"proof of heaven" is throwing me for a loop

if i ever write a book about this personal tragedy of mine i will call it: "i saved and killed him".
now, i just need more literary talent, better english vocabulary, and the discipline to write only on one thing every day.

it's been almost ten months now and i still cry almost every day. i have shed more tears in 2013 than i have in my entire life. although, i guess, that wasn't too hard to do .. i never was much of a cryer.

every night, before i turn off the light, i look at J's picture on my bedside table and i just cannot believe this reality of mine. it's like - all day i am hyper-aware that he is gone but at that moment, when i look at this photograph it is a new charge of disbelief, every night. i have tried to put the picture away but i can't _not_ have it there. it has to be there. i have managed to put his ashes into a less visible place in the other room, i have put away the photo collage from his funeral, and i have even donated most of his clothes. the latter was particularly hard. it took me several attempts and many tears to get it done. his towel still hangs in the bathroom and i am still sleeping on 'my' side of the bed but, i know, i have to deal with that at some point.

i've been reading "proof of heaven" by eben alexander, a neurosurgeon who had a near-death experience (NDE) that sounds like a bit like an acid trip, or .. how i would imagine an acid trip, given the fact that i have never tried any of that stuff. it's not that i wouldn't have tried (all my friends did) but i had an experience as a teenager that kept me away from anything but weed for the rest of my life so far. it was a guy talking to his darts that would come around the youth center. when i asked my older friends what was up with him, they told me that he was having occasional flash backs from too much drug use. i never fact-checked whether that's possible but i never touched a trip ever, out of fear that it would come back to haunt me later. i also was afraid of horror trips i couldn't escape. basically, i'm a control freak and this kind of loss of power freaked me out.

to return to the subject - eben alexander's book confirms a lot of notions i have read about before, especially (and most lately) from lorna byrne's book "a message from the angels", which took a long time and lots of open-mindedness to get into and absorb. however, if alexander's memories of what he experienced are true (i.e. not just an illusion created by his brain), then that would mean, all the inexplicable things that i have experienced in the time since J has passed are either hallucinations (which they were not) or they are not messages or signs placed in my path by J, for he is far, far away, in some happy, musical land of happy, completely oblivious to my (our) suffering about his death.

if i take lorna byrne's book, i would say, maybe these signs of comfort have all been given to me by my guardian angel ... my God .. it was _really_ hard to put these three words in writing.... my guardian angel. it sounds so crazy... but for a lot of people _believing in God_ sounds crazy ... and if i believe in God than believing in angels and guardian angels isn't crazy, it's part of the belief. lorna byrne's book changed my life, is all i can say. i see the world differently now but i am still hesitant to settle on a final theory on how this all works.

psychoanalytic aspirations

i'm not sure if i wrote about this already .. i need to devise a system to check such questions .. (ehr, i think, there is such a system...it's called tagging). stop talking to yourself.

so - it occurred to me that i seem to be reliving part of my father's history. after my parents divorced,  my younger brother and i stayed with my dad. it was his condition to consent to my mother's request for separation. she wanted to move away and go back to college. shortly after they split up, my father got together with a woman who turned out to be mentally unstable. she was extreme but she loved him deeply and, i know, he loved her the same way ... he told me so. i was 11 years old when they started seeing each other. at first, he tried to hide the relationship from us - kinda like what i did with my children, only that i hid the fact that J and I were an item (and not just friends) for years. this was possible because my kids were so young when we got together. i don't know why my father hid his relationship from us. i suppose, he felt like it doesn't set a good example. unmarried coupling. there was a tiny bit of that reasoning in my decision to take it slow but, mainly, I recognized how unstable J, and thus our relationship, was and I didn't want my children to think they could count on him only to be disappointed later.

but, my father wasn't as skilled at deceiving his kids as i was and soon gave up his charade; it was just too difficult to keep it up in the small apartment we were living in. his girlfriend could be the nicest lady one day and an absolute demon then next. come to think of it, maybe she was bipolar. i remember sitting at the kitchen table with her, eating my lunch. she was all dressed up, her hair and make-up was done, and then, out of nowhere, as she lights her cigarette and deeply inhales her first toke, she casually tells me that my father announced he is breaking up with her and that she will be going down to the station at 6 o'clock to throw herself in front of a train. she then continued to smoke her cigarette as if nothing happened while i searched for appropriate things to say in response.

my father is one of the most reasonable, most stable people i know - maybe it is just that opposites attract. i take after my father in the way i walk through life - always searching for balance and peace. the only difference is that i don't think i would have ever left J (which sort of contradicts my yearning for peace, i guess). i couldn't have done what my father did -- sacrifice his love for the sake of everyone else, first and foremost his children. "if she and i could live on an island together alone, we would have a perfect life" he used to say, "unfortunately, we don't live on an island, and i have children, friends, and a career."
i have to add to this that she was definitely much more unstable than J ever was. or maybe that is a biased statement, .. i don't know. it probably is. people in love. they just don't see what other people see.

my failure as a savior and other personal theories

I heard this story on NPR today - about a Marine veteran whose life was ruined by a BCD (bad conduct discharge) for behavior caused by PTSD. Earlier in the morning I heard a similar story, similarly upsetting.

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/11/250283871/after-discharge-upgrade-marine-finally-finds-a-reason-to-live

Anyway, before I get lost in how upsetting I find this whole BCD business (after all, they ruined their lives for the service and as a thank you they get a persona-non-grata label slapped on for behavior they wouldn't have exhibited, wouldn't it have been for the psychological damage the war inflicted upon them in the first place.) ... Ok, so now I got it out anyway. But, what I wanted to actually discuss was the relationship between this vet (Michael Hartnett) and his wife, Molly. It made me cry, for I completely identified with what she was saying. That she felt like she couldn't give up on him. She couldn't leave him like everybody else had. ... That is exactly how I felt ... so many times, when my reason was telling me to go, when everyone, including his own family was telling me to leave him, and I couldn't. I couldn't tell him to go and be done with him.

But, ultimately, I did tell him exactly that. I failed him.
If you aren't religious, you aren't going to understand what I'm about to say .. but, at that moment, I realized that, if the purpose of my unconditional love for this man had been to save him, then I had failed God. I failed. I couldn't do "my job".

I was crying as I listened to Molly speak, begging for forgiveness. In fact, the tears in my eyes now, as I am recounting these thoughts, are making it difficult to write.

I tell myself that J couldn't be saved. That he was ill and that I brought him as far as I could on this journey together. In the beginning, he was a full-blown drug addict, violent, criminal, having alienated his entire family and all his friends, living with the conviction that nobody loved him. In his drunkenness, I have heard him whisper it so many times. And, last but not least, of course, the complete lack of connection to his young daughter. All this changed in the time I spent with him. When he died, he knew I loved him (he must have known it), he knew his mother loved him, he had left his criminal street dealing days in the past, he graduated from Columbia, he started building his own business, he had built a beautiful relationship with his daughter, he had begun to repair his friendships, and, I think, he recovered his faith in a greater power. J was hyper-religious (a side-effect of the bi-polar disorder) but, I never was quite sure, whether he actually believed in God. I think, when the goodness returned to his life and he began rebuilding everything, his faith in humanity and divinity returned. The latter, of course, can only be a speculation. I know, there had been times during which he very much believed in God. In fact, he once told me a terrifying story that left me speechless. It was in the beginning .. during his worst drug use days ... after his divorce ... his life feeling like not worth living. He had taken a gun from one of his dealer friends and marched up to the park behind his house to end himself. He told me how he sat on a park bench, crying, sobbing, putting a gun to his own head when a man, completely dressed in white appeared in front of him to stop him. Commanded him to stop. I don't remember the exact details but I have written them down somewhere, I think. But, it doesn't matter. Point is, that J had it in him .. spirituality.

