your comment, and my heart raced as I typed my next question. “Why are you so angry?” You assured me you were not, called me a “typical liberal, making accusations when you don’t get your way.” You assured me you were just stating facts and told me to “keep my opinion to myself.” You called me a “snowflake,” told me to go sing “Kumbaya,” called me “sweetheart” and told me that you despised the party that I represented. Besides, you said, you were bored at work and it was “fun” bantering with me.
I should have stopped the conversation, should have stepped away to take my morning walk, should have breathed deeply and let it go. But the night before, I had watched a documentary about a Muslim woman interviewing men from the alt-right and it affected me. The men she interviewed were, by and large, lonely, sad, and sheltered. It made me wonder–in the age of rapid and world-wide communication technology, why have we stopped listening to each other? Just listening to understand, not to argue. I stopped commenting on Facebook posts months ago when I realized it is not the place for productive conversation. It is a place where people shout at each other, double down, dig in, and insult people they’ve never met. It is a place full of assumptions, with a layer of anonymity that allows people to say things they would never say face to face. That morning I wondered–if I could just engage you in conversation, would you keep insulting me? So I asked you where you work. You responded, again, with anger– you didn’t want to get to know me, sweetie, so I should stop asking “stupid questions” like where you work. Then you told me “God Bless.” Then you apologized for calling me sweetie, because you didn’t want to hurt my precious feelings again.
I apologized too and said I didn’t want to hurt your feelings either. I called you “sugar pie” and maybe that showed you that I have enough of a sense of humor that I was not melting under your “banter,” because you continued the conversation. You told me you needed a new job. You told me your son was going to the Arizona border to be a border patrol officer. You told me an officer was killed there recently by an “illegal.” You told me you weren’t worried for him– that you “couldn’t be more proud.” I said “I wish him luck.” And then I went to work.
Later in the day, I checked Facebook again to see if you had commented more and I found all my comments were gone. Your comments were gone. You were gone. I looked you up by name, and your profile was gone. Blocked, I assume. You blocked me. Which is fine. But why? Are we at such a place that my engaging with you– trying to be human with you in spite of your insulting, demeaning “banter”–scared you? Did you think I was trying to change your mind? Turn you “liberal?” Did you think I was a Russian troll?
All I can say is, it makes me sad. I know, I know….sadness is a soft, liberal “snowflake” kind of emotion. You probably think I’m weak. You will probably tell me to go back to my “safe space” and cry. I know being strong is important to you. But I truly am sad that we Americans have lost our ability to talk politely to each other. I’m sad that we have so much distrust for the “other side” that we won’t listen any more. I’m sad that a gesture of kindness is perceived as a threat.
I’m sorry that I scared you, sugar pie. God Bless.
The Way You Thought It Would Be
One piece of advice I read right after my husband died was something along the lines of “Get used to the idea that your life is not going to be the way you thought it would be.” As the years go by, I am realizing more and more how difficult that advice is to carry out. I think I’ve got it– I think I’ve accepted it–and then I find myself adjusting again, letting go of more, and thankfully, opening up to what “not the way I thought it would be” might look like.
When Anson died, I foolishly thought the next chapter of my life might be better than the previous chapter. Anson had struggled with stress, anxiety, and alcohol dependency, and we had struggled financially for 10 out of the 21 years we were married. I envisioned myself meeting a man who was financially and emotionally stable, who would make a good role model for my children and create a new, adventurous life with me filled with travel and cool adult children and grandchildren. We would get married and create a big, beautiful Brady Bunch family and take a picture every summer at our beach house on the Cape with all of us wearing blue. I wanted a new family that I could insert myself and my kids into so we could just keep cruising forward through life. After dating for a few years and having some six-month or longer relationships with a couple of men, I realized that this dream was not likely to happen. I don’t move in the same circles as men who own beach houses on the Cape. The men I do feel comfortable with come with their own challenges and problems. I had to accept the fact that my new chapter will be better in some ways, but there will always be trade-offs. As my sister once said, “it won’t be better, just different.”
