I keep meeting interesting people although I’m not always sure what to do with them. Last Sunday at church, I noticed a woman who I had not seen before. She sat two pews in front of me and seemed to have some kind of a purpose. There was something about her way and how she carried herself that reminded me of someone. She seemed very sure of herself but also had an unspoken sense of vulnerability about her. Maybe it was the church where she was unaccustomed to being or maybe it was just me trying to kill time between the readings and the sermon.
Whatever it was, I was intrigued. I vowed to talk to her after the service since she was obviously new there. It is kind of an unwritten rule that regular church-goers are supposed to welcome any newcomers who might attend a service. I was more than willing to assume that responsibility with her.
It was just a little later when I learned who the mystery woman was. Every week my church has an adult education forum after the service and this week, a woman from Hospice was going to speak about the services and products Hospice has to offer. The woman’s name was Mary and oddly enough, she was sitting two pews in front of me. I didn’t have time to introduce myself to her after the service as she was quick to go downstairs and prepare for her presentation. I wasn’t planning to attend but thought, “Why not?” After all, I was only going to Wegman’s for groceries after church and I could do that any time.
So I went downstairs and waited for Mary to begin. My friend Liz from church sat next to me and said,”Well aren’t you a brave one?” as she sat down. I hadn’t really thought of it as being brave but I guess in a way that’s what it was. I was more than familiar with Hospice having experienced their abilities with both my mother and Coleen during the past six months. I was drawn to the forum because I thought it would fit with what is becoming a desire of mine to put myself in positions to meet new people and learn new things. This was a perfect situation for those criteria.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out why Mary was so noticeable. She was very energetic, confident and passionate about her subject matter. She spoke like she owned the concepts and she immediately had everyone’s attention and before long, their participation. Mary presented information about Hospice that I already knew but she also talked about another Hospice feature I was not aware of. Something called Supportive Medical Partners which helps people that have terminal diagnosis but are still far removed from end of life therapies. I was very intrigued by that concept and talked to her about it after the forum. I thought the women from Coleen’s metastatic support group might want to know about this program and talked to Mary about communicating to different groups and audiences. She agreed and asked me for one of my cards so she could get in touch with me and work something out for other presentations.
One of my cards. Naturally, I didn’t have one with me. But I did have some in my car and anxiously ran out to get one. I was so excited that someone asked me for a card, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity to hand one out get away from me. Mary and I exchanged cards and she seemed genuinely enthused to meet me as I was to meet her. Maybe I can help her get more interest in her program. Maybe she can help me get more connected. I feel on the verge of greater connectivity and I want that.
My instincts seem to be getting sharper. I knew there was something about Mary that caught my attention. And I felt strongly about staying late for that forum, too. More whispers? Maybe. I’m listening.
I woke up this morning craving Van Morrison music. I had “Moondance” in my head and I thought that was kind of ironic. First of all, I attached that song to the end of my previous post about the absence of the moon. And even though I attached the file from Grooveshark, I didn’t listen to it then. I didn’t really need to since I have heard it so many times before.
The second reason I thought it was ironic to wake up with that song playing inside me was last night’s moon. I know we’re all probably getting worn out with all these moon metaphors but I have one more to report and then I’ll leave it alone. At least for a while. But I have just one more story to tell for now …
Two nights ago, I had an arrangement with a girl I met through one of those on-line dating websites. Yeah, I know we haven’t really talked about that yet. I’ve been kind of keeping that activity to myself and have shared it with only a few people. I’m not hiding it, just not promoting it either. It’s a whole different topic and I’m not sure yet how I feel about it. Coleen encouraged me to find someone else. Maybe “encouragement” isn’t really the right word. “Ordered” might be more like it. She basically told me to find someone else, that I wouldn’t be any good by myself and that I would need companionship. I don’t have much of an argument against any of that.
By nature, I am a needy person in the sense of needing someone special in my life. I had that for 33 years and miss the relationship almost as much as I miss Coleen. It’s hard for me to go to bed alone or go through weeks without hugging and kissing. I miss the intimacy of having and being someone special. I miss having a conversation on that level and casual references that are unique to a relationship. I haven’t even mentioned the physical part, but I could use a little of that too.