I once heard someone say that the whole purpose of your life is to have faith and experience love. I'm going to have to look this one up because I want to get this right verbatim, however, the essence of the quote is there. I think, J left this life having finally found both of these conditions, if they are conditions to allow us to pass. ... Oh my, I'm hopeless ... "allow us" to pass. ... Clearly, I still have a death wish. I feel guilty when I catch myself practically excited about my time of death. It would devastate my children. I must not die. For a long time, anyway. Until my daughters are grown, with children, independent, and it seems natural for me to go. Gosh .. I really don't want to live that long. .. But, who knows, I may change my mind so let me not put that thought out there. God knows what happened the last time I thought about death. I can't remember if I wrote about this, yet, ... but ...

... there was a moment in time ... not too far in the past ... that I thought to myself, very frustratedly, that I would never leave this guy; that he was the one for me - despite everything - and that my life was just going to be this roller-coaster and I'd better accept it, for this is what a bi-polar disorder (or whatever it was that was wrong with him) will bring with it. The only way this relationship will end is if one of you two dies. Literally, til death do us part, I thought to myself. I remember clearly, thinking exactly this ... and being annoyed and angry about this supposedly romantic notion, which was so utterly unromantic. Unconditional love isn't easy. It's f--in' hard and it's no-one's choice. It just happens.

Could I really have willed him to death? Let me just say that I am careful these days about what I put out "into the universe" as my new-agey friends call it. There is something about it. "The universe", or whatever dynamic this is which makes life happen, doesn't seem to distinguish between good and evil. It's whatever wave or direction you put yourself on .. or whatever wave you're included in .. if you think on a bigger scale. That's just a theory, of course. One of my many speculations about this thing called life.

out of the furnace

Spoiler alert -- if you haven't seen the movie, you may not want to read this entry.

So - I went to see "Out of The Furnace". I have always admired Christian Bale's acting. The film was well directed, maybe a little predictable and violent at times, but all in all, very well done. Woody Harrelson plays a really good villain.

I was wondering about this thirst for revenge and what good it does, for it will never bring that person you lost back to life. Then I pondered, whether finding out what really happened was a necessary part of closure, and that thought brought me to the question whether, one day, I would be ending up in extra therapy about this lack of closure.

Even though, I had my doubts about J's death, for he had died in an apartment full of people, who may have been partially responsible - one way or the other - I never found enough motivation to further investigate. I was entirely too overwhelmed by grief. Yes, it made me angry that the detectives were just labeling the case as 'no-foul play' because he seemed to be just another "hood-rat" in this place he should have never been at in the first place. To the DTs the true cause of his death probably didn't matter much and it was much easier to close the case with such a 'no-foul play' note.

But I saw the bruises and cuts all over him. On his face, his hands, his lips, .. they were subtle wounds - except maybe for the big bruise on his forehead. That wasn't subtle at all. But, the officials insisted. Natural death. .. As natural as someone's death can be with a system full of drugs and alcohol. Accidental overdose, the medical examiner speculated. J has abused substances in such high dosages in the past that he has awed the medics who have treated him. On more than one occasion have I heard a doctor tell me (or him) that they're not sure how he survived this level of intoxication. In other words, J was resilient. I remember being surprised at the confirmation of this when I read the autopsy report. His body had absolutely no damage from all the mistreatment he had given it over the years. Yes, the medical examiner said something about his heart not having appeared completely normal, but, I get the feeling that she just wanted to tell me something of comfort over the phone. Because, in the report (which one only receives 4 months after the actual autopsy), his heart is not described as abnormal. How could she remember such a small detail, ad hoc, months after the examination? She said his heart was a bit floppy on one side and didn't seem like the normal heart of a 36 year old. The report doesn't mention this detail so I'm not sure what to believe. All I know is that _nothing_ matters, not how he died, not if it was natural, not if anyone is to blame, nothing matters because none of these truths will ever bring him back and that is all I care about. I have lost him forever. His daughter has lost him forever. My children. His mother, his sisters, his friends ...

Christian Bale's character (Russell) hunts his brother's killer down until the very last moment of the movie. And when he shoots him in the head (a bit unbelievable for the type of character he played) the camera comes close to Russell so we can participate in this moment of relief (?) as he slowly and audibly exhales a big sigh of sad accomplishment.

therapeutic exercises

I thought about creating a book - for my own therapeutic purposes. A book that tells the story of this loss. And maybe, at the end, I can walk away. But, I'm a bit torn about that. I wonder, whether a book would be inappropriate. Maybe not if I just make this book for myself. 

In the first few months after his death, I wanted to tell my grief to the world (I guess, I still do) - back then, I actually contemplated an exhibit about his death. I had the whole thing visualized. It was going to be deeply personal. For example, there was going to be something like a little chamber, only fitting one person, that would hold the photograph I took when I first saw him in his casket a few days after he died. I was alone with him. I looked at him for so long and I wanted to capture this very last time that I was to see him. In this vision of a mini-shrine, I was going to cover the image with a cloth, one that had to be lifted by the viewer. It was meant to bring the person as close to that exact same spot I was standing at. On the closing day of the exhibit, I thought, I would discard of everything. Everything that makes me cry. His clothes, his books, his ashes... I was going to let him go - symbolically. But then I became afraid of this type of ultimatum for myself. What if I wasn't ready to let go at the end of that imagined exhibit? Anyway ... the exhibit idea turned into a book idea. A book that would instruct the reader to seek a place of silence before opening its pages. ... And now, I have reached the point at which I'm thinking, maybe I'll just make one copy.

she sees dead people

J's mother T has been seeing him. Maybe that's why I'm the only one left crying, ..because I don't. I know she is aching deeply but, she says, she can't cry anymore. I feel like I can't stop. It's driving me mad.

She has seen him pass by in the hallway as she is playing with her grand-daughter in a room at J's sister's house. She has seen him help fix her car. It's always only a brief apparition - an instant of visibility that needs a double-take and then vanishes.

Yesterday she told me that he was with her all day as she went to court. Why she is in court is a sad story I don't think I want to get into too deeply. In short, she is trying to save her grand-son from her youngest daughter, at least, that's how she sees it. She feels that her youngest isn't capable of caring for her now 7-year-old son. He is asthmatic and has no health insurance and he has recently seen his mother and father get into physical fight, which has traumatized him and which motivated T to attempt to remove the child from the household. ... It's all very sad, for I don't think J's youngest sister understands what is happening. She is just unfathomably angry at her mother, not seeing the bigger picture -- i.e. the well-being of her child. The whole situation is, of course, much more complex than what a mere few words can describe.

In either case, T told me that on the court date J's presence was so intense that even other people saw him. At first, it was the parking attendant, handing her a ticket as she walked out and inquiring whether "he" isn't going to get out, too? ... When she asked who he was referring to, he seemed confused and apologized "Oh, I'm sorry ... I thought, there was somebody with you when you drove in." .. Later that day, when she had just entered the court room, sitting there alone with the judge - the secretary wasn't there, yet, and the guard had gone to fetch her daughter, the judge gestured semi-focused to the side of T, asking her what the name of her lawyer was as she returned her gaze to the papers on her podium. T was confused but as she glanced to the chair next to her - just for an ever-so-short moment - she saw her son, sitting there in a black suit, a blue shirt, no tie, looking up to the podium. "I don't have a lawyer," she told the judge, who seemed confused for a moment, flustered, shuffling her paperwork, mumbling something of the effect of "oh, sorry... i ... " and then trailing off into silence with no further comments. I guess, she also thought she saw someone sitting with T at first.

