“I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m not going to let that keep me from doing it.”
I said that to some friends I was talking to after church yesterday. I had just handed them one of my new cards as I explained why I thought I should be a guy walking around with business cards in his pocket. The couple I was speaking with, Paul and Tish, knew Coleen rather well. We had dinner at their house on two occasions and they dined at our house once. Tish and Coleen were both involved in non-profit organizations and Paul was a social worker, like Coleen. The four of us seemed to get along quite well and we had many things in common. We were friends through church but could just as easily just been friends. I don’t know why, we just never got around to it I guess. Different schedules, distance maybe. For whatever reason, we never got to be as close as we could have.
After the service yesterday, I approached them as I have not seen them in some time. I had not seen Tish at all since Coleen’s passing and wasn’t even certain that they knew about her. Our conversation was very warm and friendly but Coleen didn’t come up until I mentioned her. We were only a few minutes in to the conversation but it was as if Paul and Tish didn’t want to mention her for fear of how I would react. They were protecting me. Once I acknowledged Coleen and my life after her, they seemed a little bit relieved and were quick to join in talking about her. It could have been my imagination, but I got the sense that Paul and Tish became more comfortable once I spoke of Coleen and talked about how I was coping with her loss. It seemed that what I had to say was also making it easier for them to think about her. As I said before, we were never best friends but we all knew each other well enough to share some fun evenings and Coleen’s death was a loss for anyone who knew her. Nobody wants to say goodbye to a peer. I got the feeling that by talking about Coleen, I was helping them as well as helping myself. I have been getting that feeling more and more recently.
The day before, I was again at church helping with the Christmas decorations. One of the other volunteers was a woman named Mary who had lost her husband of 47 years, Joseph, over the summer. Mary had sent me a beautiful sympathy card for Coleen and wrote a very heartfelt note in it. She had also knitted a prayer shawl for Coleen back in 2007 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Coleen loved that blanket and took it to all of her chemotherapy treatments and it became a constant healing companion. It covered her the night of her passing. I had an opportunity to talk to Mary in church that day and started the conversation by thanking her for her card. I also told Mary about the prayer shawl she had knitted for Coleen and how she had it on at the end. Mary was touched by that. Then I started talking to her about her loss, about how hard it must be for her without Joseph. I shared some of my feelings and pain and that’s exactly what our conversation developed into. It was a sharing. We both suffered catastrophic loss and were both trying to find ways to cope and heal. We were both discovering our new-selves and talked about that. I think Mary had a sense of that happening with her but when I mentioned it by name, when I said that I was developing a newness to myself, she seemed to light up and recognize that same thing was developing with her.
Once more, after talking with Mary, I felt a degree of satisfaction that I might have been of value to her. That my thoughts, words and experiences might have brought her a little more comfort than she expected to get that morning while helping make the church beautiful. It feels like I’m entering another stage in my process. I have already felt the love, had the loss, and continue to learn about the healing. But there’s a fourth element for me now. I’m calling it Discovery. I think that’s the last door to open. Now that I’m at that one, I am ready to take some of my lessons learned and teach them to others. I am discovering my new self and how vital I can become or have already become. I recognize how I am different and how everything looks and feels differently to me now. I am discovering what to do about it.
I will always be who I am and some of that will always be who I have been. But more of that will be in my discoveries of who I can be and who I have become. Maybe I can make a difference. Sometimes I hear a whisper.
I have been thinking for a while about having business cards made even though I’m not in business. After a brief search on Google, I found a web-marketer willing to let me design my own cards and ship 250 of them to my house for about ten dollars with free shipping. So I designed this card and now own 250 of them. I am not sure if having business cards is really necessary for me, but I did it anyway. And here’s why:
I have attended two functions where I thought it might have been nice to have something like these to hand out. Once I was at a Breast Cancer Survivor Education Day held by the Breast Cancer Network of Western New York. I talked to quite a few people there and I think I would have passed out several cards that day had I owned them. Actually, I think I would have gone through 25 or 30 of them, easy. Everyone I talked to asked me about my reason for attending. I explained that I had recently lost my wife and came to support and for support. I could have told them more about my story with a prop like this business card. And if they took one of those home with them, maybe they would have dialed up the website and found something of interest.
