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Fields of Flowers
There has been a guitar sitting in my house for quite some time now. About two weeks ago I decided to do something about it. I started playing it again. I use the word “again” because years ago I kind of taught myself a few chords and played a little. I was never very good and had no confidence to play in front of people. But I did have enough basic knowledge and ability to purchase and own a guitar. So I did that. After a while I grew frustrated with my lack of progress as a great guitar player and lost interest in playing.About that same time my son Patrick, then a teenager, picked it up. He was a natural and quickly figured out the secrets to the instrument that I could never conquer. He was good enough to write some songs and perform at open mike nights around town. His singing voice was much different from the way he spoke and it was interesting to hear him play and sing. His recent living excursions in New York City and now Savannah, GA have left him without either extra space for a guitar or apparently the desire to play it. So my old guitar, which he inherited, has been lying around my house for several months. It had been unused but always visible and many times when walking past it I have been tempted to pick it up.
There were three recent events that inspired me to start playing again. On July 8 one of my favorite bands, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, released a new recording. Actually it was a very old recording of a concert tour they did in 1974 but released now for the first time. It has 40 songs on it plus a DVD video of eight songs. I was inspired by the sheer talent those guys had and the way they played each other’s songs in that group setting. I had heard the songs before but not with the passion and enthusiasm I heard them when I listened to the new/old recording. And to see the video of those eight songs took me right back to that year when I saw them perform in Cleveland during that tour. Hard to believe that all happened 40 years ago and hard to rationalize where all that time went. And why I was waiting all those years to play guitar again.
One of my frustrations when I played before was my lack of ability to properly tune my guitar. As all instruments do, my guitar would lose its proper tuning and I just did not have an ear for correcting that. So I would ask people to help me or take it to a music store and ask them to do it. Eventually, I was able to purchase a battery operated tuner which worked to a certain degree. When I decided to pick up my guitar again, I immediately considered my previous tuning dilemma and started to search for the electronic tuner. Of course I had no idea where it might be and did what I should have done in the first place: Look for a guitar tuning app for my iPhone and iPad. I found several and installed what looked like the best one and my tuning problem is no longer a problem. I simply bring up the app, hit one string at a time and turn the peg until the app screen shows green and I am in tune. I am always in tune.
My third inspiration is either a woman or myself. Or more likely, a combination of the two. Girls like guitar players and they like singers and although I am neither of those things, I am suddenly not afraid to try. When I played before, nobody was really interested in hearing me and I wasn’t very interested in being heard. But in this incarnation of me, I am not only able to play and sing for someone but I am actually eager to do so. It’s not like I think I’m any good either. I have just started to get calluses back on my fingertips and while playing, I make lots of mistakes and sometimes forget the words. I don’t care though and I don’t think my audience does either.
So an interesting thing happened to me just a few mornings ago. I was still in my first cup of coffee when I grabbed my guitar and started strumming a few random chords. I had these words come out that started with “I’m seeing things through her eyes …” then some other words and I started writing things down and more words happened and I wrote those down too. A couple of hours later I had enough to call it a song and I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I have heard about writers being gifted with streams of creativity out of nowhere. Some call it the muse. Whatever it was, it happened to me that day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not signing a recording contract and what came out of me that morning is not that good. But I don’t care about that because it’s mine and it’s exactly what I wanted a certain someone to hear. That evening I took my guitar to her house and played her “Fields of Flowers” and she loved it. I mean LOVED it. And even though I was pretty nervous and made a bunch of mistakes while playing it, I loved singing it to her. And as if that wasn’t enough, I made a video of me playing the song and posted it online so she could watch it and also just because I could.
I have never done that before for anybody. None of it. Part of the new me? Discovery? I don’t know. Some things are just so easy for me now. Things that would have been have challenging before just seem so natural now. Things that seemed so far away, so unreachable are now at my fingertips. Things nobody was interested in suddenly have meaning. And it’s all just so much fun.
Fields of Flowers from Rob Jones on Vimeo.
Garden Walk
My text to Ruth went like this:
“Going to church tomorrow at 10. Interested in seeing how the Episcopals do it? I could pick you up 9:30 ish then walk around downtown for a bit afterwards.”I thought she would want to go with me. Ruth is Catholic and from what I have gathered in the almost two months of knowing her, she is pretty serious about it too. And since the Episcopal service and Catholic services are so similar, it seemed like a good fit. I wasn’t really motivated by that though. It seemed to me that the time was right for Ruth to learn a little more about me. My religious practices confused her as they do me sometimes. I told her a few weeks ago that I wasn’t really very religious which conflicted with my practice of attending church almost every week. I can’t explain all that but I wanted her to see my church and how I acted there. I also wanted some of my friends from church to meet her and for her to meet them. Sometimes you can learn quite a bit about people from the company they keep.