I don't ever see J. Not that I want to and not that I don't want to. What I want is to have him back. Alive, bickering, joking, loving, and on a successful path to recovery. What I want is to touch him, look at him inches away from his face,...smell his skin ...and run my fingers through his short, short hair. Kiss him.

I'm sad that I can't see J ever again but I don't want apparitions. I don't think I could handle it. My whole concept of reality would collapse. I mean, yes - I believe in some sort of 4th dimension - I don't think, this is it .... our bodies, no souls, we die, that's that. I don't believe that. However, I cannot imagine this other dimension and I'm afraid of its reality. If I were to be able to see J then that would mean I would be able to see others and - no thanks - I don't think I would take that very well.

I get so many subtle signs that I sometimes try to read too much into non-signs, or at least, that's what I think. It's a confusing thing to be more in tune with the world and how everything is connected. And it isn't an always-open channel of understanding. Sometimes, I feel locked out.

Sad fact, however, remains that, even though, I feel like I'm being shown that I am not alone and that J is with me sometimes, he will never be here like he used to be. We will never have what we had again. My partner, my love, my soul-mate is gone and the only way I will ever stop crying is if learn to accept that my life has changed forever and that I need to start some sort of new life.

Of course, I know, there is no skipping steps in the grieving process. And so, I dutifully go through everything. Back and forth and round and round. There is no succession of phases. It's all a mixture of feelings. At the moment, there is a lot of despair and anger, depending on the day. ... And, one thing is for sure (or so, I think), the emotions are running more deeply (i.e. I suffer even more) when I'm PMS-ing. What else is new? Hormones aren't helping. At least, that's how I'm rationalizing this seemingly excessive grief. It's been eight months. I feel like I should be better now.... and I am ... but it's surprising how overall affected I still am. ... I think, I'm depressed.

there is no running away to jamaica

Here an essay I wrote on my trip to Jamaica. Since I'm not publishing it anywhere, I thought, I may as well post it here. [I'm still deciding, whether I find my writing style possibly too sophomoric. Something bothers me but I can't pinpoint it.]

 _______________

Most people probably travel to Jamaica for a romantic get-away, a destination wedding, or a trip with friends. I decided to go on this vacation to get away from the pain of just having lost the love of my life. He was 36 years old when he left this world behind. But, as with all troubles we carry in our heads, there is no escape no matter how far one travels. “Wherever you go, there you are”. 

***
I booked the flight in the middle of the night and a few days later I found myself, as usual, running late with everything. I am one of these people who leave packing until the very last minute. I do try to start early, but real results I seem to only be able to produce when deadline driven, which brings my final and most productive packing time into the hour before departure. 

As I finally lean back in the old, torn-up airport livery cab, listening to the driver’s salsa selection, I realize I haven’t slept in almost 24 hours. Wait…that’s not that long. My nurse and doctor friends would laugh at me. I’m a wimp, I decide. 

Thanks to the God-forsaken hour (red-eye flights do have their advantages) we arrive at JFK in record time. I begrudgingly pay the taxi man the new going rate of $65 for an airport transfer and hurry into the terminal where, to my great frustration, I realize that I am already dressed for the Caribbean climate, not having considered the hours I still have to endure in wintery New York City and, not to forget, the ice-box plane.

The flight is quiet and I spend most of the time nodding off into all directions, conjuring up a particularly tricky knot in my upper back. Apparently, I look like I need to eat and hydrate, or maybe it’s just the culture, but the two Jamaican ladies on either side of me take turns waking me to ensure I ingest water and food. I am touched by their kindness and dutifully, although deliriously, sip on the mystery soda as I munch down the artificially engineered blueberry muffin I have received in a sealed plastic bag.

Arriving at Montego Bay, I make the first mistake, even though, I just read about this particular faux-pas the day before: I exchange money at the airport. Instead of 98 Jamaica Dollars for my US Dollar, I only get about 82. The driver who receives me outside the airport doors has already been alerted of my arrival by my nurturing seat neighbors. His name is Bullet and as he and I make our way onto the streets with a 20-passenger sized bus, I learn that, there appears to be a reason for his nickname. He drives like a mad man and I’m afraid he’ll either kill us, or the many people walking out on the streets. Also, I’m pretty sure he is driving on the wrong side of the road! After a few blocks, of course, I notice that Jamaicans drive on the left. I make a mental note to remember to read my island culture pamphlet as not to disappoint as totally ignorant dunce/tourist all week long.

Bullet blasts his Reggae tunes for me, tells me about his four children, texts and makes phone calls as he swerves from one side to the other, and when I ask whether we can stop somewhere to get food, he pulls over in the middle of a narrow, winding road, reducing equally mad-man driven traffic to one lane as we patiently wait for a guy with a machete to cut coconut, mango, and pineapple for us. About an hour and a half into the journey he delivers me to another bus driver, who takes me for the rest of the three-hour ride to the other side of the island. His name is Dean and he tells me about Jamaica’s increasing governmental mayhem, unemployment, and suicide rate. Since I still have not read any of my informational material, I am shocked to hear his stories and impressions.

Finally we arrive, in the middle of nowhere, a small place called The Cove. I didn’t expect the literal translation of their website’s blurb about the hotel’s remote location. There are no shops, no tourists, no vending machines, nothing. The next town is about a 15-minute drive away. As I settle into my lonely room in this perfect romantic hide-away, I am overcome with sadness and a tiny bit of panic.

The manager and I get off on the wrong foot. She doesn’t like me and I can tell. I have that effect on some people. I’m not sure what triggers it but it’s probably that I ask too many questions. It goes back to my school days. I had teachers who actually began ignoring me, or prohibiting me from speaking altogether. I don’t want to add any stress to my sadness and decide to compensate for her hostility with an extra dosage of honey on my part. This remains my strategy for most of the week and eventually she comes out of her shell to be nice and open.

The first few days are tough. J’s absence is overwhelming. He would have loved this place. He would have been in the ocean first thing, beckoning me to explore the area. But, without him, I am tempted to give in to my hermit tendencies and I never once set foot into the sea.

Turns out, I am the only guest for the rest of the week and so the place feels like my own private beach house. Being rich must be a lonely life, I think, as I glide through the empty pool on the deck overlooking the ocean. I make friends with the staff, the horses, and the stalker cats who harass me every time I eat. The cats remind me of my children as they relentlessly whine for what they want. As with my kids, I stay strict and stoic until I can’t take it anymore and finally give in (sharing my food, in this case). There is also a family of toads, which congregates in front of my room in the evenings. As long as I don’t start attracting unusual numbers of locust or other insects, I guess, I’m fine.

Because I don’t want to spend all day in my room obsessing over my iTunes library, I splurge on riding on the beach with a horse that continuously tries to throw me off. Sore from riding, I decide to book a relaxing boat trip for the next day.
The captain of the small motorboat, which, judging by its dilapidated look seems to have carried him for his entire 28-year-long career on sea, decides to take me along for the extended route without extra charge. And so, my one-and-a-half-hour ride becomes a six-hour long trip, which I am not prepared for, sun-protection-wise. Then again, had I known, I probably wouldn’t have been better equipped either, for I am certain, I would have completely underestimated the situation. I think, the only exposures to sun I have had all year were the walks between various entrance doors and my car. I’m not really sure what all the degrees in the burn rating chart mean, but based on appearance and level of pain, I would classify my sunburn at least of the second or third degree, wanna-be expert of all things that I sometimes think I am. I look like I’ve had a ‘spa-day-gone-wrong experience’, having become the victim of a bad chemical peel. None of the multiply applied sunscreen layers seemed to have made any difference.

