As I near the fourth anniversary of Kevin’s passing, I’m revisiting C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. I rarely read a book a second time, even one I like very much. Kevin loved to read his favorite books again and again, as do our children, but not me. Reading Lewis again seems different, though. Just as he observed his grieving process—especially as it related to his faith and the steadfastness of that faith—I have attempted to observe and chronicle mine. So reading the book now is much different than when I read it a year ago or four years ago.

This “meta” experience isn’t easy, and I think, were I not one who loves to write, I probably wouldn’t be constantly asking myself how I feel about things, or taking stock of where I am on this journey. As Lewis said, “Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer." Regardless of this possibility of added pain caused by reflection on the pain, it has been helpful to have Lewis’ thoughts with me as I travel, and to read them again from a different place than when last I picked up this little book.

I relate to many of the thoughts and examinations in the book, not just about grief, but about memory, love, and belief. As with the very best books and essays, it causes me to self-reflect; to ask myself not only about where I am in the process, but also about feelings and emotions that I’ve had most of my life.  I have experienced a significant amount of loss in the last five years—Kevin, both of my parents, our minister, a very close friend and mentor, two other long-time friends, the daughter of a very dear friend, the sons of two other close friends. It is impossible to make sense of any one of these losses alone, much less when listed all together.  It is quite an understatement, perhaps, to say that grief is just a part of my life now.

As the evenings begin to have a tinge of chill and each day becomes just a moment or two shorter, grief begins to pass over me like a cold-front moving across a weather map. I hear a school bus out on a practice-run through the neighborhood and it triggers the memory of the events of September 7, 2010 (the first day of the school year) as though they happened yesterday. Over time, grief’s hold loosens a bit, then gathers force and becomes more powerful, only to diminish again, sometimes for days, sometimes now for many weeks. Lewis was genius at finding metaphors for grief that so accurately describe its ebb and flow, its cycles, and its power:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.”

“Grief is like a bomber circling round and dropping its bombs each time the circle brings it overhead; physical pain is like the steady barrage on a trench in World War One, hours of it with no let-up for a moment.”

Or…

“Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off it is quite another. ..If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains…perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I’ll be given a wooden leg. But I will never be a biped again.”

Lewis’s wife Joy Davidman died of cancer and he writes eloquently and accurately of his inability to share her pain as completely as he wishes he could.  As for grief after her death, Lewis writes about the days when he feels better, and the guilt and shame that come along with that, the fear of losing memories. Lewis is coming to terms with his faith as much as with his grief, asking the question of where God is in this misery. His words, his doubts, his own inability to reconcile, they come to me like a cool drink. He understands that those of us who grieve are working, working, for an answer, a solution, to questions that will never be answered. Like the mathematician filling the chalk board with formulas and being foiled once again, we continue to demand an answer to "why" and to "where" when there will never be one. Our work is fruitless. Yet we continue with our calculations, our dusty marks on the green slate.

If I were to characterize my own feelings of grief’s visitations into my life, I suppose my metaphors would be more current, and I know they would be far less beautifully wrought than Lewis’. 

The early grief, I would say, is like having a plastic bag over your head. It causes an odd and exhausting vigilance as you live somewhere between wanting to grab at every bit of life and wanting to succumb. There is a sense of clawing, of clamminess, a shortness of breath. I recognize Lewis’ feelings like fear, along with an utter confusion and disbelief as to why this happened, how it could happen, why life appears to be going on for everyone else. It is surprising how debilitating is the inability to make sense of anything.

The next phase is like walking through life with something akin to an anvil chained to your leg. It is a heavy weight that causes physical aches, deep exhaustion, frustration. But given the opportunity to unbolt the lock and release the weight from its attachment to you, of course you say no. To release the weight, you fear, is to give up memories, to turn away, to say a final goodbye, which cannot happen, and would be an equal loss all over again. It is a time of slow trudging, when many offer to release you from the heft, or hope for you that it will happen soon, but you wave their thoughts away, shoo them from their attempts to remove the chain. You cling equally to memory and pain and are confounded at how much you need both.

As more time passes, the anvil becomes a heavy pack, and then a cloak. A bit lighter, less suffocating, at times even as comforting as your grandmother’s quilts. Like the quilt, there are different fabrics—still some anger, some confusion, patches of sadness. You study the stitching, the threads that link past to present, you notice they continue on, as do you. Memories become more accurate (we did fight, didn’t we? Yes, there was that time he made me angry, or another time I caused him to not speak to me for days). Reality sinks in, but still you wonder, how have two years passed, then three?

