Twenty nine years ago today I married Kirk. I said quite a while ago that I would eventually explain how it happened, and today seems to be the right day for it.
The last “chapter” of the story I told you was how he drove to Vermont to ask me to “pick” him, which of course I did. That was in my first semester in college, and as you can imagine, all that drama was not well aligned with academic excellence. As such, I left school after that first semester. The specifics of whether I left or they asked me to leave are now a bit hazy, but suffice it to say that I did not return for another semester. My plan was to return home and attend school at a local four year college beginning the following fall. I have no doubt my parents were terribly disappointed, and rightfully so.
I came home and lived with my mom, and returned to my old job at the restaurant where Kirk and I first met. He now managed a different restaurant so we didn’t see each other at work every day. It was a hard time for us – even though I had elected to stay with him, the fallout of me almost ending the relationship took a toll on us, and I wondered whether the relationship would last. Ultimately though, our genuine affection and enjoyment in each other prevailed, and by the summer, we were really happy together again and marked one year together in July.
In October, we moved in together. I think we both did not really distinguish between living together and being married – we both had the “it’s just a piece of paper” mindset. We had not really talked about marriage, although when he talked about the future he always spoke as if we would be in it together. I didn’t think that far in advance – I was happy with the way things were.
Soon though, shortly before Christmas, he asked me to marry him. I would love to tell you it was romantic and memorable, but it wasn’t really. We were just talking and he said he wanted to marry me – soon. I realized he meant it and wanted me to actually answer. I had no urge to get married. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry him someday – it was more that I hadn’t really thought about it and didn’t feel it was necessary at that point. He felt really strongly about it though – he had realized that the “piece of paper” had a lot more meaning than we were giving it credit for, and he wanted to make that commitment.
To understand my mindset about this decision, you need to understand how I felt about marriage in general at that point in my life. My parents had split up about three years before this, and it had been a shock to me. My perception of their marriage was that it was largely happy, certainly happier than most of my friends’ parents. When it ended, it left me with the impression that even good marriages are little more than a crap shoot. So as I thought about marrying, I truly believed that no amount of waiting or thinking would increase the odds of my marriage lasting. I thought it either would or it wouldn’t, and did not see myself as really able to control or impact it.
In retrospect, it was a ridiculous approach to marriage, but I really believed it. I knew I loved Kirk, I knew he loved me, and given my opinion that we had no control over the likelihood of lasting marriage, I decided to say yes. My main concern was my parents – I knew they would not be okay with me getting married so soon, especially since I had not yet gone back to school. I wanted to get engaged, break the news to them, and then get married in a year or so, after starting back to school. Kirk really wanted to get married quickly – the living together thing was just not enough for him. So we compromised with the following (brilliant) plan – we would get married at the town hall without telling anyone, then in the next few months tell everyone we were engaged, I would start school in the fall, and we would set a “wedding” date for a year or so later, which would give everyone the opportunity to get used to the idea. The next day, I called the town hall, and scheduled our wedding for 10 a.m. December 29 – only about ten days away.
We did not invite (or tell) anyone. On the day of our wedding, we overslept, and when we woke up we had to scramble to get ready. He wore a suit, I wore a beige pencil skirt, cream silk blouse, and beige high heeled sandals (side note: when Erika was about 5, she found a bridesmaid dress in my closet that I had worn in a friend’s wedding. She loved it and asked if it was the dress I married Daddy in. I said no, and showed her the skirt and blouse I was married in, which I had kept for sentimental reasons. She took one look at the outfit, expressed her disgust at the complete inappropriateness of this boring outfit, and flounced off.)
We were twenty minutes late, and the justice of the peace was exasperated because he had to pick up his daughter at the airport. He asked us where our witnesses were, and we told him we didn’t know we needed any. This really aggravated him and he couldn’t believe that we didn’t know we needed to have our marriage witnessed. I told him I thought witnesses were only in old Westerns. He said his clerks could witness the wedding for $50 each. We said no – there was no way we were going to pay someone. Finally, he agreed to marry us anyway, and give us the marriage certificate to take to someone to sign and then we could bring it back and file it with the court. So that’s what we did. He read a short, but actually very nice, reading, had us take our vows, and declared us married. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, and there were only the three of us in the room. Then we took the certificate down the road to the restaurant Kirk managed, told two people who worked there what we had done, swore them to secrecy, and had them sign it. We drove it back to the town hall, and gave it to a grumpy clerk who clearly thought we should have paid her the $50.
We went home, packed up the car (a black Camaro that at the time was super cool), and drove to Toronto for a long weekend/honeymoon. We saw the hotel right off the expressway as we drove into the city – we had missed the exit. I then got one of my first lessons of married life. I wanted to get off at the next exit, get back on the expressway going in the opposite direction, and get off at the right exit – obvious right? But no – he told me he does not turn around, because it is like admitting he made a mistake. So he kept driving and driving, trying to find an alternate route. He stopped for directions several times, which only made it worse because no one knew where to send us, and none of them wanted to admit it. We drove around and around and finally ended up back at the hotel approximately four hours later. That was the first of many times in our marriage that I had to wait out a driving error. Nonetheless, we had a great few days, happy together with our secret.
About three months later, we still had not told anyone of our “engagement” – I was still working up the nerve. He didn’t push – he was content to let me set the pace. But then, we discovered I was pregnant. It must have happened about mid-February, when we had been married only about six weeks. I was THRILLED - I may not have had high regard for marriage, but parenthood was something I always wanted. School would have to wait. Meanwhile, Kirk was terrified. Partly because he wanted us to have more time with just the two of us before having a baby, but mostly because he was so afraid something would go wrong for me or the baby.
