Have You Ever Seen a Goose Do Anything Silly?

Why is a goose silly? The ancient hieroglyphic for foolish fellow is a goose, so obviously this disparagement of geese goes back to the origins of language. I’ve met a few geese recently, and I have yet to see one do anything silly. They look arrogant (as you can see from the photo I took today). They seem very goal-oriented (when food is in the offing, they hasten to get their share). And they are a bit intolerant of other species of fowl who might also be after that food. But silly? No. In fact, they are very smart and loyal. They fly in a V-formation, which is the most efficient way to travel. The lead geese do the hard work, breaking wind resistance so the geese trailing behind get a bit of rest, and they rotate positions, so none get too tired or too lazy. They also mate for life, which is more than you can say for a lot of humans. So why silly as a goose? Why not silly as a seal? Or silly as a dolphin? Or silly as an otter? All of those creatures are subject to antics, though of course, that might be our human perspective rather than the truth.

Why is an owl wise? Though portraying an owl as wise may be complimentary, it’s every bit as inane as calling a goose silly. What does an owl ever do to make humans perceive it as wise? Perhaps because, except for a few ambiguous hoots, an owl keeps his beak shut. Humans who don’t talk much are often considered wiser than they are, and perhaps they really are wiser than the rest of us. At least they are wise enough to keep their yaps shut so they can’t stick their feet in their mouths. (While we are on the subject — have you ever stuck your foot in your mouth? Perhaps tripped on a faux pas and landed in that awkward position? Not me, but then, I’m not very bendy.)

Why is a dog sick? They aren’t particularly sick now, not when they eat specially formulated foods and are given specially formed treats to keep them satisfied. It used to be that dogs ate what humans didn’t, ate whatever they could scrounge, and such scroungings often made them sick. Hence the expression, which oddly, we still use today though it has no more meaning than silly as a goose or wise as an owl.

Why is a clam happy? Why not? No job. No bills. Sunny days on the beach. What more could a mollusk want? High tide, apparently. Clams can only be dug at low tide, so a clam is especially happy at high tide when they are free of human interference. Happy as a clam is a shortened version of the original simile “happy as a clam at high tide.” Never having seen a clam at either low or high tide, I can’t vouch for its state of mind, can’t even vouch that it has a mind, so I will have to take the clammers word for this.

Why is a berry brown? Chaucer was the first to use this simile, and he used it at least twice: “His palfrey (horse) was as broune as is a bery” and “Brown as a berry, short, and thickly made.” Authors today still use this term, most often to describe suntanned children for some inexplicable reason. Maybe Chaucer’s “bery” was a typo? (Or a quillo if he used a quill pen.) Maybe he meant brown as a bear. Or brown as a wheatberry. There are some brown berries, but were they ever so common as to prompt Chaucer to use the simile multiple times?

The true mystery of all these phrases is not their origin, but the mystery of why we are still mindlessly using these out-dated similes today.

Burning My “If Only”s Behind Me

The other day I wrote about how grief changed me, that now I am more patient, and today I discovered another change. The death of “if only.” How many of us torment ourselves with thoughts of “if only”? And it is a torment, that thought of what might have been  . . . if only.

The bereft are especially prone to this syndrome.

I have talked to people who followed doctors’ orders or accepted the doctors’ hopeful prognoses, and now they are haunted by “if only”s. If only they had known it was their husband’s last day. If only they had known their mother would suffer so much longer under a doctor’s care than if she had been allowed to die at home. If only she hadn’t insisted on his going through another operation or round of chemo.

I have talked to people who didn’t follow doctors’ orders, and now they are haunted by a different set of “if only”s. If only if they had done what was prescribed. If only they had insisted their wife see a doctor. If only they had insisted their husband stop smoking.

If only . . .

I saw a twitter yesterday that said hope and maybe were two of the most damaging words in our language, but those words don’t even come close to the wreckage “if only” can do. (As for hope and maybe, as Virgil Sweet in Talent for the Game says, “Maybe is powerful stuff.”)