It’s been six years now that I’ve been processing grief and dating. There have been years of feeling lonely, hurt, and sad, and longing for a positive, healthy, nurturing relationship to balance out the loss and pain. I’ve tried five or six online dating sites, and wow, there are some “interesting” people out there. I see my friends and relatives navigating their own relationship terrain and I realize how hard the struggles can be. “Not better, just different” has slowly morphed into “actually, it could be a lot worse.” There are men out there who have harder problems than Anson had. And there is no doubt that being single is far healthier than being in a bad relationship. My daughter works so much that it is very hard to see her, and my son has told me flat out that he doesn’t want to meet the men I date unless I’m sure it’s really serious. Maybe I won’t find a man who will create a new family with me– maybe I’ll find a man who never had kids of his own or who doesn’t earn as much money as I do and can’t afford to travel with me. Maybe I’ll travel by myself or with my sister. Maybe my future partners will be polite to my children, but that’s all. It’s not going to be the way I thought it would be.
Now my son has moved out, and it’s just me and the cat living in this four bedroom home. I so badly want to sell this house and get out of the burden of lawn mowing and shoveling. Every day, I am more tempted to just rent for a year to see what my next move will be. I have been on one coffee date in the past six months. But I have an amazing group of friends through my dance community. They are all younger than I am. Most of them are immigrants. They talk about traveling and living in other places– two years here, three years there. Maybe I’ll do that– rent an apartment, take a year off from teaching to go abroad and teach English, be a nomad for a while. Maybe I’ll have lovers and friends who are 15 years younger than me and my kids won’t even know about it. Maybe I’ll be a cool middle aged woman who’s traveled the world and been on all kinds of adventures. Maybe, if my son and daughter ever decide to have kids, I’ll be that quirky grandma who visits for a few weeks in the summer before heading off to another country to explore. Maybe someday I’ll settle back down with a head full of interesting stories to tell.
Who knows? It’s not going to be the way I thought it would be.
Sick and tired
A year ago, I had lunch with some female friends, one of whom is also a widow. I had been telling them about the man I had recently dated and how I wasn’t sure I was even ready to date yet, even though it has been several years since my husband died. She asked me how long it had been, and I said “Five years.”
“Oh….” she responded. “It’s still fresh.”
Her comment both surprised me and made me annoyed. Five years is “fresh?” Why? It seems like an eternity. I want to move on, I want to get out of grief and into joy. I’ve been slogging through this walking flu for five years– living holiday after holiday without him, watching birthdays and anniversaries tick by, attending weddings, becoming a grandmother, creating a life for myself alone for five years– how can it still be “fresh?” I don’t WANT it to be fresh anymore! I want to be done!
And yet, the grief just keeps coming. In the past five years, my marriage fell apart, my husband moved out of our house and then died, my daughter moved out on her own, my mother died, and my son J went off to college. The nest has been slowly, gradually, painfully emptying, although J was still coming home for summers and vacations. Two weeks ago, my son– who has always been a kind, thoughtful, communicative young man– picked a huge fight with me over text and moved in with his girlfriend. We have not spoken face to face since.
Now, I know that it is developmentally appropriate for him to move out. He’ll be 24 years old in two days. I understand his desire to be independent and to live with the first serious love of his life. I support his need to do this. What I don’t understand is why he had to pick a huge fight with me and call me names. We have never talked that way to each other; we’ve always worked out our differences with kindness toward each other. Everyone I speak to says “He’ll figure it out. He’ll come back.” I have faith that he will– he has always come around eventually and talked to me about what was bothering him. I trust that he will again. But I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt in the meantime.
I’m writing today not because I’m hurting so much about my son that I need to vent. I’m writing today because I’m having trouble getting myself motivated to leave the house. It’s rainy and cold and I’m not looking forward to being around people. I feel like I’m back to the grief I felt after Anson died all over again. Like six years later, I’m still grieving just as hard. I feel like a failure as a parent and as a spouse, and maybe just as a human being in general. I don’t want to hear people talking about their families visiting and their vacations. I don’t want to see parents walking through town with their adult children. I don’t want anyone to ask me “How are your kids?” I know this will pass. I know it’s a temporary condition. But I’m so sick of it. I’m sick of feeling bad. I’m sick of talking about feeling bad. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I can’t pretend like I’m not hurting and I’m tired of talking about hurting.