We decided we’d better tell people we were married. I suspect our parents were not terribly shocked about the pregnancy – I think when we called and said we wanted to get together to talk with them they pretty much assumed there was a baby on the way. It was the marriage that surprised them. To their great credit, they all handled it very well, and were supportive and accepting. I know that they must have been very concerned that we were in over our heads – we were SO young.
So we never had the “wedding” we planned. Once everything was all out in the open and Erika was on the way, there didn’t seem to be much point. As a parent of adult children now, I often think that I would be crushed if one of my children did what we did, because we deprived our parents of the very special moment of seeing their child marry. I have never regretted not having the big fancy day for me, but I do regret taking that moment from our parents. For Kirk, his only regret was the proposal itself - although it never bothered me, he came to hate the fact that he did not make it a special event.
We did have a very nice party at my grandparents’ home that our family hosted as a substitute for a reception. Erika arrived eleven months and three days after we were married, and Matt came along eighteen months later. And that’s how we began – a lot of love, but not much in the way of fanfare or romance.
Four years ago, we went on a cruise for our twenty-fifth anniversary. Before we left, I looked and looked for a card that would say what I wanted to tell him. I didn’t find one, so I bought a blank one. As I struggled with what to write, it pretty much came down to one thing – I wanted more. Twenty five years was not nearly enough. So that’s what I wrote. After he died, I found that card in a wooden box he kept on his dresser. How true it still is – it just was not enough.
I am so very sad today. I am trying to feel lucky and appreciative, but in the end, I am mostly just so sad. I look at the picture that was taken of us last year on this day, and we look so happy. Little did we know it would be our last.
How ironic that a marriage that ended up working so well started with so little thought. I made the best decision of my life for all the wrong reasons. I said yes, even though I had no confidence it would last – not because of him or us, but because I held little faith in marriage itself. In the end, I really said yes to make him happy. And in the end, he made me happier than I could ever have hoped for.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
A Letter to David Cook
I have seen you. You look so harmless. I look at you and expect to want to hit you, hurt you, make you feel even the tiniest fraction of what you have caused us to feel. Yet I have no urge to hurt you at all, I think because I cannot reconcile the fact that you appear so soft and innocuous, and yet I know you are not.
What is in you that is so powerful? Was it anger, or sadness, or self-loathing? What did you feel that prompted you to decide – yes, DECIDE – to be so careless with the lives of others? With the life of the person we loved so much, and by extension, with our lives?
How does it feel to have so much power? Have you even once thought about that power for what it has really done? The devastation, the pain, the grief, the hopelessness that it has wrought? I don’t believe you comprehend it – not because you are stupid, or ill, or young, but because you have not had to FEEL what we feel, you have never experienced what you have forced us to experience.
Let me tell you what you have the power to do.
You brutally and carelessly crushed – literally crushed – the life and breath from a person who was incredibly alive. He was not an ordinary man, and he was not a man who let life happen around him. He LIVED – until you used your power to stop him. He loved with a depth of passion and commitment that many people never find in themselves. He was funny – incredibly funny. Not in a “tell a joke” way. His humor always came from his observations of life itself – he just knew life was funny, and he made the rest of us see it too. He was respectful to others, unless they didn’t deserve it. He taught our children the lessons that will carry them though life. Lessons like “do the right thing.” And “never think less of anyone else for something not within their control.” He gave apples to homeless people, unless they didn’t have teeth, in which case he gave them granola bars. He worked hard, but if work threatened to interfere with family, he drew the line. He loved his dog with a passion, and wanted to have her cremated so he could keep her ashes and have them buried with him someday – little did we suspect that she would survive him. He loved the outdoors, and thought that’s where God was most likely to be found. He seemed invincible, and yet you killed him so easily.
You broke the hearts of his parents. They were alive and well when you took him from them. They are alive still, but I cannot describe them as well, because they are not the same, and never will be. Their phones no longer ring with his calls. They can no longer count on him to take care of them when they need it someday. Their birthdays, mothers day, fathers day, and every other holiday are forever altered by you, as is every ordinary day. Your incredible disregard for anyone other than yourself caused his parents to lose the child they made, they child they brought into the world and raised to be the incredible person he became. You caused them to watch as their child was lowered into the ground.
You have ripped my children’s father from them. Do you love your father? Do you appreciate him? My children did, but there is nothing like losing a person to make you realize how much. They are young still, and so was their father – they should have had him for many more years. The autopsy you forced on my husband said that they would have. He was perfectly healthy, other than the fact that you crushed his torso. No cancer, no heart problems, no liver or prostate problem. Just a crushed body. He would have been here to see them marry, have their own children. He would have been here to give advice on what a good price for chicken is, and what is probably wrong with your car that won’t start or your printer that won’t print. Fortunately, you didn’t kill him before he could show them the really important stuff, like how to be a good dad, and how to be an incredible husband. The problem is, that’s why they still needed and wanted him so much – because he was that dad, that person they counted on. That person they loved. My daughter does not tell new people in her life that her dad died. Not because she dreads their pity, or she is afraid it will make them uncomfortable. She does not tell them because she can’t stand the thought that they will picture her as a girl with no dad, a girl from an incomplete family. She HAS a dad, and she HAS a whole family. Yet you have separated us from each other, and we have no way to overcome your exercise of power.
