It is tempting to frame this part of the experience as my need to forgive myself. How can I let go of the regrets I feel for not having done more? How can I relinquish the guilt and shame I feel because I failed Anne so miserably (at least that’s how it feels sometimes)? What can it mean to “forgive myself” in this context? That’s an important question early in this process. If I cannot somehow deal with this question and the feelings that go with it, it is hard to imagine how I can move forward in a healthy way into the future.
Do I have the right to forgive myself? In fact, it is the person who was wronged who has the right to forgive, not the one who feels like the offender. Even in our life together, I asked Anne’s forgiveness over and over for those times when she came in second place to ministry and other priorities. She was so wonderful in her understanding, her patience and her partnership in ministry. She always forgave, and I knew that her words were genuine.
I think of those times now and know that she forgives me. I would be deceiving myself if I thought that everything I did in those last weeks was completely absent of selfishness and impatience. I’m so very human, and so I know there were times when I responded first to me and second to her. I also know I have her ongoing forgiveness and love in spite of my failings. If she can forgive me, who am I to do less?
It may be that I need God’s forgiveness to help me deal with my regrets and second-guessing and guilt. Yes, indeed, I ask for that forgiveness each and every day. And it comes even without my asking. I don’t take it for granted, but I also don’t doubt the reality of the Forgiving Love in Jesus Christ. Again, if God can forgive me, who am I to do less for myself?
In another book I reflected at length on this business of self-forgiveness. There I wrote, “Self-forgiveness really requires accepting and owning the new story that others have helped to write as they have forgiven me.” That’s what this is really about. I am a man who has lost his wife far too soon. That is what I am, but that is not all that I am. I am a man who wishes he could have done something, anything, to save her. But I couldn’t in spite of my very best efforts. That is what I am, but that is not all that I am. I am a man who now lives into a new reality, a new life, and even a new hope. That is the story I must write for myself from now to the day I die. It helps me to know that Anne would expect no less of me and perhaps is even allowed to help me write the background for the rest of the story.
In my book on forgiving and being forgiven, I wrote that “the challenge is integrating forgiving love into an autobiography where [we] are convicted sinners…Integration means telling the whole truth about oneself and accepting love from those who know the whole story and offer forgiveness anyway.” This is why the real path out of regret, self-recrimination and second-guessing can only be found in the words and hugs and support of others—most of all, those who know me and my story the best.
It helps that doctors and nurses said over and over again, “You did everything you could.” It helps even more to have trusted friends and family say to me over and over, “It was a terrible tragedy. You loved her so very much and did everything you could. She wants you to continue living in this new life.”
To preview a copy of my book on forgiving and being forgiven and/or to order online go to:
http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/1460298
Or you can contact me directly. I have copies on hand as well.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The If Onlys
As I worked on my grieving book today, I added a description of what happened to Anne. When several people had asked by email, "What in the world happened?" I decided to write down the events that led to Anne's hospitalization and death rather than having to re-explain it each time. That description fits well into the early part of the book to lay the groundwork for my experience and reflections.
So I read my own account several times and expanded it in some details. I didn't realize the impact that would have on me. Off and on all day I returned to those events and what I could have done differently. I could have seen her sore chest as heart-related rather than bronchial already on Thursday. I could have taken her to the hospital on Friday as I thought I might at some points. I could have carried her to the ER earlier on Sunday, even though she was feeling a bit better.
If only...if only...if only...if only the chiropracter hadn't said her neck and shoulders were way out of whack. Then I might have made some other connection. If I had ever once in my life actually heard of endocarditis or thought about the ubiquity of staph infections, I might have done something else. If only...
I began to think of all the times I was gone for church events and activities, all the evenings away and the times when Anne and the boys came in second place on my schedule. I cried over the hours and days I could have spent with her but didn't. If only I had made other choices, we could have had so much more life together. If only...(and, never again will I allow such skewed priorities).
My CPE supervisor one day shared with us what he called several "noble half-truths." One went like this. We make the best decisions we can at the time. Otherwise we would make other decisions. I know it doesn't always quite work that way, but it's a noble half truth. If I had known something else, I would have done something else. But I didnt...so I didn't.
I didn't. It gnaws at my heart even though my brain knows the truth--that I did my best and that's all a person can do. What helped me most was a friend this evening who shared some of her own experience. Her family also suffered a tragic death and lived with the "if only's." Some family members still say out loud that if only they had insisted on a small schedule change, the accident would never have happened. But that would require a kind of foreknowledge we don't get to have. So we do the best we can.
Thank you, dear friend, for the story and the reminder. I think I can let go of the "if only's" for tonight and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day.
So I read my own account several times and expanded it in some details. I didn't realize the impact that would have on me. Off and on all day I returned to those events and what I could have done differently. I could have seen her sore chest as heart-related rather than bronchial already on Thursday. I could have taken her to the hospital on Friday as I thought I might at some points. I could have carried her to the ER earlier on Sunday, even though she was feeling a bit better.
If only...if only...if only...if only the chiropracter hadn't said her neck and shoulders were way out of whack. Then I might have made some other connection. If I had ever once in my life actually heard of endocarditis or thought about the ubiquity of staph infections, I might have done something else. If only...
I began to think of all the times I was gone for church events and activities, all the evenings away and the times when Anne and the boys came in second place on my schedule. I cried over the hours and days I could have spent with her but didn't. If only I had made other choices, we could have had so much more life together. If only...(and, never again will I allow such skewed priorities).
My CPE supervisor one day shared with us what he called several "noble half-truths." One went like this. We make the best decisions we can at the time. Otherwise we would make other decisions. I know it doesn't always quite work that way, but it's a noble half truth. If I had known something else, I would have done something else. But I didnt...so I didn't.
I didn't. It gnaws at my heart even though my brain knows the truth--that I did my best and that's all a person can do. What helped me most was a friend this evening who shared some of her own experience. Her family also suffered a tragic death and lived with the "if only's." Some family members still say out loud that if only they had insisted on a small schedule change, the accident would never have happened. But that would require a kind of foreknowledge we don't get to have. So we do the best we can.
Thank you, dear friend, for the story and the reminder. I think I can let go of the "if only's" for tonight and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day.
It Takes Gas to Power the Engine
Some of these blog posts are going into a book that I'm writing on these early months of grieving. One of the ways I approach this is through work I have done previously in reading about cognitive neuropsychology. This has direct relevance to an understanding of grieving. One of the questions worth asking is, "What is grieving good for?" What is actually happening to me and why?
I find it critical to remember that most of my grieving process is happening far below any conscious awareness. While I engage in all sorts of activities and behaviors as I consciously grieve, the great majority of the “work” is being done far below any conscious awareness I might have.
Grieving is a cognitive process in the sense that everything I experience is a cognitive process—it happens in and through my brain and associated neurological tissues. This is not to say that grieving is somehow a purely rational or intellectual process. Far from it! But it is to say that my grieving processes are subject to the same realities and limitations as anything else that happens to me in my cognitive systems.
The mind is the great “iceberg” of human experience. Our consciousness is not the process of being conscious, but rather it is the result of such processes. Karl Lashley has pointed out that the content of our conscious experience does not come from the middle of cognition but rather as an end result. Ninety percent (at least metaphorically—I don’t know the real number) of what happens in my brain and mind happens beneath my conscious awareness. And that is certainly true of grieving processes.
That’s why this is such hard physical work, and I as the bereaved don’t really know why. My mind is working overtime to process some measure of recovery and then to produce some sort of helpful and healing results. Joseph LeDoux notes, “subjective emotional states, like all other states of consciousness, are best viewed as the end result of information processing occurring unconsciously” (The Emotional Brain, page 37). To use another image, moving my car forward is the outcome of internal combustion, not internal combustion itself.
The engine in my car, however, requires huge amounts of energy to produce that forward motion. So it is with grieving. That activity under the surface is absorbing huge amounts of energy, attention and processing power. It’s like three-quarters of my brain is engaged in solving differential calculus problems while the other quarter is just trying to balance the checkbook. It’s no wonder I had so many mistakes in my checkbook in those first days.
This is, of course, the good news. If I had to devote all my conscious attention to the work of grieving in those first days, I wouldn’t even be able to focus enough to go and relieve myself. Grieving is that underlying process of healing and recovery that goes on while I try to stay alive and functioning long enough for it to happen. The best things I can do to help that underlying process are to get enough to eat and drink, to try to sleep as well as I can, to exercise regularly, and to surround myself with loving people who will do what they can to help me.
I find it critical to remember that most of my grieving process is happening far below any conscious awareness. While I engage in all sorts of activities and behaviors as I consciously grieve, the great majority of the “work” is being done far below any conscious awareness I might have.
Grieving is a cognitive process in the sense that everything I experience is a cognitive process—it happens in and through my brain and associated neurological tissues. This is not to say that grieving is somehow a purely rational or intellectual process. Far from it! But it is to say that my grieving processes are subject to the same realities and limitations as anything else that happens to me in my cognitive systems.
The mind is the great “iceberg” of human experience. Our consciousness is not the process of being conscious, but rather it is the result of such processes. Karl Lashley has pointed out that the content of our conscious experience does not come from the middle of cognition but rather as an end result. Ninety percent (at least metaphorically—I don’t know the real number) of what happens in my brain and mind happens beneath my conscious awareness. And that is certainly true of grieving processes.
That’s why this is such hard physical work, and I as the bereaved don’t really know why. My mind is working overtime to process some measure of recovery and then to produce some sort of helpful and healing results. Joseph LeDoux notes, “subjective emotional states, like all other states of consciousness, are best viewed as the end result of information processing occurring unconsciously” (The Emotional Brain, page 37). To use another image, moving my car forward is the outcome of internal combustion, not internal combustion itself.
The engine in my car, however, requires huge amounts of energy to produce that forward motion. So it is with grieving. That activity under the surface is absorbing huge amounts of energy, attention and processing power. It’s like three-quarters of my brain is engaged in solving differential calculus problems while the other quarter is just trying to balance the checkbook. It’s no wonder I had so many mistakes in my checkbook in those first days.
This is, of course, the good news. If I had to devote all my conscious attention to the work of grieving in those first days, I wouldn’t even be able to focus enough to go and relieve myself. Grieving is that underlying process of healing and recovery that goes on while I try to stay alive and functioning long enough for it to happen. The best things I can do to help that underlying process are to get enough to eat and drink, to try to sleep as well as I can, to exercise regularly, and to surround myself with loving people who will do what they can to help me.
Anne, Warrior Princess
Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the first and unwitting martyrs for Christ. I think of Anne on this day as I think about the parents of those babies, slaughtered by Herod's secret police in a pogrom intended just to make sure that no peasant pretenders would arise to trouble Herod's horrendous rule. There is no news here, of course. Bloody old Herod had murdered sons and wife and colleagues and friends to protect his power. What were the lives of a few dozen infants in that non-descript little hick town of Bethlehem?
Why? Perhaps the parents asked this. Why did my baby die? What purpose could such slaughter accomplish, other than the agenda of that half-Idumean tyrant on the Jerusalem throne? This is a question that haunts me sometimes, and must haunt anyone who loses love through tragedy. What could be accomplished in Anne's dying? Why did it happen?
A well-meaning soul said to me, "God needed another angel in heaven, so he took Anne." This was early in the process and my personal supply of graciousness was nearing zero. "I needed her more," I said without smiling. After all, God can whip up a new batch of angels in the wink of an eye or the twitch of a finger. Had my Annie died because of a heavenly labor shortage? Had she been abducted through some sort of Divine press gang maneuver to fill up the ranks of the celestial choirs...or in her case because there was an opening in the heavenly nursery? Was God simply too lazy or incompetent to fill the spots Godself?
Of course not. That is merely the foolishness of having nothing helpful to say. God didn't kidnap Anne because angelic recruitment numbers were down. Like the Holy Innocents, she died in the Great Battle that still rages--light against darkness, life versus death, hope against despair, God versus the Evil One. Every war produces casualties. Death is the final enemy to be conquered, and death fights for survival (one of the paradoxes of existence) at every moment.
If anyone wanted her dead, it was the Enemy, the Evil One. If I direct my anger anywhere (and I do), it is against this dark and malevolent power that assassinated her rather than having to face her on the front lines. I hate Death, and I will not surrender to the powers of the Evil One. Anne was a powerful warrior princess for the Eternal Good. She was Xena with a love for children, the poor, and the lonely. She was an Amazon of loving service with breast burned off from the caring. Anne was a juggernaut of joy for babies, puppies and all in need. She was Wonder Woman, packing a bus with diapers for the needy or planning alternative giving opportunities for our congregation. She was a frontline trooper who threw herself into the fray.
If anyone wanted her dead, it was the Enemy, the Evil One. Perhaps Anne was marked as a high-value target in this particular battle. There is no question that killing her has had profound secondary effects. I live in the blast radius of that attack every day, and the temptations to despair have been huge. Collateral damage among those of us who loved her has been extreme.
But the Enemy made a strategic error. Even in her dying, Anne carried the fight to the Enemy with her courage, determination, and love. Her dying was another victory in the war, a witness in itself to the powers of Faith, Hope and Love. As I carried a check to the Nebraska Synod offices for Tanzania ministry in Anne's name, another victory was won. As I bring a gift to the Bryan School of Nursing, the battle continues. Even as I shared her clothing with the Bridges to Hope warehouse, she continues to give life to those in need.
Our Annie was no kidnapped slave, no dancing girl in the heavenly courts. She was an Innocent who was slaughtered, but she died for the cause. She was a soldier in the battle. She gave her life everyday for Love, for the Innocent who died first for her. What I know today is that my life is taken up in that same battle. We worked and fought together for a lifetime--her lifetime--in that great battle. I promise, dear one, in the name of Jesus to continue the fight. It has been a privilege to serve with you, my beloved.
Why? Perhaps the parents asked this. Why did my baby die? What purpose could such slaughter accomplish, other than the agenda of that half-Idumean tyrant on the Jerusalem throne? This is a question that haunts me sometimes, and must haunt anyone who loses love through tragedy. What could be accomplished in Anne's dying? Why did it happen?
A well-meaning soul said to me, "God needed another angel in heaven, so he took Anne." This was early in the process and my personal supply of graciousness was nearing zero. "I needed her more," I said without smiling. After all, God can whip up a new batch of angels in the wink of an eye or the twitch of a finger. Had my Annie died because of a heavenly labor shortage? Had she been abducted through some sort of Divine press gang maneuver to fill up the ranks of the celestial choirs...or in her case because there was an opening in the heavenly nursery? Was God simply too lazy or incompetent to fill the spots Godself?
