Day 74: Raspberry 5 Hour Energy! Yum!
Ah, October. Who doesn't love the turning of the leaves, the return of rain to the Seattle skies or the overwhelming degree of slacktivism in the air? Nothing gives makes you feel the cold bite of winter quite like seeing a bunch of shitty pink crap everywhere you go. Plenty of ink has been spilled on how silly and ineffective corporate America's masturbatory pinkwashing campaigns have been. I'm not going to say much about that. I'll just say that of all the money exchanging hands for pink crap, little of it goes into hands of the charities they claim to help, and even less goes into helping the women (and men) they claim to be doing it for. This amount becomes incredibly miniscule if you look at the recent studies showing that mammography is far more likely to do harm than good, especially in young women. All of the pinkwashing is little more than thinly veiled targeted marketing. It's condescending and sexist.
Dahlia hated all the pink. While others (usually older survivors) saw the pink ribbons as objects to rally behind, she saw them as a series of platitudes. It's a feel good solution to a problem which has been solved for the last 25 years: Breast Cancer Awareness. We are aware of the threat of breast cancer, but mortality rates have bottomed out. Very little money is being spent for a cure, and several companies lined their pockets. The pink ribbon was a declaration of aid from the unaiding, ignorant of the actual problems that threatened her every day. It was air dropping sandbags in the desert.
When she was alive, I tolerated all of it because it seemed unavoidable, not to mention that there were more important things to deal with at the time. Now it's impossible to see a ribbon and not think about all of the campaign's failings. I've just done my best to avoid it this year. It's been difficult.
The two closest grocery stores, for example, are both Safeways. Last year every cashwrap was covered in pink streamers. The aisles are filled with yogurt containers congratulating the purchasers for helping women in need. It's just a little much for me right now. I've been avoiding it by going to the Red Apple in Madison Park or the Central Co-op in Capitol Hill, so my grocery shopping experiences have been even more filled with rich white people as of late.
Even football has been difficult to watch. The NFL has found an ingenious way to sell football jerseys to women. Make everything pink! Use pink penalty markers! Make the players wear pink! Fine them for wearing something else! It's all gotten a little ridiculous. While I haven't been avoiding it entirely, I've been listening to more of it on the radio then I've been watching and frankly, it's nice to have my Sundays back for a little while.
Look, I don't know what the solution is here. Cancer is a hard problem. The pink ribbons made a lot of amazing things possible 30 years ago, but they've become part of the problem. We need cures, not awareness. In the meantime, all the pink is just a reminder of what I, and far too many husbands and wives, have lost to breast cancer.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Stage 5: Dealing with the Grieving of Others
Day 66: Drunken Architect: 2 parts Lemon Juice, 2 parts Fernet Branca, 1 part gin
If there's one thing I've learned, and hope to get across with this blog, grieving is a strange process. It twists peoples' perception of the living and the dead and the entire world around them. They withdraw and lash out in the strangest way possible. These reactions are understandable, but they're also at times inexcusable. Learning how to react to these situations is one of the hardest things for me about being a widower.
I'm an introvert. I could show you about 500 animated GIFs on Buzzfeed to tell you what that means, but I'll save the platitudes for a Facebook post. In this case, it means I don't always react to others in a way which is socially acceptable. I laugh when I should act serious and I sigh when I should smile. In my interactions in the last two months, strangers, coworkers and acquaintances have reacted in ways that represent an amount of grief which, in my estimation, they have not earned. Dahlia was my world, the entirety of my being. I had countless emergency room trips and held her hand as she died. I'm doing okay, trying to move on with my life. Complete strangers should react with a less shocked and terrified response than I feel on any given day. I get it. They just found out someone they never knew died, and I've known this thing was going to happen for the last two years. Outside of that perspective, though, their reaction seems... laughable.
And I laugh. I laugh a nervous laugh, and in response, they never know how to react. They ask why I'm laughing when my wife just died. I just shrug and tell them i don't know. It's a partial truth, but for the most part it's because I don't want to tell them I'm laughing because I don't know how else to respond to their overreaction.
