A Widow's Apprenticeship

Archive for October 2013

Looking for Sanctuary

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Purple wildflowers, bushy tigerlillies and a few untamed roses fill the memorial garden of our church. Kevin’s ashes are buried there in a beautiful paper packet that will, over time, become earth. The building, grounds and people of our church were all important to Kevin. He loved attending services, participating in the men’s group, organizing the annual Men’s Retreat, and working with church youth as a religious ed teacher and advisor. We only began attending church about three years before his illness was diagnosed. We had struggled to find where we fit in, but felt strongly that we wanted a place for our children to learn about values from people other than us.

First Unitarian Universalist of Ann Arbor is a welcoming, active community of liberal thinkers like us. Kevin felt more at home there than anywhere else other than, well, home. We made deep and rich friendships. The congregation went into action when Kevin’s diagnosis became public—cooking meals, caring for our kids, driving Kevin to treatment, sending notes of encouragement. Our ministers took wonderful care of our family. Our Associate Minister, the late Nancy Shaffer, had barely unpacked the boxes in her new home, having just moved to Ann Arbor from Illinois, before she was at our house inquiring about Kevin’s first surgery and impending treatment plan. Subsequently, she was at multiple chemo treatments, came to our house to talk about diagnoses, and sat with our family during every surgery, both planned and emergency. The Pastoral Care committee went into action with meals, cards and other thoughtful efforts.

After Kevin passed away, we had only a few days to plan his memorial service. He made notes on his laptop, but never discussed with me what I should do if he didn’t make it. I went through pages of writing and found that he wished to be cremated, have his remains spread at his dad’s grave, my dad’s grave, my Uncle GW’s grave, and at his favorite running place. The remainder would be buried in the UU memorial garden. What I remember of his service was as good as it could be. It was full of music, reminiscences and tears, and over 200 people that loved Kevin.

But that experience also marked that church and that sanctuary forever as the last place I ever was with Kevin, unable to see him or touch him.

I took a few weeks off from attending services. But I knew that I would eventually need to return. Our daughter loved her religious education classes, we both have many friends there, and there is rarely a sermon that doesn’t speak to me in a meaningful way.

But the first time I walked into the sanctuary, I felt my knees buckle and the breath leave my lungs. I found a seat closest to the door and glued myself to it. I kept my eyes on my shoes. Of course, I was greeted by many, including our Senior Minister Gail Geisenhainer, who also greatly impacted our lives during Kevin’s illness. She understood what it meant for me to be there and thanked me for my bravery. At the time I shrugged it off, saying I was fine, because I didn’t realize myself how hard it was going to be to walk through those doors.

I had never anticipated having this reaction. We have spoken about it in my widow’s group and it is a painful thing. Quite often one’s church is the place for solace and good memories of baptisms and weddings. It is the place we turn to in an effort to be closer to answers. It is a place to solidify our faith and beliefs.

But that all goes away after having a loved one’s funeral in that building. At least it did for several of us. I was surprised by how many in our group had been lectured by their ministers over having any negative feelings about attending church. It would be better, I think, if these ministers understood that much about grieving can’t be understood, planned or willed away. We don’t ask for any of the feelings that overcome us, and seemingly have no control over when and where they happen. Patience is far more helpful than any lecture. Losing our connection to a congregation or the peace of being in a sanctuary is yet another unfair loss for us.

I remember shortly before Kevin’s last surgery—his back was in such pain that we had to take a cloth folding chair to church so he could sit through the service. In front of us was a woman who had lost her husband to cancer just 2-3 years before. As we stood and began singing a rousing gospel hymn, I noticed her swaying, clapping and smiling. I wondered just then, if Kevin didn’t make it, how long it would be before I could be anywhere, but especially back in this place, acting that happy. I put that thought, like any that had to do with the possibility of death, out of my mind.

I didn’t realize at that time, how difficult it would be to find happiness in that place, even when small bits of happy began creeping back into my life. It is now also the place where I last saw Reverend Nancy before she returned to her hometown of Davis, California, to surround herself with family as she succumbed to brain cancer. I also attended the memorial service for my friend Brenda. I understand that death and memorializing are important functions of a church’s purpose, but on some days it seems to be the only thing. I now attend church nearly every week, though most Sundays it’s still not easy.

There have been other peculiarities of grieving as well, things that those who've not experienced it might find strange. We find our lives are different in the way we think or act and realize it's just another way in which we've lost more than just our loved one. I could do an entire post on irrational ways I’ve thought, or the strange out-of-body experiences I’ve had. For some unknown reason (that I’ve hypothesized but not solved) it was very difficult for me to tolerate the touch of another person—I bristled at hugs, hand squeezes or even accidental bumps in crowded rooms, in the months just after Kevin's death. The idiosyncrasies of grief—the odd ways in which it manifests itself in each individual, are not understood by scientists, much less those who experience them. All we can do is get through the emotional and physiological changes that grief brings and hope that our families, friends and ministers are waiting when we do.