I had my share of “if only”s — if only he’d hadn’t been so sick, if only I could have helped him, if only I could have kept him from dying, if only I hadn’t taken his dying for granted. (It seems unreal, now, that we took for granted he would die young. Shouldn’t we have railed against it more? But he was so disciplined, focusing his energies on trying to prolong his life and be productive. It was just the way we lived.)

When I realized how few of us felt we did enough for our dying mates or hadn’t done it right, I came to the conclusion that in these situations there is no “right.” There is just “do.”

A couple of days ago I learned something about twitter (or rather, it seemed to click and I finally got it), but hash marks are used for tagging a post or for categorizing it. I hash marked grief before I posted a blog (#grief) and ended up getting an influx of readers to my blog (including a woman whose life mate/soul mate died the same day as mine, a woman who is facing her grief the same way I am, a woman who makes comments that sound exactly like what I would have written).

Astounded by this turn of events, I began to form the thought that if only I had known about the hash marks, I could have reached more people with my grief blogs, but the “if only” died in wordbirth. I couldn’t even think it. I realized then, I’d burnt up all my “if only”s. I had none left. Not one of my “if only”s had changed a single moment of his dying. Not one “if only” could change what had already happened. And not one ever would.

One of my sisters in sorrow uses this tagline line at the end of her emails, which I always marveled at because the sentiment seemed so positive compared to the horror of the grief she was living:

Perhaps it is true. And if the universe is unfolding as it should, there is no place for “if only,” so it’s just as well I burned all my “if only”s behind me.

Grief’s Growing Pains

I often walk in the desert, finding solace (and exercise) among the rocky knolls and creosote bushes. Sometimes I even find a bit of enlightenment. And so it was today.

From the beginning (odd how I always refer to my onset of grief as the “beginning,” when that time seemed to be all about ”endings”), I tried to break grief down into its various components to demystify it and make it more manageable . When grief is new, one is bombarded with so many emotions, physical responses, and mental gymnastics that it is almost impossible to see/know/feel what is happening. As time passes and the bombardment slows, it’s easier to separate the feelings into categories and deal with them. As time continues to pass, some of the components of grief dissipate (such as the panic, the need to scream, the confusion) and some disappear (such as the nausea, dizziness, difficulty breathing, inability to eat or inability to stop eating). But always is the knowledge that the world is forever altered because your loved one is dead.

Now twenty months have passed since my life mate/soul mate died, and that awareness of his being dead is the part of grief I have the hardest time with. I miss him and yearn desperately for one more word from him, one more smile, but I can deal with that now — I’ve mostly grown used to it. I can also remember him and our shared life without breaking down. I can deal with what life throws at me even though he is no longer by my side. And I’m learning to deal with the loneliness and the aloneness. But what I can’t deal with is his being dead. That is where my mind hits a wall and causes so much pain I start crying.

I few days ago I wrote in my Grief Doesn’t Take a Holiday blog: He is gone, and there is nothing I can do about it. I keep
re-realizing those two simple facts. I do not think our brains are wired to understand the sheer goneness of death. Someone emailed me not long ago, expressing her admiration that I can talk about grief without feeling sorry for myself, but honestly, except for isolated moments, which I refuse to feed, I don’t feel sorry for myself. A lot of grief has to do with the mind disconnect that happens when you realize your loved one is no longer here on earth. It’s as if for a second you open up to a cosmic reality or an eternal truth. The façade of life shatters, and through the cracks you can almost see, almost sense, almost know . . .

And this is where today’s enlightment comes in. Out in the desert, which historically is a place for mystical thoughts, I realized that my tears are caused by growing pains. My mind/spirit/psyche is trying to stretch so it can understand why he is not here, why I can’t see him or hear him, why he is so very gone. Maybe my grief will burn itself out before my mind stretches enough to encompass such an enormous thought, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to where I need to be.

Grief: Defragmenting and Making Room for Something Wonderful

A had an interesting exchange with a facebook friend yesterday. She responded to my Gathering Patience for the Lonely Years Ahead bloggerie that I posted a couple days ago, and then she responded to my response. When I worry that I’m showing weakness by all my talk of grief,  I think of the people I’ve met who would have remained unencountered if I hadn’t let my vulnerabililty show, and I know I’m doing the right thing. Here’s the exchange:

PB (quoted from blog): A major loss in one’s life, such as the death of a long-time mate, often changes a person. For almost twenty months now, I’ve been saying I’m no different than I was, but lately I can feel a small change. It started with his long illness, developed during his final agonizing weeks, and came to fruition in the months since his death. This change? Patience. An ability to wait.

FBF: That patience will serve you well, Pat!  When you are coming out on the other side of the grief process, you will know that you can get through anything — including a long, painful wait.  I lost my partner in 2007, and it took four years to come to terms with it all, but I am now not in a hurry for ANYTHING! Before losing him, I could barely wait for my luggage at the airport without getting impatient. And the long years ahead don’t have to be lonely; you can never fill the void he left, but you can shift things inside, “de-fragment” and make room for more love than you could ever anticipate!! I’ll say a prayer for you tonight and wish for you love overflowing!

PB. I keep coming across that four year mark. It seems to be how long most people take to come to terms with it all. Which means I have a very long way to go. I’m looking forward to being where you are now. I can tell that your outlook was hard-won.

FBF: Yes, it was a long and arduous process, but there is no way it can be avoided.  Those who bury the emotions that come with profound loss (or simply ignore them) never come out on the other side. Rolling around in that mud smells rancid, looks terrible, feels slimy and dries crusty — but when you eventually stand up, take a shower and throw away those clothes (or bleach them and fold them away in a drawer) . . . it is no longer possible to be bothered by a little scuff, splotch, scrape, rip or splatter — never, ever again. 

PB: The main shock for me was how long it takes. I thought two or three months would be enough. How naive of me! But in my defense, he’d been sick so long that I thought I’d already gone through all the stages of grief. I hadn’t a clue what an amputation it would be. Thank you for your comments tonight. I hadn’t realized how much I needed a bit of encouragement today.

FBF: Happy to give encouragement; I know what an emotional quagmire this can be. As time goes on, most of our friends and family who have not been through this amputation don’t understand why we are still wallowing.  They think we need to “snap out of it.”  Right now, I imagine the majority of the patience you have acquired is spent dealing with well-intentioned loved ones trying to rush you along in your grief process. Bless their hearts.

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Actually, the only person trying to rush my grief process is me. I get tired of relentlessly looking forward and trying not to dwell on the past. I get tired of the ups and downs, the sideways shimmies, the grief bursts, the rolling around in the emotional muck. I’ve always tried to keep myself on an even emotional keel, but unless I want that keel to be one of sadness, I have to keep going through the process. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about hurrying through grief to see what was on the other side and my disappointment at discovering that nothing wonderful waited for me. The truth is, I am not through with grief. I am not yet on the other side. During my good days, I think that I am, but then comes a hard day. Yesterday was such a day.

Not only was it Saturday, my sadderday, but I posted an excerpt from A Spark of Heavenly Fire here on my blog in preparation for #samplesunday on Twitter. Posting an excerpt should have been an innocuous, pain-free task, but this particular excerpt is one my life mate/soul mate and I worked on together. I’d write the scene, read it to him, and he’d tell me if it worked or not, then I’d rewrite it and read it to him again. I must have rewritten it at least ten times. It was my first real bit of violence, and I wanted it to zing. I felt very close to him when I posted the excerpt, remembering its creation. I felt as if we’d been together just a few days ago, and the thought that he is dead got to me.

Although today marks the twentieth month since he died, I’m back to my new normal, even felt a touch of “possibilty.” But days such as yesterday show me that I need patience for the long haul, patience while my psyche defragments to make room for something wonderful.

Action Scene from “A Spark of Heavenly Fire”

Here is an action sequence from A Spark of Heavenly Fire. I worked hard on this particular scene. Rewrote it about a dozen times. Took out all extraneous words. Removed most of the character’s thoughts. Condensed the descriptions. Shortened the sentences. I wanted the action to zing! And maybe I accomplished my goal. Today a woman told me that A Spark of Heavenly Fire was so intensely emotional and so tightly written that she had to pause to rest while reading it. She said was glad of the breaks because it stretched the book out longer. Made me feel good to know the book meant that much to her.

Pippi watched the two boys come nearer. With their eyes alit with laughter, they looked young and innocent, like children playing a game.

The larger boy stopped, raised his rifle to shoulder height. All at the same time, she felt something whizzing by her face, heard the crack of the rifle, and saw a piece of bark flying off the tree next to where she stood.

She stayed rooted to the spot. She knew she should run, wanted desperately to run, but her body refused to cooperate.

Jeremy grabbed her coat and yanked her behind a thicket of bushes, where they stood ankle-deep in leaves.

“Listen,” he said urgently. He tugged at her coat. “Are you listening?”

With robotic jerkiness, she turned her head to look at him.

“Yes,” she answered, marveling at how far away her voice sounded.

He lay face down on the ground. “Cover me with leaves.”

She gazed at him, not comprehending.

“Cover me with leaves,” he said harshly. “Now! Do it now.”

She dropped to her knees.

As she scooped the wet, soggy leaves over him, he said, “As soon as you’re done, I want you to start running. Zigzag through the trees. Make a lot of noise so they think we’re both running away. And whatever you do, don’t look back.” He turned his head and looked up at her. “Got it?”

Pippi nodded, but refused to meet his eyes. How could he talk to her like that? Blinded by tears, she finished covering him with leaves, then took off running.

The binoculars banged against her chest, branches tore at her hair, rocks tripped her, and still she ran.

She stopped for a moment to massage a stitch in her side. To her horror, she saw the boys up ahead, coming straight at her.

She looked around in confusion. Seeing the thicket of bushes and the mound of leaves covering Jeremy, she realized she had come full circle.

She glanced at the boys; they leered at her and licked their lips.

Her skin prickled.

The smaller boy, whose hair had been dyed a deep crayon blue, thrust his pelvis forward and cupped his crotch with his hand. The larger boy, blond ponytail swinging, flailed his arms and legs in a gross burlesque of a woman running.

The boys convulsed with laughter.

Still laughing, the blond boy raised his rifle. With his finger crooked on the trigger, he aimed it at her.

Suddenly the mound of leaves at the base of the bushes erupted. A creature—barely recognizable as Jeremy, with his tensed body and his rage-distorted face—sprang toward the young blond rifleman.

The boy didn’t even have time to turn his head.

Dressed in camouflage clothes as Jeremy was, it looked as if the very leaves reached out, grabbed the blond ponytail, pulled the boy close, and made three rapid sawing motions across his throat.

Blood spurted in a bright red arc from the boy’s neck.

It happened so fast that when Jeremy tossed the blond aside, the blue-haired boy was still cupping his crotch and laughing.

Jeremy turned to confront him. The grin slid off the boy’s face. He dropped his rifle and raised his hands. His eyes, the irises rimmed with white, were riveted on the bloody knife.

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Gathering Patience for the Lonely Years Ahead

A major loss in one’s life, such as the death of a long-time mate, often changes a person. For almost twenty months now, I’ve been saying I’m no different than I was, but lately I can feel a small change. It started with his long illness, developed during his final agonizing weeks, and came to fruition in the months since his death. This change? Patience. An ability to wait.

I’ve never been a particularly patient person. I always open mail as soon as I receive it. (It used to mystify me how my late mate could let his mail sit for days without any inclination to see what the sender wanted.) I immediately begin to read books when I get them, open packages of snacks when I return from the grocery story, check my email first thing in the morning.

Well, I still do those things, but I am more patient with life’s vagaries and people’s foibles. There is no person I prefer to be with above all others, no place I want to be. If I have to stand in line at the grocery store, I simply wait without tapping my foot or wishing the line would move faster. If someone tells a long boring story, I simply listen without trying to edge away.

I’m not sure this is patience so much as resignation. When my mate died, he detached one of my connections to the world, and this connection has never been replaced. There’s something missing in me, some synapses that doesn’t spark, as if I am at one remove from the world. It’s possible this feeling of reserve comes from a new awareness of death or an awareness that life is not as it seems. Life isn’t all about shopping and what’s on television. It’s not about cars and clothes and things. I always knew that, of course, and because of it was already one step away from the everyday world.