I worry that I might be rushing things by reaching out to the internet for contacts. Maybe I should wait longer before trying my hand with someone new. Maybe, but I don’t think so. No reason in particular other than the timing just feels right to me. God knows I’ve had share of sorrow and tears and I don’t expect that to disappear any time soon. And although living by myself is becoming a little easier, being alone is not my cup of tea. I don’t need to live with someone, I really don’t even want that. But I wouldn’t mind a girlfriend to hang around with sometimes. Just following orders, you know.
So, getting back to two nights ago and that arrangement I had with the on-line girl which was really a date. We were going to a comedy club downtown to see a comedian from New York City. I thought that might be a fun activity for two people becoming acquainted. We could be entertained but still have a lot of time to talk in the car and before the show. Even during the show there is room for snippets of conversation, hopefully between all the laughter. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the show was postponed until the next night. It had snowed quite a bit during the day and travel was kind of tricky so we rescheduled for the next night.
It was very cold that day with temperatures in the single digits. Weather like that usually comes accompanied with a cloudless and clear sky and lots of stars. I left my house a few minutes early and it was already dark. It had been so long since I had seen the moon, I had almost stopped looking for it. But as closed my backdoor, I looked up at the sky almost by instinct and there it was, back and bright as ever. The moon was “new” just two days earlier and it would be almost two weeks before it was full. So last might’s moon was crescent and as I paused to take it in, I realized what I was seeing. It was a smile, a little tilted perhaps, but there was no mistaking it. The moon was a big, bright smile shining down on me as I left my house to pick up a girl for a date. And it was coming from a sky that had been so dark for so long, including the night before when the show had been cancelled. You see, I wouldn’t have gotten that smile on the original night. I had wait one more day.
That moon was with me all the way to my date’s house and stayed with us as we drove downtown. Regardless of the direction I was headed, the crescent moon smiled down on me right through my windshield. It was there the whole time like it was attached to something hanging over my car. Excuse me if I add this to my “There’s No Such Thing As Coincidences” list. Humor me as I type my belief that Coleen once again had something to tell me and used that moon as her conduit. She knew I’d be looking at it and paying attention. She was smiling at me, encouraging me, telling me it was going to be okay. I just kept smiling back.
The comedy show was great and we laughed very hard. When we weren’t laughing, we were talking. It’s fun to talk to a girl who you might have romantic aspirations for. It’s a different kind of conversation than I have with anyone else. There’s a special energy there. A different part of me is present and it’s a part that I like very much. I think she might, too.
From the “I have no idea what I am doing” department, here is something to consider. I have stopped wearing my wedding ring. I don’t know if it’s too soon to do that or if it’s too late. I just know that instead of it being on my finger it is now on my dresser. I don’t know if people have noticed that I don’t have it on, but I notice. It feels a little weird, certainly different. For a while, I wore it sometimes and didn’t wear it other times. It didn’t seem like there was any rhythm to it until I realized that I usually didn’t wear it when I was out of the house on my own. Like if I was shopping or at the gym. On those occasions I was ring-less. But if I was with family, I made sure to have it on.
That practice continued right up to Christmas a week ago. I had not been wearing my ring for a week or so before Christmas but it seemed that I should have it on for that. It seemed almost disrespectful by not having it on. So I had in on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and over the weekend, I think. Maybe not that long. Truth is, I don’t remember when I last took it off. I only know that I don’t have it on now. And I don’t know when I’m going to have it on again.
A month after Coleen’s passing, my son Patrick commented on the fact that I was still wearing my wedding ring. I explained by saying that I hadn’t gotten divorced, so I thought I should still be wearing it. Strangely for him, he didn’t argue my explanation. And I felt I was doing the right thing. Then later on, I began to take it off sometimes. The truth is I guess I didn’t want to be wearing a wedding ring if there was a chance I might be noticed by a woman somewhere. I would undoubtedly be reducing my chances of potential romance by portraying myself as a married man. But the other truth is I was no longer married. If I was filling out a form and had to declare my marital status, I would check the box that said “Widowed” or “Single.” So why the hesitation with the ring?
I had to talk myself into that new marital status and even now, have to remind myself of it. It’s another part of letting go and becoming new. It’s another part of saying goodbye to someone so hard to be without and saying hello to new opportunity and new people. As I think about some of these seemingly unrelated episodes of my life, these little things like wearing a ring, consistent themes and lessons frequently repeat themselves. Months ago during my first Reiki therapy, Rebecca was teaching me about breath control. She instructed me to breath in deeply through my nose and to exhale completely. She told me to exhale so far that I felt like I was “crunching out your breath to make more room for the new breath, the next inhale.” Without me thinking about that concept ahead of time, that metaphor is exactly what I am writing about. I have to crunch out the old to make way for the new. It’s not disrespectful, more like discovery and survival.
