The person asking is someone I meet regularly, who has had a number of losses herself, including a spouse. We have a lot in common, and I would like to think we have each learned from the other. I have to admit, with her multiple degrees and life experience, I was intimidated by her at first. I was relieved to learn later that I was not alone in that assessment. I am still surprised when she mentions that she might have gleaned something from me. I guess I am still intimidated to some degree. It keeps me on my toes when we are conversing.
"When did you know you were going to allow yourself to fall for Casper? How soon was it?"
If you don't know me, you don't know why that might be a difficult question. But it's an important topic in grieving: allowing those who have lost to love again, on their terms, at their speed. It's hard for friends and family sometimes. They had a different loss, on a different scale, with more or less preparation. They might not have accepted a death was coming, might not have had the time to grieve beforehand. Or it might just seem so wrong that it is possible to love again. That you are being disrespectful to the loved one who died. It may blow up the vision of what a widow or widower should look or act like. Where are the sackcloth and ashes? There are books, written by academics and clergy, grief experts and the grieving, that say there is a mystical magical timeline before new relationships should be "allowed."
Then there are those who have actually lived the loss. For me it was 23 years of love and devotion. Linda was my Peter Pan, my Spyder rider, my biggest fan, and my source of all things trivia. She was happier at my MSW commencement than I was (because she was really going to have me home for the first time in 3 years). She adored our kids (but hated discipline issues). She fixed all the boo boo's. She was also a breast cancer survivor and by the time she died we had spent five plus years of our time together coping with her being very sick. We were told twice she was going to die. She kicked cancer's ass. Chemo kicked her lungs' ass, and she ended up with pulmonary fibrosis, a 100% deadly disease that is underfunded, incurable, and evil. We prepared for her to die in 1998, and again in 2008. In between we lived with a quiet, unspoken fear that the cancer might return. She had a second mastectomy just in case, and with good reason. There were ugly cells growing. She made the most of it, getting a tattoo on the site with a pink ribbon, purple flowers, and the word "Survivor" across it. Our kids designed it. She had no need for new breasts after one implant went sour. She was flat chested and glad to be alive. I was grateful to have her there to hold at night when she wasn't working.
In 2007 we got into a car accident, and Linda tore her ACL. She needed knee surgery. She was using our treadmill daily, lifting weights, taking vitamins by the dozen. And then suddenly she had pneumonia and was in the hospital. She never breathed normally and freely again. After a series of misdiagnoses she was rehospitalized with pneumonia, and just could not seem to shake it. IV bags came and went. Her breathing got worse. When our insurance company finally figured out she was in the hospital they sent a hospitalist to send her home and he met me in the hallway. He looked at her xrays, looked at me, and said "She doesn't have pneumonia. I don't know where you got that. She has pulmonary fibrosis. She's going to die from it." I had the same feeling of the floor falling out from under me as I did when her cancer was diagnosed and we were told she would be dead in five months. Only that time she heard it too. This time I was left to tell her what was going on, and together, from that moment, we learned how you help a spouse get ready to die, and how to help a spouse learn to cope with the love of your life dying. For the record, I do not recommend either one as a good lesson, and as one to be avoided if at all possible. (I also started making a list that is still growing of the stupidest/cruelest things a medical person can say to someone.)
And so it was. Doctor and ER visits, breathing treatments, denial, anger, acceptance, trying to teach others what was going on, not being allowed to tell them because they didn't want to believe it, loss of energy, oxygen, more oxygen, reading about what was coming...it's a process as someone goes from vital and busy and a full time nurse to oxygen dependent, swollen from heart failure, confused from being hypoxic, and wheelchair bound. From Advil once in a while to morphine and dilaudid and ativan so Linda wouldn't feel how little lung function she actually had. By the time she died she had only a tiny portion of her right lung still moving any air. The rest was all fibrosed. Her heart was caged by dead lung tissue.