I know I need to get back to my gratitude journal, and I will. But maybe I need to feel ungrateful for a while. Maybe I just need to sit with the injustice and the unfairness of life, and just be stinky by myself. Like when you’re really sick and you don’t shower for a couple of days. Because, man….when you start to feel better, doesn’t that first shower feel great? I’ll get there.
Yes, and….
My son J moved out of our house this week. His decision was sudden but not completely unexpected. He’s twenty-three, after all, and has a steady girlfriend. I’m at a good place in my grief process to deal with this– I’m sad, but I’m going to be okay. It’s hard when I think about my household shrinking from five people to one over five years as my kids moved out and my husband died. Most moms who talk about the empty nest syndrome still have their husbands around. This normal and difficult “launch process” is even more painful for a widow.
Before my son moved out, I had the idea that I might sell the house and downsize to a condo, and J was both stressed out by that idea and grateful. He felt like he needed to get rid of stuff he wasn’t using any more, like when he was a child and we would “update” his toys to get rid of the transformers and LEGOs he wasn’t using. Now it was tools and a home brewing kit and other big “toys” that he had bought and tried out and then outgrown. We had cleaned and tossed, made multiple trips to the dump, and J had a yard sale.
Today, I cleaned out a closet as I prepare for workers to put a new floor in my living room. I found a few more items I could sell or get rid of– two wind chimes, two kites, a basketball and a tennis racket. As I cleaned them up and got them ready for selling, I remembered that one of the kites had been a wedding present from my sister. I tried to think of how many times we had used the kite over the 21 years my husband and I were married. Maybe three? Thinking about the kite brought up memories of the other gifts we had received and rarely used, like the picnic basket that still sits in our garage. I remember getting those gifts as a young bride with a new husband and a step-daughter. I envisioned wind-swept hill-top picnics and days spent in the park flying kites. The same for the basketball and the tennis racket– they came with a cluster of expectations about what my kids and my family would be like.
When I talk to other widows about their grief, we find that we have a common feeling– the idea that marriage and family is in large part an illusion. Widows talk about death lifting a “veil” that covers the eyes of those who are still happily married or happily single. What we think of, before grief, as permanent, solid, and reliable is shaken and ripped apart in grief. Nothing is permanent. Relationships are temporary. The world is not solid, but precarious and liable to go out from under you without warning. Losing an alcoholic spouse in a car accident most certainly adds to that sense of precariousness. Drunk driving takes lives without warning; in the blink of an eye, a happy family enters a vortex of grief, trauma, confusion and pain. Nothing seems stable.
Discovering the kites today reminded me of this illusion. I had the sudden feeling that these were props in a play that I had been trying to stage for the past 30 years. The scene was “family life” and there would be games of “horse” in the driveway, swimming pools and beach vacations, game nights and laughter, sledding in the wintertime, school band concerts, and cozy Christmas mornings. I feel like some families pull off this scene well– maybe they have stronger directors than my family had. It seems like, in some families, all the actors know their lines and play their roles with committment. In an alcoholic family, at least one of the actors shows up on opening night drunk or stoned, or both. Lines are forgotten, and the play veers off into a totally new production while the other actors struggle to improvise, or walk off the stage completely.
And this is why life– especially life with an alcoholic– is not like a play. Or if “all the world’s a stage,” and we are merely players, it is a play without rehearsal. In many ways, it is all improvised. We can bring props to the stage, but they might not be used. And so, I decided, I can let these props go. I can let my son go. Five years ago, that idea would have brought me to tears as I mourned what I had wanted for my family and didn’t achieve. That scene didn’t come off the way I had hoped. I’m still sad about that, but today I feel like I have another scene coming up. I don’t know what the scene will look like– a soliloquy? a dialogue? To a large extent, it’s going to be improv. But isn’t the rule of thumb in improv to say “Yes, and…”? That would be a good mantra for the next phase of life.
And yet, we persevere
I’m sitting here typing this with a feeling in my lower abdomen that I can only describe as being punched in the cervix. For those of you without a cervix, imagine having a splitting headache in the deepest, most inaccessible part of your body. I just returned from the gynecologist– I have had some abnormal cervical cells on my pap smears for the past few years, and they’re not going away. They’re not getting worse and I do not have HPV, so that’s the good news. But my doctor advised that I have them looked at every six months just to be on the safe side.