You have rendered the rest of our family helpless – parents and in-laws, sisters, stepmothers, nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. They grieve for him too, and they try to figure out how to help us. They don’t know what to say. They cannot FIX anything for us. They wish that they could take some of our pain. Most of all, they wish they could change it, but in the end they can only listen and watch as we struggle with the irreversible theft of someone so incredibly precious.
You have left a hole in his friends. To some, he was a great friend, to others he was as close or closer than their own families. There is a spot in their lives that is missing now. They feel it in the part of their day when they would have called him, and he would have answered – HEEELLLO, or Hi Kath Kath, or whatever greeting he used only for that one person. They feel it when they see something he would have thought was funny, and have the urge to call and tell him, and then remember they cannot. They feel it when they watch a game he also would have been watching and they cannot send the text they have the urge to write. They feel it when they scroll through their email box and see the last “joke of the day” he sent, just a few hours before you used your power to kill him. They feel it when they now do something alone that they always used to do with him. Or when they cannot bring themselves to do it at all because, thanks to you, they cannot do it with him.
I have saved myself for last because I do not know where or how to find the words to describe what you have done to me. You took my best friend, my love, my partner, my co-parent, my advisor, my coach and cheerleader. You took my HUSBAND, who was everything to me. Everything. We were not normal. We were THAT couple. Not because we were wealthy, or beautiful, or special in any conventional way, but because we had THAT marriage. The one that everyone can see for what it is – real, and special, and incredible. The one that lots of other people either wish they had, or don’t even know enough to wish they had, because they’ve never witnessed it.
When you killed him, he was on the way to the vet. His dog needed medicine, and he was going to get it. But what matters is where he had been. That day, he was shopping for jewelry for me. It was not my birthday, or our anniversary. It didn’t need to be. He just loved me, and wanted to surprise me and make me happy. He had been to three stores – the business cards were in his wallet, brochures on diamonds and gold on the seat beside him. He would not have made this purchase quickly – he would have explored all the options, in order to maximize my happiness. After you took him from me, a friend called the stores to see if by any chance he had ordered something. He had not, but every store remembered him. They remembered the big guy who came in, excited to plan a surprise for his wife. The guy who made friends with everyone in the store. The one whose love for his wife was evident on his face, in his voice.
We were not perfect, but we loved each other with a depth and passion and truth and ease that could not be mistaken or hidden. And not only did you separate us from each other, you used your power to rob us of our goodbye. The one we always thought we would have. The one where we say “I love you” over and over. The one where we say “I’ll see you again someday.” The one where we say “thank you.” The one where we kiss, and touch, while one of us peacefully leaves the other. The one where the person who is left behind gets to lie quietly with the one who has gone, before the rest of the world knows and can intrude with its forms, and laws, and demands for decisions, and grief and loneliness.
So much damage and pain. So much power for one who appears so harmless.
What is in you that is so powerful? Was it anger, or sadness, or self-loathing? What did you feel that prompted you to decide – yes, DECIDE – to be so careless with the lives of others? With the life of the person we loved so much, and by extension, with our lives?
How does it feel to have so much power? Have you even once thought about that power for what it has really done? The devastation, the pain, the grief, the hopelessness that it has wrought? I don’t believe you comprehend it – not because you are stupid, or ill, or young, but because you have not had to FEEL what we feel, you have never experienced what you have forced us to experience.
Let me tell you what you have the power to do.
You brutally and carelessly crushed – literally crushed – the life and breath from a person who was incredibly alive. He was not an ordinary man, and he was not a man who let life happen around him. He LIVED – until you used your power to stop him. He loved with a depth of passion and commitment that many people never find in themselves. He was funny – incredibly funny. Not in a “tell a joke” way. His humor always came from his observations of life itself – he just knew life was funny, and he made the rest of us see it too. He was respectful to others, unless they didn’t deserve it. He taught our children the lessons that will carry them though life. Lessons like “do the right thing.” And “never think less of anyone else for something not within their control.” He gave apples to homeless people, unless they didn’t have teeth, in which case he gave them granola bars. He worked hard, but if work threatened to interfere with family, he drew the line. He loved his dog with a passion, and wanted to have her cremated so he could keep her ashes and have them buried with him someday – little did we suspect that she would survive him. He loved the outdoors, and thought that’s where God was most likely to be found. He seemed invincible, and yet you killed him so easily.
You broke the hearts of his parents. They were alive and well when you took him from them. They are alive still, but I cannot describe them as well, because they are not the same, and never will be. Their phones no longer ring with his calls. They can no longer count on him to take care of them when they need it someday. Their birthdays, mothers day, fathers day, and every other holiday are forever altered by you, as is every ordinary day. Your incredible disregard for anyone other than yourself caused his parents to lose the child they made, they child they brought into the world and raised to be the incredible person he became. You caused them to watch as their child was lowered into the ground.
You have ripped my children’s father from them. Do you love your father? Do you appreciate him? My children did, but there is nothing like losing a person to make you realize how much. They are young still, and so was their father – they should have had him for many more years. The autopsy you forced on my husband said that they would have. He was perfectly healthy, other than the fact that you crushed his torso. No cancer, no heart problems, no liver or prostate problem. Just a crushed body. He would have been here to see them marry, have their own children. He would have been here to give advice on what a good price for chicken is, and what is probably wrong with your car that won’t start or your printer that won’t print. Fortunately, you didn’t kill him before he could show them the really important stuff, like how to be a good dad, and how to be an incredible husband. The problem is, that’s why they still needed and wanted him so much – because he was that dad, that person they counted on. That person they loved. My daughter does not tell new people in her life that her dad died. Not because she dreads their pity, or she is afraid it will make them uncomfortable. She does not tell them because she can’t stand the thought that they will picture her as a girl with no dad, a girl from an incomplete family. She HAS a dad, and she HAS a whole family. Yet you have separated us from each other, and we have no way to overcome your exercise of power.
