Saturday, March 8th is Coleen’s birthday. She would have been 54 years old. But she’s not. Obviously, I think about that a lot. How can she not be here? How did she become one of the missing in my life? I was recently talking to a friend about another friend who I may never again here from because of a misunderstanding that had little to do with either of us. I said that I don’t want any other people leaving my life. I have already lost enough as far as I’m concerned and I don’t want anymore goodbyes.
Sometimes, even after almost six months, I still wonder what happened to Coleen. I wonder how that woman with all that life, enthusiasm and optimism got stolen out from under the rest of us. I think often of the photo I took of her when we were on the Spirit of Buffalo cruise on Labor Day weekend 2012. She already knew she had lesions on her liver and lungs and that they were undoubtedly cancerous. But she never said a word to any of us. Instead, she waved to me as I caught her with my iPhone standing barefoot on the deck of that boat, sunglasses on, Magic Hat #9 in her hand, smiling. And keeping her secret from me and everybody else. I will probably always wonder what happened to her. It all went so fast. Sometimes I don’t even remember what I did to help her. I know I did a lot but I wish I could turn back the clock and do more. I know I could have done more especially if I would have known the way I was going to end up feeling.
If Coleen was still wih us, she would have declared by now that this was going to be her birthday weekend. She always claimed the whole weekend as hers whenever her birthday was within a day or two of it. By now she would have decided where she wanted to go for her birthday and who was going to come with us. She wouldn’t have cared how much it was going to cost, only that she was surrounded by the people she loved and that we had a good time on her day/weekend. I would have probably said something about the money part and her reply would have been, “Who cares, we’ll make more.” I heard that answer more than once.
Many times, especially if she had a new recipe she wanted to try out on a crowd, Coleen would decide to host our family for her birthday. She loved to entertain and to cook for people. That was one of her true joys in life. If she could make someone happy by feeding them, it was a successful day. There was a bumper sticker on her car that said “Love People, Cook them tasty food,” and that was certainly one of her mantras. I salvaged that bumper sticker from her car before I traded it in and it now hangs in my kitchen.
Last month Lindsay brought up her Mom’s birthday and said “What do you want to do, Dad? I think we should do something for Mom’s birthday.” I agreed. We should do something to celebrate that day. How could we possibly ignore it? How could I be alone on March 8 and expect Coleen’s children and family be alone? Especially since this is the first March 8th since her death. I may always raise a glass on her birthday and sometimes maybe more that that, but this will be the first one. They say you never forget your first one.
We thought about going out to dinner at one of Coleen’s favorite restaurants but as the guest list grew larger, we decided instead to celebrate Coleen right in her own house. So on Saturday, I will make lasagna and Coleen’s parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren will gather and we will remember her and celebrate her life. I can’t help but think she would like that. Especially the lasagna part. That was one of the few dishes I was allowed to make. She assigned that recipe to me long ago and said I made it so good that I should always be the one to make it. I think she would have made it just as good, but it was a little too busy for her so she delegated that one to me.
I don’t know if its right or wrong to celebrate the birthday of someone who has died. I also don’t know who has the qualifications to decide. I only know how I feel and what I think is right to me. So this weekend is Coleen’s birthday and I will celebrate her life with my daughter, granddaughters and her family. It is an important day for all of us. I may never understand what happened to her, why she’s not with me anymore, where she has gone. I do understand though, how to remember her. I know what she would have liked and how to make her happy.
It’s funny how life finds a way of settling in around us. Most of us are in the day-to-day. We plan ahead a little, think about what we are going to do this weekend or next month. We make arrangements for vacations or dinner with friends. And sometimes, we look back and do a little reminiscing and remembering. It’s funny though how life always seems to get its way with us and lures us into a zone of contentment and present where we seem to feel most safe. It is there where we settle into our routines and do most of our living. We are most comfortable when we are not challenged by the things outside of our control.