Following the advice of the boat captain, I rub fresh cut aloe on the burned areas. “Works battah than da aloe gel or anyting,” he said before he left me at shore. And so that’s what I do. The fresh aloe makes me smell like onion all over and stains my shirt with brown spots, but I don’t much care - it’s not like I’m on the pick-up prowl or anything.
**
Except for the sound of the ocean, the nights are quiet. Too quiet. It occurs to me that if I am the only guest at this place, does this mean I am all by myself at night? I know, the manager goes home every evening but does the staff leave as well? Probably! I try not to hyperventilate as I consider the fact that I may be completely alone here! I realize, I am suddenly afraid of death again. I finally care about staying alive. Until that moment, I kept fantasizing about the many ways death could strike upon me to release me from my grief: plane crash, shark attack, car accident, food poisoning. When my fingers felt tingly all evening, I excitedly (!) thought to myself: “Oooh! Maybe I’m having a heart attack.” I admit, it was getting a little sick.

**The lights started flickering. Even though I would like nothing more than to reverse time and save the love of my life from his untimely death, I do not want to see him in any after-life form, even if this is just in the form of flickering lights. STOP making me even more nervous than I already am about this unnerving, complete isolation here! I’m going to sleep with the lights on tonight, I decide, flickering or not. Then again, maybe leaving my lights on could be an attraction to intruders. – I think, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.

**
I am just about to spend a couple of hours crying about J, when Andy, a friend I had made on my boat trip the day before, stops by the hotel to invite me on a ride on his dirt bike, a Yamaha DT175. The unplanned trip takes us all day as we explore the paths leading up into the nearby mountains. We dance with Jamaican villagers, climb for coconut, and eat goat soup from giant pots boiling on small fires at the roadside. I make friends with three teenage girls, exchange smiles, dance moves, and Facebook info. They even take me into their homes, which I feel truly honored about. We get into areas I’m sure no tourist bus ever goes. It seems like we’re getting a glimpse into the island’s daily culture – pure and untainted. On the way back, we get caught in the rain and pull over at a wooden shack by the roadside. It happens to be a tiny bar. Another motorcyclist pulls in to take a Ganja smoke break. As we stand there looking at the rain playing with the sun rays, the Jamaica man and I casually begin shuffling around the Domino pieces sitting on top of the small wooden table we are leaning on. Before I know it, we are in the middle of a full game and, finally, Andy as well as the bar owner, join us. It is such an unexpected, peaceful moment, reminding me about the beauty of life and how this motorcycle trip could be pondered over as a metaphor for life’s journey. Granted, I have a tendency to get nostalgic when it rains while the sun is shining. Accept the challenges you are given in life, incorporate them into your own reality, and then move on. What you cannot change you must own, even if it takes years to adjust.

 

 

Also, stop planning and overanalyzing everything. Go with the flow, I tell myself, and somehow things will work out and you will have experiences you could never have anticipated on your itinerary.
If I hadn’t agreed to hop on a motorcycle with a man I barely knew, if I hadn’t stopped at the roadside up in this poor mountain village, if I had let my sadness or the chance of rain deter me from going altogether, I would have never had any of these wonderful experiences. I am aware that not every outcome of a situation can be great (for example, it didn’t help my 2nd-degree sunburn to be on a bike all day) – but if you open yourself and take some risks, your life may just be much richer than you would otherwise allow it to be. Bad and good experiences, both, make up the fabric of our lives. We learn from it all, we become wiser (hopefully), we gain a better understanding of life but most importantly, we breathe this world around us – we live. If we lead our lives this way, we won’t have to worry that we may have wasted any moments of our short lives, for we will have made sure to have been in it, consciously – even if this consciousness happens during the most ordinary moments of the day, while you’re washing the dishes, feeling the water on your hands, listening to music. And if the moment is beautiful, be thankful. It is a really wholesome feeling.

It has only been three months since I lost my soul-mate but I can say that as awful, disorienting, and heart-wrenching of an experience grief is, it has also been an education of my spirituality and connection to life. Moreover, if it weren’t for this devastating loss I would have never left my job. I would have remained unhappy but resistant to change, for this is what we do. We just accept the ruts of our lives even when we want to change them. But, for some reason, we think we can’t. Turns out – we can. I finally left my secure place of income because I got a real good lesson on what truly matters and that we have little time to tend to these things. There are always other ways of finding means to an end. If I need to make money to support my children, then I will find a way that doesn’t make me hate my life 80% of the time, for this will most definitely make me sick eventually and most likely affect my relationship with my daughters, even if it is “just” in the form of losing my health at an earlier age than necessary.

One of the most inspiring things I took with me when I left Jamaica was Andy’s response to a question I posed when I heard his story. He was from Germany and had just emigrated to the island together with his wife and son.
So, what are you going to do for a living? I asked in disbelief about such a brave decision (and –reckless– is what I really thought).
We’ll figure it out, he said.

I was just blown away by this confidence and lack of worry. What about health insurance, what about income, what are you going to do? It will work out somehow, was his opinion. Just follow your dream and things will fall into place somehow. Not always as expected, not always with ease, but somehow.

When I dug deeper, I found out that he also had experienced loss before he changed his life style into something that included more living. It was his father’s death that served as the catalyst for Andy’s metamorphosis. Maybe one of the reasons we suffer so much when someone close to us dies or becomes seriously ill, is to encourage us to re-examine our own lives and make changes we would otherwise have never made. In a way, grief may be a necessary part of the cycle of life just as death itself is. And, I suppose, you can apply this philosophy to suffering, in general. It changes us, it teaches us, it is an opportunity for growth and wisdom.

Oh – I really wish I’ll be able to keep that faith and introspective insight I brought home with me from this journey. That it all will work out somehow. In the meantime, because I still don’t really care about what happens, I am willing to take all kinds of risks and my faith is stronger than ever. Life will be what it will be. I can’t plan it all out. I just have to learn to swim with the current instead of trying to dictate the direction. And if I think back to my younger years, this concept worked. I planned to a certain degree, but more or less, I followed my passions and everything always panned out well for me. The moment I tried to take over and control every last thing – a side effect of motherhood, maybe – I think, I threw off some sort of natural equilibrium.

Finding this equilibrium shall be my quest until the day my reality-check brain kicks back in and tells me to get a job! But when this happens, which surely will be the case earlier than I am ready for, I want to be prepared to counteract panic-inducing neural activity of mine and assuage myself with the promise of balance in exchange for patience (and – yes – possibly, bouts of poverty).
Just follow your passion and don’t ever give up. You only have one life. Live it well. Make it count.

 

[You can check in with me at a later point in life to see if my self-motivating soliloquy worked or if I sold out and caved back into the system. I hope, I will be able to tell a different tale when asked whether I can stick to putting my philosophies into action. And thus – I prepare for battle against a system of little boxes and molds that will surely try to suck me back in using dirty fear tactics such as thoughts about financial stability and health insurance.  And, of course, in reality, nothing is sucking us in nowhere — it’s all in our heads. People didn’t worry about health care in the middle ages. They just lived and tried not to die too early. Either way, death was part of life. ---- We have a luxurious type of freedom not everyone in this world has. We sometimes forget that.]

Jamaicans bury their deceased in their yards.
This is a so much healthier approach to death, I think.
It is everywhere. You can never pretend death isn't part of life.

my grandmother's candor

It's interesting how this blog has turned from mate-hating rant to poetic reminiscence of said mate (and I'm using the term 'poetic' loosely). My 84-year-old grand-mother, rational and unsentimental as always, told me how puzzled she is by the phenomenon of women who always complained about their husbands and then can't stop talking about how much they miss them once they've passed. All she wants to do is to remind them about the reality of their relationship. Or apparent reality. I guess, she decided to start with me.

My grandmother has always been sort of to the point like that. When I excitedly announced that I was pregnant with my first child, the conversation went something like this:

Me:"I'm pregnant!"
Grandma: "Oh well, ... I guess, you can kiss all your dreams and passions good-bye then because you won't have any more time for them once that kid is born."
Me: "Ehm ... you DID hear that I am already pregnant, right?
Grandma: "I'm just trying to be realistic."

