Adjusting

You have probably been wondering where I’ve been. Perhaps thinking - maybe she isn’t writing because she is getting better. And because she is “better” she is not so full of words and feelings and confusion bursting to get out so she has not written. You would be partially right.

It is true that I am not bursting all the time anymore. However, I would not call myself “better.” More accurate I think to call it “adjusting.” The best I can describe it is that eleven months, one week, and five days ago, a staggering weight was thrust on me, like the biggest, heaviest, most painful bag of rocks was loaded onto my back, my shoulders, everywhere – more crushing than anyone can imagine. The weight felt like it was literally sucking my breath out, paralyzing me, making even the simplest task virtually impossible. My mind was so numb from it that it seemed I was underwater, and the world was thick and far away, yet at the same time had a sharpness and clarity that only added to the pain.

To describe who I am now as “better” would imply that the bag of rocks has lightened, and that would be inaccurate. The truth is that I have just gotten accustomed to carrying it. The weight has become a part of who I am. It’s as heavy as ever, and I am always aware it’s there, but I have toughened and adapted. I desperately want to get rid of the bag, to have him back, to never have had it happen, but I know this is not possible and I have to soldier on. The weight is harder to carry on some days than on others, and I guess that will always be the case. But since around the nine to ten month mark I find I have hardened enough, become calloused enough, that the burden has become more manageable.

So why haven’t I said this to you before? If much of my purpose in writing is to tell you how I’m doing, why haven’t I? Why not reassure you when I know how much you worry about me and care? The truth is, I was struggling with what it says about Kirk. I have been terribly unhappy and uncomfortable with this. If I have adapted, does that mean that’s all he was worth? Only ten months or so of raw pain? If I say out loud that I am adjusting, will you think his “specialness” was that limited? Not equal to forever - or even a year? I haven’t wanted anyone to know how I'm doing, because I didn’t want you to cap his worth. Better to let you think I am still a mess, still crying all the time, better to let you worry about me, even to let you think that if I have stopped writing it means I am worse. To let you think I have withdrawn, that maybe you should get on a plane and come check on me, anything other than to let you think he was only worth ten months.

This probably hurts to hear. I can imagine you all thinking right now that you know how special he was, that you would never think he was any less worthy based on my state of mind. And I do know you are right. But I LOVE HIM and I could not stand to reveal anything that might make him seem less big and special and wonderful and worth it than he was. I’m not talking about making him a saint, just that I want him to have his due. Let me assure you, he was worth forever. He was worth a crushing bag of rocks – a never-ever-adjusted-to crushing bag of rocks. In a lot of ways I wish I couldn’t manage the weight, because it feels like a more fitting tribute to him to have it be unmanageable, and I so much want him to have what he deserves, the tribute he earned with all the love and passion and support and laughter and family and caring and just sheer happiness he gave me.

So what has finally made me able to say all this out loud? Allowed to me overcome my fear of reducing his value? Once again, it was the book. As a reminder, “the book” refers to "Healing After Loss," the Martha Whitmore Hickman book I told you about many months ago. The book you should all give as a gift to the people in your life you want so desperately to help when they lose someone they love. The book that sometimes makes me mad, sometimes gives me clarity, sometimes calms me, or makes me feel understood, or helps me see things in a new light. This time, it pointed me right at the blindingly obvious. With a simple, one-sentence quote, it set me on the road to accepting my progress, to adjusting to my own adjustment. Here is the quote:

“The greatest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude.” (Thomas Wilder)

This is the single most powerful thought I have encountered since this nightmare began. It is in the introduction to the book, and I had never read it before, but a few weeks ago I was thumbing through the book and stumbled across it. I am glad I didn’t find it nine months, or six months, or even three months ago, because I would not have been ready to hear it. I would have rejected it, or not “gotten” it. But it came when I needed it, and it was like someone shone a spotlight on the one thing I needed to realize in order to start to accept where I am in this process and to be able to say it out loud. Because it gives me a different but still acceptable and right way to pay tribute to Kirk, and to give him everything he deserves. Because while the rawness of the grief has diminished, the gratitude I feel for him keeps growing and will continue to do so. The need for sheer survival seems to limit uncontrolled mourning, but there is not, and never will be, a limit to my gratitude. And that proclaims his value, his worth, as limitless, which it was and is.

I still mourn him and miss him terribly. I often – probably too often - fantasize what it would be like to have him walk through the front door. I see it so clearly in my mind – he has on his favorite jeans or plaid shorts, with his famous loafers and no socks. He wears a golf shirt (solid color or vertical stripes – never horizontal), and a cap with a golf or fishing logo on it. He has his big grin on his face, and he walks in with that distinctive walk I cannot describe but every one of you who knows him is seeing in your mind right now. And he is, as always, happy to see me. He wraps his arms around me so tightly, and I am home. I hold on to him like I am drowning - I don’t know how I will ever let go of him. We stand there in the front hall while the dogs dance around us wanting his attention. But they will have to wait because we are in our own place, the world with only us in it, and he rocks me and comforts me and kisses my head like he did the minute he first loved me, while I cry and cry with the incredible joy and relief I feel at having him back.

I know it cannot happen, but I fantasize anyway. It hurts, like salt on a wound, but also allows me to feel, however briefly, the happiness that would be in that moment. And it makes me feel grateful to him for giving me the kind of love and partnership that creates the fantasy at all.