Of course not. That is merely the foolishness of having nothing helpful to say. God didn't kidnap Anne because angelic recruitment numbers were down. Like the Holy Innocents, she died in the Great Battle that still rages--light against darkness, life versus death, hope against despair, God versus the Evil One. Every war produces casualties. Death is the final enemy to be conquered, and death fights for survival (one of the paradoxes of existence) at every moment.
If anyone wanted her dead, it was the Enemy, the Evil One. If I direct my anger anywhere (and I do), it is against this dark and malevolent power that assassinated her rather than having to face her on the front lines. I hate Death, and I will not surrender to the powers of the Evil One. Anne was a powerful warrior princess for the Eternal Good. She was Xena with a love for children, the poor, and the lonely. She was an Amazon of loving service with breast burned off from the caring. Anne was a juggernaut of joy for babies, puppies and all in need. She was Wonder Woman, packing a bus with diapers for the needy or planning alternative giving opportunities for our congregation. She was a frontline trooper who threw herself into the fray.
If anyone wanted her dead, it was the Enemy, the Evil One. Perhaps Anne was marked as a high-value target in this particular battle. There is no question that killing her has had profound secondary effects. I live in the blast radius of that attack every day, and the temptations to despair have been huge. Collateral damage among those of us who loved her has been extreme.
But the Enemy made a strategic error. Even in her dying, Anne carried the fight to the Enemy with her courage, determination, and love. Her dying was another victory in the war, a witness in itself to the powers of Faith, Hope and Love. As I carried a check to the Nebraska Synod offices for Tanzania ministry in Anne's name, another victory was won. As I bring a gift to the Bryan School of Nursing, the battle continues. Even as I shared her clothing with the Bridges to Hope warehouse, she continues to give life to those in need.
Our Annie was no kidnapped slave, no dancing girl in the heavenly courts. She was an Innocent who was slaughtered, but she died for the cause. She was a soldier in the battle. She gave her life everyday for Love, for the Innocent who died first for her. What I know today is that my life is taken up in that same battle. We worked and fought together for a lifetime--her lifetime--in that great battle. I promise, dear one, in the name of Jesus to continue the fight. It has been a privilege to serve with you, my beloved.
Monday, December 27, 2010
A Lot Like Anne
Steven Pinker, in his book How the Mind Works, makes this disturbing observation. “No one knows what, if anything, grief is for. Obviously the loss of a loved one is unpleasant, but why should it be devastating? Why the debilitating pain that stops people from eating, sleeping, resisting diseases, and getting on with life?” (How the Mind Works, page 420). Why, indeed? What is the point of all this misery? What, if anything gets accomplished through grieving processes?
Pinker lists some suggestions he has heard. For example these processes may be an enforced interlude for reassessment.” Grief may be a sort of prophylactic against future foolishness. Grieving, some have suggested to Pinker, “also gives people time to contemplate how a lapse of theirs may have allowed the death and how they might be more careful in the future.” Well, there’s a happy thought for me as I already wrestle with what I could have done to stave off Anne’s sudden and catastrophic death!
Pinker, fortunately, is not persuaded by this sadistic argument: “the pain of grief makes planning harder, not easier, and is too extreme and long-lasting to be useful as a strategy session.” Yes, I can testify to that.
The one argument Pinker finds even a little compelling is that grief is the other side of, the necessary shadow side of love. He calls it “an internal doomsday machine, pointless once it goes off, useful only as a deterrent” (page 421). He sees it as a necessary element of our emotional lives that keeps us focused on sustaining the existence of our loved ones lest we suffer this terrible fate. That seems less than compelling to me.
One of the things the pain of grief is for me is a demonstration and reminder of a great love. I give thanks for those reminders in the midst of my days. I went to the funeral home and paid the bills for Anne’s service and related items. On the one hand it was a simple business transaction—read the invoice, write the check, walk out with the receipt. I didn’t weep or sniffle during this activity. I did, however, feel a heaviness in my chest as I walked through the business. Even as I focused on the numbers and thought to myself, “Wow, I better move some money from savings,” my body reminded me of the great love and the great loss that made this whole business necessary. She was magnificent. She made my life complete. Now she’s gone, and I have the receipt to prove it. To love at all is to be vulnerable. To feel the cracks in one’s heart is to remember that love. While I felt that pain, I was also grateful for the reminder.
I find that the grieving reminds me not only of how much I loved Anne but also of how proud I was of her and how privileged I felt to have her in my life. The last Sunday in December 2010 I was worshiping with my brother and his family. The Scripture texts were for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the first martyrs for the sake of Jesus. The pastor quoted a story from Tony Campolo that I have heard Campolo share a number of times. John was a recovering alcoholic who used his new life to serve others in a rescue mission. He was known for his compassion and unselfish service. During the mandatory altar call before he could get some soup, one of the homeless men came forward to pray. As he knelt at the rail, he prayed, “Maybe I could be more like John.” The pastor leaned over and said, “Don’t you mean, ‘More like Jesus’?” The homeless man was surprised. “Oh, does this Jesus fellow look a lot like John?”
I love that story. When I heard it, I began to weep. I suddenly thought about how my dearest Annie would have fit the story. Many might have said, “Oh, does this Jesus fellow look at lot like Anne?” In my view, the answer is a resounding yes. The tears I offered were tears of gratitude more than tears of grief at that point. But it was the loss of Anne that opened me to such an experience of joy in her life and ministry.
Pinker lists some suggestions he has heard. For example these processes may be an enforced interlude for reassessment.” Grief may be a sort of prophylactic against future foolishness. Grieving, some have suggested to Pinker, “also gives people time to contemplate how a lapse of theirs may have allowed the death and how they might be more careful in the future.” Well, there’s a happy thought for me as I already wrestle with what I could have done to stave off Anne’s sudden and catastrophic death!
Pinker, fortunately, is not persuaded by this sadistic argument: “the pain of grief makes planning harder, not easier, and is too extreme and long-lasting to be useful as a strategy session.” Yes, I can testify to that.
The one argument Pinker finds even a little compelling is that grief is the other side of, the necessary shadow side of love. He calls it “an internal doomsday machine, pointless once it goes off, useful only as a deterrent” (page 421). He sees it as a necessary element of our emotional lives that keeps us focused on sustaining the existence of our loved ones lest we suffer this terrible fate. That seems less than compelling to me.
One of the things the pain of grief is for me is a demonstration and reminder of a great love. I give thanks for those reminders in the midst of my days. I went to the funeral home and paid the bills for Anne’s service and related items. On the one hand it was a simple business transaction—read the invoice, write the check, walk out with the receipt. I didn’t weep or sniffle during this activity. I did, however, feel a heaviness in my chest as I walked through the business. Even as I focused on the numbers and thought to myself, “Wow, I better move some money from savings,” my body reminded me of the great love and the great loss that made this whole business necessary. She was magnificent. She made my life complete. Now she’s gone, and I have the receipt to prove it. To love at all is to be vulnerable. To feel the cracks in one’s heart is to remember that love. While I felt that pain, I was also grateful for the reminder.
I find that the grieving reminds me not only of how much I loved Anne but also of how proud I was of her and how privileged I felt to have her in my life. The last Sunday in December 2010 I was worshiping with my brother and his family. The Scripture texts were for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the first martyrs for the sake of Jesus. The pastor quoted a story from Tony Campolo that I have heard Campolo share a number of times. John was a recovering alcoholic who used his new life to serve others in a rescue mission. He was known for his compassion and unselfish service. During the mandatory altar call before he could get some soup, one of the homeless men came forward to pray. As he knelt at the rail, he prayed, “Maybe I could be more like John.” The pastor leaned over and said, “Don’t you mean, ‘More like Jesus’?” The homeless man was surprised. “Oh, does this Jesus fellow look a lot like John?”
I love that story. When I heard it, I began to weep. I suddenly thought about how my dearest Annie would have fit the story. Many might have said, “Oh, does this Jesus fellow look at lot like Anne?” In my view, the answer is a resounding yes. The tears I offered were tears of gratitude more than tears of grief at that point. But it was the loss of Anne that opened me to such an experience of joy in her life and ministry.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Blessed Christmas
Christmas Day--it's a lovely, wonderful day where I am, surrounded by some of my family. We opened gifts this morning after worship last evening. For a moment here or there I had a few tears, but mostly I was enveloped in the joy of the Nativity Feast. I am again grateful for being so formed by our worship and spiritual tradition that I can focus on Christ in Christmas even when some of the other elements (such as my changed family status) are difficult. Christ is born today!
If that were not so, if the Word had not become flesh, then Anne's death would be a truly monumental tragedy in the history of the world. As it is, I know she gets to spend Christmas in the arms of Jesus, looking upon the beauty of the Incarnate One in the full joy of eternal life. She gets to hear the angel songs in person rather than just through scripture..."Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all with whom God is pleased." I am grateful for that gift of peace in my life today.
It is not that these days are absent my grief--far from it. The body will insist on what the mind seeks to suppress. I got a great gift from Mark and Dee, Jacob, Eric and Jared. They gave me the full length body pillow I had wanted. I want that to help me sleep better. I spent so many years turned on my side with my arms wrapped around Anne for a least a few minutes each night. That habit will be long is disappearing, if ever. So I want to wrap my arms around something soft and cuddly to deal with that absence.
I opened the bag, pulled out the pillow and wrapped my arms around it. The tears came immediately--not a gush by any means...just those tears of nostalgia and longing. I could feel my arms around dearest Anne for at least a few moments. So there was joy mingled with the sadnesss. That response wasn't somehow tied to Christmas. It was tied to Anne. And the grief was in my arms at least as much as in my heart and mind...somatic memory.
So many have commented on how hard this holiday would be for me. I have felt a bit guilty because for me that's not really been the case. As a working pastor, I didn't spend much of Christmas with family: weeks of fevered preparation, several Christmas Eve services, usually a Christmas day service, and then a collapse into exhaustion that afternoon. In between we opened presents and ate a little holiday food. But I suspect that Steve and Greg are missing Mom more at Christmas than I. We simply didn't have the habits of other families that I would miss all that much. It's hard to miss what I didn't have. We did our family times elsewhere on the calendar, and those times will be more difficult, I think.
The paradox is that this has allowed me to feel the joy of Christmas more probably than many who are early in grief.
The tears come and go as do memories of life with Anne. But on this Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, I feel gratitude and joy and hope...hope for Anne and all who have died in the Lord, and hope for a world in bondage to death if He had not come. A blessed Christmas to all.
If that were not so, if the Word had not become flesh, then Anne's death would be a truly monumental tragedy in the history of the world. As it is, I know she gets to spend Christmas in the arms of Jesus, looking upon the beauty of the Incarnate One in the full joy of eternal life. She gets to hear the angel songs in person rather than just through scripture..."Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all with whom God is pleased." I am grateful for that gift of peace in my life today.
It is not that these days are absent my grief--far from it. The body will insist on what the mind seeks to suppress. I got a great gift from Mark and Dee, Jacob, Eric and Jared. They gave me the full length body pillow I had wanted. I want that to help me sleep better. I spent so many years turned on my side with my arms wrapped around Anne for a least a few minutes each night. That habit will be long is disappearing, if ever. So I want to wrap my arms around something soft and cuddly to deal with that absence.
I opened the bag, pulled out the pillow and wrapped my arms around it. The tears came immediately--not a gush by any means...just those tears of nostalgia and longing. I could feel my arms around dearest Anne for at least a few moments. So there was joy mingled with the sadnesss. That response wasn't somehow tied to Christmas. It was tied to Anne. And the grief was in my arms at least as much as in my heart and mind...somatic memory.
So many have commented on how hard this holiday would be for me. I have felt a bit guilty because for me that's not really been the case. As a working pastor, I didn't spend much of Christmas with family: weeks of fevered preparation, several Christmas Eve services, usually a Christmas day service, and then a collapse into exhaustion that afternoon. In between we opened presents and ate a little holiday food. But I suspect that Steve and Greg are missing Mom more at Christmas than I. We simply didn't have the habits of other families that I would miss all that much. It's hard to miss what I didn't have. We did our family times elsewhere on the calendar, and those times will be more difficult, I think.
The paradox is that this has allowed me to feel the joy of Christmas more probably than many who are early in grief.
The tears come and go as do memories of life with Anne. But on this Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, I feel gratitude and joy and hope...hope for Anne and all who have died in the Lord, and hope for a world in bondage to death if He had not come. A blessed Christmas to all.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Inception, Deception and Mindfulness
I gave myself the afternoon off yesterday. I had filled out enough forms, requested enough recommendations, completed enough self-evaluations, and mailed enough thank you cards for a while. I bought the movie, "Inception," and settled down to a little afternoon matinee. I expected the ripping good story and outstanding special effects that I got. The big screen, the sound bar and the subwoofer made it a theater-quality presentation. I thought to msyelf, "Once again, dear, you did such a good job (Anne picked out all of it). You would have really liked how this movie works on the equipment." That brought a smile to my face.
What I didn't expect was the way in which the movie was a profound meditation on the power of unresolved grief. The main character is responsible for his wife's suicide. He implanted within her brain an idea which freed her from one mental and emotional prison only to lock her into another. And she found death to be the only real escape. His guilt drives him to dangerous and irrational extremes and gives the plot its emotional edge, so that it is more than an action film made to be enhanced by 3-D technology (and no, we don't have one of those fancy 3-D televisions).
His first strategy has been to lock his guilt and memories into a prison deep in his subconscious mind. We see that in literal terms as the memories of his wife struggle to get free of that prison and assert control over his consciousness. Those unresolved memories pop out in unexpected and dangerous places as he uses technology to dive deeper and deeper into his dreams and the dreams of those around him. The guilt and anxiety wrapped in the image of his wife are always inviting him to join her in death so that they can truly be together.
When I noticed that feature, the film really got my attention. That certainly was part of my initial experience. I never considered injuring myself or ending my life. However, those fleeting thoughts of "If I were dead, at least I would be with Anne"--those thoughts came and went in the first ten days with some alarming frequency. That has subsided for me at this point, but it was compelling to see that dynamic portrayed in the film. I knew then that the film makers have some acquaintance with grieving.
The climactic scene involves a dream confrontation between the main character and the remains of his wife's memories. It is almost an extended quote from A Grief Observed. He tells the character that she cannot be his real wife. He says with great passion that his subconscious has done a pretty good job of reconstructing her. Yet, she is flat and narrow and colorless in ways that his living wife could not be. She can be nothing but an image, and so this confrontation produces even more pain. She has become an idol that demands control rather than a set of memories that give life.
