My oldest friend and newest acquaintance told me about seeing a stage production of Thorton Wilder's Our Town. (It's the story of life and death in an idyllic little New England town in the early 1900's.) Oldest friend/newest acquaintance said that she was moved by it.
I got the Paul Newman version from Netflix and watched it yesterday.
I was also moved - often in tears. (Although I never once considered turning the TV off.)
The part that affected me most was in the third act when the character Emily (who between acts 2 and 3 had died in childbirth) returned to her family to relive her 12th birthday. She was saddened by the realization that living humans are incapable of appreciating the value of life - even (or especially) the little moments. Beginning then to accept her condition as a dead person who must forget and no longer care, Emily said a wistful goodbye to all the little things - to sleeping and waking and eating and all the rest (something like the Buddhist "suchness").
That is the part of Brenda's death that makes me most sad. Because almost to the very end she found some aspect of her life to value - if nothing more than sitting slumped at the kitchen table, half awake but still aware of the food channel on the little TV. And that night at the Hospice House when the male nurse who looked like a sad pirate told her she was probably dying and her eyes bright and aware darted around the room, I know that she was saying goodbye to life. Like Emily in the play, she was resigning herself to the final loss - to the moment when all stuff, all love,all everything would be gone. When there would be nothing.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Post Script #3: Finding Empathy
A person who is both my oldest friend and newest acquaintance read the paragraph in my "Life and Times..." memoir about how my father tried to observe Christmas day rituals three days after my mother died. (My father gave my sister and I gifts that he said my mother had picked out beforehand - maybe before she went into the hospital for the last time.)
The old/new acquaintance noted how sad it was and wondered if my father and I ever talked about that Christmas. An obvious comment - the kind any sensitive, empathetic person might make.
But it had never did occurred to me - not until this person pointed it out. And even then I might not have felt anything if my own wife had not died and I had not realized how bad you can feel.
Back then, consumed by my own pain and anger I never saw my father's pain (hell, I never even felt my own pain - just a sort of dead unease). The night I found him in his room drunk and crying I had no sympathy for what had taken him to that place. My only concern was that he would go off on a binge and leave me by myself (not me and my sister, just me - my self-absorption was that consuming.)
Also, until my wife died I did not understand what might have driven him to take that job in West Palm Beach. Granted he did need better employment. (He had given up a good position in Troy to return to Shelby so that my mother could die among friends and family.) But there were other closer places. Until recently I didn't understand the desperation that might drive a man to get away from everything. As my sister astutely observed (after we became friends and started talking) it was perhaps odd that he even took us with him. There were various relatives who would have taken us in.
And until I experienced the loneliness of an empty house, I assumed that all my father and my stepmother had was an arrangement. I thought he only wanted her because he needed someone to help raise my 13-year old sister and she only wanted him because he offered a way out of her brother-in-law's house (even if it meant moving to Florida to live with three strangers). And true enough I never saw any expressions of deep affection, or heard any significant conversation. But as suggested above, I was perhaps not the best observer, lacking the requisite sympathy and empathy. In their 23 years they shared the same bedroom, at least until she got sick. They went to church, took vacations, did things together, and when he started making some real money, enjoyed modest wealth. She provided good food, a nice house, and a gentle woman's presence and companionship - he provided adventure and excitement - in other words his own grandiose self.
So that is maybe something good coming from all this - that I can see things I didn't see before.
Note: In the above I do not mean to suggest that my step-mother's brother-in-law was a bad man or that he did not treat her well. It was simply that she was a guest in another family's house and my father gave her an opportunity to have her own family. Also, to flesh out that story, she and my father had known one another when they were young. I don't know what he thought about her back then - she had been pretty - but she remembered seeing him riding into town on a white horse - literally a man on a white horse.
The old/new acquaintance noted how sad it was and wondered if my father and I ever talked about that Christmas. An obvious comment - the kind any sensitive, empathetic person might make.
But it had never did occurred to me - not until this person pointed it out. And even then I might not have felt anything if my own wife had not died and I had not realized how bad you can feel.
Back then, consumed by my own pain and anger I never saw my father's pain (hell, I never even felt my own pain - just a sort of dead unease). The night I found him in his room drunk and crying I had no sympathy for what had taken him to that place. My only concern was that he would go off on a binge and leave me by myself (not me and my sister, just me - my self-absorption was that consuming.)
