Monthly Archives: December 2009

Stage 4

December 26, 2009

Having started my version of the 5 Stages of Grieving, I need to complete them, so onwards…

The fourth stage of grief as Dr Kubler-Ross describes it:
Depression: “Yes, me.”

In this stage,she describes how a person becomes numb on the surface while anger and sadness churn underneath. The depression is due to the realisation that what has occurred is beyond your control. This is the time when one admits what has happened and is mindful of her grief.

My version of the fourth stage of grief:
Depression: “Not me”

I don’t feel depressed and if I am I somehow manage to fool onlookers about how I am coping, receiving accolades for my competence, capability and for appearing well. I’m complimented for being strong and people notice that I sometimes laugh again. At the same time I have managed to get so out of touch with my feelings so that I can barely respond to a simple ‘How are you?’ greeting. I spend a lot of time wondering how I really am…

Some did inquire if I felt depressed, but I’ve banished depression as a possibility. I compared symptoms of depression with how I felt and there was little correlation. I sleep well, take vitamins and bounce around determined not to be depressed. Mottsu was depressed, not me. I feel multi-polar in comparison, I’m Tigger to his Eeyore.

My determination not to be depressed could itself have been a mild chronic depression.

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…and so this is Christmas

December 25, 2009

013

Let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear…

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My heart loves life

December 24, 2009

I as write about my past and present, you can see that I am not over it. That’s to say I am not over the loss of Mottsu.

There is so much sadness in the world, too much sadness. I think that’s why I write about my sadness. I love to wear tears and carry love for the possibility of a different world.

There is a Woody Allen film, Melinda and Melinda. The movie explores the dichotomy between comedy and tragedy, two sides to every story. Tragedy confronts and comedy is our escape. I watched Melinda and Melinda on a plane, a flight between somewhere and somewhere. The detail of the flight is gone, but there are a couple of lines I remember.

A man speaking to Melinda says, “What do you want?”
Melinda thinks for a moment before replying “l want to want to live.”
He brushes off her words saying, “Everybody wants to live.”

I want to want to live, the sentiment touches my heart. Many would agree, that everyone wants to live (per se) and I know living is not so simple. Most of the time I live without making a conscious decision to do so. Days dawn, I wake and rise, I live. Wanting to want to live is more than the day-to-day, it’s what I’ve sought. I can now say hand on heart, I do want to live.

Life is beautiful. Behind the sadness, or not withstanding the sadness, I want to live.

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Still?

December 23, 2009

One word.

Time passed, the second year was not easier than the first. I’m navigating the fifth year now. There’s still the odd bump, particularly this this celebratory time of year.

You don’t see the bumps coming, they’re unsigned, no warning. Back during the second year I visited Mottsu’s parents after a completing a work assignment in New Zealand. I traveled home through Sydney stopping there for a further couple of days work.

I met a colleague in a cafe near the office. We were fuzzy and friendly over coffee and toast. She asked about New Zealand, the trip, the work and I told her about the visit.

“Oh” she exclaimed and then asked “How were they?”

008It wasn’t a straightforward question answer. How were they? I wondered how they were, my mind stepped back to their lounge room, our conversation. The tears we’d shared. My response formed, and I kept my reply simple.

“Sad.” I answered, “They were very sad.”

Sad, one word that summed up how they were.

“Still…?” she said, hardly looking up from the task of buttering her toast.

One word, a body blow. My colleague was punching above her weight with that reply. I was at once confused and dumbstruck. Was there a time when I wouldn’t be sad, a time after which his parents would no longer be sad? Still, uttered with nonchalance was a set-up, and I walked right in. I felt wounded and stupid, unhealed and accused of I wasn’t sure what. I was instantly unsure of myself, wounded afresh and brimming with uncertainty.

Nodding in acknowledgement “Still” I mumbled, only able to utter one word and then fixing my focus on buttering my own toast. We were still fuzzy, still friendly, only quieter.

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Leaving without bitterness

December 21, 2009

I am reading Age of Iron by J.M. Coetzee – it is the most outstanding book, wonderfully crafted by the author and first published in 1990. I’m reading it because Charlotte gave it to me for Christmas. She gave it figuratively, for reasons mostly explained by geography. She explained I should buy it and write a dedication on her behalf inside the front cover.

The first bookshop didn’t have it on the shelves the second did. I’ll finish it now before Christmas.

I’m completely enamored by the emotion and the careful and careless caring in the story

There is a passage on page 6 (Penguin edition) where ‘she’ (I can’t recall ‘her’ name, she is the protagonist and perhaps without a first name), is planning not to share her diagnosis and bleak prognosis with her faraway daughter.

“The first task laid on me today: to resist the craving to share my death. Loving you, loving life, to forgive the living and take my leave without bitterness. To embrace death as my own, mine alone.”