The reaction of the strangers is frustrating, but understandable. The reactions which seem absolutely mind-boggling are those of my former in-laws. Dahlia had a strained relationship with both her parents. She stopped speaking to her father shortly after her diagnosis. His tendency was to make her diagnosis a reason to act out. Dahlia needed a parent, not a child, and as a result decided to no longer put up with her father's bullshit. She still loved him, but her diagnosis left her with no mental energy to put up with outside stress.
Her mother was a good parent. She came when required and helped her when she was ill. She gave me a break from the day to day caretaking, for which I am grateful. Her flaws arose from her religion. Her mother is an evangelical Christian. God has an answer for everything and He has a plan for everyone. God's plan was to take away Dahlia in her early 30's. Her mother has to come to terms with the fact God wanted to kill her daughter and make her feel an immense amount of emotional pain.
Both of them reacted to Dahlia's death in difficult ways for me to process. Her father didn't show to her funeral. He scheduled a colonoscopy for two days earlier than he was to fly out to Seattle. For one, he knew about the date a month in advance, and could have scheduled the scan for whenever he liked. Number B, there is no way he couldn't have flown if he wanted, despite the amount of the gas he was dealing with. His decision not to show at Dahlia's funeral was selfish and frightened, but I'm happy he made it. It's much easier to have a selfish and frightened father 3000 miles away than it is to have one at a funeral.
Her mother's reactions were much more discomforting. I can only imagine the anger and fear going through that woman's mind. Her entire faith was put into question by her daughter's death. I knew it would cause her to mourning to be front and center when she was out here, but I had no idea the amount of vitriol that would spill from her when she was out here. During Dahlia's wake, she ended up telling my sister-in-law that it was good of her to come out despite the fact that Dahlia hated her.
Let that sink in a bit, because it took me a while to wrap my head around it. She told a woman she never met, a woman related to a grieving widower who would no doubt hear about it, the most vile, despicable thing you could say to a person at a wake. Dahlia had frustrations with certain people at certain times, and voiced them a little too loudly to the wrong people on occasion. I've been the victim of this, and I know her friends know more of my faults than I'd care to admit. None of it meant she hated anyone, and her mother knew this. Besides, even if it were true, that would never be an appropriate response to any sort of conversation. To top it off, she planned on telling me, before she was talked out of it, that she would be glad to take Dahlia's ashes when (not if) I remarry.
After being told these things, I felt an emotion, one of the five stages, I don’t feel very often: anger. I wanted to take this woman and destroy her very core. If she called, I wanted to take her faith and shove it down her throat. Her God had killed her daughter. She was so angry at Him that she lashed out at anyone she saw. She was angry at the one entity she could not be angry at. If I talked to her in the days after the wake, I would have told her that God was the only needed target for her anger. Her faith made her bitter and manipulative, and she backed the wrong horse in this race for eternity.
In the time since, I’ve calmed down a bit. I still believe all the things above, but I'm lucky enough to have a choice to just never speak with her parents again. I can walk away from the parts of Dahlia that caused me the most stress: the memories of ER trips, my in-laws, etc. If there's one thing I fear about this whole thing, it's ending up, a year from now, unable to adjust and move on. A confrontation would just cause things to linger. Besides, I'm a Seattleite. Passive aggression is how we cope and it's what we do best, and I can't think of anything more passive aggressive than airing this stuff out on a semi-anonymous blog.
If there's one thing I've learned, and hope to get across with this blog, grieving is a strange process. It twists peoples' perception of the living and the dead and the entire world around them. They withdraw and lash out in the strangest way possible. These reactions are understandable, but they're also at times inexcusable. Learning how to react to these situations is one of the hardest things for me about being a widower.
 |
| LOLz. iknowrite? |
And I laugh. I laugh a nervous laugh, and in response, they never know how to react. They ask why I'm laughing when my wife just died. I just shrug and tell them i don't know. It's a partial truth, but for the most part it's because I don't want to tell them I'm laughing because I don't know how else to respond to their overreaction.
The reaction of the strangers is frustrating, but understandable. The reactions which seem absolutely mind-boggling are those of my former in-laws. Dahlia had a strained relationship with both her parents. She stopped speaking to her father shortly after her diagnosis. His tendency was to make her diagnosis a reason to act out. Dahlia needed a parent, not a child, and as a result decided to no longer put up with her father's bullshit. She still loved him, but her diagnosis left her with no mental energy to put up with outside stress.
Her mother was a good parent. She came when required and helped her when she was ill. She gave me a break from the day to day caretaking, for which I am grateful. Her flaws arose from her religion. Her mother is an evangelical Christian. God has an answer for everything and He has a plan for everyone. God's plan was to take away Dahlia in her early 30's. Her mother has to come to terms with the fact God wanted to kill her daughter and make her feel an immense amount of emotional pain.
Both of them reacted to Dahlia's death in difficult ways for me to process. Her father didn't show to her funeral. He scheduled a colonoscopy for two days earlier than he was to fly out to Seattle. For one, he knew about the date a month in advance, and could have scheduled the scan for whenever he liked. Number B, there is no way he couldn't have flown if he wanted, despite the amount of the gas he was dealing with. His decision not to show at Dahlia's funeral was selfish and frightened, but I'm happy he made it. It's much easier to have a selfish and frightened father 3000 miles away than it is to have one at a funeral.
Her mother's reactions were much more discomforting. I can only imagine the anger and fear going through that woman's mind. Her entire faith was put into question by her daughter's death. I knew it would cause her to mourning to be front and center when she was out here, but I had no idea the amount of vitriol that would spill from her when she was out here. During Dahlia's wake, she ended up telling my sister-in-law that it was good of her to come out despite the fact that Dahlia hated her.
 |
| She said what? Okay, maybe I'm spending too much time on Buzzfeed |
Let that sink in a bit, because it took me a while to wrap my head around it. She told a woman she never met, a woman related to a grieving widower who would no doubt hear about it, the most vile, despicable thing you could say to a person at a wake. Dahlia had frustrations with certain people at certain times, and voiced them a little too loudly to the wrong people on occasion. I've been the victim of this, and I know her friends know more of my faults than I'd care to admit. None of it meant she hated anyone, and her mother knew this. Besides, even if it were true, that would never be an appropriate response to any sort of conversation. To top it off, she planned on telling me, before she was talked out of it, that she would be glad to take Dahlia's ashes when (not if) I remarry.
After being told these things, I felt an emotion, one of the five stages, I don’t feel very often: anger. I wanted to take this woman and destroy her very core. If she called, I wanted to take her faith and shove it down her throat. Her God had killed her daughter. She was so angry at Him that she lashed out at anyone she saw. She was angry at the one entity she could not be angry at. If I talked to her in the days after the wake, I would have told her that God was the only needed target for her anger. Her faith made her bitter and manipulative, and she backed the wrong horse in this race for eternity.
In the time since, I’ve calmed down a bit. I still believe all the things above, but I'm lucky enough to have a choice to just never speak with her parents again. I can walk away from the parts of Dahlia that caused me the most stress: the memories of ER trips, my in-laws, etc. If there's one thing I fear about this whole thing, it's ending up, a year from now, unable to adjust and move on. A confrontation would just cause things to linger. Besides, I'm a Seattleite. Passive aggression is how we cope and it's what we do best, and I can't think of anything more passive aggressive than airing this stuff out on a semi-anonymous blog.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Stage 4: Undoing the Compromises
Day 52: Bourbon Buck: Bourbon, Lime Juice, Ginger Beer, Bitters
So I've returned. I've dove into the fray of funeral planning, relatives, in-laws, speech writing and a general sense of overwhelmedness, and come out the other side. The business of planning a funeral has certainly has given me a lot to write about, but I'm not quite ready to write about it yet.
I'm probably having a few revelations which are likely obvious to many, but along with the death of a spouse, I'm dealing with the first breakup of my adult life. In addition to all of the heartbreak and grief, there are number of practical concerns that have arisen in the last couple months. A lot of these are, perhaps, mundane to some, but they've been fascinating to me.
Any relationship, especially one involving co-habitation, comes down to a series of compromises. Ideally, this is minimal. Hopefully, it's more which side of the bed to sleep on and less conversion to Scientology. To be honest, Dahlia and I had very few disagreements in our relationship. No one converted their religion or moved to a city that they didn't want to, so in the long run, we made things easy on each other. Compromises can be far more subtle, far more subconscious: from what TV show to watch to who gets to use the car any given day.
Compromises can be as small as where to put the compost bin. There are things I had no idea I cared about have now become front and center because their main use has become... I suppose irrelevant is the right word. I have a room, that was up until two weeks ago, was filled with quilting supplies. With my fine motor control being what is, dealing with a bunch of small strips of fabric and sharp objects is pretty much out of the question. I had Dahlia's friends take everything they could use and eventually I'll throw out or donate the rest, but even before that, I've got a lot of empty space to use. All the clothes, junk food, fabrics and nick-knacks that were once important parts of Dahlia's life are just things taking up space. All of the removal has made for a pretty empty house. Filling it all will take time.
Beyond the empty space and the quiet house, there's how the days are filled. I'll play a video game instead of watch a movie. When I do watch something, it's more likely to be comedy than period dramas now. I'll order Indian instead of Thai. Each of these things will remind me of the absence in my life, but I do them anyway because it would be silly to do the opposite. Frankly, the opposite would just remind me more, and be just silly. To do something because of a dead woman is ridiculous and Dahlia would be the first to say it.
Of all the things about learning to be single, doing the shit you wanted to do in the first place should be the easiest one. Perhaps it is, but it doesn't make it easy.
So I've returned. I've dove into the fray of funeral planning, relatives, in-laws, speech writing and a general sense of overwhelmedness, and come out the other side. The business of planning a funeral has certainly has given me a lot to write about, but I'm not quite ready to write about it yet.
I'm probably having a few revelations which are likely obvious to many, but along with the death of a spouse, I'm dealing with the first breakup of my adult life. In addition to all of the heartbreak and grief, there are number of practical concerns that have arisen in the last couple months. A lot of these are, perhaps, mundane to some, but they've been fascinating to me.
Any relationship, especially one involving co-habitation, comes down to a series of compromises. Ideally, this is minimal. Hopefully, it's more which side of the bed to sleep on and less conversion to Scientology. To be honest, Dahlia and I had very few disagreements in our relationship. No one converted their religion or moved to a city that they didn't want to, so in the long run, we made things easy on each other. Compromises can be far more subtle, far more subconscious: from what TV show to watch to who gets to use the car any given day.
Compromises can be as small as where to put the compost bin. There are things I had no idea I cared about have now become front and center because their main use has become... I suppose irrelevant is the right word. I have a room, that was up until two weeks ago, was filled with quilting supplies. With my fine motor control being what is, dealing with a bunch of small strips of fabric and sharp objects is pretty much out of the question. I had Dahlia's friends take everything they could use and eventually I'll throw out or donate the rest, but even before that, I've got a lot of empty space to use. All the clothes, junk food, fabrics and nick-knacks that were once important parts of Dahlia's life are just things taking up space. All of the removal has made for a pretty empty house. Filling it all will take time.
Beyond the empty space and the quiet house, there's how the days are filled. I'll play a video game instead of watch a movie. When I do watch something, it's more likely to be comedy than period dramas now. I'll order Indian instead of Thai. Each of these things will remind me of the absence in my life, but I do them anyway because it would be silly to do the opposite. Frankly, the opposite would just remind me more, and be just silly. To do something because of a dead woman is ridiculous and Dahlia would be the first to say it.
Of all the things about learning to be single, doing the shit you wanted to do in the first place should be the easiest one. Perhaps it is, but it doesn't make it easy.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Stage 3: Urn shopping
Day 32: B-complex vitamins with water. It was a long weekend with football teammates
Dahlia's ashes came last week. I spent the whole day doing nothing. I waited all day for the package to arrive, waiting for the bottom to drop out. I had to wait a while, too. Our wonderful Postal Service, ever causing me to question my faith in socialism, decided to wait until 5pm to arrive with an unceremonial cardboard box. Seeing the remains makes things real in a way. I panicked and felt a wave of anxiety come over me when opening the box. I was holding every physical remnant of Dahlia in a five pound box.
I called Jeff from Elemental Cremations, who has been an absolute Godsend, to figure out next steps. He told me to take some time with cremains. He kept using the pronouns "she" and "her" to describe the ashes. "She's in a plastic bag." "I can transfer her to an urn." and "Take some time to figure out what you want to do with her." It was off-putting. Even though it was frankly indistinguishable from the ashtray outside of the Two Bells on a Friday night, the remains were Dahlia in a very real, if very incomplete, way. He told me to look at urns, figure out what type of urn I wanted. I did a bit of this in the days after, and, honestly, in the days before.