On a different day, I was at a Hospice seminar about grief and the holidays. There were about 50 people in attendance for that event and I probably could have handed a card to each of them, especially the Hospice speakers. It would have been another opportunity to help a very specific and captive audience by getting them to read my website. And then there was that day when I was getting my haircut and told my stylist Amy, about losing Coleen. Her friend and co-worker Heather overheard our conversation and got upset. She had lost her husband several months prior and was dealing with a lot of hurt and grief. It would have been nice to give her one of these cards, too. Maybe she could have called me or checked in on-line. At least she would have had something with some information on it that might have helped her somehow. Or she could have thrown it away, too. At least she would have been faced with a decision.
So, who the hell do I think I am that I need personal business cards to carry around with me? What makes me so important? I don’t know and I don’t know.
But what I do know is that I think I am developing a message. By sitting at this keyboard with my notes, feelings, memories, tears and Kleenex and typing what I feel, I think I am developing a message that just might help others. It might teach people that when a loss happens, it doesn’t have to mean that all is lost. If someone like me can find strength from within and take strength from others and grow in to a new person with a different direction, then why can’t the rest of us? I believe this website is therapeutic. I believe that people can receive strength, inspiration and encouragement from it. I believe that is the message that Coleen wants me to convey. I believe that’s how she wants to keep helping people from the new dimension she now inhabits. And I believe the truths that I write about, the truths I learn more about everyday, are meant to be healing to not just me, but for anybody paying attention. And I want to get more people paying attention. So I guess that’s who I think I am and that’s what makes me so important that I think I need to carry business cards around with me.
I have two dear friends very special to me who read this blog religiously and I have gotten incredible feedback, inspiration and encouragement from them. I know that by reading what I write, they are very inspired by me and that is such an awesome complement to receive. I am an amateur here, a new swimmer in these waters. But I will not drown or struggle for breath. As much as I have no idea what I’m doing, I know exactly what I’m doing. Business cards might not be something that most retired guys carry around, but it feels right to me. It feels a little like marketing. Maybe I’ll have some refrigerator magnets made next.
The first time I felt Coleen’s presence after she died I was getting massage therapy from Maureen. Her studio is dimly lit and she always has soft music playing along with a variety of nature sounds like water flowing and birds chirping. It is a very relaxing and tranquil place to be. I enjoy going there because Maureen is a wonderful massage therapist and I can usually get myself in a state of relaxation there that I can’t achieve in most other places.
That day toward the end of the massage, I felt a difference and Maureen and I both identified it as Coleen’s presence. Today was different. Seems that things are always some kind of different for me these days. It wasn’t a bad different it was just a new different. I talked to Maureen throughout most of the massage but when I was on my back on she was working my neck, head and shoulders, I went silent and let the atmosphere kick in. There is something about having the full weight of my head in Maureen’s hands that is very comforting to me. It’s as if I am relinquishing control of myself and trusting her to know the right thing to do. And she always does. I like that feeling of surrender and trust. For much of my previous life I had to be the one in control. I was the boss or the father and I was the one people looked to for decisions and answers. Now I love that I don’t wear that hat anymore. Or that I wear it much less often.
My encounter today with Coleen was brief but very powerful. I was lying on my back and Maureen had my head in her hands and I had my eyes closed. There is a light hanging from the ceiling over her massage table and it is kept very dim. I always have my eyes closed and never even notice the light from that light. Today, lying face up with closed eyes, trusting my head to Maureen, I saw a brilliant light. At first it was in the distance then got slowly closer and much brighter. It seemed to settle somewhere between where I was and where I wanted to be and then just stayed there for a time. I knew what it was. I’m not clairvoyant nor do I have superpowers, but I know something precious when I see it. I smiled, I breathed, I choked up. I can’t help but feel different emotions at the same time when Coleen finds a way to present herself to me like that. Mostly I want to reach out and hold her and tell her everything I have been keeping inside and saving for our next conversation. But since I can’t do that yet, I try to stay focused and welcome her presence, receive it, cherish it. Those moments don’t last long so when they occur, I make sure to get every precious second from them that I can.