In some ways I feel like I have turned a small corner in the past few days. I have survived most of the holiday season without catastrophe and haven’t been crying as much. I am thinking more about future games and a little less about sadness. I am becoming interested once again in one-on-one, boy-to-girl conversation and interactions. I have been hearing whispers of encouragement from different sources to become better than before. To use my loss as impetus for growth and discovery and improvement.
Post Script:
Before I finished this, I took down the few Christmas decorations I had this year. Just as I thought I was becoming some kind of tough guy who was getting over the emotion of losing Coleen, I ran into the little white bell Christmas tree ornament from 1981. The one that says “Our First Christmas Together 1981″ on it. Talk about a wave of emotion, it was more like a storm as I was simply overcome with the sadness that ornament brings me. Somehow, I got it off the tree and packed away. I wonder how I will react when I see it again next year. If it will cripple me like it did when I hung it and when I took it down this year. Or if it will ring by itself like I was tickling it? Where will I be in 12 months? I can’t think that far ahead. I’m just working on today and then the day after that.
This whole healing thing is like waves reaching my shore. They come in various sizes and strengths of emotional intensity and are often unexpected. After they reach the shore, there is a calmness as the water returns to where it started, only to reform later in other waves, other emotions, that sneak up on me. As much as I think I make progress in healing, I remain very fragile. I am a living, breathing contradiction. I have stopped wearing my wedding ring but I continue to wear Coleen’s rings around my neck. I think I’m stronger, then become weak. I think I know what I’m doing and then I wonder. And then I write it down and learn.
Everywhere I go today, I will hear people saying “Happy New Year.” They have no idea.
I don’t mean they don’t know what they’re talking about. They know about what they’re saying and we all say those words this time of year every year. What they have no idea about is who they are saying those words to. I’m not claiming to have had the worst year of anyone alive because I’m sure I haven’t. I will say with confidence though, that 2013 was the worst year of my life and I am anxious to have it all behind me.
The birth of a new year is really nothing more than a new number. For most of us, nothing changes much. We all make resolutions and claim that we will somehow modify our behaviors when the clock strikes 12:00. Those resolutions don’t last long and really have nothing to do with a new year. But still, we identify the dawn of a new year as the perfect opportunity to make changes and to create things new and different.
We all know that 2013 brought the deaths of my wife and mother. I also lost an aunt. My mother suffered a catastrophic stroke and although still alive, she was not going to recover and would be living in a vegetative state. It was my job to inform her doctors that she would not want to be kept alive under those circumstances. For the ensuing seven days, she was in a Hospice bed and I watched her die with Coleen and my brother Jim at my side.
Although well into her first year of her Stage 4 diagnosis, Coleen was doing well at that time. She had undergone chemotherapy and was then taking an oral chemo drug. She was tired a lot but completely functional and self-sufficient. I know that those hours she spent with me in my mother’s hospital room were not good for her though. She had to be thinking about her diagnosis and what her future would look like. Coleen was strong for me during the entire ordeal of my mother’s passing. She helped me make the end-of-life decision, supported me emotionally and with her presence. Of course she planned and orchestrated the post funeral service reception we held at our house. Her selection of caterer and food was excellent as always.
Coleen’s condition worsened shortly after that and three months after my mom’s death, I lost her. And I have been on the mend ever since.
2013 was a ridiculously painful year for me and I am happy that it will soon be ending. Some would say it’s time for a new start, but I won’t say that because I have already made a new start. I have already become something new. A lesson to be learned from such loss is to move forward with purpose. A lesson to be unlearned from loss is to spend excessive time in sorrow and sadness. A loss as devastating as a 33-year-old love fest with your soul mate is not easy to rebound from. I expect to never completely recover from that. The wound may heal but there will always be a scar. But if ever somethings good can come from something so bad, I believe in certain ways, it has for me. I believe that I have discovered things I would not have. I believe I know things now that would have remained unknown to me. I have met many wonderful people I would have never known. I have discovered a new ability in myself to communicate and to extrovert myself to people I don’t know. I have released a pent-up creativity that I am still learning about. I have become closer with my children and them with each other. I have learned to let myself happen.