Also, until my wife died I did not understand what might have driven him to take that job in West Palm Beach. Granted he did need better employment. (He had given up a good position in Troy to return to Shelby so that my mother could die among friends and family.) But there were other closer places. Until recently I didn't understand the desperation that might drive a man to get away from everything. As my sister astutely observed (after we became friends and started talking) it was perhaps odd that he even took us with him. There were various relatives who would have taken us in.
And until I experienced the loneliness of an empty house, I assumed that all my father and my stepmother had was an arrangement. I thought he only wanted her because he needed someone to help raise my 13-year old sister and she only wanted him because he offered a way out of her brother-in-law's house (even if it meant moving to Florida to live with three strangers). And true enough I never saw any expressions of deep affection, or heard any significant conversation. But as suggested above, I was perhaps not the best observer, lacking the requisite sympathy and empathy. In their 23 years they shared the same bedroom, at least until she got sick. They went to church, took vacations, did things together, and when he started making some real money, enjoyed modest wealth. She provided good food, a nice house, and a gentle woman's presence and companionship - he provided adventure and excitement - in other words his own grandiose self.
So that is maybe something good coming from all this - that I can see things I didn't see before.
Note: In the above I do not mean to suggest that my step-mother's brother-in-law was a bad man or that he did not treat her well. It was simply that she was a guest in another family's house and my father gave her an opportunity to have her own family. Also, to flesh out that story, she and my father had known one another when they were young. I don't know what he thought about her back then - she had been pretty - but she remembered seeing him riding into town on a white horse - literally a man on a white horse.
Post Script #2: Missing Me
When it was my turn to talk at the Hospice Grief session (to answer the question that I had picked out of the hat) I said that one of the things I missed most about my love one was "me". Of course, despite my barely suppressed tears, there was a certain self-conscious cleverness in my answer - leading me to say to my self, "That's pretty good - you are a blowhard- yeah well it is still true - I wish you would shut the fu*k up."
Yet..
Yet...
What I meant was that when Brenda died, a substantial portion of me died with her. If she was indeed my better half then I am now half a person. But it is not just that. As a female friend noted we tend to be defined by those we are with - by those we love. We are one person with this person, somebody else with that person. As the friend noted, this is probably not a good thing. We should be who we are, regardless of who we are with. What it means for me is that I am now without definition.
And there is still more to it.
Whatever I was, I was closer to it with Brenda than I ever was with anybody else. With her I was unselfconscious. For good or ill (and sometimes it was for ill) when I was with her I was simply myself. I did not have to think about myself. I could simply be - happy, sad, angry, anxious - even a silly fool. I was natural.
That's what I meant when I said that I missed me. I am no longer me - but a contrivance struggling to become me, forever looking back at himself looking back at himself looking back at himself. It is possible that when I peel back all the layers of this particular onion all I will discover is emptiness and a bad smell. It is also possible that a better me will result - or if not a better me, then at least somebody I can live with.
Yet..
Yet...
What I meant was that when Brenda died, a substantial portion of me died with her. If she was indeed my better half then I am now half a person. But it is not just that. As a female friend noted we tend to be defined by those we are with - by those we love. We are one person with this person, somebody else with that person. As the friend noted, this is probably not a good thing. We should be who we are, regardless of who we are with. What it means for me is that I am now without definition.
And there is still more to it.
Whatever I was, I was closer to it with Brenda than I ever was with anybody else. With her I was unselfconscious. For good or ill (and sometimes it was for ill) when I was with her I was simply myself. I did not have to think about myself. I could simply be - happy, sad, angry, anxious - even a silly fool. I was natural.
That's what I meant when I said that I missed me. I am no longer me - but a contrivance struggling to become me, forever looking back at himself looking back at himself looking back at himself. It is possible that when I peel back all the layers of this particular onion all I will discover is emptiness and a bad smell. It is also possible that a better me will result - or if not a better me, then at least somebody I can live with.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Post Script #1: Guilt
I already knew about the regular sort of guilt - the legitimate feelings experienced because of things done or not done, said or not said. I tell myself that we forgave regular guilt on the last night.
However, recently I've began to experience the guilt of simply being alive. I've heard people talk about this (one member of the League of Lost Husbands mentioned it) but I never really understood.