You have rendered the rest of our family helpless – parents and in-laws, sisters, stepmothers, nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. They grieve for him too, and they try to figure out how to help us. They don’t know what to say. They cannot FIX anything for us. They wish that they could take some of our pain. Most of all, they wish they could change it, but in the end they can only listen and watch as we struggle with the irreversible theft of someone so incredibly precious.
You have left a hole in his friends. To some, he was a great friend, to others he was as close or closer than their own families. There is a spot in their lives that is missing now. They feel it in the part of their day when they would have called him, and he would have answered – HEEELLLO, or Hi Kath Kath, or whatever greeting he used only for that one person. They feel it when they see something he would have thought was funny, and have the urge to call and tell him, and then remember they cannot. They feel it when they watch a game he also would have been watching and they cannot send the text they have the urge to write. They feel it when they scroll through their email box and see the last “joke of the day” he sent, just a few hours before you used your power to kill him. They feel it when they now do something alone that they always used to do with him. Or when they cannot bring themselves to do it at all because, thanks to you, they cannot do it with him.
I have saved myself for last because I do not know where or how to find the words to describe what you have done to me. You took my best friend, my love, my partner, my co-parent, my advisor, my coach and cheerleader. You took my HUSBAND, who was everything to me. Everything. We were not normal. We were THAT couple. Not because we were wealthy, or beautiful, or special in any conventional way, but because we had THAT marriage. The one that everyone can see for what it is – real, and special, and incredible. The one that lots of other people either wish they had, or don’t even know enough to wish they had, because they’ve never witnessed it.
When you killed him, he was on the way to the vet. His dog needed medicine, and he was going to get it. But what matters is where he had been. That day, he was shopping for jewelry for me. It was not my birthday, or our anniversary. It didn’t need to be. He just loved me, and wanted to surprise me and make me happy. He had been to three stores – the business cards were in his wallet, brochures on diamonds and gold on the seat beside him. He would not have made this purchase quickly – he would have explored all the options, in order to maximize my happiness. After you took him from me, a friend called the stores to see if by any chance he had ordered something. He had not, but every store remembered him. They remembered the big guy who came in, excited to plan a surprise for his wife. The guy who made friends with everyone in the store. The one whose love for his wife was evident on his face, in his voice.
We were not perfect, but we loved each other with a depth and passion and truth and ease that could not be mistaken or hidden. And not only did you separate us from each other, you used your power to rob us of our goodbye. The one we always thought we would have. The one where we say “I love you” over and over. The one where we say “I’ll see you again someday.” The one where we say “thank you.” The one where we kiss, and touch, while one of us peacefully leaves the other. The one where the person who is left behind gets to lie quietly with the one who has gone, before the rest of the world knows and can intrude with its forms, and laws, and demands for decisions, and grief and loneliness.
So much damage and pain. So much power for one who appears so harmless.
Monday, December 7, 2009
It's Back
The quiet sadness is gone – instead I’m back to the raw gut wrenching sadness. The every day sobbing crying hiccupping so many tears I can’t even see. I hurt hurt hurt. Before now, I wanted him back for good – I wanted it all to not have happened. I still want that desperately. But now, I am overwhelmed with my willingness to settle for having him back for just a little while – a day, even an hour. I think I’m in the bargaining stage. All I can think of is just give him back to me for a little while, and in exchange I will take the pain of losing him again. If I really could make it happen, I wouldn’t even hesitate.
In a much worse way it’s kind of like the bad breakup you had with whoever you loved in the past. Even those who are happily married now probably remember what I’m talking about. Remember how you felt when things didn’t work out with whoever you loved before? Regardless who ended it, you probably yearned for one more conversation, one more touch. That’s what this is, multiplied a million times over. All I can think about is how much I want to touch him one more time, kiss him one more time, feel him hold me one more time. It would be worth it, no matter how horrendous losing him a second time would be.
Up until recently, what I wanted more than anything was to be able to talk to him, to say goodbye, to have one last conversation in which I could try to cram everything that I want to say. But now, I do not feel such a powerful need to talk – instead, I want to touch him. He has the softest hair, and I want to feel it again. We fit perfectly together in his big recliner – I want to sit snuggled with him in it one more time. I want to hold his hand, with my thumb tucked into his palm, which was always our way. I want to lie down quietly next to him – not with me on top of the earth and him under it, like I have to now. I want to just lie next to him and feel the length of him warm against me. I would not fall asleep there, like I always did in the past – I would stay awake and feel every second of him next to me – his smell, the firmness of his arm around me, the sound of him breathing, the feeling of his hand on my hair. Most of all, I want to hold him, kiss him – even more than I want to feel him do the same to me.
The sadness was even worse this last weekend because last night was the last meeting of my grief support group. I was shocked at how gut wrenching it was for me. Part of my distress was that I have come to count on being able to talk to these people every Sunday night – they are grieving too, so they understand, but they are not grieving for him, nor do they really know me, which makes them a good fit for my madness. They get it, without bringing anything personal to the relationship. They also are my only social life. My once a week “visit with people and get to know them” time. The only people here that I can talk to about him without ever feeling I am making them uncomfortable.
