In Sane Grief

As of May 1, 2010...

2010-04-29T22:16:00.001-07:00

...Blogger will no longer allow FTP publishing. Updates to this blog, which I intend to continue, can be found at http://insanegrief.blogspot.com. This section of the journal will also remain at in its domain directory, so accessing links should not present a problem.

Silence Explained

2009-11-10T12:00:00.009-07:00

    Sometime shortly after publishing the last post, I joined a grief support group sponsored by the hospice organization that tended to my mother and me during the last months of her life. As I am about to mention in a post over at The Mom & Me Journals dot Net, although regular readers of these journals know that I'm not a Support Group Person, turns out I am a grief support group person. I've learned since there are a variety of ways that grief support groups are handled. One in my area is more focused on counseling than the one I'm in. Another is a formal, time limited group that is highly structured, featuring exercises designed to move the aggrieved along more quickly than if left on their own. Mine is low key. It focuses on expression and validation of grief. I've also discovered that attending a grief support group seems to soothe the need to write about the experience of grief, at least for awhile. At this point, though, I'm thinking that those of you who might be considering such a group after becoming a survivor of a death of harrowing consequence (not all deaths are like this, you know...I've endured other deaths that aren't, including my father's) might enjoy some inside information on grief support groups.
    I'd been considering joining since soon after my mother's death and had talked about it with the hospice grief support counselor who began monthly check up calls to me (as all survivors of those dying under the auspices of her hospice organization receive) in January. As I'd mention this possibility, my counselor would say, "Take it as it comes. You'll know if and when you're ready." At the end of May I was either ready or curious, I'm still not sure which. My group meets once a week for one and a half to two hours. So far, there's been only one session I didn't feel like attending. When I explained myself at the next meeting, there were nods all around. Everyone seemed to understand that, occasionally, you just have to to it alone.
    One of the reasons I put off attending was fear that all I'd be able to do was sob. I felt it would be more comfortable for me to do that alone. At my first meeting I did, indeed, sob. A lot. So, though, did many other members. One member, in particular, habitually seethed with grief throughout my first four meetings. She'd curl into a pseudo-fetal position in her chair, refuse to remove her sunglasses and just, well, grieve...sometimes audibly, sometimes silently. To my surprise, I much appreciated her reaction. I realized she was doing exactly what I wished I had the courage to do. Her public trial gave me a curious confidence about grieving and helped me break through the social barriers of which we're all aware in this society that dictate The Rules of Polite and Non-Intrusive Grieving. That break through opened the gates to relief.
    Timing attendance in a support group is tricky. A few of our members have been comfortable beginning soon after the death but most delay joining for some months, as did I. An incident at our last meeting illustrates what can happen when someone attends who isn't ready. A woman who had just lost her husband within the last few weeks attended with a woman who had become a companion to the couple and continues as the woman's companion. It was obvious, during introductions, that the widow was still stunned by her loss. She looked it. The rest of us could feel it and kept a concerned eye on her as the meeting proceeded. She offered the barest details of the reason for her presence then shut down. About a half hour into the meeting she announced that she didn't feel the group was for her and she'd decided to leave. Now. All of us understood. A few assured her that although our group is, ultimately, a safe place, she should follow her instincts. Her companion didn't argue. Although we only barely discussed the woman's departure, it was obvious that we all knew that she was confounded by the camaraderie and the breadth of emotions that exhibits itself spontaneously in such groups: The knowing laughter; the spontaneous tears; the relief; the joy that, in some mysterious way, comes from confessions of grief, confusion, guilt and anger. I wasn't ready for that for some months. Some are. Most aren't. This woman wasn't. We saluted her courage for realizing this and acknowledging it to the group.
    I've always known that expressing my troubled feelings helps me come to grips with them. I am still surprised, though, that the process (which I think is fairly universal) is mostly infallible, especially in regard to grief. At one meeting I felt driven to mention that I found myself marking time until my own death and fairly often looked forward to its approach. No one had mentioned feeling anything similar during my previous visits so I announced this with trepidation, concerned that members would jump in and try to "change my mind". Instead, member after member solemnly nodded their recognition. Since then, although the feeling hasn't diminished much, it's significantly easier to bear. Grief is definitely an exercise in endurance...long distance endurance. Having this confirmed by a community of active grievers is helpful.
    My group has the following guidelines:

Although it is fine to talk about one's group experiences outside of the group, using names and obviously identifying specifics are forbidden when describing to others what took place within the group.
Listening is important. Interrupting and aside conversations are discouraged.
Advice is discouraged. Grief, in my group, is recognized as a highly individuated process. It is fine to mention strategies and resources that have helped one in one's own grief journey, but it is not fine to dictate to others what they should do; nor even suggest that anything "should" be done or "should" be experienced. Recognizing common ground is different than insisting that everyone be on common ground. Curiously, one of the men in our group has traveled through his grief over his wife's death to the point where he feels called to prescribe strategy and technique. He is much loved and accepted by the group. At one meeting, while he was pedagogically instructing the rest of us on how to get through difficult experiences, our facilitator reminded him that he was "pretty messed up" for some time after his wife's death and he needed to be careful about "becoming impatient" with others in regard to how they are handling their grief. This incident has caused me to wonder if this is a common grief landmark, especially while basking in the elation of having passed an especially challenging stretch: I wonder, for instance, during a period when the pallor of grief is fading and life appears more promising, when people look back in impatience with the time and energy they've expended, the pitfalls they didn't avoid, if it is natural to be convicted with the intention of alleviating, for others, their own difficulties. I wonder if and when that will happen for me.

Some grief group experiences and observations I've collected:

Two weeks ago, at the invitation of a member of my support group, I attended another group. I was invited because the member, who regularly attends both, told me that a woman who cared for her mother through her mother's death was in that group and she thought the woman and I would have something in common and find validation in each other's experiences. I've attended that meeting twice. I find the people quite like that of my long-term support group but I don't think I'll be going back. Different groups have different dynamics, often molded by the group facilitator. The second group, although ulterior in its efforts to recognize grief as eccentric to the grief-stricken, has a stronger focus on "how to get through it". Gentle instruction is typical and inspirational provocations are common. I'm finding this hard to take, although, from the size of the group, I sense that this is a legitimate way of handling grief for many. Just not for me. I was surprised to realize, as well, that I can only handle one grief support group meeting a week. In reflection, I'm also pleased about this. I take it to mean that I am not as overwhelmed by grief as I once was.
The facilitators of both groups described grief as an ever changing experience rather than a steady incline or decline. One facilitator uses the analogy of a spiral set on its side. The other uses the analogy of tides. Both are accurate. It's been interesting for me to observe that even those who are multiples of years from the event of the death they grieve (some in the group are four to six years away from that death) continue to experience the roller coaster aspect of grief, although in apparently slower motion. It's occurred to me, lately, that once profound grief is introduced into one's life from whatever source, life is never the same, it is always tinged with grief. Thus, grief follows the natural coursing of life.
In the group I consider "my" group, the following conversational snippet has become a delightful piece of irony, because it passes back and forth often pre- and post-meeting:
"So, how are you?"
"Oh, fine."
Some weeks ago someone asked this of me as the group was settling down to "business" and I automatically responded just as above...then stopped, looked the woman in the eye and said, "Well, actually, not fine, never fine. But, you know that. So, you know, I'm fine."
She laughed, nodded, winked and said, "I know, same here. It's a code. I'm fine too."
That bit has now become code for everyone in the group.
This group understands that I am not grieving the death of my mother so much as grieving the death of my long time, beloved companion. I feel at home with the fact that most of them are grieving long time spouses. This is a huge relief and more than makes up for the occasional, frustrating, "mistaken identity" I experience as a griever outside of the group. This is probably the most beneficial aspect, for me, of being in this group. I am who I am. My relationship with my mother was, and is, what it was and is. My grief, as well, is what it is.
If you've been a regular reader here, you know that I am notorious for intellectualizing, especially the practice of pitting my thoughts against those written by others. Amazingly, this technical aspect of my character is not only accepted but appreciated in the group. Three times I've brought in snippets of things to read that triggered in me deep recognition of my own feelings, sometimes in compliment, sometimes in contrast. I'm the only one (so far) who does this, and each time, great conversations have been sparked. It's nice to be appreciated for this eccentricity.
For the curious, I've appended two of the three pieces below. One of them I am obligated not to publish as it was written by a local woman, she is in the process of seeking publication for it and has asked me not to publish it.

Other grief observations, not necessarily group related:

Although I have, in the past, not cared much about whether anything of us continues after death (I have, though, a slight preference for death being the end of everything for each of us), I'm finding, now, that I hope something of us remains somewhere and there is some sort of awareness of life-before-death and life-as-it-continues-after-our-death. I'm not concerned about whether my mother's aware of me, although even that lack of concern is complicated. Despite the content of the immediately previous post, I haven't felt her presence the way I would, say, feel the presence of a live being in a room with me. What I really feel is the enormous impact of her life upon mine. I also tend to think that, if anything of her continues to exist and she remains aware of her life before her death, she is not in one of those oft imagined states in which she is blithely uttering magnanimous instructions like, "Go, live your life, blah, blah, blah." Rather, I imagine that she is missing me as much as I miss her and saying things like, "When is that girl going to get here!?!" But, you know, she was convinced of her immortality long before she died. She talked about this as though she (and I) would remain corporeal, and companions, forever, which, frankly, would have been fine with me. I like to think, as she insisted during the last few days of her life, that once she'd conquered "this cold" she'd be "fine", that at her death she discovered she was right. So, I hope life goes on after death, in a way she recognizes, for her sake. She loved it. She couldn't imagine anything better, even during circumstances most of us would consider "bad", and she embraced life with uncommon zeal. I hope she's still doing that, with much surprise and delight.
A few weeks ago when I related my mother's conviction of immortality to the group, one of the members mentioned that his mother, who died at the age of 90, had expressed exactly the same conviction in much the same way. He surmised that, maybe, at such an advanced age, whether or not one is aware of approaching death, life takes on the aspect of eternity. Who knows, I think in response: Maybe life in this mortal system does exist as a subset in an overall state of immortality but, when push comes to shove, it makes some sort of sense to, for the most part, ignore this, in this life system, at least.
A couple of months ago I began experiencing a peculiar phenomenon. Day after day I've been bombarded with impeccable, multi-leveled memories of what each of these days was like last year. Since my mother, to her mind, was not dying, we played her last months, days and hours as she chose, remaining conscious of being in the thick of life, which, of course, we were. There is nothing more live-ly than death, frankly. It's what defines life. I am now reliving all those experiences with uncanny mindfulness of the parallel dates but with the added, belated understanding that she was dying. Last year I knew she was dying but it would have gotten in our way for me to consciously acknowledge this between us. So, now, I'm living an acknowledgment ceremony. I'll remember an incident and will suddenly realize, "Oh, right! That's because she was dying!" or I will relive it knowing that a few months hence, she was dead. It isn't particularly painful, but it is heartrending and distracting. I mentioned this off the cuff to the group facilitator and she speculated that it sounds as though I am now doing something I didn't have permission, from my mother, myself, or our family to do last year: Experiencing the death of her life. Hospice generally facilitates this but, of course, it doesn't push if a client isn't interested in living her death but would prefer to continue to live her life and worry about death when it happens. That was my mother's way. So, you know, this is the right time for me, now, to do this. It wasn't, last year.
Grieving happens in character, I'm learning. I don't know why I thought, previous to this experience, that grief was tacked on and happened in a way that overrode character, but I did think this. I know better, now. For instance, I've never been much of a fan of human society, even though I revel in certain aspects of it; sisterhood, for instance, magnificent friendships, intimate companionship, and, certainly, I've always been thrilled with the experience of being simply and individually human. I continue to experience all of this. I can tell, though, that this lack of infatuation with human society is one of the primary tinting agents of not only my grief but my thoughts about what to do "now" that I am no longer my mother's companion and caregiver. My life long tendency to consider human societal life more bleak than edifying makes both endeavors, living through my grief and contemplating my future, unusually difficult. As far back as I can remember, into childhood, life had a dark sparkle. I liked it that way. Since my mother's death, life is just dark. The lack of glitter unsettles me. I have no confidence that I will regain the ability to see sparkle, nor do I have any idea what to do now that I'm in the dark.
Update on my mother's ashes: Because MPS lives in the area, the disposition of my mother's ashes to the Veteran's cemetery that hosts my father's plaque (yes, my mother was a veteran of WWII in her own right) has been left to her. MPS' life is incredibly busy, she's a school teacher and has an active family, so she hasn't gotten around to contacting the cemetery and arranging anything. She's been getting some shit from another somewhat more distantly related member of the family about this. When she confessed this to me she also told me that she's carrying Mom around in the trunk of her car. "I talk to her when I'm driving to and from school," she told me.
"Cool!" I said. "Mom's going to school! If anything of her continues to exist and she's aware of what's going on here in the wake of her life, I'm guessing this suits her just fine!" I also told her to ignore the shit she's getting from the other relative. "Mom was a teacher, too. What you're doing is very appropriate." I also think what she's doing is appropriate to MPS' grief workout. None of us daughters is, at this point, doggedly concerned about getting Mom to the cemetery and updating hers and Dad's plaque. It took Mom a couple of years to have Dad's plaque made and mounted. I think we're well within respectable limits on protocol and, anyway, I think that MPS' time with Mom is much more important than setting up a remote memorial than none of us will likely ever visit.

Two of the Three Reading Selections I Brought to My Support Group:

Excerpt from the screenplay for the movie Yes
If and when I die,
I want to see you cry.
I want to see you tear your hair,
your howls of anguish fill the air.
I want to see you beat your breast
and rend your clothes and all the rest
and, sobbing, fall upon my bed.
I want to know that I am dead.
I want to know I'm part of you
and that you cannot bear me being torn away.
I want to see you dressed in black
with red-rimmed eyes from sleepless nights of grieving.
I want to hear you protest at my leaving.
I want to see you in each other's arms and wailing,
see you kick a chair and punch the wall
and see you moan and fall upon the ground and scream.
I want to know this isn't just a dream.
I want my death to be just like my life.
I want the mess, the struggle and the strife.
I want to fight, and see you fight for me.
I want to hear your last regrets, the things you wish you'd done and said.
In fact, I'd like that just before I'm dead.
Don't let them put you off or make you go,
or say it's bad for me or makes it hard for me to leave.
It won't be true.
I want to see you grieve.
Don't let me drown in silence, so pious, so polite.
Let's make a lot of noise.
A different kind of light will fill the room.
I want my death to wake you up and clean you out.
And, as I end, I'll hear you shout, "No, no, no."
But I will go.
--Written by Sally Potter; copyright 2005
This excerpt ushered in a discussion about how we like to imagine that as death approaches (and, after death, assuming we believe in an afterlife) we will not want our remaining loved ones to grieve for us, nor do our dead loved ones want us to grieve. I've always questioned this. Many of the members of my group also question this, now that they're in the thick of grief. Why shouldn't we want our loved ones to grieve for us? Why, in the world, would we want our life to have so little discernible impact on others that they are able to pick up and carry on as though nothing has happened? Many of the members of my group agreed that this attitude has much to do with triggering feelings of personal guilt for the aggrieved over how long and how hard grieving is and how much of an impact it has on "the rest" of one's life.

Should There Be a Day
[My sister sent this to me a few months ago telling me that she thought this might express much of what I was feeling. She was right, and I responded that I was still waiting to see the core of the rose. I continue to wait for this.]
Should there be a day
when you are not
and I am yet with breath,
what shall I say?
What shall I ask of death?
Come get the rest -
the half of me that stays
shallow of heart, hollow as a bone?
Or shall I determine to forget
delight entombed, alone,
follow the foggy way
of self-deceit and let
the sun of truth go out?
I do not know. I must pass
the answer by. But if one tree
allows itself to rise,
one spear of grass to spike,
one rose to show its core
then surely what of me is you
must grow beyond your night,
keep faith with what you were
and, more, be constant, whole and move
within the light that was your gift of love.
--by Julia Cunningham from The Shadow Heart

Later, I suspect.

I guess it's no longer true that I don't feel my mother with me.

2009-05-14T03:00:00.001-07:00

    Tonight, I feel her here with me as strongly as if she were sitting in her rocker, leafing through her tabloids, turning to chat with me now and then, or respond to something I mention to her...
    ...I'm sitting on the floor working on my computer, a warm cup of decaf spiced with a dash of rum, a couple dashes of pungent pumpkin pie spice and cream instead of half & half to give it that "toddy" feel...
    ...she's sipping on a cup of cocoa which she refused earlier in the evening with a dismissive, "It's too sweet," but, now, it's the witching hour, 0300, we should both have been long in bed but we're not, it's a good time for cocoa...
    ....she leans toward me, smiling slyly, and says, "Now, if our neighbors across the street get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, glance out their window and see our lights blazing at this hour, they'll think..."
    "...we're having a party!" I quickly interject...
    ...she chuckles and winks at me. "Aren't we?!?"...
    ..."We must be," I agree, "why else would we be up at three in the morning?!?"
    ..."You know," she says, turning to gaze out the cathedral windows, "I don't know why, I've always loved this time of night..."
    ..."So have I," I say...before I continue typing...
    ...ah, I miss you, Mom, you're here, I can feel you, you're presence is making me smile, and I miss you, and you're here, and I miss you...

Note:  This post was originally published over at The Mom & Me Journals dot Net in my three am bleary minded stupor. It belongs here. I intended it to be here. So, I'm duplicating it here.

P.S. to the Mother's Day Post...

2009-05-09T13:54:00.005-07:00

...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.

Palliative Care Grand Rounds 1.4 is up this morning!

2009-05-06T09:47:00.003-07:00

    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!

Awaken, dress in clothes left by the bed last night, go to the bathroom, drink some water.

2009-05-05T13:45:00.003-07:00

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.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.": Part 3

2009-05-04T22:47:00.001-07:00

    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.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.": Part 2

2009-05-03T17:48:00.000-07:00

    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:

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.
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.
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:

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.
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.
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.
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.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.": Part 1

2009-05-02T21:58:00.003-07:00

    Although I never had the occasion to mention it over at the main journals, this was one of my mother's favorite quotes. She could also, and often did, quote the first verse of the poem. I don't know if she ever knew the rest. Considering when she went to common school, my guess is that at some time she was required to memorize the entire poem, and did.
    At any rate, I thought it would make a good title for this post. My intention, today, is to list quotes (and, if I can, link them to sources) I've been gathering since my mother's death. They all relate to ways that I've felt since then. Some of them have direct relation, some of them only oblique, but each of them evokes strong thoughts about my mother, our relationship, her death and/or my experience of grieving her. One of them, one of the first, is a self-quote which I just discovered. Although I can't necessarily and absolutely date when it was I stumbled across each quote, if I can I'll assemble them in a fairly accurate sequential frame. Quotes will be in this color. Copyrights, of course apply according to the source.
    A note about the poem, "The Raven", to which the title of this post is linked: I remember reading this poem in school, too...and not paying it much attention. I reread it today while listening to the spoken version and realized it is not only a poem about grief, how it endures, it is a poem about how grief, once truly experienced, leads to questioning of beliefs in afterlives, in being reunited with those who have died and about whom one feels strongly, leads to questioning one's beliefs in everything except what one can empirically sense. Interesting poem. More interesting that my mother quoted from it as long back as I can remember and as long forward as her life lasted.
    On to:
Collected Quotes in the Wake of My Mother's Death

From The Story of India, aired and watched some time in January, 2009:
Identity is never static; always in the making and never made."
When the host for the program spoke these words, I immediately thought of how my mother's identity is continuing to evolve after her death, through her survivors and how she might be continuing to evolve it, herself...
From The Story of India, aired and watched some time in January, 2009:
Buddha's last words: All created things must pass. Strive on, diligently.
When I first heard this quote I think I mistook its emphasis. I interpreted it to mean that one should "strive on, diligently" after death. Now, as I contemplate it, I'm thinking that it applies both before and after death...thus, suits my mother perfectly.
Something I wrote in my small Constant Companion notebook, dated 2/1/09, 11:09 a.m.:
I will not know the true nature of my companionship with my mother for many years. All I know, at the moment, is that it is a great love story, perhaps one of my greatest...however, the details escape me in the fog of the loss to me created by her death. It is my choice of duty to remain aware of the fog, endure it as I must while incrementally blowing away bits of it until all the detail and enormity of our relationship are revealed to me. It may seem, from the outside, like a self-centered, self-contemplative exercise but all movement creates a corresponding movement of air from within and from without...and all wind dissipates fog, wisp by wisp.
Partial Lyrics from the song Forever Young by Alphaville heard on 2/9/09:
Forever young
I want to be forever young.
Do you really want to live forever...
When I first heard this, listening to the song as it breezed by on my radio when I was driving on an errand, it brought tears to my eyes because it sounded like a conversation I might have had subconsciously with my mother, her speaking the first two lines, me speaking the last. Now, when I reflect on it and hear the song (I decided to purchase and download it onto my iPod...and still listen to it frequently, and weep), the speakers are reversed: I am the speaker of the first two lines, my mother the speaker of the third. Just thinking about those lines, hearing them sung in my head, brings tears to my eyes, yet, as it is doing as I write this.
I can't remember where I heard this and can't seem to track a single source, but I heard it soon after hearing the quote immediately above, as I wrote it down in my Companion Notebook on the same page as the lyrics quoted above:Life is no small thing.
I remember an immediate, ironic reactive thought when I heard this: That death is an even larger "no small thing".
Partial Lyrics from the song Pride by Syntax:
There was always a moment there when I knew.
You always gave installments,
Always knew you concentrated and grew.
And I believe in reinvention...
These three lines perfectly describe how I feel about my mother, now, as she lived as as I imagine her living on after death.
From a Bill Moyers Journal PBS interview with Parker J. Palmer aired 2/20/09:
Regarding the experience of depression, I honed into this quote because of the comparison Palmer makes to, well, you'll see as you read:
...you need other people. You don't need their advice. You don't need their fixes and saves. But you need their presence. I sometimes liken standing by someone who is in depression as being like the experience of sitting at the bedside of a dying person because depression is a kind of death, as is addiction and other serious forms of mental illness.
You have to be with that person in an unafraid way. Not invading them with your fixes, not hooking them up to wires or whatever the non-medical equivalent of that is, giving them advice, but simply saying to them with your very presence, your physical presence, your psychological presence, your spiritual presence, I am not afraid of being with you on this journey of the — at the end of this road.
This quote so reminded me of how I tended to my mother during her last few days and, especially, her last few hours, especially the last sentence. It so perfectly describes my devotion to my mother at the end of her life..."at the end of this road". With every moment, in everything that I did for her, in every way that I was with her, this last sentence was an implicit chant over her, to her.
From the HBO movie Taking Chance. This bit of dialog is spoken by the character Charlie Fitts in response to Lt. Colonel Mike Strobl's doubt that he has done anything important for his country or any of his fellow Marines:
You brought Chance home. You're his witness, now. Without a witness, they just disappear."
This quote sums up the way I feel about the importance of the journey I undertook with my mother through the last 15 years of her life.
Further bit of dialog, a description how PFC/Lance Corporal Chance Phelps was treated during his journey home:
Six of us held him in our hands all the way back to the base. All along the way Chance was treated with dignity and respect and honor.
This quote sums up how I feel about the last few days and hours I spent with my mother.
From a funeral sermon delivered for a serial killer on an episode of the Practice entitled "Heroes & Villains aired in rerun sometime in late February or early March of 2009:
To look on Stanley Deeks' time on earth, to consider his victims, we must know there to be an afterlife. Otherwise, life on earth is all there is. And it can't be that. It simply can't be that.
I stumbled across this quote just as I was beginning to notice my fierce internal wrestling with the concept of life after death as it might or might not apply to my mother and all of us. It is a blatant emotional plea, perfectly suited to how I feel about the impenetrable mystery of Death.
A bit of dialog from an episode of House entitled "Occam's Razor" aired in rerun sometime in late March or early April, 2009:
Wilson: "Beauty often seduces us on the road to truth."
House: And triteness kicks us in the nads.
Wilson: So true.
House: This doesn't bother you?
Wilson: That you were wrong? Try to work through the pain.
House: I was not wrong. Everything I said was true. It fit. It was elegant.
Wilson: So reality was wrong.
House: Reality is almost always wrong.
Although this quote may seem completely disconnected from Death and Grieving, I heard it soon after I heard the immediately previous quote. The last line of dialog, especially, makes sense to me in the context of trying to find some reason to believe in my mother's continued existence, in some form, but having no luck doing this.
Quote from an NYT interview of Maurice Sendak that I stumbled upon a few weeks ago. The quotes are in regard to his feelings in the wake of his partner's death:
His latest book is one he started about four years ago, right after Dr. Glynn became sick with lung cancer. The illness and setting up of round-the-clock care in their home were just “so unbelievable,” he explained. Mr. Sendak is mostly finished with it, but he admitted that for the first time, “I feel extremely vulnerable.”
He is afraid — not of death, which is as familiar to him as a child’s teddy bear — but of not being able to finish his work: “I feel like I don’t have a lot of time left.”
After Dr. Glynn’s death, Mr. Sendak said he was “still trying to figure out what I’m doing here.”
“I wanted to take his place,” he said. “His death became a demarcation.” He added that he lost touch with many of his friends, unable to return phone calls and reply to e-mail messages.
All this applies strikingly well to my reactions when I find myself overwhelmed by yet another wave of grief.
Quote from a local PBS show Books & Co., with Peggy Shumaker:
Peggy Shumaker: Do you think after death people stop being in your life?
...
Definitely not. And leftover love that you carry around can be a gift that you bestow on others, or it can be a tremendous burden. But there are complex feelings that continue as long as you live. That's part of it.
It didn't occur to me to consider that my relationship with my mother, "the love that [I] carry", might be a burden, a tremendous one. This quote struck me between the eyes. I'm still considering what its meaning is for me...whether it has any meaning for me...

At this point, that's it, folks. You'll notice, though, that I tacked a "Part 1" onto the title of this post. I expect I will continue to find myself besieged with the words of others, or myself, in regards to my mother's death and my subsequent life. Thus, I'm making it easy for similar posts to appear, and be expected.

I decided to bake again today...

2009-05-01T19:42:00.004-07:00

...a "sweet thing" (family talk), banana bread. It was a re-do. I baked some banana bread a little less than a week ago and the result seemed to indicate that I didn't bake it long enough. Even though a skewer inserted near the center came out "clean", as the loaf cooled the center dropped. When I sliced the loaf down the middle it was clear the loaf hadn't baked all the way through. I dismembered the bread, froze the good ends after letting them sit for 24 hours and, since I had enough bananas for two loaves, decided to try again in a few days...that day being today.
    I added an extra 10 minutes onto the baking time, today. Again, the skewer, this time inserted into the very center of the loaf, came out "clean". And, yet, as the bread cooled the center dropped, again, although the crater in this loaf isn't as large as was last loaf's crater. So, I'm doing the same with the bread as before, dissecting out the center and freezing the rest. It's a good thing I have no bananas left, because I'd feel obligated to try again. I don't think that would be emotionally productive. This is the third time in the last month I've had crater problems with baked goods. Before the first I replaced my baking powder. After the first I replaced my baking soda. After the second I extended the baking time. I'm not sure what to do, now, without burning the bread around its perimeter.
    As I stood at the sink, after today's semi-disaster, washing the utensils I'd used, I mused about how many times I used this recipe successfully when my mother was alive. "Hmmm..." I wondered, "...can grief be so heavy that it affects not only how one does things but the product of what one does? Are my baking products responding to my grief?"
    I doubt this is true, although I consider it as worthy of pondering as just about anything else at this point in my life. While I was considering this puzzle, though, I also wondered, assuming my mother is watching my sudden lack of talent for baking, what she might be thinking about this. The solution I used, dump the gooey centers and keep the good ends, is one that I can trace to my mother's baking philosophy. It's right up there with another of her baking credos: If the turkey falls on the floor while you're taking it out to baste it, pick it up, put it back in the pan, figure that know one will know the difference and, anyway, the continued baking will kill whatever it picked up off the floor.
    Pondering this launched me into a flight of fancy about exactly how my mother might be able to participate in my experiences since she's no longer physical. I came up with an amusing supposition: Let's posit that, once a person is dead, taking my mother as an example, because what remains of her, whatever that is, existed previous to her death, since it enlivened her, and she has the ability to enter into the genetic elements of those to whom she's related, thus being able to continue to participate in physical, one step (or, perhaps more) removed. Two reasons why she might be able to do this:

The "substance" of which she is comprised, now, is the same as it was before her death. It just no longer has a physical home.
But, her descendants and other relatives (two of her cousins are still alive) share acute genetic commonalities, implicit in their cells, making it very easy for my mother's current "substance" to slip into the physical elements of those to whom she's related, just as she was slipped into her own physical elements, but, in this state, with far more individual determination.

    I know, I know, there are lots of non-fantastic problems with this fantasy, all of which assure my sane brain that this is merely a fantasy. Consider, for instance, the fate of the souls of the dead who have no living relatives. Would they be exempt from participating in this activity? What about what we are discovering about human genetics: That it's beginning to look as though we are, really and essentially, all related, in the sense of all of us all being able to be traced to a common ancestor (which isn't such a startling thing, if you think about it from an evolutionary point of view)? Would the amount of common genetic material one shares with someone else (say, a direct descendant, a daughter, for instance, versus a cousin versus someone that we would ordinarily consider "not related") have anything to do with the quality an quantity of the experience in which one was able to participate? Is it possible that the insubstantial "substance" of someone who's dead could conceivably slip into just about anyone, granting, of course, that the level of experience granted through this slipstream would be different? Could that substance also slip into the physicality of closely related animals? What about distantly related animals? I'm not talking, of course, about reincarnation...I'm talking about, hmmm....what would be a good phrase? How about "borrowed incarnation"?
    It would make a fascinating premise for a speculative fiction novel, I think. More important, though, it gives me another metaphor for guessing about where my mother could be, depending on her abilities and proclivities, and how capable she is of being aware of this system, of which she was formerly a part. This puts it into conflict, of course, with the idea that life after death, if there is such a thing, is rather like life after birth...it's so different that not only does one not hang onto the memory of being a fetus, one has no reason to remember that state. Still, it's fun to imagine. It gave me pleasure shivers when I was at the sink.
    It's also, of course, completely insane, but, you know, the longer I live the more quotidian insanity seems. If, in the extreme, insanity is considered a coping mechanism for those we choose to label "insane", it seems likely that insanity is a coping mechanism the less obviously touched among us use every day...especially when grief over loss is dumped into the mix.

One of the more provocative essays...

2009-04-30T09:03:00.003-07:00

...in Meghan O'Rourke's Slate series on the death of her mother and its effect on her life is this one entitled Finding a Metaphor for Your Loss. Like a somewhat more literary version of women's magazines self-"help" quizzes, the essay prompted me to think about how I "visualize" my mother, now that she's gone.
    I have what I call an analogy for what happened to her when she died (what happens to all of us when we die) and my thoughts about the chasm between the dead and the living. I formed this analogy a few years ago and my mother's death didn't change it. It doesn't, though, explain my imaginings when I consider whether my mother, or something of her, remains here, more than in my thoughts (an explanation which I, too, like O'Rourke, find tiresome).
    Unlike O'Rourke and her friend (cited in the article), I haven't placed my mother in anything so concrete as the wind and the water. For awhile I thoughtlessly assumed that I identified her with this house, then, more specifically with the living room, which became the heart of our house and home during her life. When I began serious work on the yard after her death, though, one of the hardest aspects of being "out there" was that my habit of keeping my being trained on the house during her life when I was out in the yard was not only no longer necessary after her death, it made me feel her loss all the more because, well, each time I automonically listened to our home I confronted her absence, which was, depending on the day, anything from mildly depressing to paralyzing.
    Soon after reading O'Rourke's essay I began to observe sightings of units of existence, you know, animals, states of weather, that brought my mother to mind. Crows, for instance. We have a noisy, prominent population of large black crows in this area in which both my mother and I delighted. When she was awkae and I heard crows cawing around our home I'd rally us outside to check out their activities. During the last few years of her life, when she was no longer interested in literally venturing outside but continued to imagine herself going and being outside, I'd spot them through one of our many windows and maneuver her, with her walker or in her wheelchair, to a prime observation post. I don't, though, I noticed a month or so ago, imagine that she is a crow, or even with the crows (which she may be, you never know).
    The same situation occurred when our first herd of spring deer meandered into our front lawn this year snuffling for tender shoots. When Mom was alive, observing the deer was such a treasured activity that I'd awaken her for an appearance (unlike for the crows). But, I've also noticed, I don't imagine that she is visiting me as one (or more) of the deer.
    A few days ago when I was indulging in some late day, early spring baking (best to get it in before the weather turns warm and the heat of the oven, even in the deep evening, becomes irritating), I noticed that I am, indeed, imagining my mother here, with me, just below my conscious awareness, most of the time, but with me. I imagine her, in her rocker, immense, shot through with thought-form but without substance, behind me and a bit to the right of my right shoulder. Sometimes I imagine she is attending to me. I haven't talked to her much, yet, so her attention is on what I'm doing, not on what I might say to her. Sometimes she is simply there, here, continuing to experience the world as part of the her-and-me team that had its beginnings long before we became companions. At times she's thinking her own thoughts and I'm wondering about the direction in which those are wandering. At others it seems that she and I are thinking in tandem and she's adding her considerations to mine. Sometimes I believe she is observing me...and wondering...
    When I am aware of her, I notice that I experience myself immense and gauzy, too, so neither of us is dwarfing the other, although I tend to think of her as extending "above" me, "beyond" me to the right...as though she has achieved a state that lies implicit but not yet possible within me.
    As I've mentioned in previous posts, I also imagine her as cavorting with relatives and friends who share her state...but, when I imagine her with them that is different than imagining her with me. Not that I consider her absent from her over-my-right-shoulder perch when thinking about her with those who died before her and who waited for her, probably without a lot of patience, knowing her relatives, but with ardent hopes that she would "keep at it" as long as she could. I imagine them saying to her, under cover of dreams and her timeless states when she was alive, "No hurry, dear, yes, we're anxious to be with you, again, but you'll get here, don't rush it." Her family believed in the life long and well lived...even those who lived neither long nor well believed in it.
    The more I think about my post-death considerations of her, the more aware I become of times, when she was alive, that I imagined her with me in much the same way, when I was running errands while she slept. Or, perhaps it was that I was concentratedly with her; staying tuned, knowing (which often happened) that my ulterior State of Alert, focused in her direction, would signal me if she was rousing and I needed to put aside this or that errand for another one of her sleep periods and hurry home.
    So, nothing, and everything, has changed with her death. I cannot be with her in any way that makes sense to me, rather like an unborn child who is of her mother but doesn't know of her mother. It's incredibly frustrating, since I know of death in a way that unborn children likely don't know about birth, but I continue to imagine her with me...with a state of me, that state that floats like a baby in the womb of post-birth life, having no idea what awaits me once I burst through this physical state but knowing that, whatever else awaits, I will, again, be able to experience being in touch with her in some unknown way because we will have, finally, shared the fate of all the living.

TRIG-gering Grief

2009-04-22T14:55:00.008-07:00

    Despite my amusement with the concept behind the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief [TRIG] I am, at heart, a product (sometimes a proud product) of my industrial-civilized upbringing and usually can't pass up the opportunity to take a self-"help" test, which is one of the possible uses of this particular grief assessment. I'm not alone in this. Meghan O'Rourke, whose series of articles about grief in Slate brought my attention to the TRIG (she mentions it and provides the same link to it I've posted above, in the ninth paragraph of the third article in her series, which is linked to the above reference to Slate) also found the assessment intriguing enough to "take".
    Punching the name of the assessment into Google unrolls a list of 27,200 references. If you surround the phrase with quotation marks, the list narrows to 1,310. This, I think, speaks on behalf of the popularity of the assessment, if not its reliability. Most sources advise professionals to use the assessment with circumspection. There has been at least one adaptation of the assessment with an eye to grief involving the loss of a child. This assessment is interesting because it rewords the statements to apply to losing a child and adds a third section, entitled "Related Facts", the statements of which are evaluated on a simple "True/False" scale and are designed to add further insight into the long term grief process of the assessee.
    The unadulterated assessment is divided into two lists of statements, Past Behavior and Present Emotional Feelings. Participation requires the assessee to rank her/his agreement with each statement on a five level scale as follows: a = completely true; b = mostly true; c = neutral; d = mostly false; e = completely false.
    It's hard to find any specific information about scoring on the internet. This may be because distributors of the test are wary about its use for self-assessment. The most complete explanation I found is on page 2 of 6 when this article is opened in one's Adobe Reader; the journal in which the article appears lists the page number as 516. This explanation is particularly interesting because it compares responses to Part I with responses to Part II in an attempt to assess the possibilities of delayed grief and prolonged grief. Pages 10 an 11 of this Power Point article (which opens as a pdf file) presents a scoring explanation which is down and dirty, thus easier to understand and utilize casually. Essentially, when rating one's answers, one scores one's a-e selection on a five point scale, giving one point to "a" answers and sequentially upgrading to five points for "e" answers. The lowest to highest score one can accumulate on Part I is 8 - 40. For Part II: 13 - 65. Informally speaking, the higher one scores, the lower is one's experience of grief. In my research of the TRIG (which was admittedly brief, confined to maybe an hour and a half of clicking into links from my Google search and scanning the articles) I found no evidence of anyone using the assessment to determine levels of "healthy" or "unhealthy" grief. I find this a relief, as it indicates to me something advocated by some of the grief literature I've lately perused: That grief is a highly individual experience and the meaning of ease or difficulty with grief must be considered within the unique circumstances of each Grieving One's life.
    The assessment (and its adaptation) is meant to be administered to the grieving survivor a fair while after the death. Although I found nothing specific to suggest the following, my guess is that Part II and Part III of the adaptation, depending on the circumstances in which the assessment is used, can be and probably are administered multiple times. In the original TRIG, Part I focuses on memories of fresh grief responses immediately after the death; Part II attempts to assess how one has moved through grief and where one is "now" in the process.
    Although it is meant to be used in a formal setting, no doubt proctored and evaluated by a professional, I found that self-(ab)use (I couldn't resist), reading the statements, considering them, even assigning a number to one's grief and comparing it to highest and lowest scores, can be enlightening. On April 14, 2009, when I discovered the TRIG, I decided to take it "straight". My results on Part I were 26 out of a possible 40. My results on Part II were 43 out of a possible 65. Considering that I scored about the same (by percentage) in Part I (65%) and Part II (66%), I surmised that this might indicate that I am handling my grief about the same now as I was when my mother died. This surprised me because it has seemed to me that I am grieving more than I did right after Mom died. As I looked back over the statements and rummaged through the thoughts that each statement aroused when rating them according to how they applied to me I realized that what is likely happening is that I am expressing my grief more freely and understanding it better than in the immediate death wake; responses the TRIG doesn't differentiate in terms of "more" or "less" grief.
    Because I am obsessively self-analytical, I thought it would be entertaining (more for me than you, I suspect) if I include here a review of thoughts I had as I rated the statements, along with how I rated them. Keep in mind that the statements (which I'll display in this color) were developed by Thomas R. Faschingbauer, Richard A. DeVaul, and Sidney Zisook and copyright by TRIGs publisher, American Psychiatric Press:

Part I:
1. After this person died I found it hard to get along with certain people.My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: Yes, in that I was unable to contemplate any kind of difficulty in sorting out death business during the week immediately after my mother died while relatives were here. Two examples: One relative, the day that my mother died, warned me to immediately transfer almost all money in Mom's & my joint checking account into a new checking account before the bank found out about the death because the experience of friends told him banks tend to freeze accounts when one of the holders dies. My response was, "I can't handle this, I don't want to hear about it." The relative was wrong about this. Some days later, after immediate death business had revealed itself to be pretty easy, straightforward and not at all threatening, yet another relative related experiences of yet more friends who had been devastated by inheritance and estate taxes, losing "40%" of their assets to such. My response was the same as to the example above. Again, the relative was wrong, at least about my situation. My mother's estate is subject to no death taxes from either the state or the feds and I am not subject to any inheritance taxes.
  Other than abruptly dismissing what I considered frightful absurdities, which I usually don't do (I usually take them on and analyze them in order to confront the absurdity and dissipate the fright) I was just as sociable, more so, actually, than usual, as quick to laughter and to tears, as good at listening as I was at talking and had no specific, unusual problems with anyone.
2. I found it hard to work well after this person died.My rating: a (completely true)
  My thoughts: I was numb, completely unable to attend to household duties or death business. I left it up to everyone else. I was, however, aware enough to realize what people were doing for me and thank them profusely.
3. After this person's death I lost interest in my family, friends, and outside activities. My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: I did lose interest in activities that involved my mother [watching movies; reading, both silently (which I'd lost interest in over the last four years of my mother's life, anyway) and aloud; cooking; some areas of conversation; internet related activities; stuff like that], which accounted for quite a few activities. However, I redoubled my interest in most activities that didn't involve my mother and which had lain fallow over the last several years; and, I did this almost immediately after the first wave of relatives left. It was a relief to do so. The only people I could be said to have lost interest in were the many Hospice people who had become indigenous to our lives for seven months. I didn't think much about this. They were no longer contacting us (except for the grief counselor) and my assumption was that they were no longer funded, so they dropped off my list of people to contact.
4. I felt a need to do things that the deceased had wanted to do.My rating: e (completely false)
  My thoughts: Unless the "thing" was expedient, using the ordered Christmas dinner and goodies, for instance, to feed mourning visitors and using the rest to provide a Christmas feast at one of my sister's homes (I attended the feast), there was absolutely nothing that I felt I "needed" to do in deference to my mother's desires after she died. I was, in fact relieved that there were some things I wouldn't be doing: Christmas baking, for instance; continuing to watch episodes of Touched by An Angel.
5. I was unusually irritable after this person died.My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: This harked, for me, back to #1. While my response to the fright and absurdity factors suggested by others was unusual, my disdain for them was not. Otherwise, I was no more or less irritable than usual.
6. I couldn't keep up with my normal activities for the first 3 months after this person died.My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: Considering that most of my normal activities involved caring for my mother, which I was doing to a heightened degree by the time she died, this, I figured, was obvious but to be expected; nothing unusual. Otherwise, I cared for myself and my life in pretty much the same way that I did when my mother was alive.
7. I was angry that the person who died left me.My rating: e (absolutely false)
  My thoughts: I was not angry that my mother left me. I didn't even think about this one. Her death had nothing to do with her choice in the matter. Later, though, in my grieving process, I became (and remain) angry that there is such a thing as death.
8. I found it hard to sleep after this person died.My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: I didn't find it hard to sleep and have never gotten any more or less sleep than I did when my mother was alive. I did find it hard to sleep in my room after my mother died. I still do, occasionally. I prefer sleeping in the living room. I've decided that this is because the heart of our home is there and my preference, still, often, is to snuggle in that heart.
Part II:
1. I still cry when I think of the person who died.My rating: a (completely true)
  My thoughts: Absolutely, and without shame or discomfort. It feels good to cry, so I don't try to stop tears, ever, even in public.
2. I still get upset when I think about the person who died.My rating: d (mostly false)
  My thoughts: I have almost never gotten upset when I think about my mother after her death. Occasionally I am upset with Death, but not about my mother or her death. I know, sounds confusing, but that's how I'm processing it.
3. I cannot accept this person's death.My rating: e (completely false)
  My thoughts: I can accept my mother's death. I'm just having a hard time accepting Death, which is a surprise because I never thought I'd ever have a hard time accepting Death. I've done really well with this, up to now.
4. Sometimes I very much miss the person who died.My rating: a (completely true)
  My thoughts: Oh, always...always. I can't, yet, imagine not missing her. This also causes me no shame or discomfort.
5. Even now it's painful to recall memories of the person who died.My rating: e (completely false)
  My thoughts: I LOVE remembering my mother, love talking about her, love thinking about her. There is nothing in my memories of her and our life together that has been the least bit painful.
6. I am preoccupied with thoughts (often think) about the person who died.My rating: d (mostly false)
  My thoughts: I wavered between "d" and "e" on this one. I chose "d" primarily because there have been a few times, even now, when I've been unpleasantly surprised by sudden intrusions of my mother and the stab of longing these evoke: When, for instance, I am in Costco but no longer buying supplies for our lived-together life; when I buy fast food for one but cannot divest myself of my mother's preferences (even though I don't buy those preferences, I buy my own).
7. I hide my tears when I think about the person who died.My rating: e (completely false)
  My thoughts: Nope. Not a chance. I'm not wired that way.
8. No one will ever take the place in my life of the person who died.My rating: a (completely true)
  My thoughts: I consider this a rational and completely good response. Of course no one will ever take her place. No one has ever taken the place of anyone who has left my life. This just isn't possible. I don't believe this is possible for anyone. I further wonder if it isn't both unrealistic, suspect (from the point of view of grief) and maladaptive if people think this can happen and look for it to happen. If I had set up the scoring standard for this test, I would have reworded the statement thus: "I'm expecting, or have already found, someone to take the place in my life of the person who died," thus giving the "high grief" (which would be the lowest numerical) score to those who rated the reworded statement "a".
9. I can't avoid thinking about the person who died.My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: Of course I can't avoid this. Nor would I want to, not even when the thoughts seem like an intrusion, as mentioned above. I suspect the underlying assumption with this statement is that the respondent might want to avoid thoughts or considers the thoughts as obstacles to other thoughts. I don't, even when those thoughts are intrusive.
10. I feel it's unfair that this person died.My rating: e (completely false)
  My thoughts: I don't consider it unfair that my mother died. Death is what happens to all of us. I have lately, however, been feeling that Death, itself, is unfair. I wonder, in fact, why grief assessments and grief counseling don't seem to distinguish between feelings about the death of a person and feelings about Death, in general, especially since, in my case, the two have separated themselves and I'm having a problem with the latter, not with the former. Although I may be wrong, I'm guessing that I'm not the only grief-stricken survivor who does this. I've considered that my separation of these might be a response my psychology has designed to keep me from realizing that I am angry with my mother for dying, but this just doesn't fit. It makes no sense to me to be angry with her or cite her, personally, with the unfairness of Death. She didn't create the circumstance of Death. In fact, in her own mind, she erased that option well over a year before she died. Even in the case of suicides, and I've known two people who committed suicide, I can't bring myself around to thinking that their choice of the option to die is what creates the circumstance of Death...thus, anger and a sense of unfairness didn't, in either of those deaths, enter into my equation, either. Call it a personal quirk.
11. Things and people around me still remind me of the person who died.My rating: c (neutral)
  My thoughts: When I thought about this I was surprised that, despite occasional unwelcome and unpleasant intrusive reminders, I am not more often reminded of my mother by "things and people around me"; not uncomfortably surprised, just surprised. Considering how close we became, how every aspect of each of our lives echoed in the life of the other, you'd think that I would be constantly and disturbingly reminded of her. But, I'm not.
12. I am unable to accept the death of the person who died.My rating: e (completely false)
  My thoughts: Once again, it's not my mother's death I am having trouble accepting. It's Death.
13. At times I still feel the need to cry for the person who died.My rating: a (completely true)
  My thoughts: I remember, when rating this statement, thinking, "Actually, I don't feel the need to cry for my mother, rather, about my mother and how much I miss her." I almost rated this one "completely false" but decided to give the benefit of the doubt to the statement and assume that the developers were implying "about" when they chose "for".

What did I find "enlightening" about self-administering this assessment?

