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.
So how many more days until Christmas? However many it is, I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I think I might be more anxious for Christmas to come this year than any other year since I was about eight and heard the bells on the reindeer flying over the roof of my house. I’m not anxious because I’m excited about Santa or getting gifts or giving them. I’m anxious about Christmas Day being here so I can take on whatever emotions and grief it presents me and then move on. Right now though, I wish I had one of those advent calendars that counts down the days backwards until Christmas.
Every time I turn around, every place I look, there is a reminder. A song, a decoration, a memory. Something that says “Christmas” to me and reminds me of my sadness and sorrow and loss. I was at the Hospice seminar last week about grief and the holidays and they talked about Christmas as a day of the year. I couldn’t help but point out to the speaker there that Christmas isn’t just a day, it’s a whole season of events and activities and that is the part that I am trying to deal with now. The activities and traditions leading up to Christmas Day. In all the years leading up to this one, Coleen and I would share in all that and we would somehow manage to enjoy it. This year I am doing my best to uphold whatever it is that we would have done before. I made a gift list, I did the shopping, I talked to my daughter Lindsay, who is hosting Christmas Day dinner, about the menu. I was never extravagant about decorating the outside of the house, but I put up a few things on our porch and front door. I wasn’t sure at all what to do about a tree and inside decorations until a couple of days ago.
My granddaughter, Samantha had been hinting around about having a sleepover at my house. She did that a couple of times before with Coleen and me and liked being with us plus it was just her and she had all of our attention without sharing any with her little sister. Samantha has been talking about spending the night at Grandpa’s house for a while and she brought it up again just last weekend coming back from the North Pole. I told Lindsay that we could do it this week and we made plans for last night. After the plans were made I started thinking about what Sam and I would do together and I had a brainstorm. Maybe she could be my secret weapon and help me with the tree and some of the decorations around the house. I knew it was going to be very hard for me to do that alone because I’m such a basket case and uncontrollable sentimentalist lately. I thought having her around might numb some of that. I was right. It did numb some of it. But even adorable, four-year old Sammie, with all her sweetness and innocence, even she couldn’t numb it all. She did a pretty good job though and I got a lot more accomplished with her than I would have without her.
One of the Christmas traditions in this house that has always been dear to me is something that nobody else has ever known about until I told Sammie last night. In 1981, my mother bought Coleen and I a Christmas tree ornament. It was a little white bell with a red ribbon and it was inscribed, “Our First Christmas Together, 1981.” As the father of the house, I was always in charge of the annual Christmas tree installation, stringing the lights and unpacking the ornaments. I didn’t put all the ornaments on the tree, that was usually done by the kids and Coleen until more recent years when we have been empty-nesters. Then I did a lot of the ornament hanging, too. But all through the years, every year in fact, I made sure that the little white bell from 1981 was the first ornament on the tree and that it was placed in the most prominent spot, front and center, about a foot down from the top. Right where it would be noticed and seen. It always seemed like the most important ornament we had, the beginning of everything. And every year as the tree came down, I made sure that ornament was the last one removed from the tree and I carefully wrapped it in paper towels and put it away safely for the next year.
This year, even though I wanted Samantha to help me with decorating the tree, I wanted some privacy with the little white bell from 1981. So the day before she came over, I put up the little artificial Christmas tree I inherited from my mom. And the day Sam came over, before she got here, I brought the Christmas boxes up from the basement and opened the one with the ornaments. There was one right in the middle, right on top, wrapped in paper towels and very well protected. I unwrapped it and looked at it and held it to my lips. I thought of all the years, all the memories, all the love, all the laughter that bell has seen from its mount so prominent on our trees. It was right there, front and center, year after year and had stories to tell even I couldn’t recall. I am not ashamed to say how hard I cried with that bell in my hands, kissing it, making it wet with memories streaming from my eyes.