The other part of last night that was hard was that we did a balloon release. I know it sounds kind of corny, but it was actually good in a sad but therapeutic kind of way. We all wrote a note to the person we lost, tied it to a balloon string, and then we let them go together. Everyone else wrote their note right before the release. I, of course, wrote three drafts yesterday afternoon to be sure I got it right, and brought the final finished version with me. I wrote in tiny letters so the paper could be small and lightweight, yet I could still say a lot. I had a terrible time letting the note go with the balloon. It was like losing something all over again – I cried and cried.
My sadness is accompanied by absolutely crazy thoughts. I find myself obsessed with Buick LeSabres – the make and model of Kirk’s car. Recently I saw one the same color as his. It was in the right lane, I was in the left, and it was slightly ahead of me. I could barely see the driver from the rear, but it was a man. I was overwhelmed with the thought that it was him, and he was driving away from me. I sped up to catch him, trying desperately to see him from the side, to see that it was really him. I knew logically it wasn’t, but what if it was?? - if I could just catch up with him maybe it would all change. Traffic did not cooperate, and I couldn’t pull up next to him, and he eventually got away without me ever getting a better look at him. It made me cry.
I saw another LeSabre last week that was the wrong color. It was coming toward me, but turned in another direction before I got there. Again I felt compelled to try to see the driver, even though the car wasn’t even the right color – I had to stop myself from turning down a road I didn’t even need to go down just to follow it and be sure.
Another day I was in a meeting at work when suddenly there were sirens nearby. I panicked – I felt like I was going to hyperventilate, or maybe like all the air had been sucked out of me, I’m not sure which. I was sure those sirens were for someone I loved. Then it hit me that it couldn’t be. There is no one I love here. That relaxed me, and made me sad at the same time – what an awful thing to live somewhere where sirens cannot possibly be for someone you love, because no one you love is there.
And the craziest thing of all? I was feeling so sad in the car the other day – I was drowning in the feeling of needing to escape the sadness – to feel good again, to have life be okay again. The radio was on, and suddenly I heard an old song, and the words “seems it never rains in southern California…” came out of the radio. Instantly I thought, “I’ll move to Southern California.” I really thought it – no, DECIDED it. For that split second, that actually seemed like a perfectly logical, rational solution to my sadness. Move to Southern California, and I get my life, my husband, my complete lack of sadness back. Truly crazy.
I still cannot believe he is really gone. For good.
In a much worse way it’s kind of like the bad breakup you had with whoever you loved in the past. Even those who are happily married now probably remember what I’m talking about. Remember how you felt when things didn’t work out with whoever you loved before? Regardless who ended it, you probably yearned for one more conversation, one more touch. That’s what this is, multiplied a million times over. All I can think about is how much I want to touch him one more time, kiss him one more time, feel him hold me one more time. It would be worth it, no matter how horrendous losing him a second time would be.
Up until recently, what I wanted more than anything was to be able to talk to him, to say goodbye, to have one last conversation in which I could try to cram everything that I want to say. But now, I do not feel such a powerful need to talk – instead, I want to touch him. He has the softest hair, and I want to feel it again. We fit perfectly together in his big recliner – I want to sit snuggled with him in it one more time. I want to hold his hand, with my thumb tucked into his palm, which was always our way. I want to lie down quietly next to him – not with me on top of the earth and him under it, like I have to now. I want to just lie next to him and feel the length of him warm against me. I would not fall asleep there, like I always did in the past – I would stay awake and feel every second of him next to me – his smell, the firmness of his arm around me, the sound of him breathing, the feeling of his hand on my hair. Most of all, I want to hold him, kiss him – even more than I want to feel him do the same to me.
The sadness was even worse this last weekend because last night was the last meeting of my grief support group. I was shocked at how gut wrenching it was for me. Part of my distress was that I have come to count on being able to talk to these people every Sunday night – they are grieving too, so they understand, but they are not grieving for him, nor do they really know me, which makes them a good fit for my madness. They get it, without bringing anything personal to the relationship. They also are my only social life. My once a week “visit with people and get to know them” time. The only people here that I can talk to about him without ever feeling I am making them uncomfortable.
The other part of last night that was hard was that we did a balloon release. I know it sounds kind of corny, but it was actually good in a sad but therapeutic kind of way. We all wrote a note to the person we lost, tied it to a balloon string, and then we let them go together. Everyone else wrote their note right before the release. I, of course, wrote three drafts yesterday afternoon to be sure I got it right, and brought the final finished version with me. I wrote in tiny letters so the paper could be small and lightweight, yet I could still say a lot. I had a terrible time letting the note go with the balloon. It was like losing something all over again – I cried and cried.
My sadness is accompanied by absolutely crazy thoughts. I find myself obsessed with Buick LeSabres – the make and model of Kirk’s car. Recently I saw one the same color as his. It was in the right lane, I was in the left, and it was slightly ahead of me. I could barely see the driver from the rear, but it was a man. I was overwhelmed with the thought that it was him, and he was driving away from me. I sped up to catch him, trying desperately to see him from the side, to see that it was really him. I knew logically it wasn’t, but what if it was?? - if I could just catch up with him maybe it would all change. Traffic did not cooperate, and I couldn’t pull up next to him, and he eventually got away without me ever getting a better look at him. It made me cry.
I saw another LeSabre last week that was the wrong color. It was coming toward me, but turned in another direction before I got there. Again I felt compelled to try to see the driver, even though the car wasn’t even the right color – I had to stop myself from turning down a road I didn’t even need to go down just to follow it and be sure.