I have tried to settle into a comfort zone recently thinking that it could be a place where I would know what to expect. I sometimes feel like I am getting closer to whatever normal is supposed to feel like, then I run into an unexpected obstacle that throws me a bit off course. Every year at this time I, like all of America, file my income taxes. No big deal, just a regularly scheduled activity that I have been doing for the past forty years or so. I always did our taxes by myself or with the assistance of an on-line service like Turbo Tax This year is obviously a little different though, due to the circumstances of Coleen’s death. I had too many questions about disability, insurance, and death benefits and so I sought out professional help. Today I gathered up all of the pertinent paperwork and met with a CPA to prepare my return. It never dawned on me that in meeting with the CPA and discussing my tax return, I would also be talking about Coleen and revisiting some of the circumstances of her death. I wouldn’t be discussing her health issues or treatments with him, but the timing of certain incidents, the various disability payments, medical expenses, date of death and my filing status of “surviving spouse” all became uncomfortable for me. I took a deep breath on a few occasions just to get past some of those thoughts. And I realized that this would be the last time it would say “ROBERT E. AND COLEEN M. JONES” on a tax return. Under “occupation,” mine said “retired’ and Coleen’s said “deceased.” There was nothing new to any of this. I know she’s deceased. It just sounds and looks different when I see it like that. When the tax guy mentioned that Coleen’s sister and her husband would be having their taxes done by him in a few days, I felt jealous that my wife wasn’t with me too for that.
I never know what will remind me that my wife is no longer living. I never know when to expect the reminders. And I’m never sure how I will react to them. I don’t think I am ready yet for the reminders to stop. I could be in my kitchen, taking a shower, talking to my granddaughters, at a yoga class, or apparently, getting my taxes done. There’s always something there to remind me. The good news though, is that I am not freaking out every time I get one of those reminders. I hate to say I’m getting used to the idea of living after Coleen because I don’t think I will ever be entirely comfortable with that. I can observe that the hurt isn’t as painful as before. It is still there, and so is the missing her. Just not as bad.
Does that mean some of the therapies and healings are kicking in? They actually have been all along, a little at a time. Suffering from DOS (Death of Spouse) is not a condition that goes away quickly all by itself. It takes a lot of work, patience, guidance, counseling and love to get to a place where the sorrow is manageable. Funny, I am reminded of that word, manageable, being used when Coleen’s oncologist described how they would care for her metastatic breast cancer. They couldn’t cure it but they would try their best to “manage” it to keep her as comfortable as possible for as long as they could. It’s the opposite with managing DOS sorrow because you know as bad as it is now, it will eventually get better. I know I have taken bold steps in dealing with my grief and I have made significant progress. Everything I have done has helped and has prepared me for more of the journey. And yes, there is more of that to come. Always will be I think.
I have a few difficult days ahead of me that will be much more challenging than meeting with a CPA to do the taxes. I can think of five of them right off the top of my head. Then after those comes the rest of my life. My vision is that each day will be progressively easier. I don’t know if a DOS victim can be compared to an alcoholic. Maybe that’s unfair. But then I think about someone craving a drink every day and somehow finding the strength to deprive himself of that desire, hoping that the next day will be easier than the last. It is not so different from me desiring something I can no longer have and waiting for the next day and the day after that to make things better. The true similarity is the concept of each day being it’s very own challenge and never knowing where the next temptation or reminder might come from.
I am trying to embrace some form of what life has left in store for me. I will never be the one to just sit back and surrender to the tide. I will always take things head on and try to make a difference when I can. I know I have made some degree of progress otherwise I would have cracked up when I was working with my tax guy.
I was encouraged to develop a yoga practice, or at least do a little of it from time to time, for many years. Coleen was very enthusiastic about yoga and did a lot of it. She frequently encouraged me to try it but I always had reasons not to. Now, I have finally listened to her and I’m learning not only to try it, but to love it.
I always thought that yoga was: 1. for girls, 2. just twisting your body into impossible positions, 3. too time consuming. I was wrong about it being just for girls. There are men in every class I have attended and yoga is becoming a popular training method for professional athletes. I was wrong about the twisting part. Yes there is a large amount of physical activity and stretching and twisting are among them. But so is balance and breathing. There is so much mental and spiritual reward to yoga that sometimes you forget the position you have put your body into. I was wrong about it taking too much time. It’s true that for me attend a yoga class, I need about 2-1/2 hours including driving time. Which is worth every minute, by the way. It is also true that I can take about 30 minutes out of my day and do some yoga from a DVD at home. And once the weather breaks, I am looking forward to being in my backyard, bare feet on the ground, doing yoga postures from memory. Yoga is time well spent.