Through it all, we talked. She had to sleep sitting up to breathe at all, while the oxygen flowed. She couldn't manage her meds at 2am. She was too confused. Eating was a problem. It interfered with breathing. Super chocolate milk shakes from a local drive through were her favorite. M&M's were the supplement. Our intimacy was holding hands, locking eyes, and simply reveling in still being together. We knew what was coming. And as it got closer, Linda told me over and over that she did not want to die if I would not agree to remarry. She desperately wanted me to not be alone. She wanted to remain in my future, and to help with my transition. I was so creeped out. "No I am not going to remarry. I am not going to talk about this. You are still here. Stop it!!!" But she would not let up. I was tired. I was about to be alone with three teenage girls. So Linda made the arrangements herself. She selected Casper, her hospice nurse and confidant. How many people can say their late wife arranged their next marriage?
And so it was. She told Casper she wanted her to come back and take care of her family. She was clear what she meant. She told others. Linda wanted her wish to come true, and to die knowing I was not going to be alone. I ignored her. Casper kept telling her she would make sure I was OK. Neither one of us meant it would mean more than friendship to help the kids. Who can honestly think about remarrying at a moment like that?
So I heard that question today, and realized I didn't really know the answer. After Linda died there was much consternation when I spent time with Casper. I was nervous- how do you even talk to someone without your spouse after 23 years? She was nervous- her friends were afraid of my intent. I needed a friend who remembered Linda and valued her memory, but who was not a couple. When you are widowed fitting in is a bit weird. Going home alone is hard. I remember getting a massage and thinking that was going to be the only time a human touched me that day. And yet if folks discover you might be dating, you are suddenly on the bad list. Being sad is OK, being happy is not. But if you are sad everybody wants to make you happy. But not that happy. That's too happy. That's disloyal. Or unclear thinking, or being taken advantage of (because lots of people can't wait to date a widow with three teenage girls, six cats, and a whole bunch of issues). I remember a friend who was in a similar situation pulling me aside and saying I had to remember that a grieving widow is much easier to accept and meets the norms better than one who might be grateful her beloved spouse is out of pain and relieved that the years of suffering are over. It was a moment I will never forget. And a lesson I pass on when it's the right moment.
What tipped the moment for us? What allowed me to open my heart after such a devastating loss? Was it that someone smiled back at me and meant it again? Was it the affection after years of illness? Was it Linda's permission and hearing her in my head telling me Casper shared our values and would carry her into our future (yes I know a three way relationship with your deceased spouse sounds a bit odd, but it works. Quirky is our middle name). Was it that Casper could reach out to Kerry and hold her tight in the bad times like a natural, soothe her like Linda did, and help her remember Linda's place? Was it that she stepped in when one of the kids was in danger and got her to safety? Or the times I came home from work late and Casper was there because the kids called in a medical crisis and she drove 30 miles late at night just to check on them? Or was it all of that, and Linda, and finding the right hand to hold at the right time, and strong arms that could hold me at the hardest moments? That when I needed to cry there was no jealousy, and we could together remember Linda's laugh and the words she used? That when the kids misbehaved we together raise out fists and yell at her for leaving us to cope with them? Was it that her family scooped me up, accepted me, supported us, and was as quirky as mine? That they said enough good things to counter the negative coming from some other extended family (who no longer speak to me).
I am not sure exactly what it was. I am not sure it matters. Loving after a loss is an individual moment, and a process. It's vastly different in sudden loss versus prolonged illness. It's sometimes never an issue, and sometimes it's quick. And it's the process of the griever to figure it out. A year can be too soon, and too long. Loving again does not mean you are not grieving. It means this is how one individual is choosing to manage it. Concern for the griever is natural - they appreciate it. The decision is theirs, and the love they find again, as I did with Casper, is even more precious. Once you have held the person you gave your heart to as their heart stopped for the last time you meet mortality. You know everything you hold dear can be taken away. You know rocking chairs and grand kids are not guaranteed even if you live your life right. And you know being cherished, and loved, and wanted are very precious moments in this thing we call life. If you find it again, be it two weeks or twenty years, it's a moment for which you are grateful. I know I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment