In Sane Grief

...I wrote very early this morning at the main journal, something I forgot to mention:
    While I was waiting in line at the Post Office, yesterday (always try to avoid the post office on the Friday before Mother's Day), to requisition a U-cart for transporting (Mom's and) my food donations to the managing office, I noticed a display of the two types of Passport applications and, having nothing better to do and being in a line of people who didn't seem particularly amenable to casual chat, decided to peruse a copy of each (application in person and application by mail). Strange but true, although the geographical parameters of my life range over half the globe, including crossing U.S. political borders, I've never needed a passport so I've never had one. As I read the application an alternate mind-track teased me with travels in and out of the U.S. that I've considered since December 8, 2008: Wandering the world to research how elders are incorporated in a variety of societies; Seeking work and residence in a socially democratic country with a decent universal health care system; Learning a new language (several possibilities have arisen since Mom died and I'm continuing to investigate which to pursue first) then visiting the country in which the language is spoken in order to sharpen my skills; acknowledging and taking up the invitations of a few online journaling friends to visit them and their areas; visiting famous high rain areas like Milford Sound, New Zealand, and Mt. Wai'ale'ale, Kauai.
    Once I'd been admitted to the post office office (sorry, I couldn't resist the redundancy) I noticed a camera set-up through an open door into another area. After the impromptu Food Donation Celebration wound down, I asked the office manager about applying for a passport. Aside from reviewing the obvious technical information (hours applications are accepted, who to approach first, etc.) she offered me several helpful tips:

• Don't pay the post office for passport photos. They charge twice as much as the pharmacy across the street. Don't use a particular chain pharmacy, either: Their photos are often too dark to use. Just prior to my visit yesterday, she'd had to send away a family who had solicited photos from this pharmacy.
• If I'm planning any major change to my appearance [coloring or drastically changing my hair; plastic surgery; significant weight gain or loss; a tattoo within portrait range; having an ear amputated (she snickered at this one)], wait until my appearance has stabilized before having a passport photo taken. If I don't, I'll wish I had the first time I use the passport.
• No, I don't have to have a trip in mind in order to apply for a passport; if I don't, leave that section blank.
• Yes, Birth Certificates are returned relatively promptly and in fine shape. She's never had a complaint about this, although she's received anxious calls because "it takes awhile" to get them back. "For god sakes," make sure I copy it before sending it off.
• At this time, if you apply in person, stifle the urge to joke about terrorist activities. "You'd be surprised," she said, "how many people do this. We're obligated to note this on an application and this can slow the process," which, normally, takes four to six weeks.

    Although I'm sure the passport application display has been ubiquitous at our local post office since the USPS became an "agent of application" on behalf of the U.S Department of State, I think it is not incidental that I didn't notice it until five months, to the day, of my mother's death. I think it's also a landmark in my grief process. By chance, the Hospice Grief Counselor called me Thursday. As we chatted, I mentioned to her that between her last call and this one I'd begun to read through selected books on grief, especially pertaining to losing a spouse, since I identified more with this than with losing a mother. I also told her that, around the time I decided to do some in depth reading, I wondered if I might be a candidate for "complicated grief" and wanted to read more about that.
    "You're not," she said, and went on to clarify that people experiencing complicated grief tended toward silence. She didn't find it necessary mention that grief silence is not my problem. It's obvious.
    I told her that I was aware of this because one of the books I'd checked out was what amounted to a text on "Complicated Mourning" by Therese A. Rando, the contents of which clearly indicated that the chief hallmark of complicated mourning, blocked mourning, didn't apply to me, although I was finding the book extremely helpful in understanding my grief process. I asked her if she'd heard of the book. Only cursorily, she mentioned, but as we discussed the book I realized I hadn't absorbed as much from scanning through it as I thought I had. When our conversation ended I opened the book and reviewed its peculiar and distinctive definitions of, among other aspects of loss, mourning. Rando, in Chapter 2, which includes a section of "Definitions", Rando devotes a little over three pages to defining mourning, versus a little over a page defining grief. She distinguishes the definition included in her book from the traditional definition of mourning, "the cultural and/or public display of grief through one's behaviors", thusly: She emphasizes "the psychoanalytic tradition of focusing on intra-psychic work, expanding on it by incuding adaptive behaviors necessitated by the loss..." [all quotes from Treatment of Complicated Mourning copyright 1993 by Therese Rando].
    In addition, she devotes a majority of the chapter to a further, meticulous elucidation of mourning, including "The Six 'R' Processes of Mourning". As I reacquainted myself with these, I realized that my food donation experience, including my writing about it afterward, fell into a variety of categories:

• "Feel, identify, accept, and give some form of expression to all the psychological reactions to the loss"
• "Identify and mourn secondary losses"
• "Review and remember realistically"
• "Revive and reexperience the feelings"
• "Readjust to move adaptively into the new world without forgetting the old" [bolding SIC]
• "Develop a new relationship with the deceased"
• "Adopt new ways of being in the world"
• "Form a new identity"
• "Reinvest" [bolding SIC]

    Although I've listed these categories in order, my experience of them through this one experience was all over the map, another accepted hallmark of mourning: The processes, as observers of grief and mourning have labeled them for better understanding, don't happen in any particular order, nor do they necessarily end; they evolve, sometimes into another process, sometimes into a regurgitation and/or refinement of the same process.
    The main reason why I wrote the post to which the title above links is that, after yesterday's food donation episode was over and I was reviewing the experience, I noticed a new and distinct difference in the way I am handling my mother's death. It feels like a movement, although not necessarily along a grade like "better/worse", "higher/lower" "more/less competent". The reason I took note is that, previous to yesterday, I've experienced my grief process, for lack of a better analogy (although please assume that this one isn't exactly right, either), as centrifugally closed. Yesterday, I felt as though I'd begun to spiral...not out of anything, but to an area that, hmmm...allows me to reach for more...does that make sense?
    Specifically, yesterday was the first time since Mom's death that I "talked" to her for so long a time and with so much concentration. I didn't feel as though Mom was "there", in the same sense as I took for granted that she was "there" with me when she was alive, at home and I was out doing errands. There was none of the palpable psychic impress that her alive existence engendered in me when she was at home and I was not. She was, however, with me in a way to which the phrase "in memory" does only paltry, demeaning justice. I'm at a loss for words, here, but I suspect that other survivors will understand what I mean.
    It's the first time I can remember, too, that I've taken an "alive" and common episode in our lived together lives and adapted it successfully and joyfully into my present survivor experience. Finally, as I did so, I autonomically leapt from adapting an old experience to considering new experiences that have nothing to do with Mom's and my lived together life. It felt hopeful...not as though I was leaving anything behind but as though the world around me was widening in a way I hadn't expected.
    That's a Survivor's Mother's Day with which I can live. Gladly.

Labels: Celebrations, Complicated Grief, Grief Fantasies, Grief Literature, Grief Self-assessment, Life after Death, Mother's Day, Mourning Processes, Rando

    I've already announced its debut over at Mom & Me but, since this is the umbrella journal that contains the posts I submitted to (and that were chosen for) this edition of PCGR, I figured I'd better announce it here, too.
    It's a grand, grand round...hosted at a unique and interesting blog, Dr. Thaddeus Pope's Medical Futility Blog. The unadorned description of his blog: "This blog tracks judicial, legislative, policy, and academic developments concerning medical futility." Very unassuming, but, while you're there checking out PCGR 1.4, consider taking a look at what his online journaling offers. It isn't often you run across a medical blog written by a lawyer. His posts are easily negotiated, contain pertinent links and will surprise you at their applicability to the medical part of your life. It doesn't all happen in hospitals and clinics, Virginia.
    This month's issue of PCGR is loaded (as they always are) with incredible posts. I've just begun working my way through this PCGR edition. There's enough there for a whole month (or a whole day, if you do it in one fell swoop) of great stuff pertaining to "palliative care, hospice, end-of-life, pain and symptom control, grief, and communication in the medical realm." At one time or another, that includes each of us.
    Go there. Now!

Labels: PCGR

Life goes on.
Greet the kitties, pet and talk to them while opening up all windows and glass doors with screens on the outside.
Life goes on.
Stretch and walk for about forty-five minutes, this morning around some of the side streets off Butte Canyon Drive.
Life goes on.
Come home, shower, perform other cleaning and lubricating rituals, dress in clean clothes and decide not to do yoga today.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and grab a piece of toilet paper to wipe the tears.
Life goes away.
Make coffee and stare out the kitchen window at the indigenous shrubbery and the early morning birds.
Life goes on.
Put out food and freshen water for the kitties for the day.
Life goes on.
Clean out litter box.
Life goes on.
Drink very strong coffee with lots of half and half and a little honey while taking my supplements, perusing the latest issue of The New Yorker and talking to the kitties.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and grab a tissue to wipe the tears.
Life goes away.
Fix Arcadia door screen.
Life goes on.
Peruse local newspaper while the kitties tease the paper and me and we converse.
Life goes on.
Check list of things to do and select some for the day.
Life goes on.
Deliver books to friends and chat for a bit.
Life goes on.
Return a book to the library.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and wipe the tears with my hand.
Life goes away.
While waiting for the bank to open to deposit two checks, have a lively conversation with six strangers about politics and old movies.
Life goes on.
Buy a larger intermediary compost bucket, a mallet and some wildflower seeds at a local hardware store.
Life goes on.
Greet the kitties on my return and catch up on the apart-parts of our day.
Life goes on.
Go outside and admire an extraordinary stand of Butter and Eggs wildflowers in the front yard, then transfer food scraps from the small intermediary compost bucket to the larger one.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and wipe the tears with my hand.
Life goes away.
Return to the house and clean the kitchen sink with the help of the kitties.
Life goes on.
Remember that I need to pick up some screen clips and cedar chips at the hardware store and record them in my Companion Notebook.
Life goes on.
Toast and eat an onion bagel with onion and chive cream cheese, drink some pomegranate juice and take my midday supplements.
Life goes on.
Pet and talk with the cat who's crawled onto my lap.
Life goes on.
Write a check for a bill, enclose it in an envelope, stamp it and take it to the mailbox.
Life goes on.
Talk to a friend regarding a new approach for her query letter.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and grab a tissue to wipe the tears.
Life goes away.
Spend some time in the yard deciding what to leave, what to cut back and what to pull up, discover some new budding wild flowers and check them out thoroughly.
Life goes on.
Return to the house and continue reading a library book.
Life goes on.
Play with the cat who's tearing through the house.
Life goes on.
Watch the first few minutes of yesterday's recorded television news and decide to delete both programs without further watching.
Life goes on.
Vacuum the living room, getting it ready for some furniture moving.
Life goes on.
Move the futon couch in the living room into a different position and set up a book shelf to help organize the usual floor clutter.
Life goes on.
Sit in my newly reordered surroundings and move books, papers, pens, etc., to the bookshelf with help from the kitties.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and grab a tissue to wipe the tears.
Life goes away.
Experiment with a different, more flexible set up for my computer equipment.
Life goes on.
Get the mail from the mail box and drop the junk into the recycle bag.
Life goes on.
Decide to watch a movie I'd DVRed some weeks ago that I enjoy, Meet John Doe, decide to watch it and settle onto the couch with my feet up in a position that will attract kitties, which it does.
Life goes on.
Can't get into the movie and shut it off after 20 minutes.
Life goes on.
Notice that I'm hungry, go into the kitchen and decide what to eat for dinner.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and grab a tissue to wipe the tears.
Life goes away.
Decide to eat a nuke-baked potato with Parmesan cheese, some steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts with a home made Greek Feta dressing and while waiting for these to cook wash and stack the accumulated dishes from the day.
Life goes on.
Discuss the merits of people food versus kitty food with the kitties who sniff everything I eat, then eat and take evening supplements sitting on the living room floor with my food on my "Meal Table Box" and my kitties snuggled on either side of me.
Life goes on.
Take empty dishes to sink, wash and stack them.
Life goes on.
Turn on computer, play five minutes of Montana while the virus software scans the hard drive, check my email addresses, clean out the junk, consider responding to a few but don't, catch up on a few blogs, write a few comments, write a blog post, check to see if the movie I ordered yesterday for my brother-in-law has shipped yet, which it has.
Life goes on.
Pet a cat sitting in my lap and discuss the advisability of not clawing at the computer keys.
Life goes on.
Feel like I need to move so go out, gather up some grass straw from the yard, put it in the wheelbarrow, put the intermediate compost bin, filled with food scraps, in the wheelbarrow, head to the back of the property, add all the stuff to the primary compost bin, wet it and mix it with a pitchfork.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and wipe the tears with my hand.
Life goes away.
Scan through programs I've DVR'ed on TV, looking for something interesting. Decide to watch last Friday's Bill Moyers Journal.
Life goes on.
Look up a few things on the internet from the show that have piqued my curiosity.
Life goes on.
Roughhouse a bit with both cats.
Life goes on.
Continue reading yet another library book, this time one from which I'm taking notes, which the kitties help me take, while sipping a cup of herb tea to wash down my before-bed supplement.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and grab a tissue to wipe the tears.
Life goes away.
Decide it's time to sleep for the night and head into the bathroom to perform sleep prep ritual.
Life goes on.
Decide whether I'm going to sleep in my bed or on the couch tonight, check my emotional under-state and decide on the couch.
Life goes on.
Strip, drop my clothes on the floor next to the futon couch, set up the pillows, comforter and kitty magnet blanket, talk to the kitties as they excite themselves about the prospect of sleeping on the couch with me then slip onto the couch.
Life goes on.
Talk to and pet the kitties as we settle in around each other, getting blankets and positions set for optimum sleep arrangements.
Life goes on.
Place my arms in a comfortable position, primp the pillows and lay my head down.
Life goes on.
Notice that the back of one of my earrings is stabbing my head, lift my head, remove the earring, place it on the floor underneath my clothes and settle back down.
Life goes on.
Think about my mother and wipe the tears on the pillowcase.
Life goes away.
Fall asleep.
Life goes away.
Dream.
Life goes on.

Labels: Grief Routine

    Here's one that I spaced. It's been with me for exactly a week. It has, in fact, provoked a fair amount of wondering and ruminating, a need to ask a question of three of my sisters, one with whom I've actually been in contact but forgotten, both times, to ask her. Maybe the reason I spaced mentioning it here is that I'm still working on it outside of here...or, you know, it's still working on me.
    It's from In Treatment; Gina: Week Four. "Yes, I'm a fan, are you surprised?" she asked, smiling wickedly. Toward the end of Paul's session with Gina, his psychotherapist, she is urging a very reluctant (middle-aged) Paul to see his father, who is old and ill. She uses a variety of approaches, trying to work him to an understanding of how important it is for him to see his father even though, and especially because, there are a variety of highly sensitive unresolved issues between the two men which were cemented into their future history when Paul's father left their family to marry another woman when Paul was young, leaving Paul with an emotionally compromised mother who committed suicide when Paul was a teenager. As I recall, there has been no contact between the two men since that time. Paul's brother, however, has been keeping Paul informed of his father's decline through old age. I'm going to repeat some of the leading-up dialog in order to give a sense of where the conversation has been before it comes to the piece of dialog which struck me, the last piece of dialog spoken by Gina, which I'll bold and italicize:
Gina: Have you seen your father?
Paul: I, I, I don't know how he is. Jesus, I...
Gina: Did you go to see him?
Paul: No, I didn't go to see him. I meant to, and...
Gina: Why not? Is he better?
Paul: I don't know. He may have...he may have taken a turn for the worse. He fell a couple of times in the hospital so they moved him into another room. He may have a fever. And I'm getting all this from and, and I'm getting all this from Patrick. I was busy preparing this week for, for, for the deposition. That was a treat. Let me tell you.
Gina: So you didn't go to see your father.
Paul: No, I didn't. And if you don't stop nagging me, I won't.
Gina: I'm not nagging you, Paul. I'm reminding you that bears do not live forever. And this bear, with whom you have very many unresolved issues, is dying.
Paul: My brother says he's dying. That doesn't really mean that he is dying.
Gina: Would you rather just get a call that he's dead?
Paul: Let them call my fucking brother!
Gina: Paul, you may think that you don't care about this, but you do. You know, if you didn't care, why would you have reacted this way when I brought him up? Paul, please sit down. Paul...you know you say you're not getting what you need from anyone but it's worse than that. It's as though you're a baby; and you woke up from a nap, and you started crying, but nobody's coming in to see what you need. And so you cry louder. And you shake the bars of the crib. And still nobody comes. The only problem is your father is there. He's in the room with you. But your anger at him is so profound that you can't see him.
Paul: My father can't help me now.
Gina: No, no, he probably can't. But until you acknowledge his presence in your life you're not going to understand anything about him. And you'll continue to shake the crib.
Paul: The crib? What are you talking about? I'm a grown man.
Gina: Well, of course you are. But what you haven't been in a grown son to your father. And until you do that, part of you is always going to stay a baby; or, at best, a teenager waiting for your mother to die.
Paul: My mother's already dead.
Gina: That's right. What you're afraid of, it's already happened. Neither you nor your dad could stop it. And the only thing you can do now is hope to heal this wound so then you can move on. Paul, we both know what it's like not to be there at the end. It's something you don't get over. Ever.
    Until I heard the last three bolded and italicized sentences of this dialog, it hadn't occurred to me to wonder if any of my three sisters had any feelings about not having been with my mother when she died, nor having been with her, at all or more than briefly, during the last months of her life when all of us knew she wouldn't be around much longer. The unofficial downhill slope of Mom's life started without any of us, including my mother, realizing it when she caught the flu in mid winter last year. It became official when she was diagnosed with lung cancer and the decision was made "not to treat" on May 21st of last year. From then on one sister and her daughter visited a few times through the summer and fall and she and her husband visited over Thanksgiving weekend.
    I have often wished that I had been at my father's bedside when he died. The last time I talked to him I knew he was dying. So did he. We both knew it would be the last time we'd speak to one another. Although we didn't acknowledge this in words, the profound understanding crackled through the phone lines and changed the timbre of both our voices before we said "I love you" and "good-bye". The wish that I had been at his side when he died, though, has never been a part of my grief over his death, nor has it become a regret.
    As my mother negotiated the last months of her life I kept all my sisters informed, on the phone and through my journals. A couple of times throughout the last five and a half months of her life, when Mom had a bad couple of days here and there, I'd call my eldest sister and alert her that I wasn't sure Mom would be alive the following day. Until the call I made to her on December 7th, 2008, at 4:44 pm MST, I was always wrong.
    Over the last week, though, since the above mentioned show aired, I've been wondering, do any of my sisters wish they had been "there at the end"? Certainly, even though I was only a bystander in each sister's relationship with our mother, I can say with confidence that none of those relationships was anywhere near as fraught with psychological pitfalls as the father/son relationship portrayed in the In Treatment; Gina: Week Four episode. Still, I wonder if any of my sisters feels somehow unfinished with our mother in a way they may not have felt if it had been easier for them to be here when Mom died? I wonder, too, if there was anything I could have done to make it easier for them to be here. Each of my sisters, at one time or another during Mom's downhill slide, had expressed to me that they all knew Mom was well taken care of and that, since Mom felt as though they were here, or had just been here, or were on their way, thus giving Mom a sense that she was always surrounded with family, primarily because I was here and she and I talked about family all the time, each of their concerns had to do with making sure that they were here for me when she died...and they all were. One of my sisters, as I remember mentioning, expressed an interest in viewing Mom after her death but changed her mind on her way here and the viewing was canceled. I never questioned her change of mind. I trust my sisters to know what they want when they want it and to know when they no longer want it, and to be clear about this.
    It has occurred to me that, since I was with Mom through her last breath and beyond, and, as well, since I wrote so meticulously and promptly in my journals about her entire life while we were companions, her last few days, especially Mom's last, and then, quickly after, her last hours, they may have felt as though they were here. I hope so. But, still, I think its a good idea to check in with each of them on this...just in case something remains unexpressed that each of them would like to say. If there isn't, they'll let me know.

Labels: Communication with Relatives, Death Quotes, Grief Quotes, Presence at Death

