Death

It is What it is


Bruce Lee wall painting. Tbilisi, Georgia

Image via Wikipedia

“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.” – Bruce Lee

 

Rob has this saying that he uses to explain, qualify, quantify and generally achieve a zen state about nearly all things that are beyond his reach and control. “It is what it is.” I have to admit the path to Nirvana is not as cut and dried for me. I have a difficult time just leaving things alone even when all I can really do is worry about it.

 

Back in the last month or two before the first anniversary of Will’s death, I had this nagging feeling that something “wicked this way comes”. I called this feeling “the other shoe” as in “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. I am not unique in this anxiety ridden state of being. It’s common among the widowed. Common among most survivors of tragedy in general I would venture to guess. When you have lived through one of the worst things you could ever possibly imagine happening, no matter how fervently you hope for better days…..believe in their eventuality even…..you cannot help but fear the future a little. It hasn’t smiled too widely on your recent past after all. After a while I came to understand that this feeling I would get was nothing more than the grief alerting me to the passing of another milestone or “first” without Will. It was what it was, I guess. But even all these months later, and the ample opportunities life as provided for practice purposes, I am still not over the need to try and control circumstances through action. Pre-emption even when possible. I can’t let things just be what they are. I need to fix or explain or something. A side-effect of care-taking? Something inborn? My teacher side? I don’t know.

 

It’s turned me into something of a risk taker. Even while I was trying to shore up the crumbling sand castle that was my life, I was taking tremendous chances. Changing teaching assignments two years ago when I knew that the end was near for Will and I would be in a new situation without my established support network. Going back to get my masters when Will was first sick even. Tossing aside fair-weather friendships because I didn’t think their occasional help and support was worth the emotional strain. Completely changing the terms of my relationships with family and in-laws for much the same reason. The whole dating thing when I clearly wasn’t ready. And, of course, Rob – who turned out to be the least risky of all my leaps of faith.

 

I am asked all the time how I am feeling about leaving for Canada to be with Rob. Am I worried? Am I scared? Am I sure?

 

I worry about the details because that is who I am: a water rabbit. I am scared of crossing the border because Immigration is an authority unto itself. But, I have rarely been this sure of who I am, where I am going and what I want.

 

It is what it is. Just kick when you need to and punch when necessary.

An Ideal World


Pearl S Buck house .

Image by JARM13 via Flickr

“Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.” – Pearl S. Buck 

 

A friend told me last week that I should stop trying to create an “ideal” world. This was in response to a note I sent him about his reply to one of my last posts on the YWBB. He was critical of my stance on the negativity that finds such an easy foothold on the board in part because of the grief but also because those of us who know better are too slow to correct the naysayers and voices of despair. I told him, no, because I am not going to stop trying to share my own experiences or hoping the world will become a better place. I am not going to let darkness prevail. To which his response was that I was going to do well in Canada.

 

Americans and their right-wing ideas about Canadians aside, this got me thinking about whether I am truly an idealist or not. I have certainly copped to the Pollyanna label but rose-colored glasses might not be true idealism.

 

The googled definition of an idealist reads like this:

 

“One of the seven attitudes. Its positive pole is coalescence; its negative pole is abstraction. Idealists view the world in terms of how it could be changed for the better.”

 

Rob thinks that I fit that definition but that I haven’t really had much of an opportunity to action simply because I haven’t had a solid foundation from which to work for a very long time now. I would agree that on my good days I generally am trying to rally the troops (interesting analogy – would an idealist use a military analogy?) to a common cause and that at my least focused I tend towards the unrealistic in terms of ideas and implementation. But to just give in to the general malaise and admit defeat in the face of odds small or overwhelming is not something I can do. I don’t deny my own dark moments when it seemed to me that I would never feel anything but misery again. It’s disingenuous to tell someone that tragedy won’t affect us and change who we are, but Anne Frank wasn’t wrong when she stated her belief that deep down people are good. And I am not wrong when I add that the world is a good place too.

 

I think that grief makes it too easy for us to quit. We say to ourselves that since life will never be the same then it will never be as good either. This allows us to not even try because if we try and fail then that is a reflection on us, but if we give ourselves permission to not try at all then we can hide in our widow weeds, safe from self-loathing and worldly expectations. There is a reason that society both close and far puts pressure on us to “get over” our spouse’s deaths and it is not just to ease their discomfort. It’s not good for us to bog down. Get stuck. There is nothing emotionally healthy in viewing life as having been spent and seeing the time ahead of us as something to merely be marked. In encouraging us to look to a brighter tomorrow and to lay aside our negative feelings and outlooks, we are being urged to embrace life. And is life perfect? No, and it wasn’t before, but it is and always has been a product of hope, imagination, and some effort.