The main character finally comes to a place of healing. "I have to let you go," he says, again in an echo of C. S. Lewis' insights. Indeed as he lets her go he then has her memories in more profound ways. But the healing for him is more than relinquishing the image of his wife. It is acknowledging that his guilt is a way of keeping her rather than merely a way of punishing himself. The Helen Page character helps him to let go of that guilt, and then the memory can take a place that might give life and hope in the future.
I know, I know...it's just a really good movie, and it's a great deal of work to read all this into or out of the screenplay. Yet, it is clearly there, and I will watch it several more times with that in mind. I was reminded with great power of the need for my own mindfulness in this process--the need to pay attention to my own anxieties and fears, my own guilt and regrets, and to process those things consciously and with regular discipline. I had let go of my breathing and meditation exercises for a while. Somehow this is a good motivation to return to being mindful of the pain in order to allow the joy to emerge.
Of course, there is an interesting and ambiguous twist at the end of the film, as there should be in such a subtle piece of psychology. But I leave that to other reviewers.
Besides, the subwoofer rattled the windows...you would have enjoyed that, dear.
What I didn't expect was the way in which the movie was a profound meditation on the power of unresolved grief. The main character is responsible for his wife's suicide. He implanted within her brain an idea which freed her from one mental and emotional prison only to lock her into another. And she found death to be the only real escape. His guilt drives him to dangerous and irrational extremes and gives the plot its emotional edge, so that it is more than an action film made to be enhanced by 3-D technology (and no, we don't have one of those fancy 3-D televisions).
His first strategy has been to lock his guilt and memories into a prison deep in his subconscious mind. We see that in literal terms as the memories of his wife struggle to get free of that prison and assert control over his consciousness. Those unresolved memories pop out in unexpected and dangerous places as he uses technology to dive deeper and deeper into his dreams and the dreams of those around him. The guilt and anxiety wrapped in the image of his wife are always inviting him to join her in death so that they can truly be together.
When I noticed that feature, the film really got my attention. That certainly was part of my initial experience. I never considered injuring myself or ending my life. However, those fleeting thoughts of "If I were dead, at least I would be with Anne"--those thoughts came and went in the first ten days with some alarming frequency. That has subsided for me at this point, but it was compelling to see that dynamic portrayed in the film. I knew then that the film makers have some acquaintance with grieving.
The climactic scene involves a dream confrontation between the main character and the remains of his wife's memories. It is almost an extended quote from A Grief Observed. He tells the character that she cannot be his real wife. He says with great passion that his subconscious has done a pretty good job of reconstructing her. Yet, she is flat and narrow and colorless in ways that his living wife could not be. She can be nothing but an image, and so this confrontation produces even more pain. She has become an idol that demands control rather than a set of memories that give life.
The main character finally comes to a place of healing. "I have to let you go," he says, again in an echo of C. S. Lewis' insights. Indeed as he lets her go he then has her memories in more profound ways. But the healing for him is more than relinquishing the image of his wife. It is acknowledging that his guilt is a way of keeping her rather than merely a way of punishing himself. The Helen Page character helps him to let go of that guilt, and then the memory can take a place that might give life and hope in the future.
I know, I know...it's just a really good movie, and it's a great deal of work to read all this into or out of the screenplay. Yet, it is clearly there, and I will watch it several more times with that in mind. I was reminded with great power of the need for my own mindfulness in this process--the need to pay attention to my own anxieties and fears, my own guilt and regrets, and to process those things consciously and with regular discipline. I had let go of my breathing and meditation exercises for a while. Somehow this is a good motivation to return to being mindful of the pain in order to allow the joy to emerge.
Of course, there is an interesting and ambiguous twist at the end of the film, as there should be in such a subtle piece of psychology. But I leave that to other reviewers.
Besides, the subwoofer rattled the windows...you would have enjoyed that, dear.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
For The Daughter You Found
Meant--ee
You brought her flowers every time you visited her
a riot of colors
purple, green, yellow
red, pink, blue...
Before you came you called
What's your favorite number at Burger King
I know you say you won't eat
But if I have my way you will...
You gave her your heart
You were her second mom--she says
The daughter you didn't have
The daughter you found
I know you worried about her
Prayed for her constantly
Shook your head in disgust
Always wanted to do much more
You taught her to live and love
You got her out of trouble more than once
You told her to keep her mouth shut and her fists quiet
You got her to graduation and beyond
She came to see you
To read you a letter
To give you flowers in your favorite color
To sit with you and talk
She'll be back
I have the daughter you found
Who found me
We'll share our pain and our love for you
What else did you do that you didn't tell me?
You brought her flowers every time you visited her
a riot of colors
purple, green, yellow
red, pink, blue...
Before you came you called
What's your favorite number at Burger King
I know you say you won't eat
But if I have my way you will...
You gave her your heart
You were her second mom--she says
The daughter you didn't have
The daughter you found
I know you worried about her
Prayed for her constantly
Shook your head in disgust
Always wanted to do much more
You taught her to live and love
You got her out of trouble more than once
You told her to keep her mouth shut and her fists quiet
You got her to graduation and beyond
She came to see you
To read you a letter
To give you flowers in your favorite color
To sit with you and talk
She'll be back
I have the daughter you found
Who found me
We'll share our pain and our love for you
What else did you do that you didn't tell me?
The Autopilot Response
At this point it is the "autopilot" responses that make me crazy.
I went to the Register of Deeds today. The house is now "mine" instead of "ours." Anne's name is being removed from the deed to the house. Again, I had the privilege of paying ten dollars for something I already own, but so it goes.
I went to the counter and said, "My wife is recently deceased. So I need to change our deed." The person at the counter was polite and efficient. All went very well with a minimum of fuss and bother. I got what I needed and prepared to leave. The counter clerk said, "Have a nice holiday."
I turned away before I said something rude. I know--just doing her job. It's not her life. I'm overly sensitive. What can you expect? I know. I know. I know. But seriously! "My wife is recently deceased..." Here's the death certificate so you can make a copy. Another piece of her identity is officially gone. She is disappearing from the public record like Marty Mcfly in "Back to the Future" vanishing from the family photos (look it up, young people).
I start a memorial account for Anne. While we're waiting for things to process, the teller says, "So, how's your week going?" Well, other than my wife's funeral and cremation, things have been just peachy! It's the autopilot response. It is flip brain into neutral, say the conventional thing, and then bite your lip in embarrassment if you have half an ounce of self-awareness.
I know I've done the same thing--certainly. But I don't care. It's just damned irritating, so I'm going to be irritated.
I went to the Register of Deeds today. The house is now "mine" instead of "ours." Anne's name is being removed from the deed to the house. Again, I had the privilege of paying ten dollars for something I already own, but so it goes.
I went to the counter and said, "My wife is recently deceased. So I need to change our deed." The person at the counter was polite and efficient. All went very well with a minimum of fuss and bother. I got what I needed and prepared to leave. The counter clerk said, "Have a nice holiday."
I turned away before I said something rude. I know--just doing her job. It's not her life. I'm overly sensitive. What can you expect? I know. I know. I know. But seriously! "My wife is recently deceased..." Here's the death certificate so you can make a copy. Another piece of her identity is officially gone. She is disappearing from the public record like Marty Mcfly in "Back to the Future" vanishing from the family photos (look it up, young people).
I start a memorial account for Anne. While we're waiting for things to process, the teller says, "So, how's your week going?" Well, other than my wife's funeral and cremation, things have been just peachy! It's the autopilot response. It is flip brain into neutral, say the conventional thing, and then bite your lip in embarrassment if you have half an ounce of self-awareness.
I know I've done the same thing--certainly. But I don't care. It's just damned irritating, so I'm going to be irritated.
Moving the Giraffes
So, I'm in the midst of an early-morning burst of creativity. I had better ride the wave while I can. The collapse is surely to come later today. But then, naps are good, and I don't report to anyone at this point.
When Anne visited Tanzania the first time, she brought a gift for our marriage. It was a beautiful and naturalistic carving of two giraffes with their necks entwined. She saw it as a symbol of our life together, and I loved it when she brought it home. It sat in our living room no matter what the season--the only decoration that Anne did not rotate on a seasonal basis. It was a sign to me that she reflected on the nature and depth of our marriage just as I did (and do). This carving is a precious gift to me.
Above Anne's desk (it won't really be mine for a while yet) she had pictures of that trip, including one of an adolescent giraffe in the Ngorongoro crater. It made me think about our giraffes in the living room. One of the pair is now gone, even though the wooden statuettes have not yet gotten the message. They are still wrapped together in a mute testimony to human love that has met mortality.
I took the carving, polished it well, and placed it on the mantle next to the box of Anne's cremains. That felt good and right to me. That's where the giraffes belong now.
The twined necks are memory--reality no longer.
I know that for many, it is so important to hang on to the artifacts of marriage and even to sustain the idea that they are still married to their deceased love one. For me, that is a painful charade. I wouldn't presume to tell someone else how to do this. I don't have any idea how to do it myself at any given moment. But for me, the symbols of a marriage that is no more are painful unless they are placed in the category of memory. Moving the giraffes was another small step of acceptance, and down that path lies healing in the future.
So much of what happens in the world arises out of unresolved grief and not letting go of the past. Letting go doesn't mean forgetting. Rather, it means remembering in profoundly real ways. People will say to me that I will always have Anne's memories. Indeed that is true, and I cherish those thoughts. But if I could get something back, that something would be Anne herself--not merely her memories. Her memories are pale imitations of the reality of Anne and will fade into some degree of fabrication as time goes on.
I am with C. S. Lewis on this one. Memories in the end are not a way to hang on to the beloved but rather to let her go. Otherwise those memories become idols. And idolatry always does violence to us.
So the gently twining necks and the dappled skin sit where they belong--both in my house and in my heart. I'm glad I had the energy to do that this morning. Who knows what the afternoon will bring?
When Anne visited Tanzania the first time, she brought a gift for our marriage. It was a beautiful and naturalistic carving of two giraffes with their necks entwined. She saw it as a symbol of our life together, and I loved it when she brought it home. It sat in our living room no matter what the season--the only decoration that Anne did not rotate on a seasonal basis. It was a sign to me that she reflected on the nature and depth of our marriage just as I did (and do). This carving is a precious gift to me.
Above Anne's desk (it won't really be mine for a while yet) she had pictures of that trip, including one of an adolescent giraffe in the Ngorongoro crater. It made me think about our giraffes in the living room. One of the pair is now gone, even though the wooden statuettes have not yet gotten the message. They are still wrapped together in a mute testimony to human love that has met mortality.
I took the carving, polished it well, and placed it on the mantle next to the box of Anne's cremains. That felt good and right to me. That's where the giraffes belong now.
The twined necks are memory--reality no longer.
I know that for many, it is so important to hang on to the artifacts of marriage and even to sustain the idea that they are still married to their deceased love one. For me, that is a painful charade. I wouldn't presume to tell someone else how to do this. I don't have any idea how to do it myself at any given moment. But for me, the symbols of a marriage that is no more are painful unless they are placed in the category of memory. Moving the giraffes was another small step of acceptance, and down that path lies healing in the future.
So much of what happens in the world arises out of unresolved grief and not letting go of the past. Letting go doesn't mean forgetting. Rather, it means remembering in profoundly real ways. People will say to me that I will always have Anne's memories. Indeed that is true, and I cherish those thoughts. But if I could get something back, that something would be Anne herself--not merely her memories. Her memories are pale imitations of the reality of Anne and will fade into some degree of fabrication as time goes on.
I am with C. S. Lewis on this one. Memories in the end are not a way to hang on to the beloved but rather to let her go. Otherwise those memories become idols. And idolatry always does violence to us.
So the gently twining necks and the dappled skin sit where they belong--both in my house and in my heart. I'm glad I had the energy to do that this morning. Who knows what the afternoon will bring?
Cleaning at 4 a.m.
Up at 4 a.m., wide awake. Sigh...well, I must be normal. This is what's supposed to happen to a grieving person. I tossed for a while and then decided to be productive. Somehow I got started cleaning kitchen shelves and sorting coffee mugs (who needs 34 coffee mugs anyway--seriously!). Then it was dishes and pots and pans and the stove top and the toaster oven (what a charcoal mess that was) and finally polishing the floor. By 6 a.m. the kitchen was shining and smelled like Windex Multi-Surface cleaner with Vinegar. I have two shelves I didn't have before. The floor is slippery from the Pledge.
And I feel better. I have to admit a certain amount of surprise. I'm not sure that housecleaning has ever had this effect on me before. Either it was therapeutic or perhaps I should seek counseling.
Really, it's a page from that wonderful spiritual writer, Barbara Brown Taylor. Spirituality must be somehow embodied to make any real sense. We are incarnate people. As I cleaned I was in touch with Anne in some ways--in touch with her in very physical, earthy and daily ways. Two of the mugs were hers and have gone to my Annie spot because her lips rested on their rims. Now I envy those mugs...
But I was also more in touch with me. Bringing some order to a small corner of the chaos, getting up and doing something, especially something that would please Anne--it helped me to go from early morning grumpy to sunrise wonderful. And the sun isn't even up yet.
While I worked I listened to one of BBT's sermons--a Lenten message she gave at the Duke chapel last year. It's a great piece on Abraham's covenant faith and doubt in Genesis 15. She talked about how it must have seemed to Abraham like he was taking a terrific risk on the promises of God--and they hadn't quite worked out yet. Then the pots of fire and smoke passed between the slaughtered animals in Abraham's vision. And he saw that it was God who was taking the chance on Abraham, not the other way around.
Abraham saw that it was God walking the path onto which he invited Abraham. This is the root of faith, I think. It is seeing how our God travels the path ahead of us and makes the way safe and clear. There is nowhere I can go, not even in my grief, where God has not already been and where God will not be. Even when I cry with Jesus about being so terribly forsaken, that is not news to our God. He is the one who uttered the cry and defeated the forsaking power of death forever. God is here and now and forever loving and gracious. I feel that so clearly this morning.
I do keep asking for some sort of relief from this episodic nightmare. I don't wonder about God as such, but sometimes I have questions about God's reliability and timing in all of this. Dare I continue to take the chance that somehow, someday, some of this will make some sense? Can I wait long enough to find meaning, hope and joy once again? Suddenly I realize that I'm not the one taking the chance on God. God continues to take this incredible risk on me. God continues to go ahead of me, waiting in the kitchen for me this morning. What a lovely surprise.
Wow, wouldn't Anne be proud of how clean it is!