Then one day, you awake and find the grief has somehow become cellular, a part of your blood and skin and hair; a separate DNA, but one that makes up your being as completely as that which you were born with. It still occasionally brings sadness, loneliness, or bits of rage. But you are alright with the fact that a song or photo or the flash of a hummingbird near your shoulder will make you pensive. You understand that the best parts of your life will be shrouded in something called "bittersweet." But it’s ok. Like Lewis’ one-legged man, you are different, never again to be the person you were before, but thinking that you want to learn to walk (and laugh, and dream, and love) again. 

Reading has always been a big part of my life and it has helped in multiple ways through grief: to understand the universal truths of the process or just to inhabit someone else's experience for a little while. In addition to A Grief Observed, I’ve also revisited old favorites like Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby,  and James Agee’s lovely A Death in the Family. I refer often to Anne Lamott’s, Stitches, Plan B, and Help, Thanks, Wow (and wish I could have her on speed dial). I’ve also found great comfort in Roger Rosenblatt’s two books, Making Toast and Kayak Morning, the very powerful book Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, Love and Death by Forrest Church, Joyce Carol Oates’ A Widow’s Story, and both The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights by Joan Didion; all nonfiction. I’ve also enjoyed and have been helped along by a variety of fiction works like The Translator, by Leila Aboulela, Cheryl Strayed’s Torch, A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir, Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man, Doug Trevor’s short stories The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space, John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars, Jack Gilbert’s poetry collection Refusing Heaven, and Volumes One and Two of The Cancer Poetry Project. I’ve yet to get to Roger Ebert’s memoir Life Itself, but I hope to do so soon.   

None of these books mirror my exact experience. Instead, they expand my own awareness of how we all deal with feelings provoked by death, loss, and grief, and how we all manage to get through.

Last night, I took my son to see Queen, the 70’s glam rock band once fronted by the iconic Freddie Mercury. Because my son is headed to Vermont next week to be a camp counselor and won’t be in Detroit for their local show in July, we traveled to Chicago to see them open their North American tour.

The trip to Chicago isn’t easy as I have lots of memories of Kevin in the city—from the times he visited me at Northwestern, and from the many trips we made while he was sick and receiving treatments in Evanston. I love the city. If it were more affordable, I would consider living there, despite the fact that the drive west on I94 is sometimes emotional.

Yesterday’s trip was laden with its own emotion, the result of being in this city and taking in this particular band’s concert. Most who know me know of my undying love for this rock group. It’s not always rational or understandable, and certainly wasn’t always easily understood by Kevin, who came to abide my love of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon. 

This was my seventh Queen concert (in one form or another), and the second one that I’ve shared with my son. I saw them first when I was only fourteen—too many years ago to count. Just barely a high school freshman, I attended with my two best friends, Sharon and Susan, who were twins. We told our parents we were spending the night at each other’s house and convinced my sister to drive us to the show and drop us off at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit. I saw them four more times, and met them twice. Shortly after Freddie Mercury's death, Kevin and I saw guitarist Brian May while on a solo tour.

How do I explain my enduring love and fascination with this musical group except to say that they are a part of me, a part of my adolescence, my teen years, and my adulthood, woven into my life like threads of actual DNA. 

Together, Sharon, Susan, and I did all of the typical teen girl activities—we joined the fan club, collected magazines and pictures, hung posters on our bedroom walls and bought all their records. Memories of the band are connected to so many facets of my life. They were smart (four degrees and one PhD between them), good looking, and formidable musicians. And they were more. They quoted Tolkien and Shakespeare in their lengthy songs; they wrote about time travel, fairies, and other mythical creatures. It was rock music for geeky bookworms like me. It felt like home. The music, especially that sung by Freddie Mercury, was sexual in an androgynous way that I didn’t quite understand, but knew I liked. It was dangerous in a way that made us brave enough to lie to our parents about where we were. It was bigger than the four walls of our small houses and even smaller-minded schools. It was black nail polish (but only on one hand), costumes, song lyrics in Japanese. It was sensitive and rebellious. It was campy spectacle with a metal edge. It was loud and romantic and rhythmic and beautiful and rock and roll.