My mate and I were not materialistic people. We lived in a world of ideas, of books, of films. Learning, research, discovery, growth were important to us. He used to say we were bad for each other — since we had someone to share these unthings, we had no reason to make a concession to the materialistic world. Though he’s dead, I’m still unable to connect to such a world. In fact, with my disconnect from him, I am now two removes from the so-called real world.

I’ve built new connections, made new friends, experienced new places and activities. I’ve become more aware of basic connections, such as the way my feet connect to the ground, or the way air flows through us, around us, connecting us one to the other. I’ve grown more empathetic and sympathetic. But still, there is no great attachment to any specific thing or any specific person. There is only me, and wherever I am, there I am, so there is no reason to be anywhere else.

This could change in the next few months, of course. I am almost two-thirds through my second year of grief, and the second half of the second year seems to be a limbo, a time for settling into this new phase of life, a time of gathering patience for the lonely years ahead. (The first half of the second year is often a time of re-grief, of having to deal with the horrible realization that even though you managed to get through your first year without him, even though you passed this test, your loved one is still dead. It can be a time of catastrophic pain.)

I’ve managed to come this far, and I will continue to manage. I’m from a family of long-lived people, so it’s a good thing I am learning patience (or resignation). I will need it.

Grief Doesn’t Take a Holiday

I wasn’t going to write about grief this Thanksgiving (except for yesterday’s brief mention of the guests who won’t be coming to dinner) because I didn’t want to break anyone’s holiday mood. Then I realized this is exactly the attitude I’ve been fighting. We shouldn’t ignore grief just because it is inconvenient for others or because it might make them pause to reflect on the ephemeral nature of life. Grief is part of life, and for some of us, it is our life.

The truth is, a huge number of people in the United States will be crying themselves to sleep tonight. For some of those people, this is the first Thanksgiving since the death of a significant person in their lives — a spouse, perhaps, or a child. For others it is the second Thanksgiving or even the tenth. But the number of years that the person has been gone doesn’t matter when it comes to holidays. What matters is that our loved ones are dead. A happy occasion with family, friends, food, turns out not to be so much fun when an absence (or a remembered presence) looms darkly over our hearts. Or if the occasion is fun, and the bereft forgets the truth for a moment, the grief rebound can be painful.

I had a lovely time today. Three of my brothers and their mates came to have dinner with my father and me. They brought everything except the table decorations and the turkey. Those I did. (I didn’t actually cook a turkey. I cooked turkey tenderloins several days ago and froze them, then today I steamed the pieces and arranged them on a platter. I didn’t feel up to cooking a turkey, and anyway, the oven is on the blink.)

The talk was congenial, the company delightful, the meal delicious, the toasts divinely inspired (I toasted my mother, who would have been proud of her men. During her final weeks, she worried that the family would drift apart.)

Afterward, two by two, the guests headed home. My father lay down for his nap. And there I was, alone, with no way to go home. My dead mate was my home, and even after nineteen months, I haven’t been able to find “home” within myself or anywhere else for that matter. I stood for a moment feeling adrift and sorry for myself, then set my father’s house to rights — taking the extra leaf out of the table, putting away the dishes that had been washed, doing all the other after tasks.

And then . . . in the quiet moment before I focused my mind on another activity, grief — that great yearning — burst over me. (For those of you who worry about me, there is no need. I am okay. Truly. These grief bursts, which relieve the stress of my sorrow, are how I keep on being okay.)

He is gone, and there is nothing I can do about it. I keep re-realizing those two simple facts. I do not think our brains are wired to understand the sheer goneness of death. Someone emailed me not long ago, expressing her admiration that I can talk about grief without feeling sorry for myself, but honestly, except for isolated moments, which I refuse to feed, I don’t feel sorry for myself. A lot of grief has to do with the mind disconnect that happens when you realize your loved one is no longer here on earth. It’s as if for a second you open up to a cosmic reality or an eternal truth. The façade of life shatters, and through the cracks you can almost see, almost sense, almost know . . .

Then you are back to yourself, and you don’t see, you don’t sense, you don’t know anything but that — holiday or not — you are alone.

To all of my bereft friends, who are struggling with the challenges of this holiday, I wish for you a peaceful night.