Granted, I was 23 years old then - perhaps a bit young still to have a child. At least, in her mind, as she was expecting me to move on to Graduate School at that point.

Anyway, I love my grand-mother's candor. And she is right -- somewhat. I did like to complain. It's what I do best. But, this habit never reflects the full picture of the state of my mind. I was happy when I was with J. I don't regret a single day I spent with him. I couldn't believe that I actually ended up with my soul-mate. The fact that he was an addict and an alcoholic is what drove me mad. J didn't seem to be made for this world. He never could cope with the dark realities of this planet and its inhabitants, even in the times he decided to join instead of fight. He was an extreme character with incredibly low self-confidence, despite his brilliance and the love and enthusiasm people had for him. He was bi-polar and he self-medicated himself into addiction. That's the simplified version, of course.

I can't help but wonder whether J's overdose was on purpose. If it was an overdose. Because, until this day, I have questions about the day of his death.
Ultimately, of course, none of this matters, for it won't bring him back.
Death is so damn final. I don't like final.

a poem in tears

i close my eyes
i fold my hands
and touch my chest
i imagine
his body
wrapped around mine
our feet brushing gently
against each other
i imagine that
i touch his neck,
his birth marks,
one brown, one strawberry red,
i imagine
kissing his beautiful
stupid tattoo
i hated and then loved so much.
i imagine
touching his hair,
which he grew
just a little, just for me
even though he preferred to cut
to the chase and shave it all off.
i imagine
touching his belly,
his beard,
his cheek
ever so softly.
i imagine our love.
i imagine
our shared desire.
we were crazy
about each other.
.. tears.
silent streams.
why am i doing this to myself
i wonder.
stop!
why are you doing this to yourself?
you must not.
you must stop.
but what's the alternative?
forget?

never.

subtle messages

I hope you never lose anyone close to you.

Even though death is all around us, we have trouble digesting it when it hits close to home. I wonder why that is. Why can we not feel as deeply for others as we feel for ourselves? Mourning is one of these things that makes this fact crystal clear.

Today I tried to tell myself, not to think of him as dead and gone but that we are just separated for a while (until I die). Life is short, they say, so - all I need is a change of perspective and patience.

Lots of patience -- unless I die tomorrow.
Speaking of which, I need to write a letter to my daughters to instruct them on the process of grieving, should I leave this world at a younger age.

***

The signs are less frequent these days and when they come, they are becoming more subtle. It's as if it is understood that I don't need them as desperately as I have needed them in the first six months.

The other day, as sadness suddenly came over me - as it so often does when I realize he is gone, gone - a picture appeared on my screen saver, which I have set to a folder containing images of J. And because I have been almost conditioned to expect a response in moments my sadness overtakes me, I looked at the picture almost defiantly saying out loud:"What is it? What are you trying to tell me?"

I had seen this picture a hundred times but because I was reading the appearance of the image, seemingly so on cue,  as an attempt of communication, I began to examine the photograph more closely.
And then there it was. On the poster behind his smiling face. In the tiniest print - on the middle of an ad poster - one sentence: love your life!

As if to say -- S. ... stop being so sad. You are alive. You are still here. Enjoy it!

Stopping at the store before a trip to Bear Mountain.

my famous last words (not famous but very much my last)

I'm back in New York City and to crying every day.

his last breath. here.
I hold my breath. and my tears.
it's life. my cross. for now. i pray.

Today I became so desperate to be close to him that, at one o'clock in the morning, I drove to the place where he died. I sat in my car, across the street from the building in which he took his last breath, and cried. What a common and unspecial place to lose one's life, I thought, when my tears had dried. Not that death waits for a dramatic backdrop until it strikes, but, this place was nothing you would want to look at for an extended period of time. J was cremated so I don't have a tombstone to visit. His ashes are in my house. Why, then, do I yearn for a shrine or a place to go "meet" him?

I miss him so f*in much.

My death wish comes and goes these days. Yes, I am more functional now. I couldn't even imagine thinking about work a few months ago but, now, I can sit down and focus even when my heart aches or my mind wanders to memories of him. I am contradicting myself. How can one focus and at the same time think of something else? That makes no sense.

Sometimes there comes a moment at which I relapse to week one, a time so dark that I just want to tear my own heart out and die. I know, this is how grief works. A back and forth between getting better and being thrown into any one of the stages of grief. -- Today, it was guilt and anger. Guilt about the fact that I told the man I love and would have never left to "get the F out of my house and never come back" because I was angry and tired and feeling hopeless about whether he would ever find a way out of his addiction. BUT WHO SAYS SUCH A THING??! ...
"Get the f* out of my house and never come back! You heard me! Never!!"
These were my exact LAST words to him.
-- Oh, God .... somebody heard me ... that's for sure. :/

Be mindful about the things you say to your significant other...or your child...or anyone you love. You may never get another chance to take it back. Never.

Another thing that haunts me is the fact that on one or two occasions of morbid self reflection I had thought to myself that I would probably never be able to leave him, regardless of whether he cleaned up or not. "Let's face it, S, this is til death do you part," I told myself. "The only way this cycle will ever end is if he dies. Because he will always come back and you will always let him, for this man has your _unconditional_ love."

The mourning doves are gone. The signs of comfort are fading. I know, it means that it is time to walk on my own but I don't know if I'm ready, yet. I miss him so much. It hurts so f--in much. I can't stop crying.

... Maybe I must leave New York. I think, I've said that already in an earlier post. Sometimes you know the solution but it's just not that simple to apply it.


One of J's favorites songs ... playing as I write this:

Mumford and Sons -- White Blank Page

the sense of life

A few days ago 1300 people died in a chemical weapons attack in Syria. My father, who I have come to visit here in Austria, is from Syria and, naturally, the television is set to the news all evening.

Arabic channels - delivered via satellite - apply much less censorship to the reality of a situation than American news stations and thus I was completely taken aback when I was shown images of dead children I would _never_ dare to look at following my own research of the Weltgeschehen. Not because I want to shield myself from the reality of the world outside my protected Western industrialized existence but because I don't need a visual to experience the pain and empathy a story like this ignites in me. However, seeing these videos has most definitely brought me much closer to the tragedy and horror of this crisis. It made me think about how deeply I have been suffering about a death I, thank God, did not witness personally and how completely and utterly worse all of these THOUSANDS of people over there (and in all the other crises areas on this planet) must feel. Death is such an omnipresent part of life and we - here in our modern world - so easily forget that because we are constantly shielded from it. At least, that is my personal experience.

In either case, it made me wonder about the fairness or lack thereof in life. Why am I allowed to recuperate from the passing of my most beloved man in the world, why am I allowed to enjoy the security and beauty of my home country (Austria), why do I have what I have and live where I live?

My father mentioned the other day how lucky and grateful he feels: Living here in Austria, having his house, good people in his life, health, financial security. "I always say, God must be content with me that he is giving me all these good things in my life." -- Although, I'm sure he didn't mean to be offensive, I find this statement to be thoughtless. What does that mean? All the other people who are suffering in this world aren't good people??! ... That can't be it, right. So, then why is there this discrepancy ...or, randomness, rather. Or, ...is it randomness?

The only way I can explain this seeming unfairness or random assignment of one's lot in life is by considering the concept of reincarnation. If there is such a thing as reincarnation then I can accept the divine set-up, so to say, because it would mean that, eventually, we all get a life in which we have to learn about true suffering. And in between all of our  lessons on human suffering we get to rest and have a good life, too. But, then again - this would only apply to extremes. Most lives aren't just black or white. They are a journey of fulfillment and suffering both.