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Me and Charles Barkley

Friday, October 4, 2013

As in earlier posts, I want to preface this discussion by saying that I understand people’s hearts are in the right place. But sometimes the impact of their words on my head and my heart is not what one would anticipate it to be.

In 1993, NBA star Charles Barkley was scolded in the media for proclaiming that he was no one’s role model. Specifically, when he was asked by a reporter to atone for certain behavior off the court, Barkley responded:

"I'm not paid to be a role model. I'm paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court."

He later went on to immortalize this phrase in ads for Nike.

At the time, I disagreed with Barkley, and felt that his response was an easy way in which to justify his lack of self-control. As the mother of a one-year-old son, I was especially attuned to the debate, wondering as I did who he would eventually choose for his role models.

Fast-forward twenty years, and I have a new understanding of Barkley’s frustration. Unlike Charles, however, I don’t feel I can go around demanding that people not view me as a role model. I tend to back away from the discussions and keep the frustration to myself. It wasn’t until a meeting of my widow’s group that I realized I was not alone in my discomfort with such conversations.

These accolades usually come after I talk with someone about what has happened in the three years since my husband passed away. Yes, I finished my Master’s degree—something I promised my husband I would do. I sold my house and moved myself and my two children into a new home. Also because I committed to Kevin that I would, and it was too difficult and costly to stay. I purchased a condo for the time when my daughter and son have left our nest and I am completely on my own. I have kept my job and kept my children in school and extra-curricular activities. We love each other, we get along most days, and we keep moving forward together.

For this, I have been called strong, brave, courageous, gutsy, and even told I have “pluck.” I am honored that people see me in this way, but I don’t feel it is accurate or even appropriate. I certainly don’t see myself in this way at all. I am simply doing what I have to do in order to get through the day. Outwardly, I smile and am mildly deferential when offered this sentiment. But inside, I’m bristling.

I did many time-consuming, sometimes-healing projects in the aftermath of Kevin’s illness and passing. In looking back, they were most certainly done in order to honor Kevin’s memory. But they were also done as a way to keep me so busy that I never had time to grieve. And the more exhausted I was at the end of the day, the more likely I was to sleep through the night. They weren’t acts of bravery or strength; they were, more accurately, acts of defense or denial of my situation. It was me doing what I had to do to get through this time. None were acts of heroism or virtue, but instead, were simple, yet very tiring, acts of self-preservation. They fed my need to keep up the sense of diligence developed from three years of life with a cancer patient, or, as the writer Emily Rapp has called it, the “addiction to dread,” that caregivers begin to live for.

Add to this the fact that the "public me" is quite often not like the "private me" who still has bouts of crying, of angry yelling at the universe, and even the occasional kick of the dog (who somehow still comes back to me and kisses my face), and you can hopefully see how difficult it is to accept accolades.

A dear friend recently asked me what has been the hardest thing I’ve dealt with in the past three years. After thinking for only a minute, I answered more honestly than I previously had, and said, “facing and being alone with my grief.” That is the truth. And that is not a sign of strength. To me, it seems much more a sign of weakness.

I have another friend who is widowed, whom I greatly admire. She too, has maintained a career, family and household despite the loss of her soul mate—so many of us do. At the time of his sudden passing, she spent several weeks in bed, not answering calls or going out.

Some might say she was being weak, not getting on with it; hiding under the covers rather than facing her grief.

But I believe the opposite to be true. She is my hero. She did face her grief, in all its debilitating, suffocating, energy-zapping, daylight-robbing heaviness. She faced it and lived in its midst for long, frightening days and longer nights. She did not put it aside, telling herself that she would deal with it another day.

In the midst of the Charles Barkley ruckus, fellow NBA player Karl Malone said the following:
“We don't choose to be role models, we are chosen. Our only choice is whether to be a good role model or a bad one."

I suppose this is true of the widow that gets herself up and moving forward each day, although I certainly wouldn’t call myself “chosen.” More like “left-behind.” I’m in a life that, God knows, I didn’t ask, nor ever plan to be in. And I would give anything to have my old life back. But it is still difficult for me to take the acts of simply moving forward and declare them to be acts of bravery by those who observe them. Especially since I know that many of those who have classified me as a strong role model would behave in exactly the same way, and do it equally well, were they to be in a similar situation.

We each deal with grief in our own way, and no one way is better or more correct than another. As grievers we each, in our own way, try to make the best of this new role into which we’ve been thrust, even on those days when we feel, more than anything else, that it simply isn’t worth it. Call it strength, adaptability, or simply getting on with it, it’s just what we do.

Archive for October 2013