And I feel better. I have to admit a certain amount of surprise. I'm not sure that housecleaning has ever had this effect on me before. Either it was therapeutic or perhaps I should seek counseling.
Really, it's a page from that wonderful spiritual writer, Barbara Brown Taylor. Spirituality must be somehow embodied to make any real sense. We are incarnate people. As I cleaned I was in touch with Anne in some ways--in touch with her in very physical, earthy and daily ways. Two of the mugs were hers and have gone to my Annie spot because her lips rested on their rims. Now I envy those mugs...
But I was also more in touch with me. Bringing some order to a small corner of the chaos, getting up and doing something, especially something that would please Anne--it helped me to go from early morning grumpy to sunrise wonderful. And the sun isn't even up yet.
While I worked I listened to one of BBT's sermons--a Lenten message she gave at the Duke chapel last year. It's a great piece on Abraham's covenant faith and doubt in Genesis 15. She talked about how it must have seemed to Abraham like he was taking a terrific risk on the promises of God--and they hadn't quite worked out yet. Then the pots of fire and smoke passed between the slaughtered animals in Abraham's vision. And he saw that it was God who was taking the chance on Abraham, not the other way around.
Abraham saw that it was God walking the path onto which he invited Abraham. This is the root of faith, I think. It is seeing how our God travels the path ahead of us and makes the way safe and clear. There is nowhere I can go, not even in my grief, where God has not already been and where God will not be. Even when I cry with Jesus about being so terribly forsaken, that is not news to our God. He is the one who uttered the cry and defeated the forsaking power of death forever. God is here and now and forever loving and gracious. I feel that so clearly this morning.
I do keep asking for some sort of relief from this episodic nightmare. I don't wonder about God as such, but sometimes I have questions about God's reliability and timing in all of this. Dare I continue to take the chance that somehow, someday, some of this will make some sense? Can I wait long enough to find meaning, hope and joy once again? Suddenly I realize that I'm not the one taking the chance on God. God continues to take this incredible risk on me. God continues to go ahead of me, waiting in the kitchen for me this morning. What a lovely surprise.
Wow, wouldn't Anne be proud of how clean it is!
Monday, December 20, 2010
May I Speak to Anne Hennigs, Please?
Someone from Anne's health insurance company called today and wanted to do a patient care survey. "I'm wondering if Anne could take a brief survey to help us evaluate her care while she was hospitalized." I took a deep breath and said as calmly as I could, "I'm sorry but Anne is deceased." Massive silence on the other end. I'm sure this was a paid surveyor who could have had no way to know what happened to Anne. I was surprised at how calmly I told the woman the situation--some small bit of progress, perhaps.
Poor woman--she tried to collect herself. "I'm so very sorry for your loss. I won't bother you further." For some reason I said, "Well, I could probably respond to the questions, if that's all right." The surveyor agreed. Then she started asking about how the patient responded to, evaluated, and/or experienced various parts of the treatment. I had to interrupt at that point and say, "Well, Anne was unresponsive for most of twelve days, so I don't think we can continue."
The caller thanked me, apologized again, expressed her sympathy one more time, and that was that. It was surreal--but no more so than any other part of this experience. The EOB statements from the health insurance now come to "The Estate of Anne Hennigs," and I have to look twice or three times at that weird address. I was cooking supper tonight and found myself wondering when Anne would get home from work. After all, the Hamburger Helper was almost ready. I redrafted my will today to allow for her death, and yet I wondered what input she might have into the decisions.
What is there to do? I'm sorry but Anne is deceased. She can't answer your questions or mine. Yet...yet...yet at just those moments when I am sure that I will never have her in my life again, there is that sense of "presence." I don't know how to identify it completely, but I know that at moments I am in a very familiar dialogue with someone I know almost as well as myself. In the midst of difficult decisions or uncertainties I suddenly get this wash of reassurance, as if someone has just said to me, "You're doing just fine. Keep trying. It will be fine."
Yes, my dear. It will. I know that. I rejoice that you are well and loved and in that place where only good and light dwell. I am gratreful that sometimes you can share yourself with me from that place. If only the rest of this weren't so damned murky all the time...but then you would still be here.
And you're not.
Poor woman--she tried to collect herself. "I'm so very sorry for your loss. I won't bother you further." For some reason I said, "Well, I could probably respond to the questions, if that's all right." The surveyor agreed. Then she started asking about how the patient responded to, evaluated, and/or experienced various parts of the treatment. I had to interrupt at that point and say, "Well, Anne was unresponsive for most of twelve days, so I don't think we can continue."
The caller thanked me, apologized again, expressed her sympathy one more time, and that was that. It was surreal--but no more so than any other part of this experience. The EOB statements from the health insurance now come to "The Estate of Anne Hennigs," and I have to look twice or three times at that weird address. I was cooking supper tonight and found myself wondering when Anne would get home from work. After all, the Hamburger Helper was almost ready. I redrafted my will today to allow for her death, and yet I wondered what input she might have into the decisions.
What is there to do? I'm sorry but Anne is deceased. She can't answer your questions or mine. Yet...yet...yet at just those moments when I am sure that I will never have her in my life again, there is that sense of "presence." I don't know how to identify it completely, but I know that at moments I am in a very familiar dialogue with someone I know almost as well as myself. In the midst of difficult decisions or uncertainties I suddenly get this wash of reassurance, as if someone has just said to me, "You're doing just fine. Keep trying. It will be fine."
Yes, my dear. It will. I know that. I rejoice that you are well and loved and in that place where only good and light dwell. I am gratreful that sometimes you can share yourself with me from that place. If only the rest of this weren't so damned murky all the time...but then you would still be here.
And you're not.
From the Ashes of Our Past...
I imagine myself wandering through the smoldering ruins after a house fire. Most of what was a life is dust and ashes now. There are glowing embers, still hot, that hurt when I touch them. Nothing is left to recover. Everything that is not a cinder still burns.
That is what life feels like in Lincoln now--in many ways for me, the city of death. The year began with the death of Ben Larson, my former parish intern, in the Haitian earthquake. Other local tragedies followed, culminating in Anne's death. Mostly ashes with hot spots here and there--and when I reach out to grab anything, the result is likely to be pain.
The folks at Anne's workplace invited me to their Christmas luncheon today. I want to be clear that I am so very grateful for the invitation, and I really enjoyed my time with all of Anne's very good friends and co-workers. They even presented me with a birthday brownie complete with candle and song! It was very meaningful. I stayed as long as I could and then went into the parking lot and cried.
Anne's absence was so deep in that place and in that moment. It was more than I could bear. I've noticed, of course, that when I am in other locales, I don't have such experiences. I really think I will need to find another place to live in the long run, but that decisions is at least months away. For now, I think I can take Lincoln in small doses and then need to escape for a while. Eventually I will, I think, start my new life elsewhere.
The same is true of many people from our life together here. I'm sorry that I don't have more interest in seeing people from the past thirteen years. But emotionally I'm leaving Lincoln, whether I do so physically right now or not. The connections that exist are mostly painful if they exist at all. The house has been burned to the ground. I will need to rebuild elsewhere.
I visited our attorney to secure some necessary documents and to begin the process of creating an up to date will and powers of attorney. That certainly brought home again the reality of my own death. I pray that my boys don't have to deal with that any time soon.
So I did something that has been therapeutic in the past. I cooked. I hadn't cooked in our kitchen since Anne died. Granted, it was hamburger helper stroganoff and I had to substitute a few ingredients, but the process was life-giving and the product was fairly edible. Now I also have leftovers...something that might not have happened before.
A phone call with sister, Judy, helped to right the emotional ship a bit. Another day in paradise.
That is what life feels like in Lincoln now--in many ways for me, the city of death. The year began with the death of Ben Larson, my former parish intern, in the Haitian earthquake. Other local tragedies followed, culminating in Anne's death. Mostly ashes with hot spots here and there--and when I reach out to grab anything, the result is likely to be pain.
The folks at Anne's workplace invited me to their Christmas luncheon today. I want to be clear that I am so very grateful for the invitation, and I really enjoyed my time with all of Anne's very good friends and co-workers. They even presented me with a birthday brownie complete with candle and song! It was very meaningful. I stayed as long as I could and then went into the parking lot and cried.
Anne's absence was so deep in that place and in that moment. It was more than I could bear. I've noticed, of course, that when I am in other locales, I don't have such experiences. I really think I will need to find another place to live in the long run, but that decisions is at least months away. For now, I think I can take Lincoln in small doses and then need to escape for a while. Eventually I will, I think, start my new life elsewhere.
The same is true of many people from our life together here. I'm sorry that I don't have more interest in seeing people from the past thirteen years. But emotionally I'm leaving Lincoln, whether I do so physically right now or not. The connections that exist are mostly painful if they exist at all. The house has been burned to the ground. I will need to rebuild elsewhere.
I visited our attorney to secure some necessary documents and to begin the process of creating an up to date will and powers of attorney. That certainly brought home again the reality of my own death. I pray that my boys don't have to deal with that any time soon.
So I did something that has been therapeutic in the past. I cooked. I hadn't cooked in our kitchen since Anne died. Granted, it was hamburger helper stroganoff and I had to substitute a few ingredients, but the process was life-giving and the product was fairly edible. Now I also have leftovers...something that might not have happened before.
A phone call with sister, Judy, helped to right the emotional ship a bit. Another day in paradise.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Nothing Good is Lost
Oh, the thoughts that come to me standing in the shower...Suddenly I was with Anne in an exam room at the Williamsburg Veterinary Clinic. Our beloved Rotweiler, Ginger, eleven years old and a wonderful friend--her kidneys were failing her because of her diabetes. For two years Anne had given Ginger the shots to maintain her blood sugar, managed her diet, exercised her without fail. How they loved one another. But now, we had to do something to help Ginger leave this misery behind.
Anne insisted that we would be with Ginger as she died. The drugs were administered, and Anne held Ginger's head in her lap. She stroked her ears and told her everything would be all right. When Ginger breathed her last, Anne hugged her close and cried like I had seen few times in our life together. Then she got up, wiped her eyes, and we let our puppy go.
Somehow for a moment that all ran together with our last hours at home. We administered the drugs needed to help Annie be comfortable. We held her close and told her we loved her. We stroked her hair and sang to her and rubbed her feet. But we knew we couldn't keep her here in that pain and struggle. So we helped her to go and rest in Jesus' arms.
The old question is, "Do dogs go to heaven?" Of course at our house the question was also applied to rats, lizards, fish and guinea pigs. The question is deeper than that. Will those wonderful creatures join us in the New Life? I think the answer is an unequivocal "Yes!" If the meaning of the New Creation is that God will lose nothing that is good (a la N. T. Wright) then our beloved Ginger will be part of that New Creation as will be so much of Anne that I can hardly wait to see her. More than that, Paul assures us that all of creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. All of Creation.
So I see my Annie, holding Ginger close once again, stroking her ears and smiling. It will be all joy on that day when we are reunited as children of God in that New Creation where the smiling never ends.
Anne insisted that we would be with Ginger as she died. The drugs were administered, and Anne held Ginger's head in her lap. She stroked her ears and told her everything would be all right. When Ginger breathed her last, Anne hugged her close and cried like I had seen few times in our life together. Then she got up, wiped her eyes, and we let our puppy go.
Somehow for a moment that all ran together with our last hours at home. We administered the drugs needed to help Annie be comfortable. We held her close and told her we loved her. We stroked her hair and sang to her and rubbed her feet. But we knew we couldn't keep her here in that pain and struggle. So we helped her to go and rest in Jesus' arms.
The old question is, "Do dogs go to heaven?" Of course at our house the question was also applied to rats, lizards, fish and guinea pigs. The question is deeper than that. Will those wonderful creatures join us in the New Life? I think the answer is an unequivocal "Yes!" If the meaning of the New Creation is that God will lose nothing that is good (a la N. T. Wright) then our beloved Ginger will be part of that New Creation as will be so much of Anne that I can hardly wait to see her. More than that, Paul assures us that all of creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. All of Creation.
So I see my Annie, holding Ginger close once again, stroking her ears and smiling. It will be all joy on that day when we are reunited as children of God in that New Creation where the smiling never ends.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Sometimes too much time
I like travel time these days for thinking, singing, working on poems, and just the sheer escape it provides. But sometimes there is too much think time available. As I drove thi afternoon I thought about the days that led up to Anne's hospitalization. What if I had known just a bit more about endocarditis--or anything at all? What if I had recognized her sore chest as transferred pain from her heart rather than just another flu symptom? What if I had just mentioned that pain in the ER--would they have done an echocardiogram then and there? Would it have made any difference?
If I had known even a little bit then of what I know now, would Anne still be alive?
I don't know. Doctors assured me that I did what any normal, reasonable person would do. In my head I know that's true. But it doesn't keep those doubts out of my guts from time to time. What if I could have done something, anything, to save her? But I couldn't.
I imagine this sort of survivor's guilt is just part of the deal. It made my drive blue for thirty miles or so, and I am still thinking about it now. I'll never know if anything would have made any difference. And we can never act then on what we know now. Otherwise we (I) would have done something. But this sort of thinking is certainly another way that the pain tears away at my heart a little bit in those unguarded and unregulated moments.
It was good that I needed to stop for gas and lunch. A change in scenery brought a change in perspective, and I was able to go on. But it was another reminder of how much stuff there is to work through over and over and over again--even on days when I seem to be doing pretty well.
If I had known even a little bit then of what I know now, would Anne still be alive?
I don't know. Doctors assured me that I did what any normal, reasonable person would do. In my head I know that's true. But it doesn't keep those doubts out of my guts from time to time. What if I could have done something, anything, to save her? But I couldn't.
I imagine this sort of survivor's guilt is just part of the deal. It made my drive blue for thirty miles or so, and I am still thinking about it now. I'll never know if anything would have made any difference. And we can never act then on what we know now. Otherwise we (I) would have done something. But this sort of thinking is certainly another way that the pain tears away at my heart a little bit in those unguarded and unregulated moments.
It was good that I needed to stop for gas and lunch. A change in scenery brought a change in perspective, and I was able to go on. But it was another reminder of how much stuff there is to work through over and over and over again--even on days when I seem to be doing pretty well.
Moon Sightings
I woke up early with a memory of Anne. We went to San Diego in January one year for couple time, without kids, dog, relatives, etc. We rented a condo between the bay and the ocean and had a wonderful time--whale watching, Sea World, shopping, driving up the coast.
There was little restaurant on the ocean side with outdoor seating, and we had breakfast there each morning. Not only could we see the water and hear the waves, but we could also watch the parade of humanity going up and down the broad concrete walkway that lines the shore for miles.