As hard as these images are to look at, I think, they are a good reminder to be grateful - every day - for what we have.

And, last but not least, as horrifying as this is to see, I know now that death isn't the end and these children (and people) are now liberated from the suffering and the fear they have experienced for so long. It is the ones who are left behind who are left with the burden to carry and the deep emotional injuries to tend to. But - despite all my rationalizing, speculations about an after-life, or even reincarnation - sadness and a sense of injustice are still most prevalent in the emotional turbulence this incident has caused in me.



More information at:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/video-and-images-of-victims-of-suspected-syrian-chemical-attack/

fear of return

I don't want to go home. Our date for departure is more than two weeks from now but I'm already upset that I have to leave. I am dreading a return to New York City, the town I once loved more than any other place in the world. Every visit to Austria is usually accompanied by home-sickness come week two of my trip. Not this time.

Because this time I will be returning to an apartment without J but full of things that remind me of him. I haven't been able to dispose of his clothes, his shoes, his toothbrush, his inhaler, his USB sticks, his mail, his stuff. I don't want to see any of these reminders of his beating heart but I also don't want to lose any of it. It makes no sense. It's like this desire of wanting to look at his pictures and not at the same time. I want to see them because I miss him and his face is fading in my memory but when I look at them, my stomach is instantly full of butterflies and my chest aches as I simultaneously experience the sensation of love and loss.

If my older daughter wouldn't be so attached to her father, I would look into returning to Austria for good.
Just coming here to vacation was hard for the kid. She is eleven years old now and, I suppose, leaving her Dad so far behind made her feel as if she is losing a father all over again. She cried for days before I finally got to the root of all the pain, which I had originally thought to be mere home-sickness. "I'm afraid that Daddy will die", she admitted sobbingly and so I fought my inner urge to tell her, we can never know when someone will die and that there is no point in worrying about it, and instead responded the way I had to: "Daddy isn't going to die. No way. Not gonna happen. I guarantee it."

And just like that - she stopped crying.

a cross that i can bear?

This is the first summer in many years that I have left my NY home for more than 3 weeks of away time.  What hasn't changed, however, is the destination of this yearly vacation: Austria - the place where I grew up.

Since my arrival here a few weeks ago, I haven't shed daily tears as I have at home. I suppose, it's because this place  fosters no associations to J and is full with childhood memories everywhere I look.

This is pre-relationship territory so-to-say because, believe it or not, I despised the idea of a boyfriend when I was in my teens. I found relationships restrictive and annoying, at least from where I was standing. I loved hanging out with my friends and the few times I let a boy come close, I felt suffocated by the constant need of said boy to hold hands or claim any part of my time for himself.

I guess, my former self would have never understood my later capacity and desire to be glued to this love of mine for 24 hours a day (if it would have been possible, that is).

Yesterday, as I sat outside in my father's garden, the tears came to find me despite my recent and unexpected emotional escape. I don't know what triggered the thought but I was suddenly reminded that J wasn't just far away - across the ocean - in New York. He was dead. He died!! It's real. And then I thought of his face in the open casket and then I was done. I couldn't hold my tears. As if to stop me before I lost it completely, a line in the song playing gently on the radio next to me spoke: "Don't you worry....time will heal all wounds, " it said and then continued: "...all your life has led up to this.." or something like that, which - I suppose - could mean that I have been prepared for this fate of mine. Subtly maybe - but prepared, nonetheless. In other words possibly then (and I paraphrase): "God will only give you a cross as heavy to bear as you can handle." ...

losing connection

Eventually, I will have to move on and forward. I don't want to have as difficult of a time dealing with my new reality as I do. I want to accept it, for I know there is nothing else I can do. Reality won't change. The only thing I can control is the way I deal with it. That is, of course, not entirely true (because I can't help how I feel) but - at least - that is something I can try to adjust. I believe, that even though my behavior modification attempts are only accomplishing incremental changes, they must amount to a real, tangible change at one point.

In the meantime, I don't sleep anymore.
This restlessness is something I remember from the nights when J would disappear, drawn into the dark by his addiction. When he didn't come home, I barely slept. Is it that he isn't here anymore and that's why I can't sleep?? If that's the case then I need to find a way to _imagine_ him in the house or, better yet, sleeping next to me. In fact, when I tried this suspension of reality for a moment, I felt an instant relaxation. It was so overwhelming that it scared me. That can't be it! I told myself. Really?? How am I going to keep this up? I can't really keep that image alive for more than a minute or so. But, maybe I'll get better with time. Or maybe I need to find other ways to find rest.
Anyway, last night I gave up around 5 a.m. and decided to get back up and do my laundry. I finally went to sleep at almost 9 a.m. ... just for a few hours but at least something.

***

Even though I continue to get subtle signs of J's presence ...or some comforting divinely assigned presence (or whatever it is), I feel like I'm losing him. Or more accurately put: I feel like I'm losing my connection with that other dimension and with my inner self. Grief had torn me open in such a way that I became extremely receptive and sensitive to this other world around me, while the normal world (the reality I had been living in every day) appeared as if it had been submerged in a foggy haze.

I read this story about a woman who lost her lover and who couldn't find a way out of her pain.

"Another time she told me that she felt she had swallowed her own energy, and when I gave her paper and crayons asking her to draw this, she drew a picture of a snake which had swallowed its tail. The evening after this session I found myself thinking of this image again and again. I felt somehow that it was a Rosetta stone, the key to her whole situation, but I did not know how this might be. Furthermore, the image seemed familiar to me but I could not remember where I had seen it before. Puzzled I went to one of Joseph Campbell's books and found that this was the Uroboros, a symbol associated with first chakra energy, the energy of survival. I began to wonder if in a time of loss we may instinctively reinvest our energy back into ourselves until we are certain that we can survive our wounds. Could we possibly become so totally focused on sustaining ourselves that we lose the impulse to move forward and connect to the world around us?"
    [Kitchen Table Wisdom - Stories That Heal by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. -- p. 196]


Yes, Dr. Remen. That is exactly it. What a perfect story to illustrate how I feel, except for the fact that I am desperately motivated to accept these cards I've been dealt. This is life. There are times it's just a real freaggin' shlep. And at the moment the whole accept & heal task I've put on myself feels like a very Sisyphean task.

God help me.
But, also -- I thank God for all the good I have in my life. Two wonderful healthy children, my health, a roof over my head, not living in a war zone.... [these are my usual first gratitude points]. And I always pray for others. I know my pain is nothing in comparison to the suffering in this world. Alas, it still hurts like #%$@. :/

other layers of life

I don't dream of J very often. And when I do, it is usually a very brief and relatively somber appearance.
But the night his little girl arrived in New York City he was in my dreams all night. He was everywhere - in every strange unrelated new scene of my dreams - and in each vision he just seemed so happy.

His mother Thea told me that when his daughter was sleeping over, she felt her son's presence in the house strongly, and that the lights began flickering again. In her half-sleep, dozing off with her grand-daughter late at night, she vaguely felt a depression on the edge of the bed. As if someone had sat down beside them.

****

The realization of how much I miss him comes to me often unexpectedly.
What I have noticed is a pattern: whenever this sudden sadness takes hold of my heart, I get a subtle but clear sign that he (or his soul, essence, energy, I-don't-know-what) is with me. I'm not sure if it's him giving the sign or some other divinely assigned post (or maybe there is some sort of automatic divine algorithm to it) but either way -- to me -- they are so clear that it often takes me from tears to a smile. Even when I'm not crying and the awareness of his absence suddenly overwhelms me, it's hard to ignore these little "gestures" (or, memory triggers, if you will).

My postmortem entries are full of stories about this.