    Having lost someone to death with whom I was so closely entwined, it seems as though I've lost parts of myself, there isn't any part of my life that her absence does not touch; nor is there anything in my life that I don't, at one time or another, view through the shades of grief. Only this morning, as I was washing dishes and gazing out the kitchen window at the shrubbery on the south side of...hmmm...our?...my?...whose home is it now?...I noticed, consciously, that the peculiar deciduous shrub-tree whose name I cannot seem to find in my Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona but that is prolific in this part of Prescott is going through its perennial leaf shed. That's right, it sheds its leaves in spring, rather than fall. Apparently this morning was ripe for contemplation of this plant, which appears as a tall, dense shrub in our yard but lines our street in its tree form, rivaling the heights of the indigenous oak. It is the oddest feeling to drive through The Greening of Prescott, which is taking place as I write and hasn't yet peaked, and have the view littered by the equally commanding sight of trees whose leaves are turning burnt orange. If you're not familiar with the area I'm sure you'd think that a sudden, species specific blight is rampaging through the forest. As I drove to the local market to pick up my usual Sunday copy of the NYT (I can handle the online version every day but Sunday; on Sunday I must feel out-of-town newsprint between my fingers), I mused over how appropriate to me is this year's spring shed. That's what I feel like, I thought, parts of me, parts that nourish me, have died and are shedding. Probably a good thing, I continued, that duff cools and nourishes the soil, the tree refreshes itself, revs and buds...maybe this fall I'll feel releafed and ready for the rest of my life...just maybe.... This is one of the most optimistic thoughts I've had, lately. Because, you know, grief, this kind of grief, refocuses everything.
    It even refocused my reactions to the selections my book club was reading at the time I re-upped. The club was working through a spate of light, easy reads. I was still numb when I read through January's and February's selections. By the time I needed to begin reading March's book, The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, though, my grief lens had turned panoramic. Despite the speed-reading its writing style encourages, I found myself catching on each death in the book, and there are plenty. I managed to privately laugh my way out of this unusually dour turn of mind by the time the book club met. I mentioned my uncharacteristic outlook to my excellent Prescott friend, also a member of the book club. She assured me that April's selection, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, would not create a similar problem for me. "It's just lovely," she said, "delightful, you'll chuckle all the way through."
    I sobbed, sometimes blubbered, all the way through. Death after death after death, that's all I was able to comprehend. I cried for the relatives of each of the Todt workers; cried for the families of those who had died before the novel began; cried, too, for the families and friends of those who would die long after the novel ended. I was a sad case. I even called my excellent friend, confessed my problem (thank the gods, merely confessing it to her caused both of us to laugh) and apologized in advance for the possibility that I might sob throughout the entire book club meeting. Luckily, circumstances conspired so that I didn't. Only half of our small cadre showed up for the April meeting, which cozied the atmosphere even more than usual. At one point I did confess (without tearing up) my problem with the book. "I'm sorry," I admitted, "that the book had this effect on me, but I am still so overwhelmed by Mom's death that all I seem to register in these books is the deaths." Another member, who lost her mother two years ago and happened to be sitting next to me, leaned into me and nodded her head vigorously in response. "Oh my god," I exclaimed, "don't tell me I have years of this to go!" She laughed, so did I, and she said, "No, dear, you'll look at death, and life, differently, from now on, but you'll get used to it. Meaning, you won't cry every time you read about another death."
    Considering my current state, you'd think that I would have underlined every quote about death in both books, but I didn't...just some especially pithy ones that held my attention longer than it takes for me to squeeze out a few tears. Here they are:
Quotes from The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett:

1. Pages 270-271; End of Last Paragraph - First Paragraph:
   And sometimes it seemed that when he [Tom] thought like this about Agnes, [his freshly dead wife] he was not only missing her, but mourning the passing of his own youth. Never again would he be as naive, as aggressive, as hungry or as strong as he had been when he had first fallen in love with Agnes.
   I didn't identify with mourning one's youth, but I certainly identified with the idea that much of what I became as my mother's companion, while not gone, will have to be redirected...and I so enjoyed becoming my mother's champion, protector and intimate companion. I cannot imagine ever sharing life with someone in quite that way again. Sometimes redirection isn't just redirection...it's also having to turn away.
2. Page 376; Paragraph 3:
   Aliena was shocked. He [her father] had always counseled against oath taking. To swear an oath is to put your soul at risk, he would say. Never take an oath unless you're sure you would rather die than break it.
   This may seem fairly removed from death, but it has a great deal to do with certain thoughts that continually crop up for me in my grieving. They are, though, thoughts with a significant overtone of relief, such relief that feeling it brings me to tears. I feel, I noticed, when I came to this quote, that I did, indeed, risk my soul and the state of my life when I assented to my mother's request that we become companions for the rest of her life. There were times, not many and never long indulged but times, nonetheless, when, during our sojourn through the rest of her life, I feared for my survival after her death. At those times I expected, just as The Caregiver Literature warns (which is one of the reasons I pretty much swore off Caregiver Literature), that whatever life I still possessed after my mother's death would be a shambles which I would have to rebuild from the ground up and I feared I would not be able to do this. Yet, each time these fears threatened me, I rallied against them in the knowledge of my love for what we were doing, my love for her and my sense that this is my life, my life is not something I've put aside, thus, just as I am fully engaged, competent and fearless, now, I will be after my mother's death. Turns out, I was right. I remain fully engaged. I'm much more competent at continuing my life than I thought I'd be. I'm often forlorn with grief and sometimes fearful but I have an innate understanding that, if I give myself time, "...this, too, shall pass away." That, by the way, was another of my mother's favorite quotes.
3. Page 423; Paragraph 7:
   She cried hard, not just for him but for the life they had lived together...the life that would never come back.
   This one is obvious, I think.

