Six months ago today, I sat by Anna’s bedside and stroked her hair as she took her last breath. Watched her pupils dilate until her eyes were nearly black. Kissed her over and over on her forehead, stroked her hair long after she was gone. A week prior, she greeted me coming off the Dewees Island ferry after ten days away with the hugest smile I’d ever seen. Standing there against the backdrop of the South Carolina marsh grass, she looked gorgeous with her curly red hair, in her blue fleece. I could see in her face that she was sicker than when I’d left ten days before but was feeling more than a bit relieved to see me.
It’s been a hell of a day. I couldn’t fall asleep until about 2:30 AM, lying here thinking about how it doesn’t feel real to keep living with Anna gone. Sometimes I wonder if it’s an illusion and I’m the one that had cancer and died and this is just my weird post-death reality. I left work early, unable to concentrate. I went to Anna’s grave and cried and cried, kneeling in the snow. I cried until the snot and tears started running down my chin and freezing. I thought my eyes were going to pop out I was crying so hard and loudly. Luckilly no one was there and the nearest house is visible but through some woods and across a ravine. I told her how much I missed her and how much I wanted her back. And how truly sorry I was that this happened to her.
Have I ever mentioned how beautiful her site is? It’s secluded, on the edge of a wooded park. There’s a tree right next to her grave that is actually three trees that have woven themselves together into one big tree. I think they represent my three babies watching over Anna. I’ll have to post a picture soon. Someone had left a little basket of smooth glass pellets and seashells and bubbles and a star wand that said “Wish you were here”. Funny that I don’t know who left it. Sometimes I have the illusion that I had some sort of monopoly on her love and a monopoly on grieving her. Silly. She had a lot of people who loved her. And her grave blanket that we put on at the beginning of December still rests on top, green and dusted with snow. I brushed the snow off and adjusted the little white dove that’s attached.
It’s funny, I’ve had this idea that perhaps it might be fun to look into dating maybe at the one year anniversary of her death or something. I went to an Umphrey’s concert for New Years Eve and, aside from it being an awesome show, I found myself asked to dance at the end of the show by a beautiful 22 year old goddess as they played Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” over the sound system. After 17 months of Anna’s illness and, on NYE, 5 months of widowerhood, I had kinda forgotten how wonderful it was to just touch a woman’s skin. Not that Anna and I didn’t find a few moments of intimacy in the 17 months, but chemo, radiation, fatigue, vomiting, drastic weight loss, not to mention the usual being tired after putting kids to bed meant those moments were few and far in between. I mean there’s a huge hole in my life where Anna used to be. Kneeling by her grave this afternoon, the idea of being with anyone else seemed utterly ridiculous. I mean, Anna’s the only one I wanted to be with and the only one I still want to be with. If only I could.
Anna came to me in a dream two or three days after she died. It was a dream that was not like a dream. It was another state altogether. She held my face in her hands and told me everything was going to be ok. Over and over. And that she was ok. Since then, I’ve been at least a little bit less afraid of dying. I do have the sense that, in some way, we’ll be together again. I’m not much of a subscriber to the supernatural, but I also have the feeling that there’s more than meets the eye (and the rational mind) to our existence. As I knelt there today, I longed for the day that I was lying next to her in the ground so that maybe somehow we could be together again. Not that I want to die or kill myself or anything like that. But I do hope our spirits in whatever form they may take, find communion again someday.
puddlejumper
| 30-Jan-07 at 5:29 am | Permalink
You’ve come so far JK.
Will be thinking about you today and sending you hugs from Scotland.
x
Amy
| 30-Jan-07 at 7:27 am | Permalink
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, its so touching to read. I believe we are reunited with our loved ones eventually, I dont know how or in what form, but I believe it happens.
I’ll join with puddlejumper and send some hugs from England xx
venessa
| 30-Jan-07 at 9:26 am | Permalink
You will be together again. But life is a gift too. I know you know that. Grief isn’t linear with each day being better than the last. Some days will be good, some will be bad, and eventually you have more good than bad, and then mostly good with just a few bad… For what it’s worth, I think you are doing an amazing job as a dad.