 

From time to time I need to step back from the idea that I can make a difference on my own. Teaching is an example of that. After 20 years I have resigned from my current position and will not be teaching when the fall finds me in Canada. Teaching is a profession that demands a lot of “give” on the part of the instructor and very little “give back” from the students, but if you are doing it correctly you should burn out periodically and need to change venues by way of changing schools, grade levels or subject areas. If you are passionate about what you do, it should show. I am probably a little past my prime when it comes to letting my love of a job consume me. I have other more important things in my life, but I still think that what you choose to do for a living should matter and make a difference in your little acre of life. You can’t make anything or anyone be perfect but you shouldn’t settle either.

 

Could it be that my unwillingness to settle is what others call idealism? Even when faced with ample evidence to the contrary, I have still found it hard to accept that people can’t change, the world might never be a better place and that tomorrow isn’t another day. My Scarlett side, I guess. Because if we all just gave up, decided nothing we could do or say would make any difference or improvement, wouldn’t our world just spiral – negatively – into a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and gloom?

Meanness


moving on

Image by alexdecarvalho via Flickr

From the beginning, I mean the very beginning when Will was first diagnosed and I knew he was going to die, I wanted… needed… to believe that the whole light at the end of the tunnel thing was real. I fixated on the hope that someday there would be happiness again. I put all my trust in that one idea and amazingly it seems to have carried me through to the place I am now. But it is not that way for everyone I am coming to learn. Rob reminds me from time to time something to the effect that widowhood does not create saints out of sow’s ears. If you were not an optimistic person before being widowed, you are very unlikely to become one, and the same holds true for being kind and compassionate.

 

I read a column by Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald today. It was about the Virginia Tech murders, but the central question of his piece was “Can you fix meanness?” And he was talking about the soul. Some people just seem to have this meanness at their core and nothing touches it. It’s there and it shows through no matter what they do or their circumstances in life. Nothing changes that core personality.

 

It’s hard not to go through the widow journey without hitting patches of anger and resentment and wanting to lash out whenever an opportunity presents itself. I have been there myself. It wasn’t fun though. I felt just as awful when I was in that mode as I had before I entered or even after I exited. There was no release from the anger, and it was wrong to purposefully bring negativity to a place, like the YWBB, where people were doing their best to rise above pain and hurt.

 

I left the board today*. It was time. And it may seem cowardly or defeatist to walk away from trying to help those who are truly in need of solace or advice and reassurance from someone who understands, but there is an underlying negativity about the place, that actually may have always been there and I didn’t notice, and a meanness in the loudest voices that can’t be overcome by just one person. There are dead and dying souls there. People who will never be whole, maybe because they never were.

 

Mr. Pitts posed an interesting question in his column “How can you fix a deadness of the soul?”. I wonder about that too. His reply was that there are days that you can find the answers and fix the problems and then there are those times when the answer is that you must simply accept what is. The living dead wander among us. There is negativity and meanness in the world that cannot be overcome by simply handing out hope and understanding. There are no answers, just more questions.

 

It reminds me a bit of the musical by Steven Sondheim, Into the Woods. There is a scene in the second act where the Baker leaves the others to the mercy of the Giant who has invaded their land because he is overcome with grief over the death of his wife and the belief that his baby son would be better off without him. The Baker encounters the spirit of his recently deceased father who reminds him that running away is not the answer to any problem he sings,

 

Running away, go to it.

Where do you have in mind?

Have to take care.

Unless there’s a where

you’ll only be traveling blind.

Just more questions.

Different kinds.

 

There is meanness in the world. I don’t have to be a part of it. I have a where. Canada. A new life with Rob. And, there are different questions to be asked and answered more in tune with the forward momentum of my life now.

 

I am sure I sounded self-righteous and judgmental in my last two posts today. It was hard to keep a neutral tone, though I did try. There are many people there who are wonderful and thoughtful and positive. They are the majority actually, but like many majorities they are largely silent when meanness rears its head. They are cowed by its shrillness and reduced to its ugly tactics and means when they object.

 

I don’t have answers. I only know what is best for me. To move forward. To acknowledge the sadness when those moments arise and refuse to step back into the darkness.

 

*I left and returned a few more times before I just deleted my posts completely. You will only find my a sign in name and a handful of vague references.
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