I was at a yoga class today with my favorite instructor, Felicitas. Felicitas is a wonderful woman as well as instructor. She owns the studio and was a very good friend of Coleen. She has also been very sensitive to my loss and has spoken to me about Coleen several times. Her classes are different because of her experience and expertise in teaching the mindfulness of yoga. She encourages each student to express their yoga as fully as possible with constant awareness of proper breathing, balance and spiritual awakening. I have learned how yoga is so much more than just stretching and trying to hold a posture for as long as possible without getting hurt. It is mental as well as physical and when done properly, a true union of body, spirit and mind. I don’t know how properly I was doing things today but I must have been at least pretty close. There were times today when I felt everything blending and floating to different places.
Felicitas started by talking about one of my favorite topics these days, letting go. She asked us to think of one thing that we should let go of and to think of that throughout the sesson. I thought of two. I keep hearing messages and whispers about letting go of the past, letting go of the things that bother us, the things that are not true to our authentic selves. As individuals, we owe ourselves the ability to define ourselves and to let that self be authentic. Too many times we fit ourselves into a role someone expects us to play. For me, it was husband and provider. But is that what I am? Is that authentic to me? Can I let go of what’s expected and be my true self? As Felicitas guided us through today’s yoga experience, she kept reminding us to let go of that which haunts us and that makes us uncomfortable. Of course, I thought I should further loosen my hold of Coleen, to let her go a little bit further from me. I focused on the releasing of her and the past we had together. I had visions behind closed eyes, visions that started very clearly and then faded gradually into black. I saw flowers, clouds, faces. I felt sadness and sorrow as I let go a little more and let things drift away and I felt tears down my cheeks. I think Felicitas noticed my emotion. As we were concluding, she spoke once more of the importance of letting go and how we needed to do that in order to move ahead. She was looking me right in the eye as she said it and she smiled.
It wasn’t until later today that I thought of the second thing I had to let go of. I thought that by letting go of Coleen, I would be able to embrace a new relationship. I have been seeing a wonderful woman who has become very special to me. In her haste to make me hers, she has asked me to relinquish a piece of myself which I am not yet ready to part with. She has asked me to put myself in a place where I’m not yet comfortable. At first I thought it would be a place where my authentic self could live. But as it turns out, it is a place where I would need to be someone I’m not comfortable being in order to fit. I would not be true to myself or anyone else there. I need to let go of not being my authentic self as much as I need to let go of Coleen. Maybe even more.
A few years ago, my son Patrick had a website called smallbusinessbuffalo.com where he did interviews with small business owners. One of his finest hours was this two-part interview of Felicitas which is still on the Healing Waters website.
Before I ever met Coleen, I knew a girl named Barbra Butler. I know you might think that I am spelling her name wrong because it looks like I am leaving out an “a” but that is how this Barbra spelled her name. Barbra Butler and I met during the depths of winter in 1978. She was a beautiful girl and we became quite the couple for a while there. Way back when.
I was single again then when I met Barbra. I was recently divorced and was having a cocktail at a restaurant/bar in Cleveland during happy hour on a Friday night. Back then, I fashioned myself a poet and I recall jotting some words that rhymed on a bar napkin. I looked up and noticed an incredibly attractive woman across from me. I ordered another scotch and asked Dennis the bartender to get a drink for the young lady across from me. He obliged but then came back and said to me that the lady said she doesn’t drink alone.
I missed my queue on that but let it go and went back to the verse and the cocktail napkin I was so enamored with. Next thing I knew the woman from the other side of the bar parked herself next to me and said, “Hi, I’m Barbra.” Thus began the most tumultuous relationship I have ever had. Until now.
Barbra Butler and I were either madly and incredibly in love or we were hanging up on each other. We were different in many ways yet identical in others. We both tried to change the other to somehow make things fit better but ultimately, we recognized our futility. We tried though and it took us many fights, discussions and arguments before we finally got to the point where we knew.
