Four Years On

A friend of mine, Cami, taught a Relief Society class (women’s group at church) a few weeks ago and sent out a quotation she found on the internet: an old-timer talking about grief. I was organizing my emails and wanted to copy the quotation to save it on my laptop. Where to save it? I searched for grief and found a spreadsheet with a series of questions that Jim, Annie, and I answered in February of 2016: six months after David died. I found no surprises, but one thing stuck out:

Ever since we came back to Lexington in May 2014 I have carried a BOX of tissue in my church bag. I'm always prepared for unplanned tears. David's death is another motivation to living my life more consciously. However, it's hard to get out of bed in the morning and hard to get things accomplished, so that's a frustration.

When did I stop carrying a box of tissue in my church bag every Sunday? Six months ago? Three? The box had gotten pretty banged up and I hardly used it, but for the first three years I felt comforted having it nearby.

And when did it become easier to get out of bed? I suppose it was gradual. I’m in a much ‘better’ place now. What does that mean? We Americans are so afraid of painful emotion. I’m grateful for the grief, even the intense grief. I want to feel; I want to miss David.

And I do miss him. Just an hour ago I looked up at the pencil drawing of him, smiling and ‘extremely presentable’. It’s becoming obvious that the picture isn’t aging and his siblings and cohorts are. I’m becoming one of those weird grieving mothers with the old photo of a long-dead child. He’s not long-dead yet, but it’s coming.

Doing further surveying of my computer files on grief, I found a document I made of bereavement support groups. During the last two weeks of his life, David received care from Good Shepherd Hospice. Part of their service is to provide grief counseling support to family members for 13 months after the death. Jaye was our counselor. At the time of his death, that seemed very generous and more than adequate. However:

18 Jul 2016. I’m in a panic that the Good Shepherd Hospice grief counselling will be over in another 7 weeks. I have only been to see Jaye twice, but both of those were so significant. I’m going again. I wanted to go on the 11th monthiversary, but she has conferences on Tuesdays, so I’m going this Friday. Can I tell her I’m panicked, that I’m afraid of what Kimberly told me, that the second year is the worst? I hope I can. I hope I can be honest with her and find healing in the honesty. I hope she can help me navigate this unknown territory. It will remain unknown for a long time, for my whole life, but I hear it will get less intense. Life will get better.

Called Mt. Auburn Social Work asking about a bereavement support group. Left a message, while breaking down into tears and a squeaky voice. Apologized in the voicemail for the tears. “She will think I’m a basket case: it’s already been a year.”

Found A Compassionate Friend website and a monthly support group in Concord, 16 minutes away. “Well, if it’s only once a month, they must not expect you to be over it in 13 months.”

It’s hard not to distract myself. Hard to know whether it’s healthy. Hard to know who I can share this with.

Two days later I wrote:

I am feeling much calmer today. Maybe reading these grief books has been too intense; maybe it’s healthy; I just don’t know.

I’m glad I wrote this down. It’s hard to imagine now how panicked I was, how distraught and overwrought. That isn’t happening anymore.

Another document I found was a transcription of a voice memo I made a year ago, on the third anniversary of David’s death. I was bothered that I couldn’t keep in mind whether it was three years or four. And how I felt that

as a grieving mother I should be crying and I should be watching the time, and I should be aware that this is the anniversary of the last time he did this, the last of that.”

I remembered arranging the words from “If You Could Hie to Kolob” to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus while washing dishes when David was sick. I had fantasized about singing it in public and wondered if I could ever sing without tears.

In early grief it feels like it’s never going to change, that it’s always going to be excruciatingly raw. Even though people tell you it won’t be, you can’t imagine it. That’s the cognitive distortion of strong emotion. It’s one that I wouldn’t try to talk anyone out of. I would say, “in my experience”, there has been healing of the raw wound and hope they find comfort in that. Who can predict the emotional life of another person?

So, as the fourth anniversary of David’s death approaches, I can say that there has been healing. I miss David and am terribly sad that he is missing out on the mortal experience of adulthood. But I’m not overwhelmed with grief and sadness.

Another entry I made in July 2016, 11 months after David’s death:

So, how will I breathe as Victoria lives her life forward while all there is of David’s life is to live it backward? Is this why I can’t go visit them? Is it the truth I guessed at earlier in this 11-month journey, that Victoria’s birthdays will surpass David’s death anniversaries? Part of me sees that as inevitable, as I did intellectually when I thought of it months ago, but a deep emotion wells up inside of me that it’s not fair, that there could have been both: Victoria and David growing older together.

Now, with three more years past, I can breathe, and freely. Seeing Victoria grow into a loving, curious, vivacious four-year-old doesn’t make me sad; it fills me with deep joy. Of course, I wish David could be alive and enjoy the niece he never met. But I'm not in debilitating agony. What I can do to honor David is to live my life fully and be fully present in the lives of his beloved nieces and nephew, our grandchildren.

The Zaandam

As I gazed down at the St. Lawrence River from the Greyhound bus, I saw a white and blue cruise ship moving slowly away from us. Painted on the stern, I could just make out the name: Zaandam. For the first time in my life, I longed to be on a cruise ship.

