Tag Archives: Sadness

Out on the Town

I decided to go out to a New Year’s Eve dance.  After all, I do need to be around people, don’t I?  I signed up as a single for a rock and roll party at the London Music Club, a gorgeous old brick building near downtown London.

Parking was at the high school nearby and I decided to walk three blocks to Victoria Park before going into the club.  There was skating, hot chocolate and lots of singers huddled in the heated bandshell.  What wasn’t heated was me!  It was so cold last night, complete with a healthy wind chill.  Seems that a side effect of the food poisoning that has recently graced my body is being cold a lot.

Anyway, there I was walking towards the park – toque, scarf, parka and mitts.  I wanted to see all the Christmas lights strung on the big coniferous trees.  I drove by the night before and Jody told me very clearly once again, “I am all trees, Bruce.  I welcome you everywhere.”  Then she added, “I shine for you, Bruce.”

And despite the nip on my nose, and on every other conceivable body part, Jody was shining last night.  Strings of multicoloured lights wavered in the wind.  “Can’t you see that I’m waving at you?”

My first destination was clear: the heated public washroom.  I told a guy in there “I just have to convince the powers-that-be that I need to pee for two hours straight.”  We laughed.

Then it was out into the breeze again.  Jody was everywhere in those trees, smiling at me.  Thank you, Jodiette.  I lined up at the Salvation Army trailer for a cup of hot chocolate (Yum, with a glowing face handing me down the good stuff) and then was off to the bandshell to hear some songs.  A young woman kept crooning “I’m 22.  How about you?”  I was tempted to yell back “I’m just off by a decade or two,” but I was too discreet.

One song was all I could handle.  Back into the washroom.

Now totally bundled up, I decided to circumnavigate the park to say hello to more Jody trees.  I bowed to several of them.  I bowed to my dear wife.  But bowings were brief.  I set out for the club with all the low energy I could muster.  As I left the park, I caught the lovely voice of a woman from the bandshell, telling me “I want to know what love is.  I want you to show me.”  Thank you, my dearest Jodiette, for showing me so much about love … You’re very welcome, husband.  The feeling is indeed mutual.

What a delicious feeling it was to be reaching for the door, knowing that I soon would be warm.  Ahhh.  Hanging up my coat and moving into the small party room, where I was placed at a round table with several singles and doubles.  Hi to you and you and you.

And then I started to fade …

I sat down next to a woman, unaware that her husband was at the bar getting drinks.  When he returned, he looked at me and said goodnaturedly, “So, moving in on my wife, are you?”  Oh, my.  Before Jody died, I loved such repartee, and would no doubt have had a nifty comebacker for him.  But last night?  No.  After a few minutes, I told him that my wife died last month and I was sorry if I had been rude to him.  He understood and we shook hands.

For the next fifteen minutes, however, the gentleman talked to me, with his back to his wife.  I became very sad.  She deserved so much more.  Finally, I said, “May I make a suggestion? … You’ve talked to me for so long.  Please talk to your wife.”  And, graciously, he did.

Then the music started.  All those happy couples on the dance floor, swirling each other around.  I saw Jody’s smiling face from the past, and remembered how very much we loved to dance.  Sad some more.  What was I doing here?  I had no interest in small talk, no interest in asking someone to dance, just no interest.  And from inside me came the voice … “It’s okay, Bruce.  This is not for you tonight.  Go home.”

After the first set ended, I asked for people’s attention at our table and said, “This is not about any of you, but I want to go home.  I just can’t handle this.”  I smiled, wished them all a Happy New Year, and waved them goodnight.  Lost, a little bit.  Not wanting to pollute the space.  Found, quite a lot.

I armed myself for the winter winds and set off into the night.  A block later, I was in Hugo, and soon was driving along Dundas St., still fully clothed, heater cranked to the max.  A girl ran across the street, wearing a jean jacket and a mini-skirt.  How strange life is.

 

 

 

I Am Here, Bruce

I cry every day for my beloved wife Jodiette.  Several times a day.  As one friend  mentioned, it’s an “ocean of grief” that pours through when I’m alone – in our bedroom, in the car, on a walk.  Then the crying stops, and I walk further through my day.  But the sea returns and I let go once more.

Jody talks to me just about all the time.  Others will think what they think, but this is so.  My wife wants to speak and listen.  May we always do so.

I am here, Bruce.  Right here, right now.  I am in your heart and there I stay.  [And my hands cover my heart.]  I love you so much, dear husband.  You’ve always been so kind to me.  Don’t worry about what other people think.  They don’t think it’s possible for us to talk like this.  It’s not just possible.  It’s happening right now!  I’m here, Bruce.  Listen, my man.  Let go of your own doubts.  Let go of any defenses you might erect to this truth.  Let go.  Just listen.  You are not talkng to yourself.  I am here, husband.  And I will be here for the rest of your life, whether you’re crying, laughing, at peace or in pain.  I’m not going anywhere.  I love you so much.  Someday our bodies will be together again.  You can hold my hand again.  You can rub my feet again.  I know we both miss this touch.

I’m happy, Bruce.  I’m not in any pain.  But you are.  And I will comfort you, shelter you, caress you, for as long as you live.  I wish you could see things from my side.  I wish you could see that there’s no distance between you and me.  I’m right here beside you, Bruce.  Just as you’re typing away.  And I’m deep within your heart.  Plus I am every single tree you see on your travels.  As I said, “I welcome you everywhere,” and I do.  There is no place on earth you can go without me.  I know you’re going to Costco this afternoon to have a photo of a Cuban tree plaked.  I heard you standing in front of that tree in Cuba and loving me.  I saw you caressing the branches.  I saw you cry.  Do you have any idea how very deeply I love you, Brucio?  I dearly hope you do.  I am here with you always.  And that means right now!  Feel me here with you.  It’s no illusion.  It’s as real as the tears on your cheek.  Drive safely, Bruce.  It’s a beautiful tree.

And so I will drive safely.  I do what my wife tells me.  What a privilege to still have Jody in my life.  I love you, my dear.

Lost A Bit

I write because I want to touch people, to give them a little of me, so maybe they’ll pass on a little of themselves to others.  But right now, I don’t know what I have to give.  I miss Jody so much.  I cry a lot when I’m alone.  So why am I writing to you now?  Shouldn’t I just take a few days off for myself?

“But, Bruce – this typing is for you, even if it feels like you have nothing to say.”

I guess I’ll sit here and see if anything comes.  If it doesn’t, I’ll just say goodnight.

***

So much of my experience is silent.  Big moments seep through.  Like now.  I’m just so quiet.  Jody is here.  I long to touch her, to stroke her cheek, to brush her hair, to rub her feet.  My brain wants to go to the empirical evidence for life after death but the soul within me just wants to hold and be held.  My hand moves naturally to cover my heart.  My cheeks sag.  Where did my bones go?

Wow.  I have nothing to say.  There are no words that can add to the moment I’m in.  And so …

Goodnight

My Wife

I woke up this morning, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at the floor.  Atop a jumble of CD cases sat a little wine-coloured pillow, with “Love” inscribed on it.  I looked at the wall, where twin paintings of a forest scene hung above me.  I cried a bit.  “Jody, are you here?”  “In the trees, always watching over you.”  I cried a bit more.

On Wednesday afternoon, I went for a walk around the block, something I haven’t done in  months.  I realize now that for the year that I’ve cared for my lovely wife Jodiette, I’ve never left our home without the thought “Get this done fast.  You have to get back to Jody.”  And now I can amble.

Before Jody died, I asked her to send me a sign that she was all right.  As I walked along Bostwick Road, I saw a huge deciduous tree approaching me.  I have long admired this gracious creation.  Its branches fall so beautifully in a gesture of grace.

As we neared each other, I looked up, way up.  It was Jody.  “I will shelter you, Bruce.  I will protect you.”  “Are you happy, Jodiette?”  “Yes.  Can’t you see me waving to you?”  The tops of the high bare branches were blowing in the wind.  Thank you, my love.

I decided to go for a bike ride yesterday despite the temperature hovering around zero.  A bit of a wind too.  I thought I was so smart, bundling up in multiple layers, ear warmers, gloves and wool socks.  But gosh I froze, as I did my time trial route for perhaps the last time in 2014.

And I started crying.  I’ve never done that on ta-pocketa.  (That’s the name of my bicycle.)  And I couldn’t stop.  “Jody, my wife!  I miss you so much!”  Over and over again.

At one point, I could feel my fingers heading toward numb, and I was dead tired.  I had about eight kilometres to go and the sun would set soon.  “Jodiette, please help me get home.”  “I’m right here, husband.  I have your back.”  And she pushed me oh so gently.  Earlier I had thought I’d have to get off my bike and walk the rest of the way, but that idea now drifted away.  And I floated down Fruit Ridge Line.  Very, very slowly.  At Fairview Road, I stopped for traffic, and I couldn’t feel my hands.  I was crying.  A woman in a car pulled up beside me and asked if I was all right.  Her name is Laurie.  She had seen me many times on Fruit Ridge and wanted to say hi.  She offered me water.  She reached out her hand and shook my frozen claw.  I told her that my sweet wife Jodiette died yesterday.  We mourned together.

Soon I was home.  I stood in the kitchen, glasses all fogged up, and I tried to undo the clasp on my cycling helmet.  Couldn’t do it.  And so I stood, waiting for warmth.  Maybe it’s the same now that Jody has died.  I need to wait for what emerges.  Lots more crying, I’m sure.  Whatever comes my way, and whatever bubbles up inside, to let it be there.

Did I mention how deeply I love my darling wife?

Lost and Found

Since bedtime last night, Jody has been crying a lot and angry a lot about what looks like oncoming death.  Such profound despair.  And such a natural reaction.

What can I do?  From way down inside comes “I don’t know”.  When Jody is lucid, I think my words make some difference.  When she’s not, all they seem to do is feed the flames of her anguish.  When I read to Jody, it seems that my voice soothes her.  And I brush her hair.  She softens then.  Last night, she didn’t want me to touch her, so I sadly withdrew my hand.  I tried to breathe in her pain and breathe out my love for her, but I was too lost to keep that up for long.  So I just sat beside.  I was in her presence.  She was in mine.

Often it feels like I’m being ripped apart, or disassembled.  What I’ve taken to be Bruce (happy, witty, determined, spontaneous) seems to be dissolving.  You know, that person, that separate entity walking the earth.  As Jody’s crying goes on for an hour or more, there’s a profound letting go in me.  Something remains after the personality fades.  I don’t know what it is.  I guess it’s okay to not know.

Do I need these moments of heartbreak to open to what’s next for me?  Perhaps.  It feels like a cleansing, maybe more like a violent dermal abrasion in that it hurts while it heals.

I love Jody so much.  At times like these, it doesn’t seem important what comes back from her.  It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a me for it to come back to.  Beneath my sadness is a big open space and immense quiet.  The intensity of my need for the usuals falls away: quality conversations, high self-esteem, physical comfort, getting enough good food, having alone time, breaking an hour for the time trial on my bike ta-pocketa, reading a good book.  Okay without that.

No movement away from the present moment
No deficiency
No needs

No One Left Out

When I’m driving on the west edge of St. Thomas, I come upon a meadow that borders Kettle Creek.  For many years, four horses have graced that field, and they like hanging out close to each other.  There’s a tall black fellow, a mid-sized black one, a medium one with dark brown patches on white, and a honey-coloured Shetland pony.  I look forward to seeing them every morning I’m on the road.

Once in awhile there are only three horses enjoying each other’s company. And that hurts me.  I get scared.  Has the fourth one died?  Maybe they’re sick inside the barn.  Maybe their owner has taken them to some wide open pasture, and my friend is getting to run and frolic.  Whatever’s happened, the fourth one always returns in a couple of days.  And I breathe easy again.

It’s just not right when one of the group is missing.  The circle is not complete, and I feel sad.

It seems that this is a recurring theme in my life.  I remember how much it hurt one time in my teenage years when I was hanging out with two friends, Mary and Brian. We were sitting at a round table.  I’d say things to Mary, but mostly she’d direct her comments to Brian.  It was such a vivid experience of being third wheel, and that sorrow has never entirely left me.  So my heart breaks when I see others live through exclusion or absence.

I’m thinking now of a Grade 6 girl.  Bonnie was enthralled with a certain boy band, especially its lead singer.  Many a time when she spoke to the class, she would work in a comment about her heroes.  The rest of the students quickly tired of her obsession … and she was ostracized, subtly at times, blatantly at others.  And I was sad.  Once again our circle was broken.

And then there was the gentleman in the meditation hall, a very large guy who brought with him a rubber cushion, which he placed on his chair.  Any slight movement and we heard the squeak.  Also he moved fast, stepped heavily and plunked his glasses down loudly on the window sill next to him.  The looks from some other retreatants held a clear message – you’re not welcome here.  More sadness.