These are all things to come out of a terrible and painful situation. My perfect world pitch is that I would have met with all those fates without losing Coleen. It’s not necessary for me to say that I would trade all those new things for my old life back with her at my side. But I can never have that so it doesn’t matter. What I do have is myself and my newness and my family. I have my new role as patriarch and mentor and grandfather. I have my new friends and my new interests. I have many of my old ways but they have been garnished with new discoveries.
I even made a new friend last night that I would not have otherwise met. We spent several hours over a couple cocktails and never stopped talking. At the end I gave her a real kiss and a Hershey’s kiss wrapped in red foil. I told her I wasn’t sure if she would let me kiss her, so I brought a candy kiss to give her just in case. Something old like flirting, that I miss so much, with someone new.
So you see, even though it was still 2013, I have already started somethings new. In part to dim the past, in part to brighten it. Happy New Year, 2014. Let’s get it on.
At the Hospice seminar I attended a few weeks ago, they talked about how to cope with grief and the holidays. One of the recurring themes mentioned was to “make new memories.” The concept was not to just lock on to all the memories of the past, all the memories you could no longer relive with the person you made them with. But to move forward with new times and new experiences. Move forward with new memories.
Christmas ended up being like that. I don’t think it was a conscious effort by me or anybody else. It just turned out that way. I didn’t walk around trying to make new memories or looking for some around every corner. They just kind of happened on their own. Just like they would have done if Coleen wasn’t missing from them. Just like if she was there beside us making them with us. Which of course, I think she was.
Coleen was the centerpiece of Christmas this year, even in her absence. I was talking to a friend named Judy who lost her sister in 2012. This was Judy’s second Christmas without her sister and she commented “We felt her presence just as strongly as we felt her absence.” I would say that pretty much sums up the general feeling at our Christmas Day family gathering. We all got together just like we always did and just like we would have done if Coleen was with us. Some of us shifted our roles to fill some of the void created by Coleen’s absence. She was always very active in organizing and orchestrating days like these and although she was irreplaceable, we had to find ways to replace her. Lindsay took charge of the menu and delegated food assignments so that everyone brought something. Karen seemed even more social than normal which was something Coleen excelled at. She was also very attentive to Samantha and Claire and seemed to be a little bit more than just Aunt Karen to them that day. I also tried to more social, more of a greeter, working the room and trying to talk to everyone as much as possible. We all felt Coleen’s absence but nobody said it very loudly.
I felt her presence, though. Christmas is a day Coleen belongs in and as far as I’m concerned, will always be part of. It’s a day custom-made for her. With all the giving and family, food and love. And of course the memories. I felt her very strongly today, especially through our granddaughters. They were very busy opening gifts and playing with new toys and games. They were also very social with so many people around paying attention to them. Every time I looked at them, which was often, I thought about their Grandma and her absence and her presence. I could see her in their eyes, sparkling with wonderment. I could hear her in their laughs and picture her sitting on the floor with them reading one of their new books. Making new memories.
Lindsay made each girl a memory book with photos of them with their Grandma Coleen. I know it was hard for her to do but they came out beautifully. Karen helped the girls unwrap the books and read them aloud. I stood behind her with a quivering chin. Pretty soon Coleen’s dad was looking over Karen’s shoulder to see inside. And Lindsay was gathered around. too. It was one of those happy moments that made everyone cry. Looking back at such beautiful moments and looking ahead to when the girls look at them later. It was impossible not to feel Coleen’s presence then. And her absence.
All told, I think the family had a good Christmas Day. Not great, but good. I did, too. I was with family all day and I know that helped me. Too much alone time would not have been good. I was at church Christmas Eve then spent the night at Lindsay’s house where I experienced the girls and Santa Claus. I picked up Patrick at the airport Christmas morning and came home. I resurrected an old Betty Crocker augratin potato recipe modified by my mom that I used to make for family gatherings. Then it was back to Lindsay’s for the Christmas Day party. With Patrick in town and Shauna and Al visiting over the weekend, I have not been alone in several days. I think I am ready for a little bit of that.
This Christmas I put an old ornament on a new tree. I made an old recipe for people who had never tasted it. I drove a new car to familiar places. I gave my granddaughters a puppet theater and puppets so we can play with them when I come over. I received beautiful texts from two wonderful new friends. I opened precious gifts from my children. I lived the miracle of Christmas through the eyes of my granddaughters. I watched people celebrating with such sadness. I was without Coleen for the first time in 33 years. I’m not sure how many of those will become memories. Maybe they already have. After all, You never really know when you’re making one.