Today the gynocologist and I discussed my IUD and whether to leave it in for two more years or take it out now. I told him I preferred to leave it in– I’m only 52, I still have occassional spotting, so I think I’m still ovulating from time to time. He agreed, and he proceeded to do the biopsy which suddenly felt like a balloon had exploded inside my body. Then he calmly said, “Your IUD came out. It was attached to the biopsy piece.”
Here’s what I get to take home: 1. Cramps like I haven’t had since I was a teenage girl getting her period. 2. Two requests for blood work– one three weeks from now after my hormones regulate and one for three weeks after that to see what my follicle stimluating hormones are doing. Based on those results, my gynocologist will tell me if I still need and IUD. 3. The gyno’s suggestion that I use a condom if I have sex between now and the last blood work results. (Thanks for the reminder that I haven’t had sex in six months and have no good prospects in sight.) 4. A nagging question– When will there be a MALE birth control pill or device?? and 5. An overwhelming sense of shock and awe that any women my age have a positive attitude toward life.
Being an aging woman is hard enough. Being a middle-aged woman who is going through a divorce and then grief is indescribably difficult. I remember one day when my husband had just moved out of our house and I was cleaning up the piles of stuff he had left behind. I was feeling sad and angry and scared about the future and wondering if anyone would ever find me attractive again. I picked up a beautiful wooden hand mirror that I had received as a gift in my twenties, and in my reflection I saw my neck skin, loose and crepey and old looking. I literally fell to my knees and cried in a heap on the floor. Why now? Why did I have to be “resingled” when the ravages of old age were just around the corner?
After that, it seemed like one slap in the face after another. My ex got a girlfriend right away and was flying to Baltimore every other weekend at her expense. Then his lawyer decided he should ask for alimony from me since his hearing loss might prevent him from working in the future. The first man I slept with was less than forthcoming about his sexual history, and when I learned the truth, I rushed to a walk-in clinic to be tested for everything, crying as I sat in the exam room. The nurse who did the tests said quietly “Maybe you’re not ready to be dating yet?” She was right. Five months after my husband died, when I did feel ready for dating, I ended up with a genital wart (which, by the way, condoms do not prevent) and an abnormal pap smear.
I got the IUD when I met a decent guy who was patient with me as I tried various methods of birth control and finally opted for the Mirena. I feel like the hormones in the IUD screwed up my emotions for the first six months I had it in, although my doctor assures me that it is too small a dose of hormones to do that. My emotions have been rocky for six years– is it because my marriage ended? Is it grief due to the tragic death of my soon-to-be-ex-husband? Grief over my mom’s death a year later? The empty nest syndrome? Peri-menopause? Birth control? Who the hell knows? Now I am going cold-turkey on the hormones my body had become accustomed to– what hormonal joys do I have to look forward to next?
All I know is this– aging is not for sissies. Older women are portrayed in our culture as weak, out of touch, clingy, and useless. (They are not. If they persevere and keep their heads up, they are the strongest creatures on earth.) Men write articles about why they date younger women, saying “Older women are so negative.” Really? I wonder why? It’s not as if biology and society hit women with a double whammy at mid-life. Women are the ones who deal with birth control, pregnancy, breast feeding, and the bulk of child rearing. Then at mid-life, after we’ve given our best reproductive years, many of us are left by the fathers of our children so that they can puruse younger women. And yet we persevere. We keep caring for our children and grandchildren, we keep learning new things and exploring the world. We keep showing up.
So if you see me, or any woman my age, and we have a positive attitude about life, give us a pat on the back. If you don’t, I’ll punch you in the cervix.
Last Graduation
Last September, I moved from teaching high school history and psychology to teaching ESL in the elementary school. I taught high school for twenty years, starting in the English department and then moving to social studies. In those twenty years, I don’t know how many high school graduations I have attended, but it is a lot– more than the average 52-year-old, I would bet. Today I attended yet another, maybe my last.
High school graduations are bittersweet when your child is graduating and tedious when you are just a spectator. After seeing around three of them, I came to the understanding that all high school commencement addresses are basically the same. The students try to jazz up the ceremony by throwing beach balls in the air, or shooting silly string at each other, not realizing– or not caring– that their “rebellions” are just like every other class’s rebellions. As my principal once said “They think they are being original, but it gets old so fast.”
