Turning the corner on grief

How do you know when you're turning the corner on grief?, they ask. There's hope and confusion in their eyes. And who wouldn't want the pain to end? But I can't lie and say, "On day one of year two, you will be all fixed up." I would never say that; they believe it anyway. (I believed it too. We must all make it up with our good imaginations.) And you can't tell them time makes any difference, even though it's totally true, because they will hit you. I might say, "give it time," and "I'm not sure there's really a corner, but you will feel better one day."

Here's what it felt like to be turning the corner on grief:

• I had more good days than bad days.
• I started to get ideas about things I wanted to do next.
• I began to feel that my loss was not the worst thing that ever happened to anyone.
• I had urges to see friends, exercise, clean up, and change things around.
• I started to be able to help other people.

Some people mention that they start to be able to see things in color again, or they start to taste food again (which usually results in their being disgusted that they ate Cheerio's for dinner 6 months straight, but whatever. Accept and move on!)

I think what's important is knowing that for most of us, it's not dramatic, nor even a single event. (We say "grief is not linear," but seriously, is anything in life linear?) For most of us, we say we feel like we're going "two steps forward, one step back," (often, "two back and one forward"). We say it's a bumpy road, or a rollercoaster. We say it's better when the peaks are higher and the valleys are less low. Most valuable is knowing that the time scale is incredibly long: no matter how long "grief" lasts, it's not unusual for it to take several years to get to a stable place where you smile a lot. But it's not linear: you're not inconsolable and disabled and an open wound the entire time. You keep changing and the world keeps moving too, and sometimes you are in sync with it.

Sometimes you can find a perfect metaphor even if it doesn't QUITE fit. This story about the wonderful Frog and Toad (by Arnold Lobel) captures at least one tiny bit of it perfectly: that progress happens when things just keep moving along, however they will, and whatever you think you're looking for, keep your eyes open to the world around you.

My daughter hates it when story time makes me cry but these gentle little reptiles always get me in the gut. Toad has been soaked in the rain, and Frog shares a story about how his father told him to buck up, "spring is just around the corner:"

"I wanted Spring to come.
I went out
to find that corner.
I walked down a path in the woods
until I came to a corner.
I went around the corner
to see if Spring was on the other side."
"And was it?" asked Toad.

"No," said Frog.
"There was only a pine tree,
three pebbles and some dry grass.

I walked
in the meadow.
Soon I came to
another corner.
I went around the corner
to see if Spring was there."

"Did you find it?" asked Toad.

"No," said Frog.
"There was only
an old worm
asleep on a
tree stump."

(I love that worm. I love Frog and Toad so much).

And so on. Four corners, and spring is not around any of them. Disappointed, tired, Frog heads home as it starts to rain.

"When I got [home]," said Frog,
"I found another corner.
It was the corner of my house."

"Did you go around it?"
asked Toad.

"I went around that corner, too,"
said Frog.

"What did you see?"
asked Toad.

"I saw the sun coming out,"
said Frog. "I saw birds
sitting and singing in a tree.
I saw my mother and father
working in their garden.
I saw flowers in the garden."

"You found it!" cried Toad.

"Yes," said Frog.
"I was very happy.
I had found the corner
that Spring was just around."

(The entire delicious story is online here.)

And why do I love this? Because what makes spring come... is not so much the effort it takes to look around all those corners (although doing so is unavoidable) ... but the work it takes to plant a garden.

So keep hope in your eyes... but keep those peepers open, peeps, especially when things are changing. Spring's a-comin'.

Market outlook

"Of course, these numbers would look a lot different if you'd sold it in 2005 or 2006," he said with the bright kind of regret that makes you know he had a good year that year. He was nice enough -- more than nice, really -- the real estate agent. The knife didn't even cut that deep.

But it's not that easy to hear that my single largest investment (which was really supposed to be simply HOME) is going to be worth so much less than I'd thought, hoped, and scribbled idly on the back of so many envelopes. 44 years and this is the one thing I did right: buying low. 13 years ago, wrapped up in my first life, trying to build dreams.

What we went through there! The tries to procreate. The birth of our child, the opening of his dream studio out there past the mud. What we ripped up and destroyed: the channel above was for our only really big home improvement, his studio, the muddy trench where they'd lay the electrical conduit. Then the cancer, the numb, the passion, the hope, the surgeries, the failures over and over again. The little things, the shingles, the thrush, our child's first words, the times alone home when he was in the hospital. 2006 was the year he died, but the entire year was downhill fast, and sliding, and murky.