When my massage was done, I asked Maureen if she could explain what happens when she is holding my head in her hands. I don’t always feel Coleen when she does that, but I do seem to get somewhat emotional each time. Maureen told me that today she saw a glow around my head as she held it and she wasn’t surprised that I felt Coleen’s presence as strongly as I did. She seems to think that my head is perfect during those moments for Coleen to be able to access it. Like it’s portal for her to communicate. I think it’s interesting that Maureen seems to have the ability to coax Coleen to come around when I’m there. Like she’s the conduit that links us. Truth is, I don’t really know what to think. I just know how it makes me feel.
Sometime around May of this year, I saw an announcement in the paper that a comedian named Brian Regan was scheduled to do a show at Shea’s Performing Arts Theater in December. Right, the show was in December but they were selling tickets almost six months early for it. Coleen and I had seen two or three Brian Regan shows on Netflix and we both thought he was very funny. Especially Coleen, she loved him. When I told her I was going to buy tickets, she agreed but said to get four instead of just two so we could take people with us. At that time I worked very close to the theater downtown and walked over and purchased four tickets from the box office. I always liked buying tickets in person because it was easier to pick out your seats and I also saved the service charge. I took them home and put them in my top drawer where I kept all of our future activity admissions.
Circumstances changed between the time I purchased the tickets and showtime and I had an extra ticket. Coleen had passed away in September and for a while, I almost forgot about that show. I had already used a ticket to another concert in November to see John Sebastian that was supposed to be Coleen’s, giving it to my old friend Mark. While at that concert, I was constantly reminded of her and how she was supposed to be next to me. It was certainly bittersweet and I felt a great sadness throughout much of that evening. That concert was one month earlier than the Brian Regan show. I wasn’t sure what to do with her ticket to that event until the light came on in my head and I asked her, and now our, good friend Barb to come with us. That evening, four of us met at a restaurant downtown for dinner. It was Barb, Lindsay, Karen and me. We had a wonderful meal at a place where Coleen loved to eat and we talked about her and what she might have ordered and how she was so particular with food. We shared some stories about her and we laughed. It wasn’t quite like she was there, but the memories she evoked in us were certainly fresh and alive. I think we all felt good about what we were doing. At the theatre, we sat and talked and laughed and just enjoyed the show and what we were experiencing at that moment. Not thinking ahead, not looking back, just right there, right then. Did I miss Coleen? Yes. Was it different without her there? Yes, for all of us. But we let it be different, accepted it as different, and enjoyed the experience. All of us.
A week ago my granddaughter Samantha slept over at my house. It was just for fun and we both had a good time. One of our favorite things to do together is play the Go Fish card game (in which she says “Go fishing” instead of “Go fish”) and she wanted to play it when we got up in the morning. But we couldn’t find the cards. It had been a few months since we played and the cards weren’t where they belonged. We looked all over but came up empty. We had to go out for something anyway and I told her we would buy some new cards and we stopped at the local toy store. The owner helped me find the card game that she sold and I showed it to Samantha. She was less than excited about it and I was surprised by that. I bought the cards anyway and we left. I gave them to her in the car and she started crying. When I asked her what was wrong she said “I wanted to get the same ones as before.”
Sammie and I replaced the missing cards with different ones and they served the same purpose. Karen, Lindsay, Barb and I replaced the times we had with Coleen with a different one and still had dinner and saw the show. The Go Fish cards don’t look the same, but you can still play the game. Life without Coleen isn’t the same, but we still live it. Samantha and I played two games of Go Fish and she laughed and won and didn’t seem to mind that the cards looked different from the old ones. We all went to dinner and the show that night and laughed and talked and sometimes didn’t even notice that we were playing with a different set of cards.
“When we lose a branch from a tree, a new one will grow in its place. It won’t always be in the same spot, and it might not offer us the same shade, but it will grow and comfort us.” – RJoys
I kind of remember what it was like the last time. It’s really not much different than looking at a faded snapshot from a Polaroid camera and trying to decipher what it is you’re looking at. It was so long ago that I lived alone and I’m trying to remember how that felt, how it looked. I’m wondering how different it was then.