As low as the lows were, the good times were incredible. Barbra Butler taught me many things about love and happiness. She will always be memorable for introducing the works of J. D. Salinger to me and for loving my poetry. Barbra had previously dated a musician from Cleveland named Eric Carmen (remember The Raspberries?) and she told me that I wrote a lot better than him. She was a bit of a material girl and I was still part hippie so those parts conflicted. We had very fun times together and tried hard to make things work out. Trouble was, we were too different in too many ways for things to happen for us. One of us would have had to make a significant character change to make Barbra Butler and I a long-term relationship and we were both too stubborn and set in our ways for that.
Barbra Butler and I stopped seeing each other after about eight months, I guess. I hated to stop seeing her but I had to. I could not take the drastic pendulum shifts of our relationship and I was sure that she felt the same. I eventually moved to Buffalo, NY but I came home to Cleveland frequently. It was on one of those weekends when I came back to visit and I was staying at my mom’s apartment. I called Barbra and we met again. The magic was still there and it was wonderful. Unfortunately, so was the friction side and it didn’t take too nlong for that to once again present itself. Barbra Butler and I, as perfect as we were for each other, had no business being together. I did write my best poem ever after our last encounter. It was called “You Again” and to this day, I think it has the makings of an incredible blues song.
So why all the talk of Barbra Butler after all these years? Well, I met her again recently. Only this Barbara used the extra “a” in her name and her last name wasn’t Butler. Aside from that and about 35 years, she was the same. Barbara M was also very beautiful and fun. She and I made each other laugh and we talked a lot and enjoyed each other. The similarities between me and Barbra Butler and me and Barbara M were uncanny. I recognized them almost immediately. I wasn’t sure if part of me was enchanted with the new Barbara because she reminded me of Barbra Butler or if I liked her because she was fun and pretty and seemed to like me back. I learned quickly that she was indeed her own brand of Barbara. We polarized each other, we flirted with love, we argued, we kissed and made up. In both cases, I was unable to make the concessions necessary to advance the relationship. Both women had a clear vision of what their ideal mate would look like and although he didn’t look quite like me, they thought I could be altered enough to fit their needs. I thought otherwise. Both Barbaras were very fashion conscious and dressed much better than me. They both had wealthier financial histories than me and neither of them had much in common with my more alternative, holistic, hippie-ish lifestyle. In other words, we didn’t always have a whole lot of mutual interests. Much of the time I was with the 2014 Barbara, I kept thinking that the fates were doomed to be the same as with the 1978 Barbra. I was right about that. Neither of us was willing or able to make the necessary changes to our character to satisfy the requirements of the other, and eventually and sadly, we parted. Seems that if history has taught me anything, it is that as romantic as things can seem, sometimes they just aren’t right. That can be hard to admit because we are all so damned needy sometimes, but we are better off admitting it than not. We’re better off knowing and admitting than wondering and pretending.
I know that this entire article is uncomfortable. After all, why am I writing about someone I have not seen in 35 years? And why am I dating anyone at this point? And not just dating, but far enough along in a relationship to break up with her. Some might be disturbed by that, others might be relieved and I myself am confused. I just know that Coleen told me to find someone else and to take care of myself and that she was right about that. I do need a relationship, although I need it selfishly right now and on my terms. I’m not yet ready to make any deals or compromises. But at the same time, I need to be in a place where I can release all of my romance, love and intentions to a girl. I held back with both Barbara’s, especially recently with Barbara M. I wasn’t fair to her and I regret that. It’s true that when I lost Coleen, I lost someone very special and I will not be easy to please. That has to be my cross to bear, though. I have to learn not to hold it against anyone. In the long run, we are all just trying to find our way.
I’m not sure if this post is part of the love, the loss, the healing or the discovery. Or maybe it doesn’t belong in any of those slots or even here on this website. Maybe a better description would be “Lost Loves,” “My Regrets,” or “Love Before and After.”