Time went on, that bubble burst, and now, more than trenches, I think of the tranches of debt that made up the CDOs into which most of us lost money, and homes, and security. The financial foundation that fell out from under us, or was shown to be missing. I didn't care much about that economy, though it was golden and blooming while my honey fell apart and broke before my eyes. I didn't notice that bubble of real estate money, which was real for some, briefly, grew and grew and then leaked some air in a series of small burps. It hardly mattered among everything else; I was falling in love again. A few hours after Lehman fell, in fact, we went out shopping for a diamond.

Widows are bulletproof, did you know? Or at least full of contempt for the small things, and after what we've been through, everything's small.

But that trench is the earth bleeding, a wound that had to be dug to build something new, a something new that was never fulfilled and will soon be sold. For so much less. And with it, I'd like to let go of all those disappointments, all those losses, and everything that didn't work well. I'd like to heal, and patch them all, but I wish I had a bigger band aid.

Very superstitious: the fox

And now that I think over it, superstitious beliefs have marked many of the momentous times in my life, especially the ones where some anticipation existed, and I sought reassurance or certainty or at least some hint as to outcomes: the weekend before my daughter was born I swore I saw a snowy owl landing in a meadow, off in my peripheral vision in a snowy field off the parkway. (It was the fluffy white belly typical of a Red-tailed Hawk, considerably less rare in our area, but equally showy).

And the fox. The last sign was a half-rotted fox, tossed behind his studio, possibly by one of the "uncles" of our immigrant neighbors in the rental house. Dead for weeks, it had appeared of a sudden, during a time no one wanted to go out, in the middle of a period when he was lying on the couch disabled by his penultimate "miracle drug." February, doldrums, and snow and ice everywhere.
It pointed out I was the only one capable — of anything, actually, at that point. It might have had rabies, and while my kid couldn't walk yet, those neighbors could, and surely didn't know the risk it presented.

It seemed tragic and sent by fate: because the fox had been one of the good omens of this land, this third-acre in the suburbs, across from the bus stop. I'd found its scat shortly after moving in, and checked on its hideaway periodically. When we built a front yard fence, we left a slit for the fox to get across the street and back the park at dusk, when we knew these animals, common but smartly invisible, travelled.

One night, years before pregnancy, late after a Christmas party, our headlights caught its rich rusty tail and glowing eyes. We were in awe of the chance we'd been given to catch this crepuscular creature out of its hours, on our territory for just a moment. Surely it was a sign; when it was still around, despite changes, in the midst of infertility, fox scat was a sign that nature went on around us, that good things could happen in busy places.

I found that dead fox with a start, as if a bell tolled dully.

Dread, dread, dread. I hated that I'd found it, and that it was my job to take care of it. But what to do?
A call to animal control generated the idea: it needs to be tested for rabies. They offered to fetch it if I picked it up in a grocery bag and stored it in my trash can, safe from the kids.

Our fox was dead. A quiet secret had been taken from us, perhaps by rat poison. I dwelled and dwelled, till animal control followed up: "The raccoon you found….. Was too decomposed to test for rabies, but couldn't have transmitted it either."

A raccoon. It was a raccoon. 

My rejoicing was genuine, a jumping inside, but lasted only for a minute, because my dear husband was so far gone, so tired, so low, with so many minor injuries, and the major ones mounting up... no folk religion could hide the truth from me anymore.

Now it was time to start actively pretending.

Pictureless Wednesday: Spring will come.

Mommy, why are the trees all pink?

I wouldn't call it a storm, but peculiar precipitation last night,  neither sleet nor hail, and strange conditions all morning, had left a quarter inch of ice balls fused into a layer on every tree branch. As we drove, the trees bending down in front of us, arching into our airspace, were iced with the gentlest brownish-grayish-pink. This in addition to the light dusting of sugar on everything else around, and a specially gray day.

It was a somehow natural color. Behind the pink clouds, suspended water and sunlight, itself barely visible, brought out the variety of browns in the wood: reddish brown, yellowish brown for some grasses, deep greenish on some trunks, pale brown and white on the paulownias. And an infinite variety of shades in between.

Why? Because those are buds, dear. Thanks -- I wouldn't have noticed! The red buds of some kinds of trees, invisible a few days before, were magnified by their ice shields. A tiny bit of color, invisible yesterday, was made brighter in the light refracted by water.

The small ones are cherries, the large, red maples. A few tiny Japanese maple-types in yards, usually standing sentry over a rock.

They were all around us as we drove. And then, on the way out of the play date, it was too late. The ice bits, millions, had melted off or fallen. No special effect. No photograph. Nature is always ephemeral, but it's not worth risking my life to take a picture on the road. I'm going to hang on to this place.

I kept my eyes open. A few errands later, some maples looked like they were fatter now: swollen with water as the day warmed.

I missed the picture, but I can spread the words: Spring will come. Look up outside. It's a promise.