I found a simple, bamboo number. The one thing I didn't want was a typical, Grecian urn, sitting on the mantelpiece for all eternity, next to a picture of Dahlia with her faithful lapdog, the scent of potpourri wafting in the air. I wanted something that won't be found by an alien civilization millennia from now and thought to contain a Athenian priestess. With a vague idea of what I wanted, I set out exploring the wide internet for the perfect urn.
Jeff pointed me at a wonderful place called Lundgren Monuments. These urns were quite amazing, but a little too exquisite and more than Dahlia would want me to spend. Besides, she would never want cremains to be the focus of a room. It's far too morbid. The focus of the room should be the people in it, not the things around them.
Undeterred, I decided to explore the Wild West that is the internet for other urns. I went to a couple sites to see what my other options were. There were the obvious options: vase-shaped, cross-adorned brass urns and the like. Beyond those, however, the amount of options was far beyond the limits of my imagination.
Living on the top of the Left Coast, even after 23 years in the Midwest, you can forget that Middle America exists. Despite all the odds, Middle America still lives, and, as a result, Middle America still dies. When Middle America dies, they mourn in a way which is beyond the comprehension of you or me. Now, I understand that hobbies are very important to an individual. A motorcycle ride, a fishing trip or traveling to watch NASCAR can be a semi-religious experience to some people. I don't do these things myself, but I get their importance.
It's one thing to enjoy these activities. I enjoy tons of Midwestern things from Football to Coney Island hot dogs. That said, I would never want to rest for all eternity inside a piece of tube steak, yet there are urns for all sorts of hobbies and interests. For example, you can get an urn for the motorcyclist, cowboy, or race enthusiast.
Part of me wants really hard to make fun of this, to point out the absurdity of motorcycle engine urns and just laugh. If there's one thing that drew me to Dahlia, it was her ability to look at the absurdity of existence and laugh. She would have seen these things and laughed, and let's be honest, it's pretty fucking funny.
That said, grief is a powerful force. We all make decisions which seem very strange from the outside. To a random observer, I've probably drank too much and laughed a little too loud since Dahlia left. If a spouse wants to remember their beloved on a golf course with his trusty five iron, it's probably not my place to get pious on how one grieves. Then again, my furry little bastards are never going into one of these.
Dahlia's ashes came last week. I spent the whole day doing nothing. I waited all day for the package to arrive, waiting for the bottom to drop out. I had to wait a while, too. Our wonderful Postal Service, ever causing me to question my faith in socialism, decided to wait until 5pm to arrive with an unceremonial cardboard box. Seeing the remains makes things real in a way. I panicked and felt a wave of anxiety come over me when opening the box. I was holding every physical remnant of Dahlia in a five pound box.
I called Jeff from Elemental Cremations, who has been an absolute Godsend, to figure out next steps. He told me to take some time with cremains. He kept using the pronouns "she" and "her" to describe the ashes. "She's in a plastic bag." "I can transfer her to an urn." and "Take some time to figure out what you want to do with her." It was off-putting. Even though it was frankly indistinguishable from the ashtray outside of the Two Bells on a Friday night, the remains were Dahlia in a very real, if very incomplete, way. He told me to look at urns, figure out what type of urn I wanted. I did a bit of this in the days after, and, honestly, in the days before.
| Does not contain the remains of Helen of Troy |
I found a simple, bamboo number. The one thing I didn't want was a typical, Grecian urn, sitting on the mantelpiece for all eternity, next to a picture of Dahlia with her faithful lapdog, the scent of potpourri wafting in the air. I wanted something that won't be found by an alien civilization millennia from now and thought to contain a Athenian priestess. With a vague idea of what I wanted, I set out exploring the wide internet for the perfect urn.
Jeff pointed me at a wonderful place called Lundgren Monuments. These urns were quite amazing, but a little too exquisite and more than Dahlia would want me to spend. Besides, she would never want cremains to be the focus of a room. It's far too morbid. The focus of the room should be the people in it, not the things around them.
Undeterred, I decided to explore the Wild West that is the internet for other urns. I went to a couple sites to see what my other options were. There were the obvious options: vase-shaped, cross-adorned brass urns and the like. Beyond those, however, the amount of options was far beyond the limits of my imagination.