Although I knew that, for me, there exists a dichotomy between my mother's death and Death, I didn't realize, until performing this assessment, that there isn't professional grief counseling acknowledgment of this dichotomy, why it might exist and what the consequences are of allowing it.
Previous to assessing myself I suspected that I was not handling my need to grieve as well as it seems as though I am.
The assessment informed me about aspects of grief and allowed me to confront them as specific events, sometimes isolated from other grief events, rather than thinking of grief as one amorphous event. The former approach makes grieving easier, for me, anyway, because it helps me locate myself within the process. The latter approach tended to make me feel as though I was traveling through a labyrinth, one out of which I might never emerge.
It helped me realize what, about my behavior, might be specific to grieving and what isn't. Although my confusion about this wasn't overwhelming, it was barely noticeable, in fact, the added clarity was welcome.

    The TRIG appears to be a tool fairly widely used by professionals dealing with those of us ensconced in grief. This suggests that it is useful. It isn't the only tool. I've run across another, the G(rief) A(nd) M(ourning) S(tatus) I(nterview) [and] I(nventory) [GAMSII], especially applicable to complicated mourning, that is equally intriguing and upon which I will probably comment in a later post because it promotes a decidedly different and more personal method of assessment. Since I'm not a professional counselor, let alone a grief counselor, I'm not inclined to criticize the TRIG, despite my critique of Item #8 in Part II. I can see that it's a good organizational tool for thinking about someone who's grieving and seeking information about unique grief profiles. I'm not worried that it might be misused by encouraging counselors to ignore the eccentricities of one person's grief in favor of simply locating them, à la psychological GPS, in The Forest of Grief. I think that viewing grief is an experience that is most likely to provoke awe from any observer, professional or not, and would tend to cause a professional counselor to be more, rather than less, careful about soliciting information and giving advice.
    Would I recommend self-administration of this assessment to people? I would to people who tend toward and enjoy rigorous self-examination and are not prone to diffuse and critical worry about whatever psychological state in which they might find themselves at any particular time for any particular reason. I would to people who tend to harbor a lively and objective curiosity about themselves even if they aren't particularly self-conscious or self-absorbed. I would not to people who might tend to frighten themselves unduly with discovery about their psychological states or if they were normally intent on being oblivious to their psychological states. I also would not recommend it to people who seemed, at the time of the consideration, emotionally fragile, no matter what their previous behavior revealed about their normal emotional profile and self-interest.
    If you're as intrigued as was I, though, give it a go. It's involving and fun, yes, fun, if nothing else.

To Begin Again: Why I'm Here and Not There

2009-04-20T18:02:00.006-07:00

    I conceived of this subsection of my journals at the same time I decided it was time for me to commence some serious reading about grief, as I mention in this post at my regular area, The Mom & Me Journals dot Net. It's just taken me awhile to get going over here.
    My current plan is to write all my grief stuff, from here on out, in this area. That doesn't mean my main journal will stagnate. I continue to have a lot to write about caregiving and other aspects of my mother's and my journey. Those will continue to be posted in my main area. It just seems as though I'm ready to section off my grief, I guess that's the best way to put it, to make a distinction between my grieving and the rest of my life. I can't say what this indicates about my emotional state...for the time being I'll let others, if they are so inclined, speculate on that.
    Currently, these are the books I've either checked out of the library or already have that I intend to read over the next few weeks to months. I'm placing them in the order in which I intend to read them, although I've already begun reading three of them at once and one is already read but is in the stack for rereading:

A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
How to Survive the Loss of a Love by Colgrove, Bloomfield & McWilliams
Treatment of Complicated Mourning by Therese A. Rando
On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler
Nothing to Be Frightened of by Julian Barnes [which I own and have already read once]
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion [which I own and have placed last, saving it for dessert]

    Once I'd compiled the list and alerted my library to pull the first four from the stacks of libraries throughout my county, I was alerted, through Pallimed, to a series of seven articles on grief by Meghan O'Rourke at Slate. I was astonished to discover that most of the books she mentioned reading are books I'd selected to read, save for the playbook of Shakespeare's Hamlet, although I'm wasn't surprised at how she reinterpreted the play after her mother's death. When I'd studied the play in a college class in the mid-1970s the emphasis of the instructor was placed on a mourning Hamlet. O'Rourke's comment that after a cursory reading of Kubler-Ross' book she "threw it across the room in a fit of frustration at its feel-good emphasis on 'healing'" didn't surprise me, either. My experience with and understanding of Kubler-Ross' work is similar to hers. I checked the book out, though, because I noticed, when leafing through it at the library, that at the end both authors write about their personal experiences with grief. I thought that would be interesting. Also, although O'Rourke doesn't mention Therese A. Rando's book, article 3 in the series suggests that she probably has a familiarity with it.
    As I read through the series of articles I was intrigued by some of the concepts: finding a metaphor for death; mention of the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief, which I looked up and which amused me because it submits grief to an industrial-civilized test; the question of whether The Dying One accepts her or his Death. As well, I was attracted to the series because O'Rourke's mother died just seventeen days after my own. Upon learning this, there was an immediate and uncontrollable urge to "compare" my experiences with hers. As I read the articles, though, I realized that such comparisons are folly. I knew this, but, well, my autonomic brain is also a product of an industrialized civilization.
    Anyway, aside from writing my usual grief stricken posts Here instead of There, my plan is to react, explicitly and in writing, to what I read as I browse the literature. I'm not promising that I'll write any more often than I'm presently writing Over There. Reading and writing about death and grief isn't all I'm doing. But, I thought it would be handy and helpful (for me) to separate this aspect of my journaling from the other aspects. I may be adding books and articles, which I'll catalog here, of course. I may not read every single word of every single book. Primarily, at the moment, I don't expect to read either #3 or #4 in their entirely.
    One last note: The search engine for this section hasn't been set up or linked, yet. It will, soon, but at the moment it's not.

To Begin: Hearts is Trump

2009-04-20T16:32:00.006-07:00

    I've referred to myself in my main journal, at least a couple of times, I think, most recently here, as experiencing a broken heart resulting from the death of my mother on December 8, 2008. Serendipitously, on April 18, 2009, through a USA network TV rerun of a 2007 episode of House I watched entitled Words and Deeds [click here for an interesting review containing a "ridiculous" check of this episode and a brief rundown of fairly reliable (inasmuch as can be had at present, anyway) information regarding the diagnosis discussed in the program], I was treated to some intriguing information on Broken Heart Syndrome (sometimes abbreviated as BHS). Despite the maddening antics of the episode, the information contained was curious enough to prompt me to further exploration.
    What we are now calling "Broken Heart Syndrome" has gathered centuries of anecdotal information: A widowed spouse, usually elderly, dying within a year of the deceased spouse is primary. There are tons of other examples, some of which don't involve death of survivors to someone deceased, but do involve prolonged grief and marked changes in sufferers' outlooks and lives. Often, as cited here, the condition involves physical pain in the chest region (it hasn't with me). Study of the condition as it might be related to physiological (vs. metaphorical) heart problems began only recently, in the 1990s, in Japan. This link, misnamed as it is (the condition "can be" but is not necessarily fatal), discusses in fairly good depth the Rhode Island Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy Registry as it was used to study this complaint. This link directs to an article published a year after the previously mentioned study commenced that gives an accurate overview of the condition and the questions that arise from considering it.
    I was surprised to discover from the House episode that broken hearts are currently more than an emotional consideration and have become the subject of respectable scientific study. There is a bit of conversation in the above mentioned episode that was especially shocking (pun intended) regarding a treatment decision made that was specific to the suffering character's situation. The dialogue, below, taken from the show (all spelling follows CC spelling) traces the decision and, as well, gives what is currently considered a decent, though not thorough, explanation of the physiology of BHS:

