One of the great ironies of this blog is that if someone else were writing it, I would not read it. Early in my grief journey, someone suggested I read Mary Katherine Ham’s blog here. I tried, but she was much further along in her grief journey and had a new relationship. It is how I ended up writing here. It is also why I often tell folks new to loss to “start at the beginning” if someone suggests this blog to them. The feelings I write about and am processing now would have offended me two or three years ago. It is also one reason I nod to but don’t write about my new relationship. Widows and widowers in new relationships pissed me off more than anything.
My girls reflect on my early days of grief as eating only popcorn and watching a lot of bad reality TV. I still make a mean stove-top popcorn snack, but it isn’t a staple of my diet. However, I still watch many bad reality TV shows (Love is Blind, Married at First Sight, etc.) and, more recently, game shows (Family Feud and Price is Right are go-tos). And, of course, I watch a lot of sports.
I still avoided movies, TV shows, books, and articles about grief. However, one of my daughters, Lauren, is dedicating some time to a task she has long wanted to tackle: writing her book. There will be more on that at some future point—likely from her. As we batted ideas back and forth, I researched possible models, which led me to buy Geraldine Brooks’ novel Memorial Days.
Truth be told, I have bought a lot of books that I think I should read. They are mostly non-fiction. I have a joke that my book-buying of tomes I am super interested in but never read is akin to the gym membership you don’t use. (I use my gym membership.) So, even after it was swiftly delivered to me, I wasn’t sure I would read it or simply bring it to Lauren.
One of my New Year’s resolutions has been to read more. I have always been a voracious reader, but I also read and write a lot for my work, and I lost the habit of reading for fun. Part of my return to reading stems from a symptom of grief that has stayed with me: insomnia. Not being able to fall asleep when I want to and to sleep soundly for 8 hours is exceedingly annoying. I used to be a great sleeper. Guests at my childhood home would marvel that even as a young child, I would put myself to bed when my bedtime arrived. I love sleep. But it has eluded me on too many nights.
My doctor suggested a new regimen for bedtime and even stricter rules for daytime late last year, as I was going through a ton of stress at work, and sleep became nearly impossible. No more than one cup of coffee a day, even though I had long ago given up coffee drinking after noon. Most other advice is pretty well-trod ground, including her suggestion that I read in bed before sleeping. I embraced this idea, and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading at bedtime. Before hundreds of pages of work briefings and three children who did not sleep well and demanded my pre-bedtime attention or late night meetings on the road, I would read voraciously. I saw being told to read at night as a treat, not a burden.
Before this book, I surprised myself by buying the new Nicholas Sparks book. There are so many ways that Chuck was unpredictable. One of those was his love of Nicholas Sparks’s books. And movies. The Notebook was a favorite. So, I surprised myself when I picked up “Counting Miracles” after leaving my book at the hotel (yeah, frequent readers, there was a book with the dress & shoes I left). I recommend it, although there is a lot of death and loss in the book. Despite a busy schedule, I finished it in less than a week and found myself without a next book (or at least unable to find any of the pile I’ve bought) and only “Memorial Days” at my fingertips.
I started the book yesterday and finished it on the plane today. It has been a long time since I devoured 200-plus pages of non-work reading in 24 hours. Yesterday would have been Chuck’s 71st birthday, and it bookends a long few weeks that used to be my favorite time of year. Valentine’s Day is followed quickly by our anniversary, with my birthday and Chuck’s on its heels. It is often the beginning of Lent, which brings out Easter Candy, including Cadbury MiniEggs, to stores - by far the best chocolate treat (sorry, even better than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). I was a big birthday person pre-grief. I continue to struggle with how to mark these occasions, especially this year, with my commitment to find joy and happiness in every day of my 60s. I guess I took that book, being the only one available and me book-less on Chuck’s birthday, as a sign I was ready to read about someone else’s grief.
The irony, of course, is how much I have been told how much sharing my story means to other grievers, especially widows. Why was I avoiding reading other people’s stories when I knew how helpful my own have been? I believe I was afraid. One of the things I’ve always loved about reading non-fiction is that I let myself get lost in the pages, and often times, I feel like I am living out one of the characters in the book. I have no desire to go back and relive my darkest days or to invite the worst of the emotions I felt when Chuck died. Yet, what I discovered in Brooks’s book was wisdom and insight. And maybe even acceptance. It still surprises me that the Kubler-Ross stages of grief aren’t consecutive. And that even when I believe I have conquered a grief stage (stay away, anger!), it reasserts itself in a new form later on. It is weird to say you can accept death and then have a different phase of acceptance.
This quote in the Afterword of “Memorial Days” resonates, “The time … allowed me to set down one of the bundles in the baggage of my grief. It’s the grief I had been carrying for the life I would have had, the life I had counted on having.” Umm, yes. Throughout the book, I saw myself in much of Brooks’s work, and I felt a knowing in her feelings and observations. She even touched on my being sad & happy simultaneously with a concept she attributes to Victor Hugo: “… the happiness of being sad.”
Our family will be blessed in the next few months: Sarah will graduate with her master's, and Lauren and Richard will marry on the farm. I have struggled with these big events before, and I think I was dreading them even as I marveled at the resilience and strength of all three of my daughters. I sought advice on incorporating Chuck into the wedding ceremony from another widow whose daughter recently got married. Good friends and widow friends have advised me of the conflicting emotions likely to emerge with this first (and subsequent, fingers crossed) wedding. Truthfully, these conversations left me a bit bereft.
Brooks captured where I am with elegance and simplicity. I need to embrace and accept my life now, the celebrations I am blessed to be part of, and the fact that there will be happiness in the sadness. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take off to a remote, beautiful island to work through these emotions. But living vicariously through the pages of “Memorial Days” helped. Of all the stages to have reappeared, I would not have guessed that I needed to revisit acceptance. But here I am, hopefully a little braver and ready to embrace everything ahead of me.