Living on the top of the Left Coast, even after 23 years in the Midwest, you can forget that Middle America exists. Despite all the odds, Middle America still lives, and, as a result, Middle America still dies. When Middle America dies, they mourn in a way which is beyond the comprehension of you or me. Now, I understand that hobbies are very important to an individual. A motorcycle ride, a fishing trip or traveling to watch NASCAR can be a semi-religious experience to some people. I don't do these things myself, but I get their importance.
 | ||
| Bubba loved three things: Bud Light, Motorcycles and America |
It's one thing to enjoy these activities. I enjoy tons of Midwestern things from Football to Coney Island hot dogs. That said, I would never want to rest for all eternity inside a piece of tube steak, yet there are urns for all sorts of hobbies and interests. For example, you can get an urn for the motorcyclist, cowboy, or race enthusiast.
Part of me wants really hard to make fun of this, to point out the absurdity of motorcycle engine urns and just laugh. If there's one thing that drew me to Dahlia, it was her ability to look at the absurdity of existence and laugh. She would have seen these things and laughed, and let's be honest, it's pretty fucking funny.
That said, grief is a powerful force. We all make decisions which seem very strange from the outside. To a random observer, I've probably drank too much and laughed a little too loud since Dahlia left. If a spouse wants to remember their beloved on a golf course with his trusty five iron, it's probably not my place to get pious on how one grieves. Then again, my furry little bastards are never going into one of these.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Stage 2: Jazz
Day 15 drink pairing: A Power Outlet. Horchata flavored Rum, Fireball, ice, the blood of a virgin, unicorn tears, a bunch of other stuff... I have no idea. Stefan is a genius.
Do you believe, brothers and sisters? Do you believe in our lord and savior John Coltrane and his apostles, Miles, Dizzy and Ella? I believe, dear readers. I believe in the holy powers of those first five notes of Blue Train. I believe in the curative powers of the crooning of Sarah Vaughn.
I'm mostly joking. What I do believe in, however, is the take-me-to-the-river-and-drop-me-in-the-water, honest-to-God healing powers of a drink shared with good friends. For that purpose, there are few places better than Jazz Night at Barça. The music is great, the cover is non-existent, and the bartender is a mad genius.
This particular night, everyone at the table was carrying a heavy heart. The three of us all were close to Dahlia and the wounds are still pretty raw. To add to it, one of us is going to lose another close friend to cancer soon, and the other has a grandmother in the hospital. We all needed a few drinks and Stefan, the aforementioned genius, was willing to supply them.
A lot of people use "weight" and "burden sharing" as metaphors for talking about grief. These try to apply physical qualities to non-physical emotions. Grief does not follow the law of conservation of mass. By transmitting it, grief is, in fact, reduced. As the night went on, and the alcohol flowed and the cigarettes burned. Eventually, the talk turned to thoughts of grief and confessions flowed as easy as the cocktails. As time went on, sadness turned to relief and eventually a few hours of brief lightness. The grief and sadness were still there, combined with a million other emotions, but for a while none of it had to make sense, because it sure as hell didn't make sense to anybody else.
Do you believe, brothers and sisters? Do you believe in our lord and savior John Coltrane and his apostles, Miles, Dizzy and Ella? I believe, dear readers. I believe in the holy powers of those first five notes of Blue Train. I believe in the curative powers of the crooning of Sarah Vaughn.
I'm mostly joking. What I do believe in, however, is the take-me-to-the-river-and-drop-me-in-the-water, honest-to-God healing powers of a drink shared with good friends. For that purpose, there are few places better than Jazz Night at Barça. The music is great, the cover is non-existent, and the bartender is a mad genius.
This particular night, everyone at the table was carrying a heavy heart. The three of us all were close to Dahlia and the wounds are still pretty raw. To add to it, one of us is going to lose another close friend to cancer soon, and the other has a grandmother in the hospital. We all needed a few drinks and Stefan, the aforementioned genius, was willing to supply them.