I read that passage, those words and Mrs Curren (the she of the tale) was forgotten for the moment. The paragraph resonated with personal meaning, yes: it was all about me. The words made me cry, so beautiful, “..to forgive the living…” All this time I have been trying to understand (I mean forgive) Mottsu leaving (actually I think I have been trying to forgive myself), I had never thought he might have forgiven me and left ‘without bitterness’.

It’s quite a thought…

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As long as time is time at all

December 20, 2009

Initially days slowly migrated into weeks and his identity started to fade, the lines get blurry. Bill’s were paid and letters addressed to him became fewer. He wasn’t on the electoral role and his name doesn’t appear as a by-line in the newspaper anymore. He’s not here. His departure was as dramatic and unexpected as his way of being was constant and dependable. The way he left changed the way he was, how he is remembered.

I was cold for a long time after he left and imagine the river waters left him cold too. April and May were cool and autumnal, I remember a lot of shivering.

If it were possible to hold to his hand, and I longed to do that, I was unsure who would be warming who. Who would be consoled? Would reconciliation be possible? If one extended a cold hand could the other grasp it and find warmth again?

There is so little left of him…

005There was scant evidence of his presence, his gym bag, a few photos some CDs, music that I didn’t have an ear for. His bench top coffee maker, his toothbrush, his stopped watch, his tax receipts, added up to so little without Mottsu’s presence they were artefacts without significance. They were all I had. If his socks and clothes were added to the collection and his desk, which is one the few things that was his rather than ‘ours’, there was still be nothing that embodied him.

I didn’t see him, or feel his presence, or hear him. I confided the emptiness to Hardt, my psychologist. Hardt was kind and suggested I wear his watch, ‘Wouldn’t it be good to wear his watch?’ she gently prodded. My tear-stained chin quivered, and I nodded, hesitantly. A bargain was struck, and although more reluctance stole in later I thought the gesture an homage.

His watch, it was a gift from me. I bought it from a QANTAS catalogue, on a trip home one day, it was a good watch. The band was broken and it was not ticking. The police returned it, along with the few things he had with him when he drowned. I replaced the battery, incredibly the watch worked, after four days under water with him, the watch worked. That finding was as dismaying as it is improbable, there was no real reason not to replace the band and wear the watch.

I wore Mottsu’s watch. Hardt smiled when she noticed. I wore it as if it were a ticking penance. I had such mixed feelings about the watch; its resuscitation served to remind me of his sinking. I found his watch sort of haunting and irksome, and wore it more like a manacle rather than a treasure.

It is a good watch and it faithfully ticked for about 3 years. Stops and is revived with another battery, only to stop again a few weeks later. Relieved, I make no further effort to restore it and stash it in a bathroom drawer. Hardt doesn’t know, I don’t see her now, and nobody else enquires.

“It is true. We have a beautiful time
As long as time is time at all.” A Mistake —Czeslaw Milosz

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Suicide Epidemic Among US Veterans – CBS News

December 19, 2009

A CBS News investigation uncovered a suicide rate for veterans (a person who has served in the armed forces) of twice that of other Americans.

www.cbsnews.com

004CBS and, alarmingly, not the armed forces or US Government found that veterans were more than twice as likely to die of suicide in 2005 than non-vets. CBS particularly highlighted veterans aged 20 – 24, those who had served during the war on terror, had a suicide rate estimated as between two and four times higher than the same population of civilians. CBS’ report tells that the suicide rate in the US for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, and the rate for veterans was uncovered as between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.

The data is devastating, in 2005, for example, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. As CBS notes: that’s 120 each and every week in that year.

Consider all of the bereaved, downcast, forlorn, heavyhearted, grieving, melancholic, mournful, sombre, sorrowful families, friends, and friends of friends of veterans who died by suicide.
So sad.

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Just call me angel of the mourning

December 18, 2009

007There is a model called the tasks of mourning (Worden, J. W. 1991, Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner). Worden, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, looked at grief as work to:

- accept the reality of the loss;
- experience and process the psychological distress resulting from the loss;
- adjust to an environment where the deceased is missing;
- emotionally realign the ties with the deceased so that one can go on with life.

The work of mourning? I also read that the normal grieving process can become distorted, and then it is called complicated bereavement. A continuum from normal to complicated? Interesting.

The bottom line is that mourning is hard work and bereavement is complicated, that’s all I would say. It is such an intensely personal ordeal, unpredictable in terms of steps and stages. I do suspect that I experienced a complicated bereavement, it certainly wasn’t simple.

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” Carl Jung.

I acknowledge, with thanks, the very fabulous Susan, who sourced that quote and shared it. It is true I have been balanced by sadness, it might sound funny but I am grateful to have experienced such depth of emotion, and to have befriended my sadness.

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Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast

December 17, 2009

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Image007Impossible things.

We believed impossible things, more or less.

Mottsu used to accuse me of being a ‘glass half empty’ person, too pessimistic. I do have a pessimistic streak, I call it a realistic streak.