Another day I was in a meeting at work when suddenly there were sirens nearby. I panicked – I felt like I was going to hyperventilate, or maybe like all the air had been sucked out of me, I’m not sure which. I was sure those sirens were for someone I loved. Then it hit me that it couldn’t be. There is no one I love here. That relaxed me, and made me sad at the same time – what an awful thing to live somewhere where sirens cannot possibly be for someone you love, because no one you love is there.
And the craziest thing of all? I was feeling so sad in the car the other day – I was drowning in the feeling of needing to escape the sadness – to feel good again, to have life be okay again. The radio was on, and suddenly I heard an old song, and the words “seems it never rains in southern California…” came out of the radio. Instantly I thought, “I’ll move to Southern California.” I really thought it – no, DECIDED it. For that split second, that actually seemed like a perfectly logical, rational solution to my sadness. Move to Southern California, and I get my life, my husband, my complete lack of sadness back. Truly crazy.
I still cannot believe he is really gone. For good.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Things That Might Surprise You...
One of the things I hear a lot from people is how much they enjoy getting to know Kirk in a new way through the blog. I was thinking about this last night and about the fact that there were things about him that even surprised me sometimes – times when I thought for sure I could predict his reaction to something and turned out to be wrong.
So here is a list of things that might surprise you about Kirk.
Movies: Kirk HATED to go to the movies. Too much work to go to the bathroom, too many other people around him, having to walk out instead of change the channel if you didn’t like the movie. And of course, no beer. He also never wanted to rent movies. Instead, he preferred to stick to his tried and true favorites. I never really understood how they became favorites since he was so resistant to watching movies to begin with, but somehow he did develop a movie repertoire, and there was a specific list that he would watch every time they were on TV. You all probably know that he loved funny movies, some dramatic movies, and action movies. Some of his favorites were not too surprising: “Caddyshack,” “Shawshank Redemption,” “Fast Times at Ridgmont High,” “Apollo 13,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “Trading Places,” “Sergeant York,” and of course, his all time favorite movie – “Arthur.” But what you may not know is that some of his very favorite movies are romantic, or sappy, or corny. “An American President.” “Dave.” “Grease.” “Mary Poppins.” Even “Pretty Woman.” He would watch them every time they were on TV. What do they have in common? A happy ending. This was his number one criteria for a movie – it had to end well. One of my favorite thoughts now is that he really loved the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life,” with Jimmy Stewart. If you have never seen this, it is about a man who has something go horribly wrong in his life, and he feels those around him would have been better off if he had never lived. An angel comes and shows him what the world would have been like without him, and the man sees that he has had a wonderful impact on others, and that his life mattered very much. I like to think that Kirk had the same kind of life – the kind that made other people’s lives better because he was in it.
Books: What books? If it doesn’t have pictures and you can’t finish it in the bathroom, it was of no interest to him. He never understood my love of reading, with one exception. In Kirk world, there was only one book worth reading - “The Other Side of the Mountain.” He read it as a child, and for the rest of his life asserted that it was the best book ever written. I can’t imagine why – I finally read it for the first time a few years ago and was shocked at the hardship and isolation in it. But he loved it – the strength and perseverance of the character, the communion with nature. He had not read it since childhood, but a few years ago someone (I’m pretty sure it was Auntie Martha) gave it to him for Christmas and he read it cover to cover right away (this from a man that took a month to finish a magazine). Also on the topic of reading, he clearly had an opinion on the worst fiction of all time – the short story “The Lottery.” I have to agree it is a horrifying and distressing story – I also remembered reading it in high school and how much it upset me. But he had an absolute hatred for it, and thought it was downright abusive to make kids read it. Our kids knew from a very young age that if and when they found this story on their reading curriculum he was prepared to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to keep them from having to read it. From the time they were small, he worried some teacher would try to make them read it. I can’t remember now if they ever did – they probably read it and never told him so they wouldn’t have their dad embarrassing them by taking on City Hall over it. If you’ve never read it and think about looking it up now be warned – it’s AWFUL.
New York City: he loved it. Yup – the boy from Hilton, whose favorite things were football and hunting, really loved New York. He loved the busy-ness, and most of all, he loved seeing the people. We went there several times over the past few years and lots of the time we just walked or sat, watching the people the whole time. He liked the skaters and performers in Central Park, the people on the subway, the yuppies lined up outside the Apple Store. He LOVED the Naked Cowboy. For those unfamiliar with this person, he is a very fit guy who stands in Times Square all day in nothing but a cowboy hat and boxer briefs. He carries a guitar, and spends the whole day posing for pictures with female tourists. They grope him with abandon, and provided that he is sure they are adult, he gropes right back. And I do mean GROPE - while their friends, and even husbands and boyfriends, take pictures. And they PAY him for it – that guitar case on the ground is never short on cash. Kirk thought Einstein had nothing on this guy – what brilliant way to make a living! He would watch the guy for an hour every time we went there. I suspect he was weighing his options – Could he be the Naked Cowboy 2 as a second career? But what about the gym time he would have invest in to look like that in his boxers? Or would people pay for a picture with a guy in boxers even if he had a beer belly instead of a six pack? Hmmmm…it was a lot to ponder. And finally, the NY phenomenon that Kirk loved that will surprise you most of all – Broadway shows. He was surprised too – the first time we went ("Mamma Mia") he only went to appease me, but he loved it. The next time we went, we saw "Grease." On our next visit, I think it was going to be "Dreamgirls" or "Hairspray."
