I speculate all the damn time about what I imagine Gavin was thinking as the end approached.
And I am selling the old house, clearing out the non-art stuff from his studio, as well as unpacking boxes at the new house and unpacking my own experiences and percetions at the same time. My new life doesn't stop moving just because my old life is leaving -- or rather, my old life keeps evolving while I'm building my new life. (As if they are even two separate things).
Last night, in a box of his notes, this scrap of his handwriting, clearly original (he was fastidious about attribution) popped out at me as a challenge to my perceptions about what he was thinking in his last few months:
Fear accentuates the sense of self -- thus brings into play another "existential" fear, namely non-existence.
Are the two connected?
Can there be a veiled "existential fear pre-existing -- as a condition -- of existence which aggravates all fears and specifically heightens a fearing Self
Must one lost both fear and self -- simultaneously
(Yes, he was too intellectual. We fit together well as navel-gazers.)
In one sense, I can barely figure out what he meant. The words make sense, but I'm straining to remember my orthodox Sartre from years ago, and I'd do anything to add a few punctuation marks.
In another sense, I am reminded that as much as he denied that death was on the way, he was also afraid. This wipes away some of my anger at him, and also makes me feel compassion -- my least comfortable emotional companion, the one that hides from my other selves -- for where he was, what he was feeling during those dark last months, and helps me understand why he wished to hide the worst of his fear from me. It reminds me that my memory of that time is distorted -- as was my perception of what was going on at all levels for that long important period of downsliding that we went through together and (mostly) apart.
Five years after my loss, I continue to process, and change, and I am still putting things away in boxes.
2 comments:
Even though we only had one day to process he was going to die, I wonder this also. MIke was very calm, (drugs) but aleart, and aware, all day long. We told each other all day we loved each other....what else is there to say? People came in most of the day....he only had a few tears when he and I talked when I first saw him. He told me he was not afraid, just worried about me. I told him not to worry....what else was I to do? Carry on and scream and tell him this couldn't be happening? I don't even know how I made it through that day. When I was out of the room, and the doctor came in, my sister told me he asked her what death would be like? She said, I think you will just go to sleep....and that is what happened? If he had any inclination he was as sick as he was, or was going to die in the couple months leading to this, he never told me. I still miss him so much Supa I cry every day still.....I think, why did this happen...then, why not me? Others here have not had 30 yrs, or their husbands died younger than 62....but this is MY story, and I can look at it however I want!!!! LOL...((HUGS))
Your story's real, and matters, and sadly, we will never know the answer to either of our men's final stories.
But that's what it means to leave, isn't it?
I'm so sorry for your loss, friend, but glad I met YOU.
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