wintry March morning

The grief books will tell you that everything you are feeling is normal, and that the world will expect you to live on even while your heart is still breaking. These books are helpful in acknowledging that after death, there is a continuing cascade of discovery while the layers of what the loss means becomes revealed over time. The grief books offer a counter weight to a culture that sometimes worships positivity and reminds us to keep our chin up. For these reasons, I am grateful for the grief books.

And, yet, the grief books can also be depressing as hell. They also say that the pain may become less frequent, but it will never fade. They suggest that the second year of widowhood could be worse than the first. They remind me that it’s perfectly normal to not feel any joy and suggest that at some point in the future I may be able to feel joy again.

I find these points rather intimidating. I certainly don’t want to wait that long for joy.

There are many ways to die, and any early death carries with it a horror of its own shape. B’s instance of cancer was death by a thousand cuts. It was slow enough for us to keep our routines; we could not simply drop out for such an extended period of time. And yet, it was fast enough for us to be able to notice changes first by the month, then week, and eventually, day over day. I am just beginning to understand the horror of living with death as a guest in our living room, relentlessly attacking our hope. I miss B with the weight of a mountain, and yet, I actually do feel comfort that he is free from his suffering and I do believe he is in a better place.

And I am grateful that we actually have many moments of joy. When I am having fun playing Settlers of Catan with the kids I feel proud that we are resilient. I sense that our joy would make B proud of us; after all, his whole being was geared toward ensuring the security and happiness of his family. When I feel moments of flow, such as in digging back in at work and getting lost in preparing a proposal or deliverable, I feel assured that I am moving forward, and that I am finding a way to stand upright and support the family. I know that B would want this.

The harder moments are those between the joy and flow, when I am boomeranged back to the reality of the loss. After putting the kids to bed, or a meeting with teachers, the absence of B avalanches without warning. Again, this loss. Driving to a meeting in Watertown, and turning the corner to see the diner where we celebrated Father’s Day a mere month before B’s diagnosis. We were so happy then. Again this loss. The text unsent that we’re on our way home. Again this loss. Again this loss.

And yet, yet again… The shape of B’s passing offered so many sparks of goodness that I continue to discover. The steady drum of decline taught us to love each other more everyday. Really - more every day. I understand that marriage and love and the dimensions of family are formed by these in between times, carved by their steadiness. I am grateful that I found a deep and humble peace on this earth, in this life, with this awesome human. The gifts that B offered in his way of death and of his living are numerous and still flowing. Of course we’d rather have B back, but we cannot. Somehow taking these lessons from his passing allows some meaning to come from his suffering. There are silver, gold, and titanium linings to his death cloud, and we would be foolish not to take them.

This is my longest nugget yet, and if you’re still with me through this roller coaster of and-yets, I’d love to hear your thoughts about books and flow and silver linings. It’s a quiet Sunday morning, the windy March snow just started, and I’m drinking my coffee.