Obligatory Post Titled "Hey Jealousy"

(Let’s just get all this out of the way.) I’m jealous of widows who had life insurance, or whose husbands had good jobs with automatic coverage despite preexisting conditions. I’m jealous of those who got to be married longer. I’m jealous of those whose marriages were the most happy they’d ever been. I’m jealous of those who were still falling in love when their partners died.

I’m jealous of anyone who has more than one kid. I’m jealous of parents who didn’t have to pay thousands of dollars to get pregnant. I’m jealous of Moms who have time to work out. I’m jealous of women with good skin and no back fat.

I’m jealous of folks with real careers and who have found the answer to their life’s meaning and the world’s need early in their lives. I’m jealous of folks who are happy just doing their job, or who have pushed through to have real power at my age. I’m jealous of many people who made different choices than I did.

I’m jealous of celebrities with book contracts, and I’m jealous of stupid products that make a lot of money (like Katy Perry and the Baby Einstein videos).

I’m jealous of people with wonderfully supportive extended families that are not neurotic or abusive, and those with independent income. I’m jealous of people who live in inarguably gorgeous places like San Diego.

I’m not jealous of widowed people who “had a chance to say goodbye,” even though hearing this prickles me, because based on living side by side with a dying husband for two years, I think it very rarely happens and I don’t begrudge the few people who may have had this fulfillment.

I’m only a little jealous of those who have faith, the universe holds many ambiguities I can live with, since I believe they are true. I’m not someone who needs answers. I am, however, jealous of people who believe in affirmations and Louise Hay. I crave seeking and process but prefer it when it’s accompanied by genuine original insight. Talk about asking for the world!

I’m a little jealous of people who have good digital SLRs.

I’m not jealous of anyone’s problems, I believe the old adage that if we all put our problems into a giant hat, we’d each take back our own. With pleasure. That’s probably why I hold onto mine so hard.

I’m not jealous of people who’ve had really easy lives, because I think they are often bored and boring. But I am jealous if they seem to be satisfied with that all.

I’m not jealous of anyone’s sense of humor, mine is as good as it’s going to get.
I’m not jealous of anyone’s education or innate smarts.
I’m not jealous of anyone’s kid, mine is perfect.
I’m not jealous of anyone’s creativity, mine exceeds almost anyone’s.
I’m not jealous of anyone’s garden, mine is growing.

I'm not jealous of anyone's entire life, or of this moment, anywhere, anyhow. 


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An abundant stump

I’ve been thinking a lot about the new-ish age-ish interpretation of “abundance.” I see and hear "scarcity mentality" in every nook and person of my church while we work to raise our annual half-mil, and it repels me. But I'm not qualified or secure enough in my own "abundance" to get everyone all at once, POOF!, to adopt this major shift of mindset. Yes, changing minds is hard... but despite my desire to move forward, some segment of my brain rebels because anything so easy has got to be bullshit, right?

But a way to understand that "enough is a feast," and "I already have everything I need" popped up as clear and true when we had some work to do in the garden, and my 6-year-old got it right away.

I could have explained taking down an old tree my old way, by poor-mouthing: "We had to remove this tree. Yeah, kill it. It was like 50 years old. It had been dying for at least five years and no one wanted to take care of it because did you know it costs like more than a thousand dollars to take down a big tree like that? Hard decision. But the insurance claims would be a way lot more if it dropped on our neighbor's roof!" We can talk about costs, death, risks, and it's all negative, even as you watch the skilled man dangling a chainsaw 30 feet up, better than any circus act.

My daughter, though, loved the abundance as soon as she saw the result of his work: "Look! We got a new stump! We can have tea parties on it, jump off it, and plant things on it AND around it!" She even knew her fish would want to watch the man climbing the tree with his stirrups and harness. We moved the fishbowl onto the windowsill so he could see.

My girl apprehends a whole, beautiful world with a new toy around every corner or at the base of every lost garden asset.

And it clicked just a bit for me then. One click.


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Wordless Wednesday: Brutal pruning exposes 3 fresh robins

(Words tomorrow, I swear.)

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Fall.

Six things I was grateful for today.

1. The smell of crushed leaves after the kids have been through. (I am pretty sure that for worms, this is the smell of pizza.)
2. The sound of dried fallen leaves as you walk or skip through them.
3. The softness as my daughter jumps into a berm of leaves piled over grass near the curb.
4. The crooked dance of the leaves as they fall in our way.
5. The stubborn brown of the leaves that stay late on oaks.
6. The clear blue you see after the yellows, reds, and browns have left.

(cross-posted at Grace in Small Things).

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Better late than never

It's bad enough that it takes me until the first week in October to look at the harvest. I find a ton of deliciousness that's gone to seed or squirrels. Among the asters, there are leftovers for us anyway and I'm grateful to have them: