farewell

The dance is over, as much as I want to stay.  But my partner is gone, and I can't pretend anymore.


Many thanks and love to all who have read this, supported us, and kept us in your mind and heart.


Please don't stop.


I won't.


My new life in the land of Widowhood will be chronicled on the blog www.eatinggrief.blogspot.com.


Hope to see you there.


With love and gratitude,
Candace

sardines

Sardines, I would tell Rich.  Compared to you, that's what other men are.

Aw shucks, he would say.  Though neither one of us were sure what I was talking about, I meant it as a supreme compliment, and he took the bait.

I look around now, and mumble to myself, sardines, that's all that is left swimming.

Sardines, I'm told, are good for regulating the rhythm of the heart and reducing bodily inflammation.  Frequent consumption is desirable.

But as much as my body wants, my mind files everyone as "not Rich, not Rich..." and I swim away, heart still pumping to another rhythm.

Candace

splinched, again

Once before in this space (May 6, 2008) I wrote about being "splinched."  As a reminder for those not familiar with Harry Potter, this is a magical mode of transportation whereby thinking takes us to the place we want to be.  But in the beginning, few can do this neatly.  A torso or leg is in Place A while the rest of us has moved on to Place B.  Confusion results.


So these days. At times, a certainty that I'm in one piece, that I've made the move neatly, all parts intact. So confident, in fact, that I attempt to move further into places that may hurt.


Last week I returned to Memorial Sloan Kettering to question another absurd bill that, I thought, Rich had settled months ago.  First, I'm asked for Rich's ID card.  Rich is dead, I say (isn't this true of most MSK patients, sooner rather than later?) The rep gives me a disgusted look.  She taps, taps, taps the computer.  I wait.  Ten, fifteen minutes.


"You can pay at the cashier," she says.


That's not why I'm here, I repeat.  I'm questioning the bill, not paying it.


Back to the computer for a few more minutes.


She rips a sheet off the printer and hands it to me.


"This is the number to call," she says.  "You can't see anyone. It's confidential."


"The bill is confidential?  You mean I can call someone to talk about it, but not see someone?"


She nods, yes.


What to do?  Off to the hospital cafe, where how many times I don't remember, I bought a scone and latte while my love was somewhere upstairs having nasty things done to him. And I waited.


This time, all I'm waiting for is the bus on the corner to take me home.  I'm okay, though.  I munch and sip and attempt to read the newspaper but I can't, I'm losing my mind to other days when we will get through this, just get through this...


No more "we."  I'll get through this.  In one piece.


Until a man walks by carrying an ersatz plant from the gift shop.  It's made of some sort of felt, an orange and yellow imitation of a sunflower.  It is singing.


You are my sunshine...please don't take my sunshine away...


I separate, sliced down the middle, and liquid erupts.


Splinched, again.


Candace

where we belong

...the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that there is where we belong. -- Graham Greene, "The Heart of the Matter."


Tonight I'm packing for my first trip since Rich died.  The first in five years that will not involve surgery or radiation or another medical procedure, that will not include Rich, that death will not be the mistress hugging him while I pretend she's a temporary fling.


Of course, I want to kill her.  Before she takes him from me.


I don't need the usual carry-on.  Even that's too much for someone traveling light.  Anyway, that case hasn't been unpacked yet from its time at Hospicare.  Zippered open, Rich's T-shirts and sweatpants and pajama bottoms hang out, still not bagged and donated.  I can't, not yet.


But I can travel from unhappiness.  A necessary place to visit, and I do, often enough.  But that's not where I belong. Because Rich won't be found there, and I will be damned if I let that mistress thinks she won.


Candace

and: a life

It is good, and it isn't.

It is good to receive a letter from a former student of Rich's, thanking him for his support.

It isn't good because the letter is addressed to Rich, not knowing that Rich will never read or answer it.

It is good when, at a dinner at a friend's house, another guest recognizes me, although I'm sure we never met.  She makes the connection.  She was the volunteer massage therapist who visited Rich at Hospicare.

"He always spoke of you," she said. "He would just light up."

It isn't good because in the last days Rich doubted if he loved me enough, or at all.  I had no doubts, and couldn't relieve this added agony in his too-big repertory.  Hearing her words confirms what I know -- ouch, again.

It is good when joy and excitement shoots through me, as it does, more and more.

It isn't good because the emotion stops dead, unshared.

So I'm living the "and" life, of wanting and not, of remembering and not, of loving and not.

In not having to choose there is relief.  And not.

Candace

jigsaw

So you must not be frightened...if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen. --Rainer Maria Rilke


To those who know Rich, it will be no surprise that he was good at putting together jigsaw puzzles.  To those who know me...I'm not.   


So, as a challenge, I once bought what I thought was an insolvable one:  A cheese pizza broken into 1,000 pieces, mostly red (sauce) and (yellow) cheese, with pieces of brown (pepperoni) scattered throughout.


He set it on a table, and over a week or so, in his spare time, would neatly attach this section, then that, and within a couple of weeks -- done.  He applied a coat of shellac, framed it, and mounted it on the wall.


"Rub it in," I said.  


Looking at it made me not only a bit jealous, but also hungry.  I could taste the hot cheese, sensuously stretching itself through teeth, lightly burning tongue.  It became real.


But it was only a puzzle, not the real thing at all, soon to be broken down and eventually gone to the landfill.  Even when brilliantly pieced together, puzzles are only broken pieces, inanimate and temporary.


And yet and yet -- this puzzle that is gone forever, the days of Rich and Candace -- is a sadness varnished and framed, bigger than life, terrifyingly real.  I can still taste it, I am still hungry for it, at many moments I can't understand how we became nothing more than broken-down dead pieces.


What satisfies, a little, is knowing that puzzles are solved not with "why" but "how."  How to move on...how his memory may continue to bring me (and others) joy...how to attach this piece to another and then someday say: Done.


Candace

reason to live

In the hot early days -- and pretty hot later ones, too -- Rich was my reason to live.  Body, mind, spirit -- all contained in the other until the chordoma years emptied his, and drained mine.

After the burial, after the memorial service, after the first wave of financial and legal commitments, came the fall.  I needed a container for grief, as once I had one for love.

So I began pouring myself into morning and evening Kaddish, into healing meditation (for me, for Rich, for us), into a fixed place where everything could spill out.  In these times there are, mostly, tears at the beginning and joy at the end; sometimes the reverse.  And I can be assaulted at any time by his absence.

But lately I have been awaking hungry.  For love, again.  To love someone, again.  And rejoice that nothing has changed.

Rich, once, was my reason to live.

He still is.

A love-filled new year to all -- and many thanks,

Candace

coming into focus

The mind rambles backwards, trying to skip over the two months -- and two days -- ago, the past year, the past five years, until it settles on a blurry Rich that doesn't come into focus, and then ricochets back to this time a year ago.

Across the valley are two towers, traditionally alight with two numbers that change at midnight on 1 January. Last year, the "0" remained as the "8" became a "9." We made a habit of watching this, our bodies close (yes, this is the New Year's Eve excitement in our town).

"Will I see this again?" he asked.

"I hope so, love."

He knew what I knew but didn't want to know, and knew better than to expect a real answer.

Rich couldn't imagine not being here, and I couldn't imagine being without him.

But here the body kicks in.

And it proclaims: What's the problem? I'm happy. I'm eating. So much energy! Let's live!

Doesn't it know the loneliness, the missed touches, the empty bed?

For now -- always, really -- I trust the body that feels love, not the mind that seeks what has changed forever.

Candace

paradox

We are one day past the solstice. Humans, from first awareness of this astronomical good news, rejoiced with maximum revelry and minimum sobriety. Even though they also knew: The worst is yet to come. Winter, in this part of the world, is only beginning.

Other mammals aren't fooled. They slow down. They grow more fur. They wait for the sun to be more than an ornament. They aren't troubled by the apparent paradox of more light and more ice, snow, frigid air. They're like Ralph, now listing to his right and pressed against Rich's photo.

But he's missing out on the best part. He will never be human (he's too cute, anyway) until he learns the joy of living as paradox.

Which is more than tolerable. It's pleasure. Because Rich continues to teach me in the way lovers do, with surprise and joy as he leads me into a place I could never have entered without him.

We're both heading home, wherever that may be.

Candace

walden on trial

I have begun re-reading two of my most treasured books: Thoreau's Walden, and Kafka's The Trial. Both I read for the first time on the edge of life, when I was perhaps twelve or thirteen. In one I saw the life that would be mine; in the other, I saw the inexplicable tragedy that life could become -- but it wouldn't happen to me.

I held Thoreau's words to my heart: I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...I did not want...when I came to die, that I had not lived.

A life lived in experiential awareness could not go wrong.

Of course it did, more than once.

Josef K., Kafka's creation, found himself principal actor in a farce morphed into tragedy, which may be entertaining to watch or read but, in this case, it was his life in which "he did nothing truly wrong."

At tonight's bereavement support group, a participant, a widower of two years, challenged me when I said that I do find at least a sliver of joy in each day.

"How is that possible?" he asked. "What do you do?"

Mostly, I said, I don't try to fill the holes with my head. I don't ask questions, and I have no answers.

And I haven't left Walden.

We must learn to reawaken...by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.

Or in our deepest tragedies.

Candace

slumber my darling

Day 50

This is the day I will again put on my wedding ring. So I decide upon awaking. Why not? Others do, even when their lover, their companion, their world is gone. Nothing prohibits this.

First I try Rich's ring on my right hand, middle finger. Too heavy, too big, I can't carry the weight.

Back to mine, then. Right hand, left hand, but I cannot, I cannot, who do I think I am? Not a sham, this I will not let myself be. I toss it back onto the top of Rich's dresser, to be buried among his clean socks and underwear (what will I do with them?) and the blue knit scarf he made for Ralph, a hundred years ago.

This is the day after Rich's Memorial Service, when friends from high school drove four-plus hours through rain and ice to tell of Rich the football lineman, Rich the smart boy who (politely) corrected the math teacher's errors, Rich the nicest guy who never made a big deal of any of it. And the next speaker was one of Rich's colleagues who confirmed everything we all knew, and then a friend who spoke of Rich's faith, one that was light on the theory but heavy on the experiential.

I spoke, too, though I don't remember much of that part. What sticks are those who filled the Great Room at Hospicare, the abundance of food, the laughter, my joy in our shared love.

This is the day when I listen to the CD given to me by Hospicare's music director, who with harp and voice performed at yesterday's service the song she did for Rich through the summer and into autumn...slumber my darling...the night's coming on...you, you are the world to me.

I didn't know about this lullaby. I know what I miss so much, and who I miss, but how much else did I miss along the way?

This is the day I was going to end this blog. But I cannot end it, not yet, because I will miss all of you too much, and I need you with me along the way.

With love,

Candace

lighting up

This week I returned to Hospicare for the annual "Lighting the Landscape." Strands of bulbs were wrapped around trees, shrubs, fenceposts, symbolically representing those who died.

Every memory lit up, four months' worth. Of his caregivers whom I came to love -- and loved Rich -- and all the meals I heated up in the kitchen, and the hours every day sitting with Rich in the garden, in the Great Room, in his room, number five, at the end of hall...

How could he not be here?

Because I felt him ripping at my heart, every step.

Like the old days, I open the door and see John having dinner. He jumps up, hugs me, says it must be so, so hard...and Theresa, how much she misses him, misses me...and Kathy, the nurse on duty, who jogs down the hallway for a hug...yes, yes, yes, they say, they will do everything possible to be at Rich's Memorial Service.

That will be in a few days, in the Hospicare Great Room. To say "thank you" to all who cared for him, to fulfill Rich's repeated anguished request how can we thank everyone, to believe that the best cure for love is more of the same.

Candace

Ralph

Today, I found Ralph under a pile of books and papers.

Five-plus years ago, he came home with Rich, a gift from Sloan Kettering. One and a half feet tall, 100% pure polyester, with a "Polo" emblazoned red scarf around his brown furry neck, Rich immediately named him: Ralph the Care Bear.

At first, he was -- well, an inanimate object, made in China and donated to Sloan Kettering patients by designer Ralph Lauren.

But soon we gave him a personality (bearnality?) and soon after that we forgot that he was our creation.

He sat with Rich on the rocking chair.

"Fight the chordoma, Ralph," Rich would say, and we would see a fierce look in Ralph's eyes.

And he joined us for dinner, sometimes, propped between the candlesticks.

When Rich hurt, Ralph looked sad. When we asked him questions -- will Rich get out of this, what's next -- he looked thoughtful and hopeful.

When I said, once, that Ralph was useless, he wasn't curing anything, Rich defended him.

"He's not a cure bear," Rich clarified. "He's a care bear."

About this time a year ago, at the beginning of the final unraveling, Ralph disappeared. Maybe I moved him, maybe Rich did; I don't remember. But he was gone from the table, gone from the rocking chair. Our fantasy couldn't help, not anymore.

Today, I lift Ralph up, wiping some dust off his scarf. A heap of polyester, nothing more.

Then I look into his eyes.

Dazed, stunned, sunken with sadness.

He is my reflection.

You didn't fail, Ralph. I didn't fail. We cared, that was all we could do.

Candace

retreat

Day 43

Don't write about what you know. Write toward what you want to know...in making that peculiar shotgun leap toward what we supposedly don't know, we transform our vision of what we are.

--Colum McCann

I always knew how "Chordoma Dance" would end, and I guess you did, too. The suspense was not in how Rich got over the chordoma, but how we got through it. Rich's footwork was dazzling, always; I lurched and stumbled behind him, damning the road we were on but helpless in making it safe from the bombs that exploded here and there, at first, and then -- everywhere.

So I did a retreat, verb and noun.

Removing myself from what didn't matter into the world where the only thing that mattered was leaving no matter how much Rich tightly held to life, and I held to him, but the grip slips while moving backwards and I had no answer when Rich, near the end, pleaded oh, E.T., how did this happen, how did we get here.

Being on retreat for the past years would explain nothing, I knew; only a front-row seat into the pain and sorrow that would dissolve neither by ignorance nor knowledge but by sucking it into the hole left by that boy who loved me more than I could ever absorb.

I try not to look backwards, much. I look forward, a little. I cry, a lot. And I soak in the love that remains.

Candace

zigzag

Day 38

It's nine at night and I'm eating cold oatmeal. This is supper.

If it were you who died and Rich survived, what would he be doing?

So asks the bereavement counselor.

Eating cold dinners, I say, and we laugh.

I start answering, but zigzag into I can't believe he's not in the world and don't know where I'm in the world and then end -- as if this isn't already obvious -- that when I get out of bed in the morning I have no idea what Candace-without-Rich will do or say. Sometimes she runs off to a movie and stays out late, sometimes she's in her pajamas by sunset, sometimes she starts filling out yet another after-death form and soon finds herself away and gone at a cafe where she's having a latte and making a list of what must be done.

And it's okay.

Candace

living koan

A shallow box holds it all. A few physics books, to remember. An 8x12 black and white, photographer unknown, of Rich as a young graduate student in T-shirt and khaki green Boy Scout shorts, adjusting a piece of the experiment. A pen, once it was his, no other reason. His business cards, for no reason at all.

And a pocket-size cobalt blue plastic comb, found on the third look through his desk drawer. This is the day's find. Breathing in comes the aroma of his after shave, of his body. Breathing out I cry.

Cleaning out Rich's two offices should have been quick. His separation of personal and work life was almost total. I found what I expected. Files neatly arranged, books arrayed on shelves, all ready for another day of work.

Almost all of it, I leave behind. The books and the files along with some awards, a few name tags, his name plaque removed from the office door.

What remains is the tsunami; literally, the place where the "harbor" and the "wave" meet and destruction is inevitable. Exactly what will vanish, or be moved, or left unscathed cannot be predicted by my usual crutches of intellect and belief.

What emerges is the koan, appropriate always but becoming most alive in times of death and dying (which is pretty close to always...). Zen teacher John Tarrant writes: "The situation is insoluble and you hang around with it and something shifts to another level."

Or, as others have said, koans are can-openers for the mind. What do I see? A nauseating mass. Not who I am, no way.

Tarrant suggests an antidote: With every out breath, breathe the words I don't know. Do this for minutes, for years; while sitting, standing, waiting.

I cry because I don't know.

A shallow box is enough. More than.

Candace

distractions

The envelope, please.

Today's winner of the Most Absurd Distraction Award --- the MADDY --- is a much-crowned champion, tough to beat in any MAD competition.

It is: The IRS.

And it has nothing to do with Rich.

They are interested in my mother, who died almost two years ago.

Give us, they say, her forwarding address.

No wonder we fear the IRS.

They are God.

But like all worthy MADDY contestants, the IRS cannot be ignored. They must be responded to and (temporarily) dispatched.

These days, all is absurd. From the Latin absurdus, "out of tune," this applies to conversations, news reports, and what I once called reality. I am trying to avoid the conversations and the news, all of which assault me with notes thunderous and dissonant, but the reality of my illusions --- where would I be without them?

Perhaps where Rich is. Far from me, now; and as it should be. The dead have better things to do than chat with the living or file IRS forms.

As I do, but I'm not officially dead. I'm weary of expectations that I'm the same -- minus Rich. And so distractions are hurled at me, as if I have learned nothing in these past months and years, as if the person before 25 October is the same as afterward, as if I have "plans."

I have an opportunity, of course. Or I can continue as before, knowing that the most deserving winner of the MADDY --- the envelope, please --- is me.

Candace

blank

Day 25

On Wednesday, I collapsed.

Because there was nothing more that had to be done, immediately. Or at least for another 24 hours.

Grief doesn't dance. It's too heavy, too thick, too sad, absorbing my thoughts and my words.

I'm blank.

Candace

entering the stream

After the last breath, the wedding ring came off. Rich wouldn't need it; he was now traveling light. Then, mine.

But my load keeps getting heavier and heavier, and I wonder how much weight a heart can take.

His clothes. My walks, in light and in darkness, not one step he has not taken, not one that we haven't taken together. Our memories, now sliced in half, destined to vanish.

There was no way to prepare for this.

Except by entering the stream, alone. No one can do this for me. Grief unbound bruises, but cannot kill what is already dead. Rich and I are in opposite positions now. His container is gone, but his essence moves onward; my container still walks and eats and breathes, but my essence is in the stream, flowing out of me until one day it will cease, and off I will go into a new land.

Meanwhile, my mantra is revived.

Fuck this shit.

The stream needs to know that I can swim.

Candace

Rhinoceros, Ionesco dialect

The problem is, I'm not literate in Rhinoceros.

I doubt if anyone is, but the Rhinos' grunting so brilliantly confounds obscurity for clarity when the matter at hand is transparent simplicity that most of us, in self-defense, sprout horns and say, I understand!

I don't. But I'm trying my best to become bi-species.

Today, back to the Verizon office. With my social security card, required for transferring the contract from Rich to me.

My Rhino rep regards me cooly. He asks the same questions as on Saturday. Why changing? Because Richard is dead, I say. He asks for an ID. I hand over my driver's license, again. Put in your social security number, he says, indicating the electric pad on the counter. I wait.

Don't you want my card, I ask. We got this far on Saturday.

The numbers, he says.

But there are no numbers on the pad.

He frowns at me, then hits a button on his computer and the numbers appear.

We wait. He chats with another Rhino. I catch myself rubbing my naked third finger, left hand, a habit of late. Maybe it will become a hoof. I hold onto my social security card, my humble offering.

He looks past me. You're done, he says.

You don't need my card? I was told on Saturday --

I don't know who told you that, he says.

I go for a long walk near our old home, up and down and around the gorge. At our -- my -- new home, more Rhino works await, piles of them.

Tomorrow is still another day.

Candace