And speaking of performances: Kirk loved singing waiters. The first time we ate someplace that had them was in about 1996 at a huge home-style restaurant in South Carolina called The Plantation. The servers there were incredible singers, and they specialized in gospel sounding music, but the lyrics were always about food. There was one guy who had the deepest voice we’d ever heard, and he sang an incredible song about butter beans that brought down the house. We still talked about the butter bean guy years later – we would be at parties where people would be talking about the best singers in the world. Other people would say Streisand, or whatever, and Kirk would pipe up with “The best singer in the world is the butter bean guy in South Carolina.” When we were in New York City, we always went to Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the staff is made up of struggling Broadway actors, and they sing all kinds of stuff – Elvis, show tunes, the Beach Boys. He was always amazed that you could go to a restaurant and hear ordinary people sing better than most of the stuff being turned out in professional recording studios.
Gay guys: He loved to be hit on by gay guys, and they seemed to have a thing for him. I first realized it when we went to Provincetown, and they would openly approach him, even with me there. He has been propositioned in airports and in hotels. My best guess is that they liked the lumberjack thing he kind of had going on. They weren't his type obviously, but he loved it nonetheless, and considered it highly flattering. Someone who thinks you're attractive is someone who thinks you're attractive, and how can that be a bad thing? As far as he was concerned, it was all a compliment. He would strut around with his chest puffed out, swinging his arms (if you know him, you know EXACTLY the strut I am talking about), and say "That guy wanted me - I'm hot."
And finally, what may be the biggest surprise of all, or then again, maybe not. It is not about an activity or thing he loved or hated, but ultimately I guess it is about who he loved and just how much he loved her. A couple of Christmases ago, Kirk gave me a secret Christmas present. It was when we lived in GA, and I think it may have been the year that his whole family came to see us for the holiday. I don’t know if anyone remembers that that year for Christmas, he gave me an envelope, and told me that I had to promise not to reveal to anyone else what was in it. I looked in it, and I cried. Why? Because it was the best, most special Christmas present I ever got. He had given me something that I wanted very much, that he did not want to give me, because it embarrassed him. Something that would mean one on one, “look into each others eyes” time together. Something that would allow us to do something most people of our generation never do, but that I had always wanted to do with him. What was it? Ballroom dancing lessons. I had been asking him to do this with me for probably 15 years. I love watching older couples dance – how they know what each other is thinking, can predict each others next steps, how they can do something so beautiful with no effort, how they seem to be just inside each other, as if no one else is even in the room. If you have ever seen a couple like this you know what I mean. I always knew that we both pretty much had two left feet – we were never going to win Dancing with the Stars. But I didn’t care about that – I just wanted to know each other so well we could move together without having to think, just the two of us without noticing anyone watching, and to do it while holding each other.
You are probably wondering how we did. I am sad to say we never took the lessons. It was my fault, not his. Every time I looked at the schedule the lessons seemed to be at a bad time. And if I’m honest, I was worried that we need to lose some weight first – dancing is hard work, and we were probably a bit chubby for it. Ever since the accident, I have regretted never getting around to taking those lessons – I always thought there was time. But as I am writing this, I am figuring out that even though we never learned to dance, I actually did get what I wanted. As I re-read the last sentence of the previous paragraph, I now realize that metaphorically speaking, everything I ever wanted from dancing, I had from our marriage. We really did move together without having to think, out in the world for all to see, yet still alone with each other somehow, and we certainly did it while holding each other.
Another happy blog post. I ♥ Kirk.
So here is a list of things that might surprise you about Kirk.
Movies: Kirk HATED to go to the movies. Too much work to go to the bathroom, too many other people around him, having to walk out instead of change the channel if you didn’t like the movie. And of course, no beer. He also never wanted to rent movies. Instead, he preferred to stick to his tried and true favorites. I never really understood how they became favorites since he was so resistant to watching movies to begin with, but somehow he did develop a movie repertoire, and there was a specific list that he would watch every time they were on TV. You all probably know that he loved funny movies, some dramatic movies, and action movies. Some of his favorites were not too surprising: “Caddyshack,” “Shawshank Redemption,” “Fast Times at Ridgmont High,” “Apollo 13,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “Trading Places,” “Sergeant York,” and of course, his all time favorite movie – “Arthur.” But what you may not know is that some of his very favorite movies are romantic, or sappy, or corny. “An American President.” “Dave.” “Grease.” “Mary Poppins.” Even “Pretty Woman.” He would watch them every time they were on TV. What do they have in common? A happy ending. This was his number one criteria for a movie – it had to end well. One of my favorite thoughts now is that he really loved the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life,” with Jimmy Stewart. If you have never seen this, it is about a man who has something go horribly wrong in his life, and he feels those around him would have been better off if he had never lived. An angel comes and shows him what the world would have been like without him, and the man sees that he has had a wonderful impact on others, and that his life mattered very much. I like to think that Kirk had the same kind of life – the kind that made other people’s lives better because he was in it.
Books: What books? If it doesn’t have pictures and you can’t finish it in the bathroom, it was of no interest to him. He never understood my love of reading, with one exception. In Kirk world, there was only one book worth reading - “The Other Side of the Mountain.” He read it as a child, and for the rest of his life asserted that it was the best book ever written. I can’t imagine why – I finally read it for the first time a few years ago and was shocked at the hardship and isolation in it. But he loved it – the strength and perseverance of the character, the communion with nature. He had not read it since childhood, but a few years ago someone (I’m pretty sure it was Auntie Martha) gave it to him for Christmas and he read it cover to cover right away (this from a man that took a month to finish a magazine). Also on the topic of reading, he clearly had an opinion on the worst fiction of all time – the short story “The Lottery.” I have to agree it is a horrifying and distressing story – I also remembered reading it in high school and how much it upset me. But he had an absolute hatred for it, and thought it was downright abusive to make kids read it. Our kids knew from a very young age that if and when they found this story on their reading curriculum he was prepared to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to keep them from having to read it. From the time they were small, he worried some teacher would try to make them read it. I can’t remember now if they ever did – they probably read it and never told him so they wouldn’t have their dad embarrassing them by taking on City Hall over it. If you’ve never read it and think about looking it up now be warned – it’s AWFUL.