Kate
| 30-Jan-07 at 9:51 am | Permalink
Congratulations on making it six months with your sanity intact. It may not always feel like it is, but trust me, you’re doing just fine and your children are beautiful and [insert platitudes here]. Not to down-play the platitudes, just that they’ve all been said and better than I can say them.
I’m sorry you’re still in the first year, and I hope that, in your case, the second year isn’t harder. Sometimes it is, in different ways than the first year was hard, and I hope that in your case the general trend is toward a lightening of spirit.
I’m also sorry that 7/29 is a sad anniversary for you. It’s my son’s birthday, and I always feel bad when there are sad associations with birthdays. (Says the woman born on Memorial Day.)
Kat
| 30-Jan-07 at 9:59 am | Permalink
Jason, thank you for sharing your grief so openly and honestly with us. It’s an honor.
I’m not sure that there is a set time when it’s the right time. I think though that your heart and soul will know it when it happens.
I never knew Anna except through your words. From those words I am sure that she would both not want you to be alone waiting to join her one day and understanding that right now that’s all your heart wants. It’s ok, to be where you are now and it will be ok when your heart has healed enough to look forward.
JB
| 30-Jan-07 at 10:25 am | Permalink
I know it seems bleak right now brother - believe me when I tell you I have been there and back. I know you won’t (perhaps can’t) believe this but it eventually comes full circle if you will but let it. I did not believe this myself not so long ago and certainly would not have listened to me back then.
I have not wanted to intrude upon your grief but if talking about it would help you, I am here for you. Having shared a similar loss, perhaps I can offer some insight into what you are experiencing (including the strange mix of longing and guilt when thinking about being with another woman).
Because of my career choice, as you know, I travel all over the country and meet new & different people every day - however, I rarely connect with someone the way I connected with you. I consider you one of the very best people I know - please don’t forget that you have people that care for you - lean on us!
Missy
| 30-Jan-07 at 2:16 pm | Permalink
Thank you for writing that beautiful essay.
Jill
| 30-Jan-07 at 5:39 pm | Permalink
Jason,
I cried when I read about your dream…a dream that was not like a dream. I think I experienced a similar state once, a long time ago. I grew up within walking distance from my grandma and my great-grandma. Both were a daily part of my life when I was a child and played a huge role in my upbringing. My great-grandma died when I was a young teenager and although she was an elderly woman who had lived a long and full life, it was devastating to the family. She was an amazing person and a true matriarch of the family. A few nights after she died, my mom and I both had dreams that were, as you say, not really like dreams. When we discussed them the next morning, they were very similar. Bubby came to us, where we lay, in our beds, and comforted us. Told us she was okay and that we were going to be okay. We both woke with the feeling that we had interacted with her. (There was another bizarre element in that both my mom’s and my digital clocks were blinking when we woke up, as if from a power outage, but were found to be unplugged from their respective wall outlets, in 2 separate rooms).
Maybe because you and I are both UU’s I can relate to your assertion that you are not much of a believer in the supernatural. But yet, I have ALWAYS believed, just as you said so eloquently, that there is more to our existence than meets the eye (or than the human mind can comprehend).
I am thinking of you and praying, in what way an agnostic yet spiritual UU like myself can pray, for your peace and strength as you face two very difficult anniversaries.
Cathy
| 31-Jan-07 at 2:24 pm | Permalink
I believe there is more to life than just this form. I have seen far too many things that could only be explained by the presence of loved ones. I wish I knew the secret to this other dimension, and how to go back and forth between the two — but that is a whole other story. I believe you WILL be together again, Jason. And you better tell her I said “hi!”
thordora
| 31-Jan-07 at 2:46 pm | Permalink
I don’t know what to say. I’ve spent those minutes, those hours weeping at a grave, but only as a daughter to a mother, not lover to lover. I know my father went there as well-quiet mornings when he’d disappear, and come back sad and yet not so sad.
I’ve had only a few dreams with my mother in them, my favorite being the one in which she held me in her arms as I cried and cried for her. But it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t there when I woke up.
I don’t believe that she waits anywhere in my heart for me. I wish I could believe more-I envy you your belief that she awaits you. I wish I had that.
After almost 18 years, I know my father still grieves for the love of his life, but his granddaughters have brought him back to me. We both watch for my mother in them.