Quotes from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows:

1. Page 101; Paragraph 4; Quote from Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle:
   Does it ever give thee pause, that men used to have a soul—not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth that they knew, and acted upon! Verily it was another world, then...but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls...we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse in all ways shall befall us.
   This quote gave me a bit more much needed courage to think and speak, (mostly) without apology, about the possibility of an afterlife for my mother...and for me, too; which remains hard to do in this day and age, 166 years after Thomas Carlyle published this passage.
2. Page 104; Paragraph 5; in a letter from Amelia Maugery to Juliet Ashton:
   When my son Ian died at El Alamein—side by side with Eli's father, John—visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it. Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede. But already, there are small islands of—hope? Happiness? Something like them at any rate. I like the picture of you standing upon your chair to catch a glimpse of the sun, averting your eyes from the mounds of rubble.
   Although the speaker is referring to the sorrow of many after a war, I was astonished that this line also referred to a grieving individual's feeling that not just one's heart but the entire world has been "[deluged]" with sorrow.
3. Page 106; Paragraph 4; Regarding the Todt Workers:
   Thousands of those men and boys died here, and I have recently learned that their inhuman treatment was the intended policy of Himmler. he called his plan Death by Exhaustion, and he implemented it. Work them hard, don't waste vluable foodstuffs on them, and let them die. they could, and would, always be replaced by new slave workers from Europe's Occupied countries.
   Ah, this passage! It seems like it took me hours to move past the contemplation and mourning of so many prematurely stunted relationships, so much grieving.
4. Page 150; Paragraph 5; In a letter from John Booker to Juliet Ashton in which he describes his brief imprisonment at Belsen concentration camp during which he was enlisted to dig "great pits to bury the dead."
   I'll write no more of this, and I hope you'll understand if I do not care to speak of it. As Seneca says, "Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb."
   Curious, the effect this had on me. At first I disagreed with it, thinking about my lack of muteness, here, in my journals, about my grief, knowing that my grief is "great". As I thought about this, though, I realized that writing out my grief is one thing; talking it out is quite another. Vocally, I am more than a little mute, unless I am asked directly how I am doing. Even then, I am more apt to say, "I'm fine," or, if pressed, "I'm having a bad day, today," or, if someone hears something in my voice and mentions it, "I'm a little sad, it's nothing." People rarely ask, though. I tend to be a bit more explanatory with close friends and sisters. Sometimes I'll even volunteer a sentence or two about my current state of mourning. Over all, though, I am mouth-quiet about it; as are my sisters about their grief. I find it interesting to contemplate, though, that I seem to run off at the fingers here in my journals about it. Some days ago, when thinking about this, I realized that I used have an audience in mind when I wrote in my journals; previous to my mother's death, that is. Now, when I write, I write to no one, or, better said, probably, to and for myself. So, why do I write publicly, I asked myself, if I am no longer imagining an audience? For the most quotidian of reasons: I'm in the habit, now, of keyboarding in journal format about my life with (and without, which is, in an odd way, to say "with") my mother. It is so habitual that, audience or not, imagining an audience or not, I'm more comfortable doing this than I am keeping a "hard copy" journal, which I used to do, before I discovered this format.

Labels: Death Quotes, Grief Quotes