Four months before he died we were to bid on a country property. His dream house. Mottsu was certain it was out of reach, he convinced himself we’d not secure the property. So who was pessimistic now? I, uncharacteristically optimistically, thought we had a chance. I bought him a card (pictured) for encouragement, as a couple we’d experienced a handful of impossible things.

Ironically (as it turned out) he told me that “The drowning man doesn’t drown because he can’t swim, he drowns because he gives up.” He was excited by the theory of the drowning man, it was to be his bidding strategy. It would take a bit of steel and some bluff, but he was going to let any drowning-bidding man go under, the other bidders would see his determination and he had no intention of throwing them a life-ring.

It would mean bidding strongly, so that others would not glimpse our limited budget. Any competing bidder was to be fooled into giving up, and drowning.

Even armed with the drowning man strategy, we were pessimistic about our chances at auction, hence the careful planning of tactics. Everything about the property was perfect except the price. It was seven acres of land and a renovated farmhouse with wide shady verandahs. It had been renovated before the owners moved to Europe. The house was big and airy with magnificent country views from every room of rolling pastures carpeted in green. The real estate agents brochure boasted sea glimpses and, while we strained to take in a water view, the air was fresh and tinged with salt. The sea was nearby, if not quite visible.

We’d been looking in the area for some months for a property that would be the haven for our planned tree-change. We hoped to move away from the city and needed a home from which to start new careers outside of the corporate world. Musing on the possibilities of this venture we felt bold and a little uncertain too. This property stood out from the rest, as soon as Mottsu saw the house he knew it was the one from which to start his new life.

He approached the agent to ask how much was required to buy it before auction, without competition. The price quoted was beyond our means, so we had to hope that things went well for us at auction, and the price was lowered. Imagining a lot of competition for the property Mottsu was despondent. Owning this house seemed impossible.

We kept dreaming and scheming (we dreamt and schemnt). Mottsu picked out the room where his desk would sit, in front of a window with a view of the paddocks we hoped to own. This was where he would sit and write modern classics while looking out on his retired race horse, who would be enjoying more green grass than one horse could eat in retirement. This house, this window, this view, this was the dream, it had to be this one. He did calculations on paper, in an OCD sort of way, columns of numbers reviewed and reworked again and again, every possible variation and what-if considered.

On auction day, we did it. He did it, bid well and bought the dream we thought impossible. Impossible but not impossible enough, after property settlement we spent only two weekends there.

From elation to despair, is a short journey. There was no life line, no impossible belief, the drowning man gave up and Alice didn’t laugh…

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Bad feng-shui troubled me

December 13, 2009

Occasionally oppositional forces whelm up, most often attacking from within rather than an attack from outside sources, more easily defended against.

When Mottsu died so suddenly I did feel some blame, just for having been there and not having fully anticipated his direction. I did regret not having done more, and I also regretted some of the things I did. The blaming is not right or wrong; perhaps it is almost inevitable in the situation. Death by suicide has some far reaching impacts, I did gasp and figuratively stagger – no I literally staggered. In staggering I flailed and reached out into darkness grasping for explanation.

004For a while I was guilt ridden by the bleak book recommendation and the vindictive pillow snatch, and while I am mired in regret, there was also the bathroom towel colour and the spiky plant.

I live in a house in a fabulous location; I have never really liked it. It is not that I don’t like it, it is just a house. Mottsu on the other hand loved this house, from the first minute we inspected it. We’d been looking for months this one he was immediately taken by. I didn’t see the attraction at first, I had to be shown its features, through his eyes. We bid at auction and procured our house.

I engaged a feng-shui consultant. Mottsu thought I was nutty but indulged me. It was an interesting exercise, she used our birth years and the age of the house to determine the directions of various influences and how to support good influences. She might have called them dragons, are there lucky dragons?

The feng-shui consultant determined that the house was perfect for Mottsu, my consolation was that the bed faced a good direction for me. There were some adjustments to be made. I placed a little mirror behind the toilet, added little coins to some rooms and encouraged more harmonious feng-shui. The consultant recommended I change the plant that sat in the light well in front of Mottsu’s desk. It had spiky leaves, bad for the energy which is better in smooth waves and not broken by spikes.

001The violet towels in the bathroom had to be replaced with green. Violet is a metal colour and green a wood colour. The bathroom would have been much more harmonious with green towels. I looked for new towels and couldn’t find a shade of green I thought was attractive. Too fussy.

The spiky plant and the wrong colour towels, I have too often regretted my inattention to fixing those simple-to-change-things.

The pillow, the book, the plant, the colour of the towels, all of those things contributed to his demise, there isn’t a straight linear relationship between cause and effect, little things just add up. Given a chance to keep Mottsu here, they are all things I would change.

Those are some of the elements I grasped for explanation, while seeking meaning for the meaningless. It is not funny how when I thought I was recovering, things could grab my conscience and pull down…

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