I have been attending church on a regular basis since my wife passed away in September. I missed a few weeks in the beginning because I had company and also took a week long trip to Florida at the end of October. Most other Sundays have found me at St. Paul’s Cathedral for the 9:00 AM service.
It felt good for me to return there after Coleen’s death. That church is a healer for me as are many of the friends I have made there. On the Sunday I returned to St. Paul’s, many people approached me with smiles, hugs and good wishes and I felt very good about being there. I sat with my friend Liz that morning and felt very comfortable even though I was without Coleen. I had attended services at St Paul’s alone before a few times when Coleen had been too sick to come or those two weeks when she was in Florida at the Hippocrates Institute trying to get healed by a raw diet and wheat grass. Those weeks were different though because she was still alive and I told myself I was going alone on a temporary basis and she would be back beside me in a week or so.
St. Paul’s is sacred to me for many reasons. It is where we went the week after Coleen’s initial breast cancer diagnosis and heard the choir sing like there were angels among them. It’s where Coleen received healing prayers every week to keep her spirit strong for her battle. It is where we renewed our wedding vows in front of our children, family and the congregation. It is where we held the memorial service for my mother when she died. And of course, it was the place of Coleen’s beautiful funeral service.
When I go to St. Paul’s now, I sometimes sit in the pew we sat in and other times I sit somewhere completely different. But I always sit alone. Until this week when I brought a guest. Her name is Barbara and we have been seeing each other for over a month. I had been reluctant to announce our relationship with anyone because I wasn’t sure how Barbara and I, as a couple, would be received in light of my circumstances. In recent weeks, I have been hearing whispers and messages about letting go of the past to make way for the present and the future. I have been trying to balance those messages against my unwillingness to let go of Coleen. For me, it has been a process of taking a few baby steps, losing some ground, then finding some traction and taking a few more steps. One of those steps was bringing Barbara to St. Paul’s with me last Sunday. I had been reluctant for people to see me with a woman not named Coleen but wanted to change that. So Barbara agreed to break the ice by accompanying me to church.
I was nervous about introducing her to my friends there. After all, they all knew Coleen and I wondered what they would think. I did not want to make anyone uncomfortable but at the same time, I knew I would. But I thought if I could somehow seem comfortable myself, it would soothe all of us. I considered Barbara to be my girlfriend but I was hesitant to use that term to introduce her. Maybe in a way, I didn’t want to admit that to anyone, myself included. But in another way, I was proud of that fact and wanted to shout it out.
Barbara and I sat in church in a pew that I don’t think Coleen and I ever sat in. We arrived a few minutes late so we did not meet anyone on the way in. I helped her with the service, held her hand during the sermon and kissed her on the lips when it was time for The Peace. I kept looking up at the ceiling which is a brilliant blue with lights and stars on high. I looked up and thought of all the times I was there with Coleen and the times without her. I thought of the recent times I have been there alone, head bowed, holding her rings in my hand, wiping back tears. I thought of renewing our wedding vows and how happy and beautiful she was that day. I thought of her funeral service and the sunlight shining through that window onto her entire family. I thought of everything that church meant to us. I wondered what she might have thought about me being there with Barbara instead of her. Then I looked to my left and saw Barbara and thought how she was the present and the future for me if we could find a way to let that happen. If I could find a way to let that happen. That day could be the beginning of a new start for me and for her if we let it be. There are many memories in that Cathedral for me, but hopefully, many more to come.
I think Barbara liked being at St. Paul’s with me and she might even return someday. On the way out I introduced her to a few people including the priest, Father Don. For some reason, most of my friends were not in attendance that day. Wonder what that means. I never called her my girlfriend, though. I probably should have done that. Barbara would have liked that. We went from church to breakfast then for a drive around downtown and the waterfront. We visited a holistic exposition that I didn’t think she would like. I was right, she didn’t like it but we still had fun there. We took in a movie and then back to her place for dinner and the Oscars. Barbara and I spent the entire day together and we were comfortable and we had fun. I wondered though, if we could ultimately be happy. We had a lot of circumstances and differences between the two of us and I wondered how we might work through those. Was Barbara the secret to me letting go of Coleen or the reason for me not to?