I moved to Buffalo from Cleveland in November of 1979. I remember because I was in Buffalo at Thanksgiving and trying to get back to Cleveland for the holiday through a severe snowstorm. I actually lived in Hamburg, NY, a little suburb southwest of downtown Buffalo. I chose Hamburg because it was on the right side of town and I could get home to Cleveland easier. I knew when I moved here that I would be going back frequently. After all, I had a daughter, mother, brothers and friends in Ohio. All I had in New York was a job and an apartment. I didn’t know anybody except some people from work that I was just getting familiar with. I was months away from meeting Coleen and for the most part, I was alone.
Much of that is different now because I know a lot of people. I have family here and some friends and neighbors. I don’t have the same bond with people from work now than I did in 1980 though because I don’t work anymore. That’s a funny thing because I love not working but I do kind of miss some of the conversation, banter and camaraderie of the workday. Now I spend that time either alone or searching for different ways to fill it. Don’t misinterpret this statement, I am not complaining or missing work. I’m just observing the differences.
Back in 1980, back BC (before Coleen), when I lived alone in Hamburg and didn’t know anybody, I had a hard time of it. Before moving here, I had lived alone in a small apartment in Cleveland and loved it. I was then recently single and was living it up. I also had a strong network of family and friends and girlfriends. For the first few months of my new life in Buffalo, I spent a lot of weekends in Cleveland because I knew people there and I was comfortable there. I would drive the 200 miles right from work on a Friday night and get there in time to hit the town or crash at my mom’s apartment. Then I would drive home late Sunday after squeezing in as much fun, family and friendship as I could in one weekend. In Buffalo I was lonely, in Cleveland I was popular. When not in Cleveland, I would often have company from there over the weekends. My mom and daughter came a lot as did a variety of friends.
Technically, I still lived alone after I met Coleen, it just didn’t feel like it then. I mean, we were together so much and she was at my apartment so often, after a while it seemed like she was living with me anyway. Especially after I moved from Hamburg to a duplex no more than seven minutes by car from Coleen’s house. She would come over after work or sometimes already be there when I got home. We would cook dinner (or she would and I would watch), listen to records, watch black and white TV and talk. Always talking about something, that girl. There were many nights that Coleen wouldn’t leave until early the next morning. Bars closed in Buffalo at 4:00 AM and I think that was her excuse with her parents. I loved everything about that time in my life but I could hardly call it living alone.
So now I’m trying to remember what my life was like living alone before I knew her. It was great once we met but not so great before. I remember drinking a lot of scotch then. I didn’t cook anything, eating mostly frozen convenience foods or pizza. I came home from work and listened to records. Of course on most days I didn’t come home from work right away, stopping first for cocktails with Norm and Steve from work. I didn’t do anything closely related to exercise or healthy living. I smoked and drank and didn’t come home at all. Spent what little money I made recklessly. I wasn’t happy.
Living alone today is very different from living alone in 1980. In fact the only thing similar in living alone then and living alone now is that there is no one else in the house. Everything else is so different. This time around I have a whole house, retirement, the internet, DirecTV, Netflix, MP3′s and my iPhone. Technology and information abound. I have better books to read, more movies to watch and home theater equipment. I have knowledge, experience, maturity. I have children, grandchildren, family and friends and a whole history of life right where I sit. And I have my memories. That’s pretty different. And you would think it would be easier.
But back in 1980 when I was living alone and had none of those things, I didn’t know anything about Coleen. I didn’t know that the end of my loneliness was near and I was soon to meet my soul mate. The way I look at it now, that was an advantage to today. Then I was living alone before her. Today I am living alone after her. Even though I was without her in 1980, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know what I was missing because I didn’t know she existed. I didn’t know what good was lying ahead for me, what would make me safe. Things are very different now living on this side of her.
I guess it’s probably me that’s the main difference between 1980 and now. It’s what I’ve learned, how I’ve been loved, what I’ve lost, what I remember. It’s me taking all of those things, taking all of everything, and forming it into the new me. It’s me being on the “before” side of my next chapter. My next adventure.