She called me to ask if I was going to be okay with her in church with me. She was concerned that it was the church Coleen and I went to and that it might be too hard for me to be there with her. I knew all that but thought the result would be different for me. Instead of being saddened or uncomfortable by Ruth’s presence, I welcomed it. I thought about how we played tennis a few weeks earlier on the same court that Coleen and I played on. And how right, or “okay” it felt for Ruth to be there with me. Not replacing anyone but being in the present with me. My instincts told me it would much the same in church. I told Ruth I wanted her to come with me and she agreed and we discussed how to turn a church service into a daylong date.
I picked her up at 9:15 and we left for church which is downtown Buffalo. On the way she tried to paint her nails in the car and we laughed about the result. I was more nervous that morning than I was when I asked her, more nervous than I thought I would be. I was suddenly apprehensive about introducing her to the people I knew at church. Sometimes I struggle with new introductions and this was compounded by the fact that Ruth would be meeting people who all knew Coleen. We arrived a little early and walked around outside for a few minutes to kill some time. There were only one or two people for Ruth to meet on the way in before we sat down in a pew that Coleen and I frequently occupied. Ruth on the inside where Coleen always sat, me on the aisle. Once we sat down, my anxiety subsided and I was just in the moment. It felt perfectly normal. So normal that I kept looking at Ruth, trying to understand the magic. How did she get here? How did I find her?
During Coleen’s funeral service which was held at the same church, a very freakish incident occurred. Just as the priest was beginning her eulogy/sermon, which was based almost exclusively on “the light” and Coleen’s fascination with it, a radiant bolt of sunlight literally exploded through one of the stained glass windows shining down on the two front pews where we sat. It was impossible to ignore and everyone in the church noticed it. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. On Sunday with Ruth next to me, it wasn’t quite as dramatic. But there was light once again shining through the stained glass windows and hitting me squarely in the eye. It came through different windows and I noticed it from a different pew and I couldn’t stop looking at it. Not long after that, during the sermon, Ruth slid her finger toward my hand, lightly touching it. I put my hand over hers and held on like it was the most natural act imaginable and kept it that way for a long time. I looked at her, sang with her, prayed with her, smiled with her. During the sermon, the pastor asked the congregation to invite new people to attend our services. Ruth and I looked at each other and laughed for she was brand new there and had already been invited before the sermon was ever spoken. She was exactly what the pastor was asking for. After the service we walked out and I introduced Ruth to several other church people including the priest. I explained to him that Ruth was one of the new invitees he was calling out for. I thanked her for coming with me and she thanked me for taking her. It made perfect sense that she was there with me.
We stayed downtown after church. Every year in Buffalo, there is an event called the “Garden Walk” where people open their yards to show off their gardens. People get maps of houses that are in the Garden Walk and walk from location to location looking at a plethora of flowers, plants, ivy, ponds and almost anything else that be grown outside. Ruth and I are avid walkers and both enjoy the city neighborhoods where this takes place so we joined the masses and toured a large residential area of the city. As there were many other people there, it seemed unlikely that we would go all afternoon without running into someone we knew. Which, of course, we didn’t.
On a cul-de-sac, I heard someone call my name. I turned to look and it was one of Coleen’s first cousins, Annette. She was talking to someone else but recognized me and called out. I had one of those “Oh shit, what am I going to do now” moments but only for a brief second. I smiled, grabbed Ruth, and introduced her as my girlfriend and introduced Annette as Coleen’s cousin. As much as I thought that situation could be uncomfortable, it was the exact opposite. The three of us stood and talked for about 15 minutes, not unlike what might have happened if Coleen and I had run into Annette. We talked about the neighborhood we were in which is where Annette lived and the city and the event. No mention was made of Coleen’s passing or of me being with someone else. Just as things had been in church that morning, our meeting was very normal. There was no evidence of loss or of pain or of grieving, only of three unlikely people sharing a few natural moments in time.
About an hour later, we approached a house that had a large garden in it’s back yard. On the front porch stood the houses owner and I recognized him. Not at first but within about ten seconds I realized who he was. When Coleen was in the Hospice facility about two weeks before she died to get her medications straight, we were visited on two occasions by the Hospice chaplain, Bob Fink. Then on the day Coleen died, he came to the house and prayed for her, prayed with her and with us, her entire family. He gave us great strength as we faced our new journeys without her. And there he was, standing on his porch at the Garden Walk as I passed him on my way to his backyard. As I exited the yard, I passed him again but this time I stopped to talk. “Your name is Bob, isn’t it?” He answered yes and I explained how it was that I knew him. I introduced Ruth to him as my girlfriend and explained to her how Bob had helped me and my family with Coleen’s death. We changed the subject to his garden and beautiful flowers and spoke for only a few moments before parting. As we walked away I was amazed that I would run into that man on this day. I wondered about the significance of that meeting. I don’t think he remembered me but I explained who I was. And he saw what 10-1/2 months of healing could look like if given the chance. Bob saw me healthy and happy and with someone very special at my side. And of course I saw him and remembered what I looked like the last time I saw him and how much different I was 10-1/2 months ago. It almost seemed like the ending of The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up from her “dream” and finds the wizard leaning through the window, chuckling at her perceived experience. Was that what it was for me? Oz was real to Dorothy just as Coleen’s death is real to me. Am I waking from my dream now to return to something brand new but just as normal as before I went to sleep?