A partial eclipse of the moon was going to be visible from San Diego while we were there, and several events were scheduled around that eclipse. As we were eating breakfast the third morning, I noticed an odd looking roller blader coming from the north. He/she had some sort of large head decoration but it was obscure from a distance. As the skater got closer, I pointed him (it was definitely a him) out to Anne. On his head was a large reproduction of the crescent moon--nicely done. On the rest of him was a g-string and his skates and a very large grin.
"Now there's something you don't see every day," Anne said between bites of eggs. I had a few more colorful comments as I recall. Apparently this fellow was famous locally as the "naked skater." He has sported many creative non-outfits over the years and is tolerated as a tourist attraction.
The crescent moon on his head was matched by the full moon of his behind. Apparently it was an agreeable sight. Anne said, "I think I could develop an interest in astronomy," and then went back to her breakfast.
After I got done choking with laughter, I thought to myself, "What a woman I was given to love!"
Sweetheart, you were so much fun...
There was little restaurant on the ocean side with outdoor seating, and we had breakfast there each morning. Not only could we see the water and hear the waves, but we could also watch the parade of humanity going up and down the broad concrete walkway that lines the shore for miles.
A partial eclipse of the moon was going to be visible from San Diego while we were there, and several events were scheduled around that eclipse. As we were eating breakfast the third morning, I noticed an odd looking roller blader coming from the north. He/she had some sort of large head decoration but it was obscure from a distance. As the skater got closer, I pointed him (it was definitely a him) out to Anne. On his head was a large reproduction of the crescent moon--nicely done. On the rest of him was a g-string and his skates and a very large grin.
"Now there's something you don't see every day," Anne said between bites of eggs. I had a few more colorful comments as I recall. Apparently this fellow was famous locally as the "naked skater." He has sported many creative non-outfits over the years and is tolerated as a tourist attraction.
The crescent moon on his head was matched by the full moon of his behind. Apparently it was an agreeable sight. Anne said, "I think I could develop an interest in astronomy," and then went back to her breakfast.
After I got done choking with laughter, I thought to myself, "What a woman I was given to love!"
Sweetheart, you were so much fun...
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
May God Bless the Memory of Karen Barrett
I just heard from my friend, Dave Barrett. His wife, Karen, entered the blessed rest of all the saints after a struggle with lung cancer. Dave was at her side, caring for her at home. She had time with family earlier in the day. And then it was time to go home to Jesus. Dave, I love you and hurt for you tonight. I also know the joy and the gratitude that you feel right there in the midst of the agony. Get some rest, my friend, the battle is over and the victory is won.
Seeing Upside Down
I developed a "floater" in my right eye a few days ago. I went to my optometrist today to see what the story was. It appears off in the far corner of my visual field and is sort of a translucent thread once in a while--not a bother or even a real distraction. But it wasn't something I just wanted to wish away.
I pointed to the upper right part of my eye and said, "It must be there." She said, "No, it's actually in the lower left hand part." A little shadow showed up on a scan--a concentration of some vitreous fluid that bears watching but is no big deal at this point. We'll check in a month when I have my regular exam.
I was reminded that in reality we see everything upside down. The images of the world that make it through our eyes are literally 180 degrees off from reality. We have to learn to see things upside down and pretend that they are right side up.
I've read about experiments where people have worn glasses that reversed the images again. It wasn't long before they learned to deal with the world that way. When the glasses were removed, they had to reorient again, but they did.
Learning to see the world upside down--that seems to be my task as well these days.
I pointed to the upper right part of my eye and said, "It must be there." She said, "No, it's actually in the lower left hand part." A little shadow showed up on a scan--a concentration of some vitreous fluid that bears watching but is no big deal at this point. We'll check in a month when I have my regular exam.
I was reminded that in reality we see everything upside down. The images of the world that make it through our eyes are literally 180 degrees off from reality. We have to learn to see things upside down and pretend that they are right side up.
I've read about experiments where people have worn glasses that reversed the images again. It wasn't long before they learned to deal with the world that way. When the glasses were removed, they had to reorient again, but they did.
Learning to see the world upside down--that seems to be my task as well these days.
Moving forward
I have applied for admission to the Masters of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Creighton. It's mostly an online program, and I'll start in January. Anne and I had talked about this but decided it wasn't possible before. Now it is. So I'll be a student (officially...I've never not been a student in my life).
http://creighton-online.com/programs/masters-degree-in-organizational-transactional-dispute-resolution.asp
http://creighton-online.com/programs/masters-degree-in-organizational-transactional-dispute-resolution.asp
If You're Not on the Edge...
I love this picture. Notice that only one person is smiling at this point--not our guide, not me, not Scott, and certainly not the boys. I love that grin on Anne's face. She was in her glory. She didn't much care for roller coasters and other thrill rides. They made her nauseous and dizzy. And they only pretended to be risky. But this! Oh, she would have done this all day and come back for more. We had hoped someday to raft the Arkansas River through the Royal Gorge together. Well, maybe I will...
Here is where the stories of Anne Hennigs and Ben Larson run together a bit. I remember one of Ben's best sermons at Our Saviour's. The theme was, "If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space." He was talking about Anne even though he didn't realize it. Few people knew Anne's desire to live on the real edge of life, where the outcome might be in doubt and where you could feel your heart pump and your pulse race. But that was the Anne I knew and loved so dearly. She sought out the edges of real life and lived fearlessly. She took me along and taught me how to do it. That's one of the reasons she was so much fun.
The raft behind us that day was filled with last-minute novices who declined the wet suits and thought their blue jeans would do. We hoped the disaster we foresaw wouldn't happen, but it did. Over they went against a large rock and five people were dumped into the river. As we rafted, we picked up three of them, one bleeding from his scalp after striking a rock, all of them dazed and with teeth chattering. Anne, of course, went into rescue mode and directed operations in our raft better than our (quite wonderful and patient) guide. She was magnificent. I was a bit awestruck.
I remember the looks on the faces of Steve and Greg as we pulled people out of the frigid water. This wasn't a roller coaster at Worlds of Fun. This was living on the edge of life and death. This was serious. This was real. And this was where their mother was at her best--embracing life in all its mystery, complexity, risk and challenge, and loving every minute of the adventure. I was so honored to be part of that life and she taught me so much about really living in the moment.
I love that picture in part because that's what my life looks like right now. It'll be all right, even though there will more turbulence ahead. Big rapids don't scare me now. We've been there before and have come out fine. We have a wonderful guide in the Holy Spirit. And I can see Anne in the back, smiling.
I miss you, honey. But I'm glad you're still in the boat.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Fainting no Longer Permitted
The summer after we were engaged, Anne got a job at a local veterinarian's office in Marion. You wouldn't know this, probably, but Anne hated needles. A childhood condition had necessitated a fair bit of medical attention when she was quite small. And the experience traumatized her to no small degree. Anne's mom has often said that she knew it was true love when Anne agreed to a blood test!
Somehow, it didn't occur to her that veterinarians would also use needles. She was excited about the puppies and kitties and working with animals. The first day, the doc needed to sedate a dog before a procedure. Out came the needle. Anne took one look, fainted, and hit the floor. The doc thought he was going to have to hire someone else for the summer. But not so fast, my friend! This was our Annie.
She picked herself up and jammed about three sticks of gum in her mouth. Somehow, focusing on the chewing kept her from noticing the needles. She grabbed the dog, and the doc got to work. It turned out to be a good summer job.
When we got to Clear Lake, Anne was looking for some work outside the home. I mentioned to Paul Fynskov, local vet and congregational member, that Anne had worked a summer as an assistant. I didn't mention the needle business because I didn't think anything would come of it. A week later, Anne was working in the Clear Lake Veterinary Hospital. She worked there for four years, four years at the Cedar Valley Veterinary hospitals in Cedar Falls and Waterloo, and several years at the Williamsburg Vet Clinic here in Lincoln.
Not once did she faint when the needles came out. But she went through a lot of gum in those thirteen years.
This is a wonderful part of Anne's memory for me. She was tough and practical. She could find a way to persevere through anything. If she had a goal, you would be well-served not to be an obstacle. And that was especially true if the goal had to do with caring for animals or children.
If she could get through the needles, then I can get through this pain. Thank you, dearest. You know how to show me the way.
Somehow, it didn't occur to her that veterinarians would also use needles. She was excited about the puppies and kitties and working with animals. The first day, the doc needed to sedate a dog before a procedure. Out came the needle. Anne took one look, fainted, and hit the floor. The doc thought he was going to have to hire someone else for the summer. But not so fast, my friend! This was our Annie.
She picked herself up and jammed about three sticks of gum in her mouth. Somehow, focusing on the chewing kept her from noticing the needles. She grabbed the dog, and the doc got to work. It turned out to be a good summer job.
When we got to Clear Lake, Anne was looking for some work outside the home. I mentioned to Paul Fynskov, local vet and congregational member, that Anne had worked a summer as an assistant. I didn't mention the needle business because I didn't think anything would come of it. A week later, Anne was working in the Clear Lake Veterinary Hospital. She worked there for four years, four years at the Cedar Valley Veterinary hospitals in Cedar Falls and Waterloo, and several years at the Williamsburg Vet Clinic here in Lincoln.
Not once did she faint when the needles came out. But she went through a lot of gum in those thirteen years.
This is a wonderful part of Anne's memory for me. She was tough and practical. She could find a way to persevere through anything. If she had a goal, you would be well-served not to be an obstacle. And that was especially true if the goal had to do with caring for animals or children.
If she could get through the needles, then I can get through this pain. Thank you, dearest. You know how to show me the way.
On the Far Shore
On the shore of Lake Wenesaga
Late evening in June
Sun going down through the trees behind us
The lake like a crystal mirror
That draws me into the blue
Anne's most very favorite color
The sound of waves caressing the shore
From where?
Oh, yes, a boat was moving
Two miles away
Thirty minutes before
So long ago to be almost forgotten
Now the ripples have traveled
The width of the lake
To remind us of that boat's passing
Fisherman looking for
Just a few more trophies
Before calling it a day
Today I am again on the shores of that lake
Hearing the ripples of your life
And love
Produced weeks and months and years
Ago
Out of memory until now
Your mentee called because
You changed her life
And the ripples still strike the shore
I hear from your Tanzania home girls
Almost paralyzed with tears
They loved you so much
More I cannot write without collapsing
I see the water's surface shift
The waves sound like your breathing
As you slept sound
I think I hear a boat off in the distance
Are you still at work?
I'll wait for more ripples
lrh
12/14/2010
Late evening in June
Sun going down through the trees behind us
The lake like a crystal mirror
That draws me into the blue
Anne's most very favorite color
The sound of waves caressing the shore
From where?
Oh, yes, a boat was moving
Two miles away
Thirty minutes before
So long ago to be almost forgotten
Now the ripples have traveled
The width of the lake
To remind us of that boat's passing
Fisherman looking for
Just a few more trophies
Before calling it a day
Today I am again on the shores of that lake
Hearing the ripples of your life
And love
Produced weeks and months and years
Ago
Out of memory until now
Your mentee called because
You changed her life
And the ripples still strike the shore
I hear from your Tanzania home girls
Almost paralyzed with tears
They loved you so much
More I cannot write without collapsing
I see the water's surface shift
The waves sound like your breathing
As you slept sound
I think I hear a boat off in the distance
Are you still at work?
I'll wait for more ripples
lrh
12/14/2010
Ripples of Life and Love
There's a poem brewing in this one, but it's not ready to be poured out yet. I can write while I cry and sniffle and cough my way through the pain. I got a call from a person at Teammates today. Anne had been a Teammates mentor and loved every minute of that calling. Mostly she was comfortable with not having had any daughters, but sometimes she needed to scratch that itch. Teammates mentoring started out as a way to do that. But it became so much more.
The call was to express sympathy first of all. The woman who called lost her husband on November 21st. Oh my goodness...so first we cried together for each other. How my heart ached for her, and I've never met her. Another addition to the prayer list. Then the second purpose. Anne's mentee, now a young adult, is having a few struggles and wondered if Anne might talk with her. She told the Teammates folks that it was because of Anne that she graduated from high school at all. That's when I really lost it. That was so wonderful to hear, and it just reminded me again of how desperately I miss Anne. Anne's mentee wanted to thank Anne and see if they could re-connect.
The question was two-fold. Could they tell the young woman that Anne had died? Yes...but please go gentle with that poor girl who already has enough hurt in her life. And could she call me if she wanted to? Yes, of course. Anne loved her and wanted the best for her and gave hours of her life to her, and told me about her--within the limits of confidentiality. How could I do any less than try to help more if I could?
We cried a bit more and wished each other well.
Anne's mentee called a bit later--devastated, crying, sad, almost speechless. I understand. I thought I would be debilitated when she called. But I was able to shift into caregiver mode and to help her cope a bit. I was sitting in the room where I have all of Anne's things and pictures. I know that Anne was allowed to give me the strength I needed to care her mentee. I don't know how else I could have gotten through that phone call.
Neither of us could talk all that much, so we agree to talk again later. I hope I can help her somehow, for Anne and for her. Honey, please help me to be wise and loving, like you. The ripples of your life and love continue to wash against the shores of my life. It's so wonderful to hurt this way. Strange, but true.
The call was to express sympathy first of all. The woman who called lost her husband on November 21st. Oh my goodness...so first we cried together for each other. How my heart ached for her, and I've never met her. Another addition to the prayer list. Then the second purpose. Anne's mentee, now a young adult, is having a few struggles and wondered if Anne might talk with her. She told the Teammates folks that it was because of Anne that she graduated from high school at all. That's when I really lost it. That was so wonderful to hear, and it just reminded me again of how desperately I miss Anne. Anne's mentee wanted to thank Anne and see if they could re-connect.
The question was two-fold. Could they tell the young woman that Anne had died? Yes...but please go gentle with that poor girl who already has enough hurt in her life. And could she call me if she wanted to? Yes, of course. Anne loved her and wanted the best for her and gave hours of her life to her, and told me about her--within the limits of confidentiality. How could I do any less than try to help more if I could?
We cried a bit more and wished each other well.
Anne's mentee called a bit later--devastated, crying, sad, almost speechless. I understand. I thought I would be debilitated when she called. But I was able to shift into caregiver mode and to help her cope a bit. I was sitting in the room where I have all of Anne's things and pictures. I know that Anne was allowed to give me the strength I needed to care her mentee. I don't know how else I could have gotten through that phone call.