Now when watching TV shows that she liked I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt. Same thing when I fix food that she might have liked (although by the time I started fixing the food she didn't like much). It is not a constant thing and I know that this guilt (unlike the regular guilt for which forgiveness was supposedly offered) is not legitimate; but still.
I suppose it is like surviving a battle where you watch your companion fall and then feel guilty because it was her and not you.
(Of course this battle is not over yet and in the end will claim us all. I suppose there is some solace in that.)
However, recently I've began to experience the guilt of simply being alive. I've heard people talk about this (one member of the League of Lost Husbands mentioned it) but I never really understood.
Now when watching TV shows that she liked I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt. Same thing when I fix food that she might have liked (although by the time I started fixing the food she didn't like much). It is not a constant thing and I know that this guilt (unlike the regular guilt for which forgiveness was supposedly offered) is not legitimate; but still.
I suppose it is like surviving a battle where you watch your companion fall and then feel guilty because it was her and not you.
(Of course this battle is not over yet and in the end will claim us all. I suppose there is some solace in that.)
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Scattering Ashes
We scattered Brenda's ashes at the site of the old Hatteras lighthouse. I stood in the center of the circle of stones, scooping up handfulls of the dry powder which was blown by the cold wind into the morning sun. Yancie did one handful. Some of that powder whirled back to brush her face.
My sister's ashes were scattered here in the winter of 2000. She and Brenda always liked one another so we imagined that Mickey would welcome Brenda to this place.
Randy, Yancie's husband was there as was Henry, my sister's husband. Henry's wife Grace stayed with Allie and Evan and helped Allie write a story about how the wind tossed her hat into the ocean when she and I were walking by the ocean.
(Henry believes in the possibility of reincarnation which might explain the eight feral cats who greeted us last night in the motel parking lot on our way back from dinner. One of the cats was likely possessed by Brenda and another one by Mickey.)
The Last Night
This is the one I have dreaded to write.
She woke up about 1:00 AM, uncomfortable, not able to breathe. I called the night shift nurse. He asked her if she hurt. I think she said, "No." He gave her a dose of morphine, maybe mixed with Haldol.
We sat beside her bed, him on one side holding one hand, me on the other side, holding her other hand. She asked him if she was dying. Without hesitating, his craggy pirate's face calm but infinitely sad, he said maybe. She stared at him, transfixed. She was still afraid. But something was different. She wondered if she would see a light. He said some people do. Then he smiled and nodding at the large TV in front of her bed, noted that the last thing some people see is whatever is on television at the time.
Her blue eyes, now brighter than I had ever seen them and more alert, darted around the room, seeming to take it all in, as if she was saying to herself, this is where I will die. This is my last view of the world. My sister (who died not far from the motel room on the Outer Banks where I sit writing this) had the same look in her blue eyes not long before she lost consciousness for the last time.
After a while the nurse left us alone. I am not exactly sure what we said. I told her that it was OK to for her to die now but that if she wanted to stay a while I would prefer that. She leaned up from the bed, kissed me on the forehead and said that she loved me. I kissed her on the forehead and said that I loved her. She told me repeatedly to look after Yancie. I said that I would. I think she also said something about Yancie looking after me.
She woke up about 1:00 AM, uncomfortable, not able to breathe. I called the night shift nurse. He asked her if she hurt. I think she said, "No." He gave her a dose of morphine, maybe mixed with Haldol.
We sat beside her bed, him on one side holding one hand, me on the other side, holding her other hand. She asked him if she was dying. Without hesitating, his craggy pirate's face calm but infinitely sad, he said maybe. She stared at him, transfixed. She was still afraid. But something was different. She wondered if she would see a light. He said some people do. Then he smiled and nodding at the large TV in front of her bed, noted that the last thing some people see is whatever is on television at the time.
Her blue eyes, now brighter than I had ever seen them and more alert, darted around the room, seeming to take it all in, as if she was saying to herself, this is where I will die. This is my last view of the world. My sister (who died not far from the motel room on the Outer Banks where I sit writing this) had the same look in her blue eyes not long before she lost consciousness for the last time.
After a while the nurse left us alone. I am not exactly sure what we said. I told her that it was OK to for her to die now but that if she wanted to stay a while I would prefer that. She leaned up from the bed, kissed me on the forehead and said that she loved me. I kissed her on the forehead and said that I loved her. She told me repeatedly to look after Yancie. I said that I would. I think she also said something about Yancie looking after me.
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