A lot of people use "weight" and "burden sharing" as metaphors for talking about grief. These try to apply physical qualities to non-physical emotions. Grief does not follow the law of conservation of mass. By transmitting it, grief is, in fact, reduced. As the night went on, and the alcohol flowed and the cigarettes burned. Eventually, the talk turned to thoughts of grief and confessions flowed as easy as the cocktails. As time went on, sadness turned to relief and eventually a few hours of brief lightness. The grief and sadness were still there, combined with a million other emotions, but for a while none of it had to make sense, because it sure as hell didn't make sense to anybody else.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Stage 1: Old Hobbies
Day 12 Liquor pairing: New Amsterdam martini, extra vermouth, with a twist
Losing a loved one means having a lot of free time. Leaving any relationship means fewer dates, weekend trips, furniture shopping, etc. Losing Dahlia meant fewer doctors appointments, hospital visits, medication reminders, and trips to the pharmacy. All-in-all, that's about 40 hours a week to fill. I'm not up joining the management team at my neighborhood Applebee's, so I need to find other things to fill the time.
In the short term, that's honestly not too hard of a proposition. I have a funeral to plan, bank accounts to transfer, car titles to put in my name, and about a 100 other completely banal tasks to fill up my time. Getting back to work has proven ineffective. So far, that's meant getting about 5 hours through the day then completely zoning out. Staring at a computer screen thinking about data structures and distributed systems brings on a desire to be home in bed quicker than anything.
All of it has made me think about the person I was before I met Dahlia. I was quiet, nebbish, a poor dresser, and a teetotaler. Then again, very few interesting people think that high school was the epitome of their existence. So that might be a bit to far back to go. College is a different story; college is when people really find themselves. In college, I stopped listening to shitty music, learned to cook, and wrote ham-fisted, silly stories about lesbianism. It's when I started truly being comfortable with who I was. Perhaps there's some creature comforts to be had by reminiscing about Ann Arbor.
First thing was to buy a bunch of music. I've been a little obsessed with synthpop lately, so I picked up a bunch: M83, LCD Soundsystem, and some Kate Bush to bone up on the classics. Being frustrated that Chvrches album isn't out yet, I went to Sonic Boom and picked up Camera Obscura and Rhye's latest album. So, in summary, I spent more on music in the last five days than I have in the prior six months.
Music just reminds me of her though. I mean, how can someone listen to this and not think of their dead wife:
Next, I started picking out some recipes out of some cookbooks we had lying around. There were a few recipes I wanted to try. Cooking meals was one of the most frustrating parts of the caretaking process. Dahlia's palate changed on a seemingly hourly basis. There was little time to shop for ingredients and so a lot of meals were bland and boxed, or take out. When I would cook meals, her appetite would allow her to have a couple bites before pushing them aside. I don't blame her for this, but it was nonetheless frustrating. Part of grieving seems to be focusing on newfound freedoms regardless if they are cold comfort for the things lost.
I made lamb piccata last night. I made it because I couldn't find veal chops in the entire city after calling 15 different grocery stores and butchers. It was good for a first try. The problem with cooking for one is that fine dining is meant to be a shared experience. It's meant to be about shared plates and discussions of flavors. Perhaps it's time for a dinner party.
While I pursue these hobbies that seem to only provide me more evidence in why my wife is completely irreplaceable, there's one old habit I found comfort in: phone conversations with good friends. I spent an hour talking about all this grieving crap to someone on the east coast while it was completely irrational to be awake there. She still indulged me, however.
While the topics were certainly different from the prom dates and schoolgirl crushes of old, it still felt familiar in a very comforting way. The banter was knowing and the silences were calming. For a brief hour, things felt lighter. I suppose at this point in time, brief reprieves are all that's to be expected
Losing a loved one means having a lot of free time. Leaving any relationship means fewer dates, weekend trips, furniture shopping, etc. Losing Dahlia meant fewer doctors appointments, hospital visits, medication reminders, and trips to the pharmacy. All-in-all, that's about 40 hours a week to fill. I'm not up joining the management team at my neighborhood Applebee's, so I need to find other things to fill the time.
In the short term, that's honestly not too hard of a proposition. I have a funeral to plan, bank accounts to transfer, car titles to put in my name, and about a 100 other completely banal tasks to fill up my time. Getting back to work has proven ineffective. So far, that's meant getting about 5 hours through the day then completely zoning out. Staring at a computer screen thinking about data structures and distributed systems brings on a desire to be home in bed quicker than anything.