That entire day was a series of messages to me. How could all those things happen within such a short period of time? Ruth, the church, the light, the sermon, the Garden Walk, Coleen’s cousin, the Hospice chaplain. It was an overwhelming experience. I have often told the story of Coleen instructing me to find another woman after she was gone. The punch line being my surprise that she didn’t tell me who that woman should be. Well, maybe she is telling me. Or maybe I’m finding myself in the right situations to figure it out for myself. It was one amazing day in this incredible journey I am on. Part love, part loss, part healing and a whole bunch of discoveries.
New Branches
Today I did something I have never done before. I took a woman named Ruth, who is my girlfriend, and her grandson Jay, to a park near my house. The three of us played baseball, basketball, golf and tennis. We went for a walk in the woods. Halfway through all this we paused at a picnic pavilion and lunched on cold pizza, watermelon, Combos, water and conversation. And although I had never done this before, I had of course done all of these activities many times separately. As a young boy I spent most of my summer days with my brothers and our friends playing baseball at Forestview Elementary School in Bay Village, Ohio. Basketball came into my life later but I always loved to shoot baskets and play HORSE or PIG. Tennis came even later to me but I played a little bit back in the 70’s and later with my son Patrick. I also played with my late wife Coleen up until last year. Golf has always been a mainstay of mine and walking through the woods is something I have always loved to do. So what made today’s activities different?For one, I have never done them all on the same day. At least I don’t remember doing that. Today not only did I do them the same day but all within about a four hour span of time. At times I felt that the three of us had invented some kind of Como Park Pentathlon moving quickly from sport to sport. My salvation was that I won most of the events even without knowing some of the local rules (like there are four letters in the word PIGG).I think if we had kept score for everything, I would have a gold medal around my neck tonight. The competition was good but as the lone adult male, I was heavily favored in each event. After all, Jay is only eight years old and my girlfriend is a girl. I think I was supposed to win.
The other factor that made it so different was I have never done those activities with a girlfriend. It’s true that I have not had a girlfriend in over 33 years but the ones I had in the past were not athletic. I did play tennis with Coleen a little but I never pitched overhand to a girl or had her guard me in basketball or help her with her golf swing. I am amazed that Ruth is not only well-versed in athletic endeavors but can also physically carry them out. She is not expert in most of them but she isn’t afraid to try and is very eager to teach her grandson what she knows about form and theory. She was good at baseball, okay at basketball, and she has very good golfing form. But it was the tennis court where she really stood out for me. You see, Coleen and I used to play tennis on that same court and on the same sides as Ruth and I were on today. So when I looked across the net I saw Ruth standing where Coleen once stood. And each time I did, I smiled and subtly shook my head because it made perfect sense for Ruth to be there. It is just like when the two of us met several weeks ago at the park where Coleen and I were married. It felt very right for us to be there together and I was not at all uncomfortable with that fact. The tennis court was the same except the feeling of it being right was even stronger.
We concluded our Como Park experience with a walk on the Nature Trail. It is less than a mile through a wooded area and mostly along a creek with a very passive set of rapids. There is a small bridge but not much else along the way except for a few signposts with numbers on them. Hardly a hike up a mountain. As we approached the halfway mark, we encountered a woman with a camera. She had ridden her bike to that point and was photographing some flowers and plants. We talked for a short time and she pointed out a large tree a few feet from us remarking how much she liked it. The tree was unique because it was all by itself in an area of the park that was more of an open field than woods. The tree was tall and wide with it’s branches reaching out very far and was quite noticeable and majestic. As we finished talking to the woman with the camera and continued on our journey, Ruth said something about people seeing different things in objects, like that woman and the tree. I replied that some people think trees are very symbolic and they have a lot of admiration for their strength and beauty.
It was later, after Ruth and Jay left for home, that it all came together for me. The day, the tree, the tennis courts, the company. I can sometimes be a little slow to figure things out but this came to me very clearly. Today I was in a park with a new girl and it was a park where Coleen spent a lot of time. I was on a tennis court with a new girl that I used to share with Coleen. I am in a life with a new girl that I used to be in with Coleen. And everything is different now. It looks, sounds, feels, and smells different and it is all so beautiful. There is no sadness, no melancholy, no guilt. My heart has opened up, expanded, to make space for this new girl to be part of it. She is not replacing anyone nor is she filling a void. She is all her own unique person who has entered my life and carved out her own personal piece of me.