Waiting For the Guests to Arrive

I’ve been staying with my almost 95-year-old father, not to take care of him so much as to look out for him. Last year, the two of us spent a quiet Thanksgiving. He wasn’t up to company and neither was I since it was the first Thanksgiving after my life mate’s death. This year, a couple of my brothers (who perhaps had no more exciting plans) decided they wanted to get together for dinner, and one fast-talking brother conned . . . er, sweet-talked . . . my father into letting them come here. This brother also negotiated a deal where up to six people could stay for two hours. (Which worked out to be three brothers and their mates.) If you knew how quickly that many people would wear out a 95-year-old recluse, you’d understand what a great concession my brother wangled. (BTW, I really admire this brother’s negotiating skills. I once saw him talk a clerk at Office Max into giving him an extra l0% discount, and the guy agreed to it for no reason that I could see.)

The last time I spent Thanksgiving with any of my siblings was four years ago, a couple of weeks before my mother died. We’d come to spend a final Thanksgiving with her, but she was too sick and too weak to join us. Still she was glad we came. She always wanted her children to be close, and she worried that after her death, we would drift apart. Now here I am, in her house, and she is not here.

She’s just one of the guests who can’t come because of cosmic impossibilities. My next youngest sibling died the year before she did, and her grief at his dying helped bring on her own death. And then there’s my life mate. I doubt he would have come (he couldn’t the last time because of his own illness), but it saddens me that he doesn’t have the choice. Makes me even sadder that after the holiday, I won’t be going home to him.

I set the table today to lessen tomorrow’s commotion, and I used my mother’s china. (Sorry, BBB. Paper plates just won’t cut it!! And yes, I will do the dishes.) I want the day to be special because how many more Thanksgivings can my father have? And if he’s blessed with a dozen more, who knows whether even my brother’s vast negotiating skills will gain such concessions again.

And it pleased me to be able to do this small thing.

Afterward, I was overcome with a burst of grief (to be honest, it wasn’t so much grief as plain old feeling sorry for myself.) My brothers will be at dinner with their mates, and I won’t be with mine. Still, I had him for all those years, and for that, I am truly grateful.

(And never mind trying to figure out how many siblings I had. For most of my years there were too many, and now there aren’t enough.)

Giving Thanks for Words

Every day I find something to be grateful for, even if it’s only that the sun is shining, that the pain of loss is muted, that I once had a great love, that I have open spaces to explore (both in my head and in the world). Even when all else seemed bleak these past nineteen months, even when I had no hope, there was always something to be grateful for (most often that my mate was no longer suffering), so I don’t need to set aside a special day of thanksgiving.

Still, during this season of giving thanks, there is something I am especially grateful for, something worth celebrating . . . words.

Words convey thoughts, ideas, hopes from one person to another. They connect us from continent to continent, enabling us to bond with like-minded people all around the world. I have exchanged words — and friendship — with people from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the Nederlands, India. And for this I am grateful.

Words allow us to read and to write, to find entertainment and enlightenment in worlds created out of nothing but letters strung together. Words allow a story, concocted in one mind, to come to full realization in another. For most of my life, these worlds of words have been my life, or at least a major part of it. Now that I too am a world-creator, I am grateful for the words with which I build my stories.

Words give comfort, especially when distance (either geographic or emotional) does not allow a touch of commiseration. I am especially grateful for all the words of encouragement you (the readers of this blog) have given me during my time of grief, words that touched me. I hope some of my words touched you.

Words mean hope. With words, there is always the hope that we will be able to come to an understanding of each other, and perhaps find peace. (Of course, people would have to shut up long enough to listen to each other’s words; one-way words cause conflict and confusion.)

Words mean community and continuity. Words, both spoken and written, presuppose that there is someone to listen, and that is community. Telling our his-stories and her-stories to each other creates both community and continuity. They tell us who we were, who we are, and who we hope to become.

If there were no one to hear our words, if we existed solely in ourselves, we’d still need words to communicate our feelings and ideas to ourselves. This ability to put our thoughts into words gives us the power to know ourselves and to understand greater truths.

So this week, whether you celebrate the U.S. Thanksgiving or not, stop for a moment to give thanks for words. They are we.

Today I Am . . .

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