In 1989, my mom bought a neat one-bedroom condo on a beach in St. Croix while my dad was scuba diving from a boat offshore. She later bought the unit above and my parents frequently invited their children and relatives to share their piece of the Virgin Islands. When Sam was one and R’el ten, they invited our whole family. The kids and I spent three weeks in paradise; Jim joined us for the final week. Their backyard was a beach and reef. We snorkeled and had hermit crab races, visited Whim Plantation and enjoyed freshly-fried johnnycakes.

After that trip, I went down every February. I loved mile-long swims along the shore, scuba diving among the coral reefs, and having dinner with my parents. A mile from the condo was Frederiksted and the pier where the cruise ships docked. We would see the tourists scurry off the boat for their shore time. Spending 17 hours each day on a boring ship for just a few hours on shore had no appeal. I was content with visiting the same reefs (and there were several) and loved staying on the same island all week.

An Alaska cruise appealed to me. My dad and grandpa, discerning world-travelers, went on one and thoroughly enjoyed it. About eight years ago Jim and I did the same. The glaciers were magnificent, Anchorage's dusk at 11 p.m. unworldly.

When Jim’s mom suggested a New England and Canada cruise for all her children and spouses, I looked forward to it: I’d never been to Nova Scotia and love Quebec City. The cruise ship would simply be the vessel to get me there: easier than driving. We boarded in Boston and headed north to Maine and eastern Canada: Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec. After a day in Montreal, Jim and I would return home by bus though Vermont and New Hampshire.

But as we rode over the Cartier Bridge in Montreal, I found myself wistfully watching the Zaandam as it glided back towards Quebec City, with a fresh load of passengers. It had been our home for seven days. Every evening at 5:15 p.m. Robert, our head waiter, had cheerfully greeted us and taken our orders; there was a different menu each night. George, the wine steward, gave up asking for our wine order and quietly removed the long-stemmed glasses the staff had set at our places. Jim and I soaked up the showtunes and sing-alongs with Jamm the piano man: he knows many hundreds of songs. We listened to a jazz quartet from Greece. I laughed at the ventriloquist, Mike Robinson, and was convinced there were two distinct personalities on stage, even though Terence arrived and left the stage in a suitcase. (My favorite joke from Mike Robinson (there are so many to choose from): Gaming, that’s the preferred term for gambling. Gambling suggests you might win.)

I grew attached to the ship in a way I never had to a hotel. Of course, I’ve never stayed in a first-rate hotel for a week: I usually choose a hotel for low price. The ship had rooms to explore. It took me days to go directly and confidently to the dining room, and a few more to understand where the Mix piano bar was. To the end, I was still guessing how to find the Hudson Room and the main stage and needing to check with the ‘you are here’ map to confirm which staircase I was at. Every evening after dinner, we'd find a creature folded from a large towel with googly eyes in our stateroom. One evening it was a monkey hanging from a skirt hanger; another it was a dear little mouse on our couch.

What was that wistful feeling? The feeling an only child might have on acquiring a younger sibling. I thought the Zaandam was mine. Who knew that two hours after I locked my stateroom and rolled my purple carry-on to the gangway there would be 1400 people waiting to board and take our place?

Pioneer Trek

Jim and I went on a Pioneer Trek with about 70 of the youth of our church. It was a reenactment of journeys nearly three thousand Latter-day Saints took across Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming to the Salt Lake Valley, from the years 1856 to 1860. They packed their belongings in a handcart and walked over a thousand miles. Our teenagers were organized into 7 ‘families,’ each with adult leaders as Ma and Pa. Over three days we trekked 15 miles through the woods of New Hampshire: not quite the Great Plains, but challenging.

I often walk 4-5 miles in a day, so I was actually disappointed that it was only 15 miles total: I had misunderstood it to be 15 miles a day. I did worry about sleeping on the ground: it’s been years. But we bought backpacking air mattresses, which are very lightweight and inflate in 15 breaths.

It was a fun date for Jim and me. As the company's grandma, I wasn't responsible for anything. Except for a slight rain Saturday morning, the weather was great and the rail-trail easy to follow.

Back home on Sunday, two of the teenagers reported to our congregation. One had been quite skeptical of the plan. He named it ‘cruel inefficiency’ to pull a loaded oaken handcart over dirt and rocky trails for three days. But in the end he was glad he’d done it.

For both of them, and for me, it heightened our appreciation of our pioneers. Everyone who has gone before is a pioneer, not only my great-grandfather James Farrell, who walked to western Nebraska and built a sod house, or my great-grandparents Bruesch, who came as children to Wisconsin from Prussia and homesteaded a wheat farm in Highwood, Montana, but my grandparents and my parents. Every generation has its own challenges and forges the way for the rising generation.

I’m grateful to have shared the trek experience with Jim and new-found friends. I’m grateful to live in beautiful New England. And I’m grateful for my parents, grandparents, and all pioneers, for the sacrifices they made to give me a better life.