New York City: he loved it. Yup – the boy from Hilton, whose favorite things were football and hunting, really loved New York. He loved the busy-ness, and most of all, he loved seeing the people. We went there several times over the past few years and lots of the time we just walked or sat, watching the people the whole time. He liked the skaters and performers in Central Park, the people on the subway, the yuppies lined up outside the Apple Store. He LOVED the Naked Cowboy. For those unfamiliar with this person, he is a very fit guy who stands in Times Square all day in nothing but a cowboy hat and boxer briefs. He carries a guitar, and spends the whole day posing for pictures with female tourists. They grope him with abandon, and provided that he is sure they are adult, he gropes right back. And I do mean GROPE - while their friends, and even husbands and boyfriends, take pictures. And they PAY him for it – that guitar case on the ground is never short on cash. Kirk thought Einstein had nothing on this guy – what brilliant way to make a living! He would watch the guy for an hour every time we went there. I suspect he was weighing his options – Could he be the Naked Cowboy 2 as a second career? But what about the gym time he would have invest in to look like that in his boxers? Or would people pay for a picture with a guy in boxers even if he had a beer belly instead of a six pack? Hmmmm…it was a lot to ponder. And finally, the NY phenomenon that Kirk loved that will surprise you most of all – Broadway shows. He was surprised too – the first time we went ("Mamma Mia") he only went to appease me, but he loved it. The next time we went, we saw "Grease." On our next visit, I think it was going to be "Dreamgirls" or "Hairspray."
And speaking of performances: Kirk loved singing waiters. The first time we ate someplace that had them was in about 1996 at a huge home-style restaurant in South Carolina called The Plantation. The servers there were incredible singers, and they specialized in gospel sounding music, but the lyrics were always about food. There was one guy who had the deepest voice we’d ever heard, and he sang an incredible song about butter beans that brought down the house. We still talked about the butter bean guy years later – we would be at parties where people would be talking about the best singers in the world. Other people would say Streisand, or whatever, and Kirk would pipe up with “The best singer in the world is the butter bean guy in South Carolina.” When we were in New York City, we always went to Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the staff is made up of struggling Broadway actors, and they sing all kinds of stuff – Elvis, show tunes, the Beach Boys. He was always amazed that you could go to a restaurant and hear ordinary people sing better than most of the stuff being turned out in professional recording studios.
Gay guys: He loved to be hit on by gay guys, and they seemed to have a thing for him. I first realized it when we went to Provincetown, and they would openly approach him, even with me there. He has been propositioned in airports and in hotels. My best guess is that they liked the lumberjack thing he kind of had going on. They weren't his type obviously, but he loved it nonetheless, and considered it highly flattering. Someone who thinks you're attractive is someone who thinks you're attractive, and how can that be a bad thing? As far as he was concerned, it was all a compliment. He would strut around with his chest puffed out, swinging his arms (if you know him, you know EXACTLY the strut I am talking about), and say "That guy wanted me - I'm hot."
And finally, what may be the biggest surprise of all, or then again, maybe not. It is not about an activity or thing he loved or hated, but ultimately I guess it is about who he loved and just how much he loved her. A couple of Christmases ago, Kirk gave me a secret Christmas present. It was when we lived in GA, and I think it may have been the year that his whole family came to see us for the holiday. I don’t know if anyone remembers that that year for Christmas, he gave me an envelope, and told me that I had to promise not to reveal to anyone else what was in it. I looked in it, and I cried. Why? Because it was the best, most special Christmas present I ever got. He had given me something that I wanted very much, that he did not want to give me, because it embarrassed him. Something that would mean one on one, “look into each others eyes” time together. Something that would allow us to do something most people of our generation never do, but that I had always wanted to do with him. What was it? Ballroom dancing lessons. I had been asking him to do this with me for probably 15 years. I love watching older couples dance – how they know what each other is thinking, can predict each others next steps, how they can do something so beautiful with no effort, how they seem to be just inside each other, as if no one else is even in the room. If you have ever seen a couple like this you know what I mean. I always knew that we both pretty much had two left feet – we were never going to win Dancing with the Stars. But I didn’t care about that – I just wanted to know each other so well we could move together without having to think, just the two of us without noticing anyone watching, and to do it while holding each other.
You are probably wondering how we did. I am sad to say we never took the lessons. It was my fault, not his. Every time I looked at the schedule the lessons seemed to be at a bad time. And if I’m honest, I was worried that we need to lose some weight first – dancing is hard work, and we were probably a bit chubby for it. Ever since the accident, I have regretted never getting around to taking those lessons – I always thought there was time. But as I am writing this, I am figuring out that even though we never learned to dance, I actually did get what I wanted. As I re-read the last sentence of the previous paragraph, I now realize that metaphorically speaking, everything I ever wanted from dancing, I had from our marriage. We really did move together without having to think, out in the world for all to see, yet still alone with each other somehow, and we certainly did it while holding each other.
Another happy blog post. I ♥ Kirk.
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