And then there was the tree. Several months ago while talking to my reiki practitioner Rebecca, we used a tree as an analogy of my loss. She said that losing Coleen was like a branch falling off of a tree. She was that branch that fell and will never be replaced. But a new branch will grow on my tree. It won’t be in the same place and it won’t offer the same shade, but it will be a brand new branch all its own, in its own place, and with its own shade covering me. Comforting me, making me happy and keeping me safe. I think I can see that branch from here.
Almost 100%
I graduated yesterday. There was no ceremony or procession and I wasn’t wearing a cap and gown but I graduated just the same. Most graduations are from some kind of school like last week when my granddaughter Samantha graduated from her pre-school. It wasn’t a school I graduated from yet I learned so much about myself, life, and life after death that it was better than any lessons I could have learned at school.I have been attending bereavement counseling sessions as a service from Hospice for many months. These sessions have been individual meetings with the same counselor who I will call Lynn. About once a month, Lynn and I have met to discuss my grief and how I am dealing with it. We talk about my current state of affairs and feelings that I have about my loss. Earlier this year I participated in a widows and widowers bereavement support group that met once a week for eight weeks and I benefitted greatly from that. My experience with Lynn has been different from that because it has been a much longer period of time and because it is just her and I sitting together in a room for 60 minutes. It is a very private and reflective experience.
Lynn is trained to counsel and advise people who have lost a loved one. That’s what she does all day long and she is good at it. She knows how people typically progress with the grief process and provides guidance and comfort to those of us brave enough to sit with her. Brave enough? Yes, I did say that. It takes a certain kind of bravery to tell a stranger your darkest fears and secrets and I’m sure many people are uncomfortable with that. I wasn’t. For me, each Hospice counseling with Lynn was an opportunity to open my heart and let my feelings be heard. It is often difficult to find people who are willing to listen to how a grieving person actually feels. Some might ask “Oh, how are you doing, Rob? I think about you often.” But too many of those people are not really interested in hearing about how I actually feel or the range of emotion that I go through. It makes them uncomfortable. That is okay though and I understand their reluctance to engage in that type of conversation. On the other hand, Lynn has no choice. She has to listen to me, it’s her job. And with that knowledge, I was able to tell her everything I was feeling. Unconditionally.
I had never been in any form of counseling sessions before but I quickly learned how beneficial they could be. It was the sense I had that regardless of what I said, I couldn’t be wrong. I was discussing my feelings, my troubles and how I felt about the death of my wife. And I had a professional listener and adviser in the room with me who wanted to help me with my process of coping with that loss. In many ways I felt that she wasn’t just helping me cope but also helping me learn from it and make me stronger as a result of it. Lynn offered me a lot of encouragement to grow myself into a better person. There were no secrets kept when I was in that room. I told her everything that related to my loss. How I felt, what I was planning, what I had done. We talked about the people in my life and their feelings and my role in helping them cope. I talked, I listened, I laughed and I did a lot crying and everything was good because everything was about me and how I felt and how I could get better.
I like to think that Lynn enjoyed our sessions. I have taken on some activities that are somewhat unique to the grieving process and she was always interested in hearing about those things. Of course I was always anxious to tell her about them as well. I wondered if she wrote some of them down and if she would someday share them with other clients or talk to her associates about them. I truly hope she might. There are few things more healing than success stories shared.
So am I a success story? I think that in certain ways I am very much that. Lynn thought so. I used some tools that were offered to me, tools that were left for me to find, to build a network of support and comfort. I threw in some of my own creativity and with my network and some divine help along the way, I feel I have succeeded.
Yesterday when Lynn asked me how I was doing, I said, “You know Lynn, I feel pretty close to 100%.” I’m not sure there has ever been a point in my entire life when I could have said that yet it was the most honest answer I could give to her question. It wasn’t just my bereavement rehab that I felt almost 100% about, it was the whole state of my life. I am in a good place with my grief, I have met someone who I enjoy being with and is very supportive to me, I am active in worthy volunteer causes, I have wonderful relationships with my children and I have so much to be thankful for. If that doesn’t all add up to 100% it comes pretty close.
Towards the end of yesterday’s session, Lynn asked me if I thought I still needed to come back. I turned her question back on her and asked for her professional opinion. Lynn said that she thought I had made great progress and was in a good place with my life and my grief. I agreed with her and we parted with a hug. She has been a significant piece of my healing by listening and understanding and has helped me get better, almost all the way to 100%. And as I walked to my car it almost felt like I had graduated.