Most recent one -- yesterday:
As I was sitting on my computer listening to Spotify a song came on that, for some reason (chorus?), really gets to me (video link below).
To hide my the tears from my children, I moved to the window and as I was standing there - my hand resting on J's ashes on the sill, the strong breeze drying my tears - my gaze fell onto a man walking by across the street. He was dressed in a very similar way J used to dress (mostly due to the fact that almost all his clothes came from shelter donation rooms): Everything was a little too big on him and he would have to constantly pull up his pants. The guy down on the street also held his cigarette the same way, had a similar physique and hair cut, and walked almost identically to the way J used to stride.
It made me smile because for a full few breaths could I let myself imagine that this was him down there...and he had just gone out to smoke a cigarette and walk a few feet just as he always used to.



Sometimes, when I'm particularly desperate to stop crying, despite these comforting signals of his presence (or a dimension of life that I may not be able to grasp, yet), I am reminded of one of the first instances of this communication - a succession of small signs that ended with an encouragement to pray.
And then I pray.

***
Last night I went out to Times Square and the busy bright midnight summer scene reminded me of how J and I sometimes came to TS or down to the Village to walk around in the middle of the night, enjoying the vibrant pulse of this city.

I miss you, I thought, soo much - when suddenly - I hear a succession of a few long jazzy notes played on a saxophone that instantly reminded me of a video I shot a few years ago of J walking down Bleecker Street. In the recording, despite the late hour (1:30 a.m.), the street is full with people and as we turn the corner there is a Barry White Doppelgaenger, playing that same succession of notes auditorily mirroring what I'm hearing at this moment at Times Square.
(Please note: I'm not actually sure what Barry White looks like exactly. I just know he is black, probably over 45, and usually decorated with a full beard. If I were more motivated, I could venture out to google him now...but I'm not.)

Anyway, as I pass by a man with his head lowered, wearing a Yankees baseball cap - just as J often did - I try to locate the saxophone player only to realize that it is the exact same guy I recorded years back _AND HE IS EVEN WEARING THE EXACT SAME SHIRT and sunglasses as in my video. It feels as if I'm looking at a tiny snippet of my footage transposed into a different background set.

Anyway ... it is almost 5 o'clock in the morning now.
This insomnia isn't getting any better....

he must be here somewhere

today, i had a moment in which i lost all my doubts.

i had gone to the pool with J's mother, his nephew, and my kids. on the way home, she decided she wanted to stop at the spanish place to get chicken, rice, and beans to feed the children. because traffic on broadway was insane, i double-parked the car on a side street and she hopped out to walk the block to the restaurant.
suddenly, it occurred to me that the place she was going to sold the best tres-leche cake in town. in fact, i don't usually like tres-leche cake but this one is to die for. it is one of my current addictions.

i frantically turned into all directions breaking my head over how to communicate to her my urgent craving. she had left her phone and i couldn't leave the car double-parked with 3 kids in it. people were already honking at me to move it back and forth so they could pass. and so - i did the only thing i could come up with: i closed my eyes, circulated my hands around my temples, and tried to will her into bringing me this cake:
"tres-leche, tres-leche, Thea, tres-leche, think about the tres-leche! i've told you about it so many times. remember? come-on! tres-leche, tres-leche. your son's favorite cake! how about some dessert?"

... i must have looked like a crazy person to any passers-by but i couldn't see, for my eyes were squeezed shut. then, i decided that my non-existent telepathic skills may not be enough and so i added:" J! tell your mom to bring me tres-leche cake! come-on! work your magic! i _know_ you can reach her. i want tres-leche, tres-leche! pleeeeeze. can you make that happen?"

and - lo and behold - his mom arrives, food in one bag, tres-leche cake in the other.
(i kid you not!) -> "this is from J," she said jokingly - of course, completely unaware of the significance of her words at that moment.
i was speechless.
i couldn't believe that actually worked.
"what made you bring this cake?" i asked carefully.
"i don't know. i was just waiting for the food. looking around. checking out the menu in detail, when suddenly there was something like a breeze on my face and i turned and saw the cakes at the other end of the bar. and then i thought, J would have really loved a tres leche cake." and so I bought one.

this event made me smile for the rest of the day.
most of these types of experiences fill me with as much doubt as conviction ...but today, i felt absolutely certain that J was with us.... it's either that or i can control people's minds ... and ... hmm...i guess, that would be almost as awesome as knowing that my sweet love is at my side.

and this is what she said...

every day, reality sinks in with a bit more gravity. he isn't coming back.
every day, i cry. every m-f-in' day.
i don't want to cry anymore. what's the f-in point?!??! ...there is no freaggin' point. it won't change anything. it won't help. it won't make me feel better. in fact, it makes me feel worse.

but, i can't control it.
i hardly ever cried before J passed. i stopped crying when i was around 11 years old. when my mother left us. i didn't see the point in it and it made me angry to cry. i felt weak. so, i stopped. for the most part, anyway.
now, i feel as if i am making up for all that lack of crying of the past 25 years... :/

as i am typing this, i am hearing noises in the living room. it is past midnight... and it just occurred to me that regardless of how much i miss him, there is no way i could handle seeing him in any type of after-life form. the adrenaline rush i just got is truly unpleasant. i think, i would have a heart attack if i were to suddenly become one of these people who see stuff ... or dead people! aaaahhhhhh ...

speaking of which, ... this evening my friend asked me if I could drive her mother home. Her mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and has been spending much more time at her daughter's (my friend's) place. It's amazing and scary to watch someone's memory fade. Not only do I see it myself - when I observe how she forgets how to count to five, or the name of a vegetable, or how to open a door.... but I also hear lots of stories from my girlfriend about the loss of this once so sharp woman's memory.

needless to say, i was completely taken aback when this little old lady sat in the car with me tonight and spoke to me with such clarity that i felt as if it wasn't just her talking. she began straight out of nowhere. she said (and i'm paraphrasing as best as i can ... and mind you... she speaks mostly Spanish...but this was all coming in English):

you have to be strong. focus on your girls. you have to be strong for them. and for yourself. you will find richness in life again. the pain will fade one day and you will be happy again. you will.
you have to stop crying. 
stop crying every day!
you can cry once a week, ok? maybe when you go to the church.
you have to stop remembering so much. stop thinking about him so much. stay busy.

he is with jesus now. he is better. you have to believe that. he is better now.
just pray  ... and it will get better.

for the most part i kinda glanced over at her in disbelief. she was looking at me so intently.
i barely ever speak to this woman. i don't think J has even ever met her.
and, how on earth does she remember that A) i had a relationship with someone and B) that he died?

when i later told my girlfriend about her mother's strangely mystical speech, she told me that the only thing her mother knew was that J passed... but that she remembered it seemed strange.

also, ... how did she know i cry every day? how did she assume that he was better now? that would mean she knew how much he struggled and how would she know that? and she knows i'm not christian (if she remembers that) ...how does she know i go into churches to pray?

my friend told me that her mother was known as a pretty powerful 'santeria' in her days. she always knew things before they were happening...always saw things others didn't. "she sees dead people, you know", my friend said, "but she usually doesn't like talking about it."

well, she didn't have to tell me any of these things. the fact that a woman with advanced dementia (who primarily speaks spanish) talked to me the way that she did, just made me shut up and listen.

on the way back, i cried anyway. :/ ...
but - this time i managed to stop myself before it turned into uncontrollable sobbing.

i always thought, repression is a powerful tool.
i think, i'm going to return to it.
think less about this unimaginable (but so terribly real) loss.

just don't think about it.

maybe i need to move.

signs?

I have made several entries about the signs I've seen after J died. I don't document them all, although, I probably should so I can refer to them in dark, hopeless moments.