Eventually, I got it on the tree. It’s in the same place it is every year, but it’s on a different tree. We always had real evergreens. This year it’s a table top artificial. I have learned a lot about things being kind of the same but in different places. Like new branches, like my life, like same things in new places. It seems to make sense about my bell from 1981, too. As I was hanging it, I was having some trouble getting it to face out the right way so I twisted the branches of the tree to let the bell be seen and read properly. As I was fussing with the branches where the bell was hanging, it suddenly started ringing, seemingly by itself. I admit to jostling things around there a little bit, but not enough to cause that kind of commotion from a little white bell. It rang though, almost like it was being tickled, almost like it was laughing, almost like it was alive.
When Samantha came over later, she had a gift for me and it is now a new tradition. Lindsay had ornaments made with Coleen’s picture on them to give to family members and I got the first one. It was in special wrapping paper (a white bag that said “I love you Grandpa” with beautiful artwork) and came with a hand-written note from Samantha. She helped me hang the ornament on the tree and it’s beautiful there. I then showed her the little white bell ornament and explained what it meant to me and my secret tradition. I think she liked knowing that.
I admit to having lost my way a little bit with this post. The bell represents so much to me though, always has. It is just one of the many activities and facets and days of the Christmas season and there are so many more. They will come at me, sneak up on me, surprise me when I ‘m not looking. But they won’t be ignored. I will not hide from the things that made holiday seasons special for my baby and me. I will make the lists, do the shopping, wrap the presents, help with dinner and play the music. I will do it without her. I will do it with her. I will do it because of her.
In a room full of suffering people, in a room full of sorrow, I saw more light. Yesterday I attended a seminar hosted by Hospice that focused on grief and the holidays. Hospice offers several options for bereavement counseling and I have participated in some individual sessions but this was my first experience with a group.
I got there a few minutes early and took a seat in the front near a box of strategically placed Kleenex. As I waited for the seminar to start, I looked around the room and realized that everyone there was a survivor of someone no longer surviving. Everyone there had recently lost someone very dear to them, just like me. It seemed that most people were older than me although I noticed two girls, probably sisters, who were much younger. We were all on our journeys to find peace with the fact that we are building new lives that don’t include the loved one we lost. We are all looking for ways to do that. I didn’t do a head count but I estimate maybe 50 people were there, five of which were men. How is that interesting? Is it because more men die before their wives or is it that they don’t attend events like this if their wife goes first? Men are like that, you know. We are tough and strong and can fix things without the help of others or counseling. At least that’s what some of my gender thinks.
I guess I shouldn’t assume that everyone there had lost a spouse because that wasn’t the case. Many people were present because they lost their mother or sister. One woman had just lost her 17-year-old son and that was probably the saddest story of the day. It’s impossible to rank loss and sorrow, to say that one person’s is not as bad as another’s. I do have a hard time with some of the people who have lost a parent at an older age. One woman spoke of her pain at losing her mom who was in her early 90′s. I am not saying that her loss is not important and significant to he but we can not expect people to live forever. 90 years old is much longer than most people get and a celebration of that life is much more appropriate than an extended mourning. Certainly nowhere near the impact of losing a 17-year-old son.
The speaker for the seminar, Bob, was a chaplain in the Hospice organization and he had visited with Coleen and I and a couple of occasions. Once in the Hospice facility and once in our home the day Coleen passed. Bob offered us comfort then through some very kind and thoughtful words and prayer and I liked him. That was one of the reasons why I was interested in attending his talk. Yesterday, he focused mostly on grieving and how it can be more complicated around the holidays but also how it doesn’t have to be. Bob told some stories of how other people handled things and said there is no blueprint, just to do what seems to feel right. I liked some of his suggestions, especially the ones that I was already doing. He stoked some sadness but was very optimistic and encouraging. There were three things in particular he said that I liked enough to write down and share here:
He quoted a Rabbi whose name I did not catch, defining grief as “love not wanting to say goodbye.”