All of it has made me think about the person I was before I met Dahlia. I was quiet, nebbish, a poor dresser, and a teetotaler. Then again, very few interesting people think that high school was the epitome of their existence. So that might be a bit to far back to go. College is a different story; college is when people really find themselves. In college, I stopped listening to shitty music, learned to cook, and wrote ham-fisted, silly stories about lesbianism. It's when I started truly being comfortable with who I was. Perhaps there's some creature comforts to be had by reminiscing about Ann Arbor.
First thing was to buy a bunch of music. I've been a little obsessed with synthpop lately, so I picked up a bunch: M83, LCD Soundsystem, and some Kate Bush to bone up on the classics. Being frustrated that Chvrches album isn't out yet, I went to Sonic Boom and picked up Camera Obscura and Rhye's latest album. So, in summary, I spent more on music in the last five days than I have in the prior six months.
Music just reminds me of her though. I mean, how can someone listen to this and not think of their dead wife:
Next, I started picking out some recipes out of some cookbooks we had lying around. There were a few recipes I wanted to try. Cooking meals was one of the most frustrating parts of the caretaking process. Dahlia's palate changed on a seemingly hourly basis. There was little time to shop for ingredients and so a lot of meals were bland and boxed, or take out. When I would cook meals, her appetite would allow her to have a couple bites before pushing them aside. I don't blame her for this, but it was nonetheless frustrating. Part of grieving seems to be focusing on newfound freedoms regardless if they are cold comfort for the things lost.
I made lamb piccata last night. I made it because I couldn't find veal chops in the entire city after calling 15 different grocery stores and butchers. It was good for a first try. The problem with cooking for one is that fine dining is meant to be a shared experience. It's meant to be about shared plates and discussions of flavors. Perhaps it's time for a dinner party.
While I pursue these hobbies that seem to only provide me more evidence in why my wife is completely irreplaceable, there's one old habit I found comfort in: phone conversations with good friends. I spent an hour talking about all this grieving crap to someone on the east coast while it was completely irrational to be awake there. She still indulged me, however.
While the topics were certainly different from the prom dates and schoolgirl crushes of old, it still felt familiar in a very comforting way. The banter was knowing and the silences were calming. For a brief hour, things felt lighter. I suppose at this point in time, brief reprieves are all that's to be expected
Monday, August 12, 2013
So... That happened.
My wife, the love of my life, died nine days ago. At 5:00am on August 3rd, my first kiss and my only love, took her last breath. I'm not sure what's next. How do you move on from the most important aspect of your life for the last 12 years? How does one learn to be single and adult for the first time at 31? Widower is an adjective for a 65 year old, not someone who still wears Chucks and listens to the Magnetic Fields. So... What the fuck is next?
Conventional wisdom says there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. There are at least two falsities there. First, five emotions are woefully incomplete. In the last nine days have found me adding Overwhelmedness, Forgetfulness. Regression, Fear, Sexual Desire, Nostalgia, Alcoholism, Humility, and Impatience. I'm sure seven or eight more will show up in the next week. Secondly, stages imply distinct phases, each occurring at a certain interval, before moving on to the next. Any given point in time has contained two, if not three of the five stages. I bargain with my depression, I accept my anger, and I certainly deny that I should be depressed about my bargaining. In summary, all I've learned is that convention is bullshit.
I miss her. There's a vacancy throughout my soul, and the only one who can lead me through this is gone. Instead, all I have is the ether. My only option is to type this out until I can find a solution. We'll just have to go through the fourteen stages together. Thanks for coming along.
Conventional wisdom says there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. There are at least two falsities there. First, five emotions are woefully incomplete. In the last nine days have found me adding Overwhelmedness, Forgetfulness. Regression, Fear, Sexual Desire, Nostalgia, Alcoholism, Humility, and Impatience. I'm sure seven or eight more will show up in the next week. Secondly, stages imply distinct phases, each occurring at a certain interval, before moving on to the next. Any given point in time has contained two, if not three of the five stages. I bargain with my depression, I accept my anger, and I certainly deny that I should be depressed about my bargaining. In summary, all I've learned is that convention is bullshit.
I miss her. There's a vacancy throughout my soul, and the only one who can lead me through this is gone. Instead, all I have is the ether. My only option is to type this out until I can find a solution. We'll just have to go through the fourteen stages together. Thanks for coming along.
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