Yesterday I had had a pretty good day; and with good, I mean, even... acceptable...no crying or overwhelming sadness. Then came the night. The kids had gone to bed, I had turned off all screens to calm my mind in order to prepare for bed time. I didn't want to have another late night. I thought, maybe if I read, I'll get tired. It was already past midnight. When I went into the kitchen for some water, it suddenly hit me again. I was drowning in his absence and I didn't know how to stop it. Before I knew it I was sobbing so hard I had to bend over on the kitchen counter to get a grip. As I lifted my head to take a breath, elbows on the counter, hands on my wet cheeks, I found myself looking straight at a piece of art-work my 11-year-old had made for her 9-year-old sister. It was a name plaque made of clay, carrying my younger kid's initials. It had been in the kitchen for at least a month or two. I have to move it every day to get to my coffee can. And, every day, I'm annoyed that it's still sitting in the kitchen when it should be in the children's room.
But what I saw in this moment took my breath away, made me smile, and chuckle through my tears. It was a detail I hadn't noticed in all this time. On the top of the plaque, barely noticeable, my daughter had carved "I Love U" but because I saw these words for the first time in this very overwhelmingly sad moment, I took it as a message from J.

The name plaque as I saw it every day for the past couple of months.

What I saw the moment I looked up from the tears in my palms.

The signs suggesting his presence are always subtle and sometimes very vague but so in tune with the way I feel at that moment, that it's hard to ignore them or dismiss them as something I'm making up in my head. When the sign is tiny, it's maybe a bottle popping [totally on cue], a door slamming shut because of a sudden draft, or a cold breeze embracing me. I don't know where the "signs" are coming from but they just don't feel like coincidence. It happens too often. Funnily enough, when J's mom tells me of her experiences like these (similarly subtle stuff such as lights flickering, his favorite shirt falling out of the closet and to her feet, or a dream) I always have the urge to rationalize it away and tell her she is reading too much into it. It never seems believable when it happens to someone else. This is probably why spirituality is such a personal thing. It has to be, for no one can truly feel what you feel. A spiritual experience is highly subjective, and, while completely fulfilling for the individual, hard to relate to by others.

Sometimes the signs are unmistakable. Like the message on the plaque, or the window shade shooting up at 3 o'clock in the morning as I am waking up out of deep sleep.
Or, for example, last week, as I was returning home from my very first grief support meeting, I suddenly noticed that the guy sitting across from me was wearing a wooden rosary - as J used to wear it. In fact, just earlier in the day, I had looked at picture of him with the rosary around his neck and I specifically paused at the memory on how he would wear it under his shirt sometimes.
When I lowered my gaze (to not totally make the guy uncomfortable with my dreamy stare at his chest), I noticed that the man standing right next to me was wearing two pairs of sock. It was so subtle that I would have never detected it, had he not been so close. According to the autopsy report I had just read a few days ago, J was wearing two pairs of socks the night he died. I remember thinking how peculiar that was and to now see this on another person got me convinced that J was sending me signs to show me that he was with me.

A few days before this, I could have sworn, I had a full conversation with him.

I was so sad...sitting in a cafe surrounded by friends and tons of people listening to a band playing. I was staring at the ground, fighting back the tears. I missed him soo much. And then this conversation began in my head:

- Stop crying. I'm right here.

- .... You are here?

- Yes.

- [very sceptically]... Really?

- Yes.

- So.. I can ask you anything.

- Yes.

- ......... Why did you die?

- ... I don't know.

-.... [I couldn't think of anything to ask so i just said,] I love you soo much.

- I love you too, Dear.  [Dear!? ... I totally forgot that J used to call me Dear.]

- I miss you.

- I'm right here.

- Easy for you to say. ...... How am I ever gonna be able to live without you?

- You're going to be fine.   .... ...  
                                             [now]  .... clap.

I dutifully began applauding. The song had ended and everyone around me was clapping while I had still been staring at the ground engrossed by my strange out-of-this-world conversation.

Last night, a friend of mine sent me a video of birds flying and it made me think about how much I loved the sound of birds...and - oh, how I wished, I could sit somewhere now to listen to them sing. And, a few minutes later, at almost one o'clock in the morning, I hear birds in the tree by my window. I can't describe the gratitude I felt for this gift, as I saw it. I listened to the birds sing for almost an hour and when they stopped I went to bed and slept better than in a long time. Here one of the recordings I made in pure disbelief. The quality isn't that great, I used my cellphone and you can hear cars but you get a little sense of the atmosphere. I have occasionally heard birds at night but usually it's a nightingale..if it's late at night. Birds like these, I usually don't hear until the wee hours of the morning.



One would think that all this metaphysical stuff should be bringing me comfort and, it does. But, it isn't enough. It isn't good enough! And there is nothing I can do.
I can't see him, I can't touch him, I can't plan the rest of my life with him.

The question is, would I have been able to do the latter with him had he not died? Was he ever going to recover from his addiction? I know, he wanted to beat this battle but could it have been that he may have spent his life on the street, like my older brother, who never recovered? Would it have hurt more to have seen him succumb completely to alcoholism and sink so low that he would be living out of a shopping cart, sleeping on a park bench? ... I am clinging on to the image that he would have made it and that it is this which I (and his family) have lost. But, maybe he wouldn't have made it and God relieved him of his misery. He was relapsing regularly and I remember fighting with him about this until the end.

But, ..... of course ... nothing matters.
I lost my soul-mate, my love, my everything ... and no hypothetical analysis of potential outcomes of his life will change that.

A friend, who lost her boyfriend to suicide 10 years ago, reminded me how lucky I am to have my kids in this time of grief. And I know I am. I feel blessed and eternally grateful for these two wonderful girls I've been given. Sometimes I look at them and I actually feel the love tingling under my skin.
Most of the time, they drive me crazy, of course. They are moody, stubborn, opinionated tweens who don't listen half the time but they are healthy, affectionate, and lovely children and I never forget to thank God for that.

is everything more or less predictable?

The psychology of man is an interesting thing. I find it unsettling that there is a formula I can refer to in order to predict how I will FEEL if xy and z happens to me. I don't usually think about how predictable humans are but lately I've been in awe about the accuracy of the automated daily grief support email I have subscribed to. It's just a snippet of advice on what one may be going through at this moment, combined with an insightful quote.

I find these daily affirmations very helpful but I can't stand the fact that I am essentially like a robot ... a machine that is running a certain software and is now compromised by a well-known bug, which we have developed a patch for.

Apparently, I am now in the grieving stage they call anger, although, I have learned that the emotions of all the stages come mixed up and unexpectedly. I never quite understood, why there is an angry stage in the grief process. What would one be angry at? I can understand that maybe some people would be angry at God or the person who died or, naturally, anybody possibly responsible for the loved one's death but other than that, I didn't get it.

Now - I can tell you - the anger can come without reason. I'm just angry, period. Sometimes I can walk outside the door and hate everybody. Everybody. This is a surprising and new feeling for me. I have always been the opposite of that. I tend to see the positive in people and I usually enjoy going out into the world.

Usually I punch a pillow when the anger comes. Unfortunately, I was in my car when I was overwhelmed with the need to get the anger out somehow. And so I punched my car door. Although, the injuries were only small abrasions of the skin, they hurt like hell and didn't heal for weeks. They kept tearing open again every time I brushed against something. I won't do that again, I guess. Although, that was the second time I did it....Let's hope I remember the pain this time.

***
And so -- here is what I got yesterday (in my daily affirmation email) - just when I had had a moment of self-reflection, earlier in the day, about how I needed to stop being so angry:

Loss often makes people bitter, and angry. Is that how you want to be? I don’t think so.
Rather than hanging on to bitterness, resentment or anger - let go, and find a healthier place to live the remainder of your days.

It's like an angel whispering in my ear to confirm what I have already told myself.