He told a story of a woman explaining some of her sorrow and hurt. “I’m no longer somebody’s one and only.” That statement hit very close to my heart as it was exactly the point of a post I had put up the day before, Being Loved. Exactly the same message except it took her a lot fewer words to say it.
He talked about having the holidays without our loved one and making it a little different, because it is different. He said “You’re making new memories.” That was also very endearing to me as it was a variation of the Ricki Lee Jones quote “You never know when you’re making a memory,” which Coleen loved so much and we have framed in our bedroom.
At the end, they told us we were brave to have attended the seminar. That it took a lot of courage for us to come and confront our pain and grief like that, to put ourselves out there. My friend Barb told me the same thing when I mentioned to her that I attended that. I guess that’s true, it took some courage to go. But the value of sharing yourself with other people in similar circumstances to mine and to be both encouraged and encouraging was immense. I listened, I watched, I learned, I contributed. It was a good experience.
I took much from the two hours I spent there. I was able to speak some of my thoughts on the Christmas season and grief and healing to the attendees. That felt good to me to have something relevant to say and express it somewhat intelligently to people who were interested in hearing it. People who actually seemed not just interested in hearing it, but enthusiastic and anxious to hear it. And that got me to thinking about this little project I have been working on. This daddyojones.com thing where I write about my journey in finding peace and comfort with my loss and where I discover how to make a new me from the gifts I’ve been given. I wonder if any of those people in that room, any of my fellow survivors, would get any comfort from my words. If maybe I could share some light with them. If maybe they could use a little bit of daddyo in their lives.
Discovery. As in I made one this morning. Yep, just sitting here finishing up a post and looking at my list of potential topics and a few photos of Coleen and me that are lying around here looking for a home. Discovery. It’s almost like an epiphany, like something that’s been floating around almost stealth-like. I knew it was there but I didn’t know what it was. I may still not really know what it is but I think I might be on to a part of at least.
I never read about this in the grief brochures or articles I have seen. Nobody mentioned it to me. Maybe nobody else knows about it? Nobody before me has ever figured it out? I doubt that. They tell you about the emptiness you will feel and the sheer pain of your loss when your spouse dies. They list loneliness, sadness, anger, depression, denial and others as part of grieving. Discovery.
For the past 33 years I have been one of the lucky ones. I was in a club, a pretty exclusive club I think. I was loved. I don’t mean loved like someone just saying that. I mean loved like being the love of someone’s life. I mean loved like unconditional. I mean love like being the strength and the beacon that someone counts on. I had the constant fulfillment of being loved by someone who I loved just the same, just as much. And, oh my God, what an awesome feeling that is. What a priviledge and an honor. I don’t think I can capture the warmth and fullness that creates in words. It’s almost a satisfaction that you are important and half of a wonderful relationship. And that you are loved so much.
My discovery is all that is missing from my life now. I already knew that Coleen was gone and I was focusing on how much I miss her all the time. How much she meant to me and all those wonderful years of memories. And how her passing has taken such a large part of me with her. But today is the first time I realized that another part of the loss, another piece of what’s now missing is that I’m no longer in that exclusive club where you are loved. I lost that, too. So the hurt isn’t just from missing her and not having her here to love. It’s also the feeling of not being loved that is killing me. That’s the other half of the equation. That’s another one of my truths.
The intimacy, hugs, kisses, waking up in the morning, coming home, phone calls, being part of her day. Making her happy, making her laugh, seeing her smile, being her husband, listening, loving, talking, sharing. Boy, I miss that stuff. There is nothing quite like being loved. That can’t be replaced. That’s another limb that fell from the tree. Will it grow back in a different place with different shade?
My discovery is probably not all that special. It might be something everybody already knows and I just now figured out. Like me being late for the party. To me though, it explains a little more about why I feel so sad sometimes. And the more I know, maybe the better I can understand and heal.