As a teacher, graduations are moments to support your former students, cheer them on, and perhaps, if you are lucky, give them a hug or pose for a picture with them after the ceremony. Usually, as a teacher, I would find myself wandering around the grounds of Tanglewood looking for students who I hoped to connect with, and then giving up as the masses of family members swallowed up their kids. If a student saw me in town later and said “Did you go to graduation?” I could at least say yes, honestly.
As a parent, graduation became more loaded. Knowing the personalities of the students that I taught as well as my own daughter’s ups and downs through those four years made the bittersweetness even more sharp. Sometimes our “brightest and best” can be entitled, devious cut-throats, while those who barely pass our classes are the ones working the hardest with the most integrity in the face of horrible odds. Being a teacher in my child’s high school brought all this to light, and it was sometimes difficult to watch.
My son’s graduation was even more challenging. My husband died May 24th, 2011. My son’s graduation was two weeks later. I don’t know how he walked across that stage– I think we were all on auto-pilot. All I remember is watching him walk by in the procession and feeling so immensely proud of him, and then gathering with my family for pictures. When I look at those pictures now, we all look pale and shell-shocked.
In the years after Anson’s death, I tried to avoid going to graduation at all. My principal wanted teachers to walk in with the students and to wear our gowns and hoods. I went a couple of times after Anson died, and it was painful. The memories of that 2011 ceremony lingered in the auditorium, and all around me were happy, celebrating extended families. Parents behind me would be chattering about the wonderful colleges their kids were going to while my kids struggled to finish community college in the midst of their grief over their father’s death. Afterwards, I would wind my way through the crowds of smiling families, trying to make it back to my car alone. I might go to one graduation party where I would awkwardly try to make conversation with a lump in my throat from the memories welling up.
This is my first year as a teacher in the elementary school, but my students from last year graduated today and one in particular begged me to attend. She was salutatorian, and I felt like I should go and hear her speech. She invited me to her party afterwards as well, and I agreed to go. The day was cool and rainy, as usual, and as I listened to her speech, I grew more and more cold and uncomfortable. The memories were creeping back and I didn’t want to navigate through the crowds of celebrating families, so I snuck out after the speeches. I went home and closed my eyes for a few minutes to regroup, and then I headed out to her party.
As soon as my GPS told me to turn left on route 23, I knew where it was taking me. East toward the town Anson and I lived in until the kids were 8 and 11 years old. Down the road I used to drive on when I took them to school. Past houses I used to look at and think “maybe we could buy that house” when we lived in a cramped little four-room cottage. Turn right onto County Road and when the GPS said “You have reached your destination,” I was across the street from the spot where Anson’s car veered off the road, hit a tree, flipped over, and landed top down in someone’s yard.
“Well, of course” I thought. Let’s make this a complete package with a nice little bow on top. The whole shebang. Graduation and a drive down memory lane, ending here.
The party was lovely in spite of the pouring rain. My former students were thrilled to see me, and the salutatorian sat with me and chatted and told her family that I am “an amazing woman.” I gave her my full attention, asking about her year, her prom, her plans for the summer and for next year. We took photos with silly props. We hugged. We promised to have lunch before she went away to college. As I backed my car out of the yard, my tire spun and I thought I would be stuck in the mud. “No please,” I begged silently, driving a little farther forward and then hitting the accelerator hard to back out over the muddy spot. I made it, and shook my head at the miserable weather and swallowed the lump that was threatening to form in my throat. I drove past all the memories again, this time heading the other direction. Heading away. Moving forward.
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.
A Son By Any Other Name…
Choosing names for our children was– like so much of our marriage–a struggle. Looking back, some of the memories make me laugh. When I became pregnant for the first time, my husband and I were wanna-be hippies planning a home birth. We toyed with names like “River” for a boy, and “Honesty” or “Cadence” for a girl. My mother went apoplectic when she heard “River” and told us we should name the baby “Oliver” if it was a boy and “Olga” if it was a girl. Since our last name started with O, the child’s initials would have been “OO” which she thought was hysterical. Anson and I agreed to never discuss the topic with her again.