Neither of us could talk all that much, so we agree to talk again later. I hope I can help her somehow, for Anne and for her. Honey, please help me to be wise and loving, like you. The ripples of your life and love continue to wash against the shores of my life. It's so wonderful to hurt this way. Strange, but true.
Situational Anger
I needed to renew the registration on Anne's truck. I tried first online, but that wasn't possible. I discovered later that it wasn't possible because the insurance made an error in listing the VIN number. But that's another story, and another irritation. Nonetheless, it was an oportunity to go to the DMV and get the truck re-titled to me alone, instead of to both of us.
I really hated to do that--just hated it. That was Anne's truck, and now it's mine (we were both on the previous title). Of course, I had to pay an extra ten dollars to buy my own truck from me, since it's a new title. Anne loved that truck. She shopped for it (for months on end). She negotiated with the salesman. All the folks at Sid Dillon knew her by sight and by first name. She signed all the paperwork. The first time I saw it was when she gave me that first proud ride in her brand new truck.
It just isn't right, damn it. I don't care who's name is on the title.. That truck was hers and no legal fiction is going to change that for me.
But there it is. So now I get to take care of her "baby." It's past due for an oil change, since I've been gone a lot. I have that scheduled for later in the week, so honey, you can relax a bit. I can hear you groaning over each extra mile beyond the three thousand. I know the poor thing is filthy, but it'll get washed when they change the oil, so calm down, dear. I can hear you fretting about your truck, and I promise to take the very best care of it that I can. I want it to be around for a long time.
It will always be your truck. Thank you for letting me use it.
I really hated to do that--just hated it. That was Anne's truck, and now it's mine (we were both on the previous title). Of course, I had to pay an extra ten dollars to buy my own truck from me, since it's a new title. Anne loved that truck. She shopped for it (for months on end). She negotiated with the salesman. All the folks at Sid Dillon knew her by sight and by first name. She signed all the paperwork. The first time I saw it was when she gave me that first proud ride in her brand new truck.
It just isn't right, damn it. I don't care who's name is on the title.. That truck was hers and no legal fiction is going to change that for me.
But there it is. So now I get to take care of her "baby." It's past due for an oil change, since I've been gone a lot. I have that scheduled for later in the week, so honey, you can relax a bit. I can hear you groaning over each extra mile beyond the three thousand. I know the poor thing is filthy, but it'll get washed when they change the oil, so calm down, dear. I can hear you fretting about your truck, and I promise to take the very best care of it that I can. I want it to be around for a long time.
It will always be your truck. Thank you for letting me use it.
Right on the Cheek
When we were at Central College, Anne introduced me to racquetball. She had been playing for a while, so she had fun teaching a novice (and a male who wasn't all that coordinated). After a few practices, she suggested we play a game. I served and then moved into playing position. I wasn't quite sure of racquetball court etiquette, and I moved directly into the line of fire. I also had no idea I was playing with one of the more competitive people on the planet.
She aimed carefully and placed that hard rubber ball directly on my right butt cheek. I stood up, rubbed the spot in surprise and turned around, expecting some sort of apology. She took the ball, bounced it a couple of times and said, "If you'd move your butt, it wouldn't get hit. My serve." Game on.
As I think back, that was perhaps the first moment I thought that I might love Anne. This is so much of who she was. Get on with it. If you can do something, don't just stand there. If you don't move, don't be surprised if you end up getting hit. She was a doer and she brought that out in me as well.
That memory helps me as I move from crisis and chaos mode into whatever "normal" will be. She won't be planning our social calendar. She won't be the social buffer for me when I'm emotionally drained. She will expect me move to move my butt or I might get hit.
So I'm making plans, doing things we had hoped we might do, doing things that I can do now in my new situation. Indeed, dear heart, doing is better than not doing. But I can still feel the spot where you smacked me for my own edification.
She aimed carefully and placed that hard rubber ball directly on my right butt cheek. I stood up, rubbed the spot in surprise and turned around, expecting some sort of apology. She took the ball, bounced it a couple of times and said, "If you'd move your butt, it wouldn't get hit. My serve." Game on.
As I think back, that was perhaps the first moment I thought that I might love Anne. This is so much of who she was. Get on with it. If you can do something, don't just stand there. If you don't move, don't be surprised if you end up getting hit. She was a doer and she brought that out in me as well.
That memory helps me as I move from crisis and chaos mode into whatever "normal" will be. She won't be planning our social calendar. She won't be the social buffer for me when I'm emotionally drained. She will expect me move to move my butt or I might get hit.
So I'm making plans, doing things we had hoped we might do, doing things that I can do now in my new situation. Indeed, dear heart, doing is better than not doing. But I can still feel the spot where you smacked me for my own edification.
Monday, December 13, 2010
On Loan
Steve was eleven monhs old and we were in the parsonage at Albert City. We had gotten a grocery store Christmas tree and put it up. We were letting it fall before trying to decorate it at the last minute. Steve was walking and got right into the tree with his toddler curiosity. He had a great time. Ten minutes later he was on the floor, having seizures and spiking a temperature of about 103.
We rushed him to the Buena Vista County hospital. They did a spinal tap and started talking about things like meningitis, encephalitis, paralysis and death. They said they couldn't any more for him. We decided to rush him to Sioux City, 70 miles away. The snow had begun to fall and by the time we left it was a full-fledged blizzard. A trip that normally took 90 minutes was nearly three hours long. The ambulance left ahead of us, and we hoped it went faster. But we didn't know, in that age before cell phones.
During those three hours we experienced a riot of emotions--fear, anger, grief, confusion. We weren't sure if our little boy was alive or dead. About halfway through the trip, after I had raged some more, Anne said quietly,"He was never ours, you know. We just have him on loan from God. If I understand this Lutheran baptism thing (she grew up Baptist), then that's what we believe, right?"
I nodded as I thought some more. She continued. "He came to us from God. He is God's hands now. No matter what happens, that will be true, right?" Of course she was right. We had him on loan. That calmed our nerves somehow. The good news is that all turned out fine for Steve and for us.
It was one of many moments when my sweetheart was the theological professor and I was the student. I was blessed to learn from her for over three decades.
On loan--I think of that now as I think about my dearest Annie girl. I miss her desperately at every moment, even as I begin to think about ways to move forward with living. But she was never mine really. She was on loan from God for a time, and I am so blessed to have been the loan recipient. Now she is where she will always be. I find great comfort and happiness in that.
We rushed him to the Buena Vista County hospital. They did a spinal tap and started talking about things like meningitis, encephalitis, paralysis and death. They said they couldn't any more for him. We decided to rush him to Sioux City, 70 miles away. The snow had begun to fall and by the time we left it was a full-fledged blizzard. A trip that normally took 90 minutes was nearly three hours long. The ambulance left ahead of us, and we hoped it went faster. But we didn't know, in that age before cell phones.
During those three hours we experienced a riot of emotions--fear, anger, grief, confusion. We weren't sure if our little boy was alive or dead. About halfway through the trip, after I had raged some more, Anne said quietly,"He was never ours, you know. We just have him on loan from God. If I understand this Lutheran baptism thing (she grew up Baptist), then that's what we believe, right?"
I nodded as I thought some more. She continued. "He came to us from God. He is God's hands now. No matter what happens, that will be true, right?" Of course she was right. We had him on loan. That calmed our nerves somehow. The good news is that all turned out fine for Steve and for us.
It was one of many moments when my sweetheart was the theological professor and I was the student. I was blessed to learn from her for over three decades.
On loan--I think of that now as I think about my dearest Annie girl. I miss her desperately at every moment, even as I begin to think about ways to move forward with living. But she was never mine really. She was on loan from God for a time, and I am so blessed to have been the loan recipient. Now she is where she will always be. I find great comfort and happiness in that.
Disposable Razors
She left behind half a dozen disposable razors
The color of our backyard roses
Delicate, thin handles, curved
Gently to fit the hand of one
Who still yelled when she nicked herself
In the shower
Throw them away unused?
I don't think so!
She would never consider such a waste
So I use them for a purpose
A bit beyond their intended
To scrape a layer off my face
Very sharp, well-balanced, easy to use
One by one they grow dull
And find their way into the wastebasket
Under the bathroom sink
Never to be used again
My supply grows small
What else about her life
Will I use to be wise and frugal
To finish off the last of a batch
To keep from wasting what is left
Of her memory
And then it's gone?
The color of our backyard roses
Delicate, thin handles, curved
Gently to fit the hand of one
Who still yelled when she nicked herself
In the shower
Throw them away unused?
I don't think so!
She would never consider such a waste
So I use them for a purpose
A bit beyond their intended
To scrape a layer off my face
Very sharp, well-balanced, easy to use
One by one they grow dull
And find their way into the wastebasket
Under the bathroom sink
Never to be used again
My supply grows small
What else about her life
Will I use to be wise and frugal
To finish off the last of a batch
To keep from wasting what is left
Of her memory
And then it's gone?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Now that I did the theoretical work to make my brain feel a bit more useful, I can deal with the presenting issue this evening: my Facebook profile picture. I love, love, love that picture of Anne and me from Steve's wedding. It is one of those I will always remember us together. It is what we had hoped we would be together in the years to come of our marriage. And that picture portrays a future which can not be again in this lifetime.
Do I keep it? Remembering is so sweet for a moment. Then it burns my eyes with warm tears. Am I picking at a scab or soothing my heart? I can go to those wonderful wedding pictures any time I want a lovely memory (and a good cry). And I will do that many times. But my heart begins to feel a bit better as I can--at least for a few moments a day--embrace the future that will be. That future has me in a picture by myself and being ok with that. That takes some getting used to, but I have to begin practicing somewhere and somehow.
I intend the change in the profile picture to be a positive step forward, and tonight it feels like that. Anne took the picture, so that is a small concession to how much I miss her. But it was her idea to take the pictures--in the Pike Place market in Seattle. So I get to have the memory of that day, and I can try to move forward by using that picture. As I write it seems like such a small thing, but I wrestled with that decision for most of the day.
One is no longer half of two. And my future hopes must be in terms of the one. I'm glad our Lord makes sure that even though I'm one, I'm never alone.
Do I keep it? Remembering is so sweet for a moment. Then it burns my eyes with warm tears. Am I picking at a scab or soothing my heart? I can go to those wonderful wedding pictures any time I want a lovely memory (and a good cry). And I will do that many times. But my heart begins to feel a bit better as I can--at least for a few moments a day--embrace the future that will be. That future has me in a picture by myself and being ok with that. That takes some getting used to, but I have to begin practicing somewhere and somehow.
I intend the change in the profile picture to be a positive step forward, and tonight it feels like that. Anne took the picture, so that is a small concession to how much I miss her. But it was her idea to take the pictures--in the Pike Place market in Seattle. So I get to have the memory of that day, and I can try to move forward by using that picture. As I write it seems like such a small thing, but I wrestled with that decision for most of the day.
One is no longer half of two. And my future hopes must be in terms of the one. I'm glad our Lord makes sure that even though I'm one, I'm never alone.
When Choice is not Free
Before Anne died, I was thoroughly engaged in the study of both the theology and psychology of hope. I am grateful for the personal resources that study provided during her hospitalization, death and the funeral. As the whirlwind begins to subside, I need to return to that study. If nothing else I need to get some sense of what "hope" looks like from my new vantage point.
Psychologists of hope identify three elements that increase hope in a person's psychological makeup. First is the sense that one can be an "agent"--that is, a person who can actually do something to move toward goals. Second is the actual pathway or pathways to that goal. Third is the larger framework within which goals might exist. That seems a little abstract, I imagine, but it's really pretty concrete for me.
My hopes for a future with Anne have been changed profoundly and irrevocably. Anne will not be part of my future in this life, except as an invisible traveling companion by God's grace. I have great hopes for Anne in her new life in Christ, resting in our Lord's arms. But what of my own hopes? There is no further pathway to the future we had envisioned together. I can't get there from here.
So I am pointed to a different future, whether I wish for that future or not. If I am to have any capacity to move into a future of life and health, then I must be willing to see that future and embrace the new pathways into that future. I can't stomp my feet, hold my breath, pout and force my wishes onto Reality. What I want to have happen is not what matters at this point. But I can attend to what's wanting to happen.
What I really want cannot happen, and I can choose to resist any alternative future. That, however, will only plunge me into chronic grief and daily despair. That would be a choice, but it doesn't sound like freedom. It would be a choice to join Anne prematurely in death. That would be a choice that reduces my agency, my capacity to move into any future at all. Instead, I can choose to rest in the process of my life as it unfolds by God's grace in Christ. That means pain at the moment, because something terrible has happened. I need to experience that pain, let it happen, for as long as it must happen. That's the only healing choice for someone who has suffered such a loss.
But this also means growth and hope for the future. It is one of the paradoxes of this experience that relinquishing my own way is the only path to real freedom and lasting hope. I think of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13--"Love does not insist on its own way..." That is the best counsel I've heard today.
Psychologists of hope identify three elements that increase hope in a person's psychological makeup. First is the sense that one can be an "agent"--that is, a person who can actually do something to move toward goals. Second is the actual pathway or pathways to that goal. Third is the larger framework within which goals might exist. That seems a little abstract, I imagine, but it's really pretty concrete for me.
My hopes for a future with Anne have been changed profoundly and irrevocably. Anne will not be part of my future in this life, except as an invisible traveling companion by God's grace. I have great hopes for Anne in her new life in Christ, resting in our Lord's arms. But what of my own hopes? There is no further pathway to the future we had envisioned together. I can't get there from here.
So I am pointed to a different future, whether I wish for that future or not. If I am to have any capacity to move into a future of life and health, then I must be willing to see that future and embrace the new pathways into that future. I can't stomp my feet, hold my breath, pout and force my wishes onto Reality. What I want to have happen is not what matters at this point. But I can attend to what's wanting to happen.
What I really want cannot happen, and I can choose to resist any alternative future. That, however, will only plunge me into chronic grief and daily despair. That would be a choice, but it doesn't sound like freedom. It would be a choice to join Anne prematurely in death. That would be a choice that reduces my agency, my capacity to move into any future at all. Instead, I can choose to rest in the process of my life as it unfolds by God's grace in Christ. That means pain at the moment, because something terrible has happened. I need to experience that pain, let it happen, for as long as it must happen. That's the only healing choice for someone who has suffered such a loss.
But this also means growth and hope for the future. It is one of the paradoxes of this experience that relinquishing my own way is the only path to real freedom and lasting hope. I think of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13--"Love does not insist on its own way..." That is the best counsel I've heard today.