By the time I finished high school, my tastes had changed and I had moved on to punk music and its slightly safer cousin, new wave. My clothing, haircuts, and multiple ear piercings reflected this change. As Kevin and I began dating, my Queen records were dusty, but still maintained an important place in my collection. But they had been set aside for newer albums by The Clash, Patti Smith, the Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. I often had to defend my love of the band as they fell out of favor. I continued to collect their records—some rare bootleg albums, both of Mercury’s solo efforts, Roger Taylor’s solo album, and even a signed copy of a very rare 45 cut by Freddie Mercury on the day he met the other members of the band and they became Queen. I didn't listen to the music nearly as much. I also lost touch with Sharon and Susan as our lives took different paths.

It wasn’t until ten years later, as news of Freddie Mercury’s imminent death became public, that I revisited my enduring affection for him and his music. By that time, I was married and eight months pregnant with the son I would later take to concerts. The memories, mixed with the hormones racing through my bulging body, put me into a deep funk. I cried for days at Freddie’s passing. I sat in front of MTV for hours, watching as fans lay flowers at Garden Lodge—Freddie’s home in London. I mourned for the time of my life when my friends and I were happy and mostly carefree, and for the fact that I wanted nothing more than to find them to share these moments.

I believe it was the first time I took stock of what it meant to have a full life and to lose that life  senselessly and painfully. I mourned the too-early passing of this man and was utterly devastated by the way in which he died—the way in which AIDS took from him his voice, his sight, the very essence of his creativity. How awful I thought, to struggle so much at the end. I realized that he had filled his life so whole-heartedly while living, that he had lived many lifetimes in the span of his forty-five years. But of course, that’s no trade-off. He still left us too soon and was far too young. I thought a lot, in the months after his death, about what it means to leave a legacy, especially one of creativity; of dedication to craft, of choices we make. Conversely, I thought of regret, and how one’s life impacts those left behind.

On a family vacation to Switzerland in 2002, I made Kevin take a detour on our way from Zurich to Paris in order to stop at the bronze statue of Freddie in Montreux. I left roses at the statue and had a few photos taken. I thought about him again, about the significant impact he had on my life, and about this separate love I had that was somehow woven into my family life but was also a part of the me that existed separately from my husband and children. As we drove away and I looked back through the window of our rented car, I thought about trajectories. How lucky I felt that my path crossed his, if even for a few moments. But also regret that my life had not been a part of his to the extent that my teenage self had wished so hard it would be.

In the years since Kevin’s passing, I’ve become fascinated with the stories of other widows, especially those in music. Contrary to belief, Freddie Mercury wasn’t gay, but was bi-sexual. He had a relationship with a woman named Mary Austin that lasted for many, many years, starting when the two were in their early twenties. She was his soul mate who stood beside him despite his many transgressions. She is the executor of his estate, maintains Garden Lodge today, and is the only person who knows the whereabouts of Freddie’s remains (which he did not want to ever be made public). She has taken abuse over the years because she maintains her position to the chagrin of many who have tried to lay claim to some part of Freddie’s legacy. I admire her strength and the love the two shared. She is, absolutely, his widow.

It was with a certain amount of ambivalence though, that I purchased tickets to last night’s show. They are touring with American Idol Adam Lambert, who sounds like Freddie, but who seems to me to be lacking in style. John Deacon has retired from music and refuses to even be seen with Brian May and Roger Taylor. So it was just those two—a bit wider in girth and grayer of hair—that performed last night, along with anonymous back-up musicians. 

Despite the second thoughts, it only took the first beats of the bass to put me right back at the very first concert. I stomped my feet, I screamed, I danced, I shouted their names. There is something about feeling the beat of that very loud music tingle the bottoms of my feet, pierce the tip of my spine, and travel upward and outward through my body that makes me feel alive in a way that nothing else can. The campy spectacle and over-indulgent light show was back! The show included a few nods to Freddie, including film of him from old concerts. I couldn’t watch without tearing up—for the all the loves in my life, including childhood best friends, Freddie, Kevin; and for the never-slowing passage of time.

It was a joy to be there with my son, to see him enjoying the music too and to see him mouthing the words to the songs. I’m not certain what my legacy will be, but if just a tiny part of it is that I passed along the love of this music, then I think I’m ok with that.