But that was about all we could agree on. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I had a rush of insterest in family history. I loved the name Margaret which was my grandmother’s name. She represented the Irish-Catholic side of my heritage and her intense love of family was one of the traits I admired about her. I suggested naming the child Margaret and calling her Maggie. Anson didn’t like that idea, saying “If we’re going to call her Maggie, let’s just name her Maggie.” But I wanted to honor my grandmother who went by Margaret all her life. So I stupidly put away the name “Maggie.” I also had a beloved great-aunt, Kitty, who had spunk and energy and humor– her full name was Katharine, and I had always loved the name Katie for a girl. Again, “If w’ere going to call her Katie, let’s just name her Katie.” We ended up naming her Kate Elizabeth, and even so, we called her Katie. (Isn’t that the same as naming her Katherine and calling her Katie?) I wish now that I had pushed harder for my choices– but I was young, insecure, and didn’t want to fight about it.
With my second pregnancy, I looked through my family tree and scrapbooks my older relatives sent me. One of the richest stories about my own family came from a couple– Daniel and Katherine Heffernan– who moved to Indiana from Ireland in the 1800’s. I loved the name Daniel– it reminded me of the gentle Daniel Tiger on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and the song by Elton John. My grandmother Margaret had a brother named Daniel and the name Danny to me sounded confident and dashing. Anson rejected Danny because he had been bullied by a boy named Danny as a kid. Again, I didn’t want to fight, and I let Danny go.
I think it’s important to mention that I was surrounded by his family. We actually lived next door to his parents, and his sister and her family were 15 minutes away. My family was spread out all over the country– New Mexico, Florida, Georgia and Indiana. We were dirt poor, and travel is expensive. When I asked to spend more time with my family, my husband said he didn’t enjoy being around my family. His mother literally said to me once “Yes, but….our family is better.” So I guess I didn’t feel like I could win in these discussions. There was so much psychic support behind him and his preferences, and so little behind mine, I felt. So I turned to his family history.
In my husband’s family tree, I noticed that there had been someone named Anson Jonathan in every century. It started with a Nathan, who named his son Jonathan, who named his son Anson Jonathan in the 1700’s. There was an Anson Jonathan in every century after, although Anson, my husband, did not have the middle name Jonathan. I was in the midst of my American Studies degree and I had just learned that, in the 1700’s, John was the stereotypical name used for a British citizen (as in John Q. Public) and Jonathan was the stereotypical American name. So Jonathan, for me, represented American culture, and it reminded me of apples and apple trees, which are connected to my father in my mind. So we agreed on Anson Jonathan. Neither of us wanted to use “big Anson” and “little Anson,” or “Anson, senior” and “Anson, junior.” We toyed with Andy and A.J., but we finally settled on calling him Jonathan, which I came to love.
Still, my son’s legal name is Anson Jonathan, and when he transferred schools in the seventh grade, his teachers called him Anson. He never corrected them, whether out of shyness or preference I’m not sure. But here and there, people started calling him Anson to my surprise. When he and his dad started working together at a ski area, my then fourteen year-old son had a badge that said “Jonathan.” The next year, he asked for “Jon” on his badge. And the next year, it was “Janson.” Then his dad, Anson, died.
Jonathan started community college and introduced himself as Anson from the start. He told his cousins and other relatives to start calling him Anson. I remember when he officially “came out” to them as Anson and the discussion we had later, just the two of us. I explained to him the family history I had wanted to preserve and the way his dad had rejected my ideas for baby names. I told him about how hard it would be for me to call him by his dad’s name– for many reasons. His dad was an alcoholic, our marriage was difficult from day one. We had been separated when he died and his behavior had been erratic and hurtful. He died in a car accident– suddenly, tragically, unnecessarily. I know my son loved his dad and misses him terribly. But I just can’t bring myself to call him by that name.
I don’t know what to do with all this. I still call my son Jonathan, or J. He says he’s fine with it. His cousins and aunts and uncles on his dad’s side call him Anson. I’m sure it brings them comfort and pride. My siblings and their children, who he rarely sees, call him Jonathan. This morning, my brother saw a post on Facebook and aksed me why my son was using the name Anson. And here it is all back again–what struggles are worth arguing over? What can we bend on? Now it is his name, his identity. I absolutely respect that. But what if I just can’t call him by that name?
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