Peanut without the Jelly
I attended a lovely concert last evening with family members. It featured real Advent music (not canned and overproduced Christmas music that really should wait its turn) that was beautifully done with a clear sense of expectation and hope. I think the performers were especially appreciative of the folks who braved the weather and the roads to be part of the experience. That appreciation shone through their performances and their comments.
The music moved me--especially a haunting performance of "Breath of Heaven." But for me it was like dry cereal without any milk: something (that is, someone) was missing. The form and content were there. It was ven good for me. But the substance was thin and less satisfying than I would have hoped. I am used to sharing something like this with Anne, used to turning to her in the middle of a beautiful song and seeing her smile. The performers and the performance were wonderful. But they couldn't fill in the gap.
This is peanut butter with the jelly, ham without the swiss, Abbott without Costello (it should be clear to all which one was the buffoon in our pair). It would be one thing not to have had such a diet or partnership in the past. We can't really miss fully what we don't know or haven't experienced. But it is quite another thing now to feel the absence, the deprivation, the vacuum. This isn't the sharp grief pain like a cramp for me. This was a dull ache that slowly drew the joy back out of the occassion. This is one of those things that, I imagine, one gets used to somewhat over time.
But I must say I don't like it.
I know that similar things--going to movies and ball games, for example--will present the same challenge. And I love to do both. It became clear during the concert that I had a couple of choices. I could avoid such things and deny the pain. But then I would go to no concerts or movies or games for a very long time. Or I can embrace the pain and enjoy the people I am with in Anne's absence--and begin to grow some new capacities. That's the option for life, hard as it is for now.
So I'll give it another go.
The music moved me--especially a haunting performance of "Breath of Heaven." But for me it was like dry cereal without any milk: something (that is, someone) was missing. The form and content were there. It was ven good for me. But the substance was thin and less satisfying than I would have hoped. I am used to sharing something like this with Anne, used to turning to her in the middle of a beautiful song and seeing her smile. The performers and the performance were wonderful. But they couldn't fill in the gap.
This is peanut butter with the jelly, ham without the swiss, Abbott without Costello (it should be clear to all which one was the buffoon in our pair). It would be one thing not to have had such a diet or partnership in the past. We can't really miss fully what we don't know or haven't experienced. But it is quite another thing now to feel the absence, the deprivation, the vacuum. This isn't the sharp grief pain like a cramp for me. This was a dull ache that slowly drew the joy back out of the occassion. This is one of those things that, I imagine, one gets used to somewhat over time.
But I must say I don't like it.
I know that similar things--going to movies and ball games, for example--will present the same challenge. And I love to do both. It became clear during the concert that I had a couple of choices. I could avoid such things and deny the pain. But then I would go to no concerts or movies or games for a very long time. Or I can embrace the pain and enjoy the people I am with in Anne's absence--and begin to grow some new capacities. That's the option for life, hard as it is for now.
So I'll give it another go.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
From Tom Franti
Let It Blow
This wind is like grief that howls,
then goes silent
as this empty house.
Its will is beyond mine.
Not seen, only heard
howling in my head.
Where is my retreat?
Ear plugs of the heart?
A disappearing act?
The howl may be more welcome than silence.
In the Highlands when the wind blows,
they let it blow.
12/11/10
T.G. Franti
This wind is like grief that howls,
then goes silent
as this empty house.
Its will is beyond mine.
Not seen, only heard
howling in my head.
Where is my retreat?
Ear plugs of the heart?
A disappearing act?
The howl may be more welcome than silence.
In the Highlands when the wind blows,
they let it blow.
12/11/10
T.G. Franti
Resurrection Romance
I have so often scoffed at the "reincarnation romances" that are always sure box office successes. For our generation it was "Heaven Can Wait" (the Warren Beatty remake--I love that movie, by the way) and "Ghost" (I despise that movie, by the way). There is the blissful love, the tragic and premature ending, the sense of unfinished business and the miraculous "one last time" from beyond the grave, accompanied by strains of "Unchained Melody."
How I understand the longing, that desperate hunger, for one last touch or kiss or smile! I have begged for that very thing in the wee hours of several dark mornings. At those moments I would do anything for that "just once more."
And then what? Would I have Anne die all over again--fading into some indeterminate light as the movie credits begin to roll? I would simply want her one more time...and just one more time after that...and just one more time after that...until I hated her for leaving again.
The movie makers know how to sell tickets, but they know little about such loss. Thirty-one years were not enough--and yet, they were. Thirty-one thousand years would not be enough to enjoy all our love and life and longings. Yet thirty-one seconds would be more than enough to be filled with all Christ has given me through Anne. After all, the Lord does not revoke such gifts at death.
On my own I can only conjure up my images of Anne, as Jack Lewis realized about Joy Gresham. The reincarnation romances do much the same thing. They conjure up two-dimensional images that might salve one-dimensional points of pain. Then they are gone. Those images are not people. My Anne will not tolerate being reduced to a self-help technique or a pain-relieving tablet.
"How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back!" This is the conclusion, the punchline, to Lewis' essay. Wicked, indeed. I could only recall a cartoon character, a cardboard cut-out, a prescription tailored to treat my own despair. It is our Lord who has charge of this Resurrection business, not I.
And I am glad.
How I understand the longing, that desperate hunger, for one last touch or kiss or smile! I have begged for that very thing in the wee hours of several dark mornings. At those moments I would do anything for that "just once more."
And then what? Would I have Anne die all over again--fading into some indeterminate light as the movie credits begin to roll? I would simply want her one more time...and just one more time after that...and just one more time after that...until I hated her for leaving again.
The movie makers know how to sell tickets, but they know little about such loss. Thirty-one years were not enough--and yet, they were. Thirty-one thousand years would not be enough to enjoy all our love and life and longings. Yet thirty-one seconds would be more than enough to be filled with all Christ has given me through Anne. After all, the Lord does not revoke such gifts at death.
On my own I can only conjure up my images of Anne, as Jack Lewis realized about Joy Gresham. The reincarnation romances do much the same thing. They conjure up two-dimensional images that might salve one-dimensional points of pain. Then they are gone. Those images are not people. My Anne will not tolerate being reduced to a self-help technique or a pain-relieving tablet.
"How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back!" This is the conclusion, the punchline, to Lewis' essay. Wicked, indeed. I could only recall a cartoon character, a cardboard cut-out, a prescription tailored to treat my own despair. It is our Lord who has charge of this Resurrection business, not I.
And I am glad.
A Shared Storm
"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't."--C. S. Lews, A Grief Observed
I read and re-read Lewis' words. Once I get past the agonzing howl of the first chapters (necessary as the howling is) then I can hear some of my own experience. I think about what I wrote in Anne's Carepages. The words arrived, uninvited, uncrafted, unrefined. Up to that moment I don't think I really had an appreciation of the depth of my passion and appreciation for my sweet Annie. It was in those searing moments facing death together that I received a deep clarity about our love, and how that love had always rested so deeply in Christ's love for us.
I am thinking this morning about a foolish adventure we had together--another time that we faced death together. We were fishing a large Canadian lake. The wind had blown a gale for two days, rendering anything other than short trips in our own bay impossible. The clock was ticking on my precious vacation time and we were imprisoned in a camper with nothing to do. The wind went down a bit the third morning. I looked across the bay and said, "It looks a little better." So off we went.
It was not a little better. If anything it was worse. On big water there comes a point where one has gone too far to turn back. The waves were running 5 to 8 feet. A turn would have been disastrous. So for 45 minutes I guided the boat at a slight angle up one side of the wave, turned at the crest, and then at a slight angle down the other side. My poor family huddled in the front of the boat, white with fear. I thought to myself, "I shall certainly go to Hell for doing this to the people I love."
Then we arrived in a quiet bay and spent the day fishing, drying clothes, walking on shore and living in sheer joy. Toward sundown the wind did truly subside and we came back to our camper. The trip was utter foolishness. But the outcome was exhiliration. Somehow Anne and I had faced death together and come out on the other side in triumph. It was a magnificently shared triumph. We had to exercise some creativity to find a quiet and secret place for the giddy and victorious lovemaking of that night.
We faced death together--I with my hand on the tiller, Anne looking back at me with determination and such courage, and a measure of trust that in retrospect seems not quite justified. I see myself at the foot of her hospital bed as she faces me, and for a moment I can see the waves buffet our little boat and feel the spray on my face. Somehow, sweetheart, it feels like we took that trip again. The storm is now over for you, I hope. For a while I'll run the boat by myself, and the waves are challenging. But I know that the storm revealed our love more than it threatened our lives.
Such interesting points of gratitude in this life.
I read and re-read Lewis' words. Once I get past the agonzing howl of the first chapters (necessary as the howling is) then I can hear some of my own experience. I think about what I wrote in Anne's Carepages. The words arrived, uninvited, uncrafted, unrefined. Up to that moment I don't think I really had an appreciation of the depth of my passion and appreciation for my sweet Annie. It was in those searing moments facing death together that I received a deep clarity about our love, and how that love had always rested so deeply in Christ's love for us.
I am thinking this morning about a foolish adventure we had together--another time that we faced death together. We were fishing a large Canadian lake. The wind had blown a gale for two days, rendering anything other than short trips in our own bay impossible. The clock was ticking on my precious vacation time and we were imprisoned in a camper with nothing to do. The wind went down a bit the third morning. I looked across the bay and said, "It looks a little better." So off we went.
It was not a little better. If anything it was worse. On big water there comes a point where one has gone too far to turn back. The waves were running 5 to 8 feet. A turn would have been disastrous. So for 45 minutes I guided the boat at a slight angle up one side of the wave, turned at the crest, and then at a slight angle down the other side. My poor family huddled in the front of the boat, white with fear. I thought to myself, "I shall certainly go to Hell for doing this to the people I love."
Then we arrived in a quiet bay and spent the day fishing, drying clothes, walking on shore and living in sheer joy. Toward sundown the wind did truly subside and we came back to our camper. The trip was utter foolishness. But the outcome was exhiliration. Somehow Anne and I had faced death together and come out on the other side in triumph. It was a magnificently shared triumph. We had to exercise some creativity to find a quiet and secret place for the giddy and victorious lovemaking of that night.
We faced death together--I with my hand on the tiller, Anne looking back at me with determination and such courage, and a measure of trust that in retrospect seems not quite justified. I see myself at the foot of her hospital bed as she faces me, and for a moment I can see the waves buffet our little boat and feel the spray on my face. Somehow, sweetheart, it feels like we took that trip again. The storm is now over for you, I hope. For a while I'll run the boat by myself, and the waves are challenging. But I know that the storm revealed our love more than it threatened our lives.
Such interesting points of gratitude in this life.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Not Better
In order to be healthy and to stay rooted in reality, I have to remember certain things that are painful to retain and simpler to forget. Chief among those things is this. I am not getting better, yet. Anne died twenty days ago. I may have many cheerful, resilient and even happy moments. I can imagine that there will be a future some day. I can do what I need to do to get through today, the holidays, whatever. Yes, yes, yes--that is how it appears. And that is how it appears to me. But I am not getting better.
"Better" is a long ways off. I am so sorely tempted to go around the process, to seek a short-circuit, to cheat the system and dodge the pain. There are so many ways to do that for a hour or even a day. But the reality of my life will not be denied. At some point, the blues kick in and I know that my efforts at self-delusion have failed again. I am also, however, not getting worse, crashing and burning, wigging out, buying a condo in Rio and booking the next flight south. This is going to be bad for a long time. But Anne died. I didn't. And I'm doing my best to find moments of joy in the midst of the pain, without taking that wild and crazy South American trip.
A few special people are wonderful companions in those brief moments of joy and hope--family and a few friends. I am so grateful I'd weep for joy if I weren't parched from weeping for sorrow.
A second thing to remember comes as a reminder some time ago from a wise therapist. Suffering is pain plus resistance (it was the Buddha with the original, I think). It is when I resist the pain that I suffer the most. The pain hurts, but it works best for me if I can feel it, cry, and then go on. It is when I exercise such herculean strength as to hold it at arm's length for a moment or two that I scream in agony. The pain indicates that something terrible has happened to me and that my body, mind and spirit are working overtime to survive and to heal. The more I resist, the less energy there is for the healing.
A third thing I must tell myself over and over is that time is my companion in this journey, not my enemy. Sometimes minutes seem like days. Part of that is that I'm not working and time slows naturally when one is less busy. Part of it is the lethargy of grief. Part of it is sitting through the pain episodes, waiting for them to end. But time is also the space available for prayer, meditation, deep breathing, exercise, reflection, story telling and picture sorting. Time is my friend in this process. Anne is in the timeless realm. I will join her soon enough, but not yet. Another friend reminded me that it is Advent, after all--the time of waiting and watching and wondering. That is what I do.
I must remind myself that no one else can give me what Anne gave me. She is irreplaceable (which in the long run is different from un-succeedable, but that is a conversation for two years from now). Efforts to fill in the void somewhow are vain. Those needs must give way naturally, and that takes us back to time. On the other hand, I can begin to look for other sources of hope, joy, love and companionship--but only when the previous things have become more resolved. For now, I am not better. But I am also not unconscious.
Thus...I am grateful.
"Better" is a long ways off. I am so sorely tempted to go around the process, to seek a short-circuit, to cheat the system and dodge the pain. There are so many ways to do that for a hour or even a day. But the reality of my life will not be denied. At some point, the blues kick in and I know that my efforts at self-delusion have failed again. I am also, however, not getting worse, crashing and burning, wigging out, buying a condo in Rio and booking the next flight south. This is going to be bad for a long time. But Anne died. I didn't. And I'm doing my best to find moments of joy in the midst of the pain, without taking that wild and crazy South American trip.
A few special people are wonderful companions in those brief moments of joy and hope--family and a few friends. I am so grateful I'd weep for joy if I weren't parched from weeping for sorrow.
A second thing to remember comes as a reminder some time ago from a wise therapist. Suffering is pain plus resistance (it was the Buddha with the original, I think). It is when I resist the pain that I suffer the most. The pain hurts, but it works best for me if I can feel it, cry, and then go on. It is when I exercise such herculean strength as to hold it at arm's length for a moment or two that I scream in agony. The pain indicates that something terrible has happened to me and that my body, mind and spirit are working overtime to survive and to heal. The more I resist, the less energy there is for the healing.
