Living is a balancing act! Balancing complicated emotions such as grief, loss, joy, and hope are like the changing seasons. As summer transitions into autumn I feel the loss of Roy in every leaf that falls from a tree, in the cool breeze blowing off of Elliot bay; my tears, too heavy to stay contained in my eyes, roll down my cheeks like clouds dumping rain over Seattle. Autumn has arrived. The balance of life and death continues to change me like summer to autumn, winter to spring.
Roy’s cancer threw his body off balance and he could not recover. He died at the age of 63. I now watch my father’s eighty-eight year old body in slow decline; he has a nephrologist, a neurologist, a neurosurgeon, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, and series of rotating hospitalist, working to balance his bodily systems and improve his quality of life. The drugs they give him to help with high blood pressure, threaten his low functioning kidneys, one drug causes diarrhea, the next constipation. One stops bleeding but puts stress on a basilar artery stenosis. If he stands to fast he faints, if he sits too long his muscles atrophy at an alarming rate. There is a delicate balance between prophylactic practice, and helping his body recover from the trauma of a subdural hematoma. Did he have a seizure? “We think not, but maybe, “We are going to put him on Dilantin just in case.” Nothing new, but the practice of western medicine leaves room for questions and somehow fails to find balance between wisdom, tradition, and science.
The last two weeks have been the most trying of my life, more challenging than the days following Roy’s death. I am on grief overload and joy deprivation searching for some sort of balance. Once again the household chores pile up. I am behind in my self-imposed work goals, and my empty refrigerator reminds me that I must remember to go shopping. I am just now barely able to wrap my mind around the loss of my husband and consumed by even more feelings of loss, trying to manage my emotions around my dad’s illness. I am off kilter and on the edge of burning out. There are no words to use that can help those close to me understand. Once again I do not know what I need except for understanding of the difficult layers of grief that engulf me most of the time. There is barely a reprieve from thinking about Roy. He is on my mind constantly. Going to the hospital to be with my father triggers my grief. For two days dad was on the same floor as Roy. The same awkward hospital Chaplin walked into the room and looked at me confused. “Do I know you?” I explained that a few months ago I had been here with my husband. “Oh, how is he doing? He asked.
“He’s dead,” I replied.
“ I am sorry for your loss, he replied compassionately, and then asked, “what was he here for again?”
“Gastric Cancer.”
“Oh, yeah, I think I remember him!” I am sure he did not.
Members of my family dealing with their own versions of grief are pulling at me for support when I am at my most vulnerable. Relationships are strained and I do not have the energy to care very much. My therapist warned me that relationships would get messy as I try to care for myself; grief is an all-consuming energy. I try to reach for empathy; we are all grieving; my father is not the same strong man we all grew-up knowing. He is thin; his broad muscular shoulders now look skeleton-like. He cannot walk without assistance or even sit without listing to one side, like a boat trying to stay afloat. We have lost the robust man! The football-playing athlete who could pull a car is gone. No more hitching a ride on his big shoes. I hold his hand differently now, trying to assure him that whatever is next I will be there.
I have been forever changed by Roy’s death, I am not the same sister, mother, daughter, or friend, and for those waiting for me to return to the same person I was before Roy’s death is like waiting for ‘Godot’. My forty-three year relationship partner is gone, one cannot return to a life that is gone. For now I am holding onto a very thin cord and the impulse to cut and run, from this madness is difficult to resist. I am aware enough to know that my troubles will only follow me. A wisp of emotional wind could blow me over the edge falling deeply into an endless dark winter. Roy voice from the ‘other side’ catches me, “Don’t commit all your weekends! Let’s drive over the mountains to see the changing leaves…”
Yes! I am reminded of Bernard Ingher’s song as the early morning raindrops bounce loudly off of the metal roof, autumn, autumn, autumn…our favorite time of year, the changing of the season. Everything Must Change:
“There are not many things in life you can be sure of,
Except rain comes from the clouds,
Sun lights up the sky
And humming birds they do fly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ycirYfmcY