Cameron:  Broken Heart Syndrome. He's in love and it's killing him.
Foreman:  Thought that only happened to 80 year old widows.
Cameron:  Thanks to his menopause and estrogen level, he basically is an old woman. BHS is an acute physical response to an emotional experience. Stress triggers a flood of catecholamines...
Chase:  That's a plain old stress cardiomyopathy, not a heart attack.
Cameron:  But if you're too worried about your job to get it treated, they can devolve into full on heart attacks. You think this is a coincidence this started when Amy got engaged?
House:  No, I don't. But now that you know the why, what are you going to do to stop the how?
Foreman:  We've already put him on beta blockers and nitroglycerin. No effect.
Cameron:  We need to put him on anti-depressants.
House:  Not if you're right. Anti-depressants would inhibit his autonomic nervous system which would only speed up the heart attacks.
Chase:  We could try propylthiouracil, slow down his metabolic rate.
House:  Thyroid effect would only weaken the heart.
Foreman:  The only other option is blood thinners.
House:  This is not a fat guy with plaque-filled arteries and a swollen heart. He's a guy whose brain is trying to kill his heart.
Chase:  So, buy him a girlfriend. Make him happy.
Cameron:  That might make you happy. The only thing that'll make him happy is Amy.
Chase:  So, keep him away from her.
Cameron:  He has a myocardial infarction every time she walks in the room. What do you think will happen to his heart when you tell him he can never see her again?
Chase:  He needs a shrink.
Foreman:  Chase's idea is as good as any, because, short of frying his brain and wiping Amy out, he's screwed.
House:  We need Cuddy.
Foreman:  Why?
House:  So you can tell her why you need to fry a guy's brain.
Cuddy:  They guy's heart isn't working and you want to shock his brain.
House:  Electroshock therapy is the only way to erase his memories of Amy and stop the brain's chemical attacks on the heart.
Cuddy:  This isn't 1940. The problem can be controlled with anti-depressants.
House:  Cameron?
Cameron:  Anti-depressants would inhibit his autonomic nervous system. Speed up the attacks.
House:  LMNO, PTU, blood thinners, none of them will solve his problem. The man's got a real life Harlequin romance in his head. We're gonna pull out the 1940 playbook. Bilateral electrodes, high stimulus sine-wave intensity. Turning that dial all the way to 11. It's basic brain chemistry. We interrupt the protein synthesis, altering the neuro-transmitter system. End results, no memories, no Amy, no problem.

    In the episode, through a bizarre twist, after the electroshock is applied it is discovered that the suffering character's broken heart isn't based on reality but on a delusion which is evidence of a condition which hasn't been adequately diagnosed or treated. Oops!
    The popularity of twists such as these is the reason I stopped watching House much earlier last year. I'd begun an obsession with the show when it was mentioned to me by an online acquaintance while my mother was in the hospital and rehab last spring. I sought it out and became almost immediately hooked for a period of a few weeks, until it dawned on me that the fictional arrogance portrayed (chiefly through Dr. House) in the show was mimicking the real arrogance I was, daily, fighting in every medical staff with whom I had to work as I advocated for my mother's health. Instead of calming me, watching the show was working me up to fever pitch every night before retiring.
    Be that as it may, when Jessica Knapp posted about a House character's death at her website, after watching that episode in arrears I became, again, entranced with the show. I'm not sure why and an explanation doesn't yet matter enough to me to seek one. I still find the show maddening and frustrating. The issue of broken hearts becoming a medical syndrome, though, well, I can't quite let go of this, considering my recent use of the label. I think it's interesting, and probably worthwhile, that, as a species, we are attempting to study broken hearts from an objective, physiological point of view. Although the research doesn't yet conclusively indicate whether, when or why they are fatal, certainly, broken hearts are life changing. I'm not one to campaign for a cure for, or even the medical eradication of the physiology that accompanies broken hearts. Although the condition I'm labeling as my own broken heart is extremely uncomfortable and is, indeed, changing my attitudes toward life and, thus, I expect, will change my life, I'm not sorry it's happening and I'm not keen to avoid the condition. I hope, and think, that, eventually, living with my broken heart will reveal new ways of perceiving and approaching life that will be much more compatible with who I am, now, and will be much more effective and life-enhancing.
    There was a time, immediately after my mother died, when I hurt so much, emotionally, that I confided to one of my sisters that, at least for a few weeks after everyone left, I hoped that family members would set up a schedule of checking on me daily by phone to make sure that I remained alive. I worried, I told her, based on all that anecdotal evidence I mentioned previously in this post (evidence with which I doubt any of us escapes familiarity, a familiarity which begins when we are young, before we are able to understand the concept of the effects of a broken heart), that, without ulterior intention I might die of a broken heart. My extended family did, indeed, set up such a schedule, including a back-up plan in case one of them happened to call when I was out, which set a time limit on lack of answering or responding, after which local police would be called. The plan played out for about three weeks. After that, I reported that it no longer was necessary. I'm sure I was right about that.
    The abandonment of the plan, though, doesn't mean that I am not continuing to experience a damaged and confused metaphorical heart. I can't say whether I am also (or ever was) experiencing a physical heart that is besieged by the physiological properties of a broken heart, but I seem to be healthy and have no reason to go to a doctor, so my guess is that, if I was ever in any physiological danger from my metaphorical heart break, I am no longer. Stress isn't ipso facto deleterious. In this case, I consider whatever stress my continuing "heart condition" is causing to be advantageous. It's prompting me to work through it. No, it's not easy. Yes, sometimes I vacation, putting the work aside to revel in life's pleasantries. I prefer, though, sometimes even relish, working it...considering the alternatives, at least those I am sure would apply to me.
    One of the aspects of BHS that was briefly mentioned in the show and, as well, on a few of the sites to which I've previously linked in this post, is that middle-aged women seem to be a primary demographic within the category of sufferers of BHS. This makes sense to me. Menopause changes a woman's physiology in ways that remove protection from the heart and colors a woman's perception of the world so distinctly that it upsets mental apple carts all over the place. Creating and adjusting to a post-menopausal world view, as well as adjusting to physiological changes, continues after one finishes menopause and ushers in years of what Margaret Mead termed "post-menopausal zest". Stack a death on top of this process and the weight is probably enough to break even a sturdy heart. However, this oddity, which hasn't yet been medically explained, does not account for what has always been anecdotal wisdom and, according to at least one study, is a matter of scientific observation: That when a spouse dies, a widower is almost three times as likely to experience "excess mortality" (dying because one's spouse has died) than is a widow. It's interesting to note that conventional wisdom often connects this observation with the idea that, overall, women are better at taking personal care of themselves than men because husbands typically depend on their wives to not only prompt them to but to perform personal care for them; thus, women are more likely to survive after the death of a spouse than are men. This scientifically observable phenomenon is often what is conventionally referred to as death by broken heart. I wonder, though, if it wouldn't be more appropriate to refer to excess mortality in widowered husbands as due to broken lives.
    I can't say that I don't understand people who die after the death of an intimate. From what I've experienced since my mother's death I feel bound to report that such fantasies don't emerge only from the sense of life devastation that follows the death of an intimate and the desire to physically dive into that devastation, complete it, so to speak. I've also experienced a haunting quality to being "left behind" which involves a need to know "where" the deceased "is"; to want to follow her in order to remain in touch with her; an agony in having to surrender the actuality, the presence of a relationship, to Death; all of which have caused me, at times, since Mom's death, to wish that I would die, not in order to really die, but to follow, and know, and once again be in real time touch with her. I understand how it would be very hard to resist this desire if one is perennially prone to thoughts of suicide or very ill or very old and perceives her or himself to be close to death aside from the deceased's stark absence. I can also report, though, that when one isn't suicidal or perceives oneself to be close, for whatever reason, to the end of one's life, when one, I think, too, isn't experiencing complicated grief (which I wondered, for awhile, if I was experiencing but have satisfied myself that I am not, at least not at this point), it is possible, hard, yes, but possible, to resist realizing The Follow Fantasy. It is, in fact, a bit more seductive to continue trudging through the devastation of one's heart in order to see, just to see, if something else, something interesting and vital, can be resurrected from the debris of Death's toppling. For me, on a day to day basis, this, alone, is a good enough reason to continue plodding from morning, to noon, to evening, to night, and not merely hope but expect to rise, again, another day.
    For others, it's not. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that none among these others expected to find themselves of the "not" sort. Maybe, one day, in reaction to a death, I might find myself "notting" away...thus, my heart wonders about these others.