A third thing I must tell myself over and over is that time is my companion in this journey, not my enemy. Sometimes minutes seem like days. Part of that is that I'm not working and time slows naturally when one is less busy. Part of it is the lethargy of grief. Part of it is sitting through the pain episodes, waiting for them to end. But time is also the space available for prayer, meditation, deep breathing, exercise, reflection, story telling and picture sorting. Time is my friend in this process. Anne is in the timeless realm. I will join her soon enough, but not yet. Another friend reminded me that it is Advent, after all--the time of waiting and watching and wondering. That is what I do.
I must remind myself that no one else can give me what Anne gave me. She is irreplaceable (which in the long run is different from un-succeedable, but that is a conversation for two years from now). Efforts to fill in the void somewhow are vain. Those needs must give way naturally, and that takes us back to time. On the other hand, I can begin to look for other sources of hope, joy, love and companionship--but only when the previous things have become more resolved. For now, I am not better. But I am also not unconscious.
Thus...I am grateful.
In a Word, Real...
In A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis wrties these remarkable words: "The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unimistakably other, resistant, in a word, real."
Yes, that is suddenly missing from any encounter I have with Anne. She has no schedules or agendas. She offers no contrary opinions or alternative perspectives. She is perpetually available and infintely absent, all at one sitting. She cannot provide a fence to corral my mental meanderings, a wedge to force me back into the midst of this grieving process. If I want to launch into flights of fancy or the depths of obsession, she is along for the ride without protest or praise. Her pictures always smile--such a convenient escape.
So I find the reality of others critical as I live through this. You have a job, even if I have taken this sabbatical of sorrow. You have appointments even though I can clear the calendar simply by pointing to my dead wife and watching everyone else scurry. You have commitments and enjoyments, responsibilities and the need for rest. I can shred my to do list and I get a pass. Your sheer solidity--your life in both the profound and ordinary sense--provides a backstop that keeps my grieving in play.
I am suggesting that in my experience today, this is a very good thing for me. Because, without some sort of resistance, some boundaries, something of Real Life, I would flee and flounder and flop around in agony without shape or direction. But when you continue to live around me and beyond my own self-preoccupation, you re-root me in Living too.
So odd that your need to put me off and get some things done may be the best thing you can do to help me today.
Yes, that is suddenly missing from any encounter I have with Anne. She has no schedules or agendas. She offers no contrary opinions or alternative perspectives. She is perpetually available and infintely absent, all at one sitting. She cannot provide a fence to corral my mental meanderings, a wedge to force me back into the midst of this grieving process. If I want to launch into flights of fancy or the depths of obsession, she is along for the ride without protest or praise. Her pictures always smile--such a convenient escape.
So I find the reality of others critical as I live through this. You have a job, even if I have taken this sabbatical of sorrow. You have appointments even though I can clear the calendar simply by pointing to my dead wife and watching everyone else scurry. You have commitments and enjoyments, responsibilities and the need for rest. I can shred my to do list and I get a pass. Your sheer solidity--your life in both the profound and ordinary sense--provides a backstop that keeps my grieving in play.
I am suggesting that in my experience today, this is a very good thing for me. Because, without some sort of resistance, some boundaries, something of Real Life, I would flee and flounder and flop around in agony without shape or direction. But when you continue to live around me and beyond my own self-preoccupation, you re-root me in Living too.
So odd that your need to put me off and get some things done may be the best thing you can do to help me today.
After All
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
certificates arrived listing your cause of death as "multi-organ failure"
I cry six times a day even in the midst of being happy
The wooden box on the mantle is pretty but I didn't get it as a decor element
People keep saying
I'm so sorry
I just can imagine
You have my sympathy
I'm praying for you
If there's anything I can do
Don't hesitate to call any time
Let us know how we can help
And all that would sound pretty stupid if you weren't dead.
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
I've cancelled most of your credit cards and you'll be really pissed if you're not dead
The management at Kohl's and Dress Barn and Target and Walmart have declared fiscal emergencies because you're no longer coming
I own an account called the "Anne Hennigs Memorial Fund"--ATM card and everything
I get letters addressed to "The Estate of Anne Lynnette Hennigs" and it's not a mistake
I signed life insurance claim forms
pension reassignment forms
annuity beneficiary forms
and forms for more forms
(I made up that last part).
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
I gave away some of your clothes to family
I gave away some of your clothes and shoes to strangers
I put the special things in my Annie spot
And figured out what to do with your underwear (enough said)
And if you're not dead you'll be so irritated (please see above for further details).
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
the "we's" are now "I's"
the "ours" are now "my's"
the "us" is now "me"
After all.
After all,
certificates arrived listing your cause of death as "multi-organ failure"
I cry six times a day even in the midst of being happy
The wooden box on the mantle is pretty but I didn't get it as a decor element
People keep saying
I'm so sorry
I just can imagine
You have my sympathy
I'm praying for you
If there's anything I can do
Don't hesitate to call any time
Let us know how we can help
And all that would sound pretty stupid if you weren't dead.
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
I've cancelled most of your credit cards and you'll be really pissed if you're not dead
The management at Kohl's and Dress Barn and Target and Walmart have declared fiscal emergencies because you're no longer coming
I own an account called the "Anne Hennigs Memorial Fund"--ATM card and everything
I get letters addressed to "The Estate of Anne Lynnette Hennigs" and it's not a mistake
I signed life insurance claim forms
pension reassignment forms
annuity beneficiary forms
and forms for more forms
(I made up that last part).
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
I gave away some of your clothes to family
I gave away some of your clothes and shoes to strangers
I put the special things in my Annie spot
And figured out what to do with your underwear (enough said)
And if you're not dead you'll be so irritated (please see above for further details).
You must be dead, sweetheart.
After all,
the "we's" are now "I's"
the "ours" are now "my's"
the "us" is now "me"
After all.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Love Perfected
Thomas Lynch notes that the dead don't care, that the dead are beyond caring or not caring. That is a description certainly of what we may observe or experience. But it is certainly not the only available description--especially if one is a Jesus follower.
Certainly the dead need nothing further from us. I have nothing I can give that Anne needs--not any longer. I would agree with Lynch that she and all the dead are beyond needing. That, however, equips Anne to love as God loves--without self concern or unfulfilled desire. Anne can love me in Christ and for God--as I am, without reservation, hesitation or condition. Perhaps this is the vocation of those who have joined that "great cloud of witnesses."
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear," we can read in John's first letter. Perfection here means completion, fulfillment, coming to the end for which something or someone was made. Our mortal love--even that of the greatest saints--must be at least tinged with the fear of loss. For lose we must--sooner or later. So there is the anxiety of desire, the terror of abandonment, and the angst of rejection. This is imperfect love.
Anne and all who have the blessed rest of the saints are now freed from such fears. When I relax, close my eyes, and wait for her touch--this is the love I feel. She is loving me in Christ and for God--longing for my good, my joy, and my own freedom from fear, purely for my own good. Perhaps Anne's mission now is to nurture such love in all of us who have loved her.
To love and to live beyond fear--this is how true joy is defined. This is what I seek in my own healing and in yours. Now I have a friend "on the inside" to help me. Thank you, my love.
Certainly the dead need nothing further from us. I have nothing I can give that Anne needs--not any longer. I would agree with Lynch that she and all the dead are beyond needing. That, however, equips Anne to love as God loves--without self concern or unfulfilled desire. Anne can love me in Christ and for God--as I am, without reservation, hesitation or condition. Perhaps this is the vocation of those who have joined that "great cloud of witnesses."
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear," we can read in John's first letter. Perfection here means completion, fulfillment, coming to the end for which something or someone was made. Our mortal love--even that of the greatest saints--must be at least tinged with the fear of loss. For lose we must--sooner or later. So there is the anxiety of desire, the terror of abandonment, and the angst of rejection. This is imperfect love.
Anne and all who have the blessed rest of the saints are now freed from such fears. When I relax, close my eyes, and wait for her touch--this is the love I feel. She is loving me in Christ and for God--longing for my good, my joy, and my own freedom from fear, purely for my own good. Perhaps Anne's mission now is to nurture such love in all of us who have loved her.
To love and to live beyond fear--this is how true joy is defined. This is what I seek in my own healing and in yours. Now I have a friend "on the inside" to help me. Thank you, my love.
Always Following
Driving down 84th Street
And I thought,
"Honey, you went first..."
Mostly.
It was you who said,
"I think we should go for pizza."
Your home girls kept seating us together
Mostly to distract me from them
I suspect
You got it right away--I was a little slow
So we went.
It was you who said,
"I love you--even if you are a little screwy"
Long before I could choke out the words
And then you waited until I could
I imagine
You were amused that you knew long
Before I did.
It was you who said,
"I think we should get married"
I walked to the door of my room and said,
"I think you should go home and reconsider"
But you smiled and waited
And twenty minutes later
We set the date.
Having kids
Going skiing
Tanzania
New furniture
Dogs
Why was it you who went first?
Only now can I see
Your vision
Your courage
Your wisdom
Your humor
Your determination.
Now you've gone first again
And all this time I thought
You were following me
Soon enough my love,
I'll catch up.
And I thought,
"Honey, you went first..."
Mostly.
It was you who said,
"I think we should go for pizza."
Your home girls kept seating us together
Mostly to distract me from them
I suspect
You got it right away--I was a little slow
So we went.
It was you who said,
"I love you--even if you are a little screwy"
Long before I could choke out the words
And then you waited until I could
I imagine
You were amused that you knew long
Before I did.
It was you who said,
"I think we should get married"
I walked to the door of my room and said,
"I think you should go home and reconsider"
But you smiled and waited
And twenty minutes later
We set the date.
Having kids
Going skiing
Tanzania
New furniture
Dogs
Why was it you who went first?
Only now can I see
Your vision
Your courage
Your wisdom
Your humor
Your determination.
Now you've gone first again
And all this time I thought
You were following me
Soon enough my love,
I'll catch up.
Peering through the Curtain
I can tell when I have been processing something in my sleep. I wake up early with thoughts fully formed and insisting on expression. I live these days at the boundary between worlds, the liminal area between this life and the next. It is like a porous membrane, a diaphanous curtain. If I wanted, I could just push through and find myself on the other side. I don't have any wishes to move just yet from this life to the New Life. I have no dark thoughts of suicide or self-injury. But the dead seem so close, fill my thoughts, form my vision. The living often seem to be the ones who are not quite here any longer.
Perhaps that is why we who mourn are distant, unfocused, hardly "here" at all in conversation. We can see our dead loved ones. We spend time with them and energy on them. We talk to them. We envision them with one another in a little community of the newly deceased, holding and comforting one another on our behalf. I sit in the family room with Anne's cremains on the mantle, and I talk to her. I rush to assure you that she does not speak audible words in reply (although that is only my experience). Yet it is true that even when people die, relationships do not. So insights, hints, clues, signs, and encouragements come my way in these conversations. Does my longing for her simply create this dialogue or does she from time to time reach back through the curtain?
I don't know, and it really doesn't matter at this point. I live on that boundary where the New Life is sometimes visible in vague outline. And that vision gives comfort--not only to me but to so many others who have lost the dearest one of their hearts. I find it to be one of the ways God has made us so that this amputation of the soul is not fatal to the mourner. Anne died in a moment, in that final sigh of what was likely a giant breaking of her heart. But she leaves me and our home only gradually, passing through the curtain bit by bit so that I am not torn to shreds in the process.
In many cultures those who have lost are treated with great honor. They are regarded as people with special connections to the New Life, the next life, the other side. They are both comforted and consulted, regarded with awe and curiosity. I understand this better now as I gaze through that curtain and touch that soft membrane of mortal love now and again. Painful as it is to do, it is also beautiful to lay fingertips on a remembered intimacy and the future hope of reunion.
I hope this life at the boundary doesn't go away too quickly.
Perhaps that is why we who mourn are distant, unfocused, hardly "here" at all in conversation. We can see our dead loved ones. We spend time with them and energy on them. We talk to them. We envision them with one another in a little community of the newly deceased, holding and comforting one another on our behalf. I sit in the family room with Anne's cremains on the mantle, and I talk to her. I rush to assure you that she does not speak audible words in reply (although that is only my experience). Yet it is true that even when people die, relationships do not. So insights, hints, clues, signs, and encouragements come my way in these conversations. Does my longing for her simply create this dialogue or does she from time to time reach back through the curtain?
I don't know, and it really doesn't matter at this point. I live on that boundary where the New Life is sometimes visible in vague outline. And that vision gives comfort--not only to me but to so many others who have lost the dearest one of their hearts. I find it to be one of the ways God has made us so that this amputation of the soul is not fatal to the mourner. Anne died in a moment, in that final sigh of what was likely a giant breaking of her heart. But she leaves me and our home only gradually, passing through the curtain bit by bit so that I am not torn to shreds in the process.
In many cultures those who have lost are treated with great honor. They are regarded as people with special connections to the New Life, the next life, the other side. They are both comforted and consulted, regarded with awe and curiosity. I understand this better now as I gaze through that curtain and touch that soft membrane of mortal love now and again. Painful as it is to do, it is also beautiful to lay fingertips on a remembered intimacy and the future hope of reunion.
I hope this life at the boundary doesn't go away too quickly.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
To Love a Flower
"If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, 'Somewhere, my flower is there . . .' Antoine de St. Exuperay, The Little Prince
How I love that small book of such great love. It is quiet and I listen to Christmas music. I read that small book of great love, written to his own rose with such passion and power and playfulness. My flower, my rose, is somewhere there among the stars. No, I know exactly where my flower rests. I can look at the stars and be happy. I can look at the trees, the water, the mountains, the grass...the Creator holds her close until all is made new again. Somewhere my flower is there. And I can be happy, even as I weep.
To love a flower...I have been so blessed.
How I love that small book of such great love. It is quiet and I listen to Christmas music. I read that small book of great love, written to his own rose with such passion and power and playfulness. My flower, my rose, is somewhere there among the stars. No, I know exactly where my flower rests. I can look at the stars and be happy. I can look at the trees, the water, the mountains, the grass...the Creator holds her close until all is made new again. Somewhere my flower is there. And I can be happy, even as I weep.
To love a flower...I have been so blessed.
Long Division
Long Division
The bed was always too big for the room by half
But we needed access from both sides
So we made do.
Now I can push the bed against the wall
Single-sided access is sufficient
For the unforeseeable future.
Twin chairs from Ikea in the family room
Watching “Bones” and “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory”
One is always empty now
So I split them up
Put the lazy boy in the middle
Less pain that way.
Single rocking chair in the corner
Sold my car to Greg and kept the truck
Ladies Home Journal subscription has lapsed
Put my dresser in her side of the closet
Both sides of the bathroom counter suddenly free
No one to arm wrestle for the remote.
Long division…remainder of one.
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