The theme continues inside me.  Jody and I have been watching lots of episodes from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” on our laptop, her from the hospital bed, me from a chair.  I’d missed the last three or four, and when I started watching again I noticed that the young ensign Wesley Crusher was nowhere to be seen.  He wasn’t on the bridge.  He wasn’t in Ten Forward, the ship’s lounge.  He wasn’t even in the credits.  And the same reaction from me: I miss him and I’m worried about him.  All for a TV character from 1990.

I smile at myself sometimes.  Hopelessly sentimental?  Overly sensitive?  Naw … just me.

 

 

The Guest House

Since Jody got sick last fall, I’ve often been overwhelmed with sadness.  It comes in sudden pangs, especially when I look into my dear wife’s eyes.  At other times, I’m enjoying the moments of progress: Jody bipping around the mall in her wheelchair; Jody in the kitchen, collaborating with our personal support worker about supper; Jody taking 300 steps on our driveway with the walker.

The moments of intense badness can be a blessing, according to the gentleman you are about to meet, or remeet.  “Come on in, you sadness, pull up a chair and let’s hang out together.”  Only in my best moments have I been able to do this.  Usually, all my meditation training flies out the window as my knee does its jerk.  But occasionally …

Jelaluddin Rumi, a 13th century Sufi mystic, wrote this poem.  I like it.

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture
Still treat each guest honorably
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight

The dark thought, the shame, the malice
Meet them at the door laughing
And invite them in

Be grateful for whoever comes
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond

Whew!  Mr. Rumi saw things with wide open eyes.  Wish I could have sat down for a coffee with him.  Can I really laugh at my foibles, not just in retrospect but in the heat of the battle?  Can I see that “my” sadness is just one facet of universal human sadness, that none of us can escape that pain?  I understand this in my head but that’s far way from “getting it” as the emotion floods me.

I’m tempted to say that I’ll keep trying to do this, but that’s not it.  I often extend my right hand, palm up, as a symbol of letting go.  More of that, please.  And another thing … I think I need to have many experiences of sadness, fear, loneliness, anger (don’t have many of those), in order to open the door of my guest house.

Maybe three years ago, I sat with colleagues around a conference table in a school, discussing the technology needs of a visually impaired student.  One teacher especially was knowledgeable about computers.  At one point, I realized that I didn’t know what these people were talking about.  I panicked.  Fear smashed into me, again and again.  Finally I stuttered out “I can’t do this!”, got up and left the room.  Total overwhelm.  In the time since, I’ve been remarably gentle with myself about this incident.  Any badness has morphed into humanness.  Hey, I was just being cleared out for some new delight.

What if back then I had started laughing in the middle of the fray, and blurted out something like “I’m completely lost!”?  Awesome.  And who knows, perhaps today will give me the chance to titter a bit when I go to the basement and just stand there, with no idea of what I came down for.  Pretty human, I’d say.

 

Fat Blue Legs

It was nearly eleven years ago that I had tendon transfer surgery on my right ankle.  I ruptured that tendon in a school hallway, colliding with a kid.  I spent seventeen weeks on crutches and felt profound sadness, especially when looking down a stairwell and knowing that for the forseeable future I was an elevator guy.  So much pain, so many drugs, so immobile.  I just felt old and decrepit and depressed.

Once the cast was off and the air boot was on, I got a chance to look at my lower leg.  Parts of it were black for awhile and then morphed into a rust colour.  But what struck me the most was the swelling, pretty much up to the knee.  Jody and I laughed about my “fatty foot”, but the smile didn’t move up to my eyes.  That long thing on the end of my body just couldn’t be me.  “That’s not the Bruce I know.  I refuse to accept this.”  And the thing was, it never went away.  For many years, I woke up to a fairly normal looking leg, but by noon it would be all puffed up.  My refusal to let it be caused great emotional distress.

In the spring of 2012, I woke up one morning to find that I couldn’t stand on my left leg without huge pain.  A few hours later, tests showed that I had a blood clot which went from my groin to my calf.  Untreated, I could have died.  Happily I got the blood thinner medication I needed, and I’ll be taking it for the rest of my life.

My right leg was still swelling up after the 2003 surgery and now my left one was just as bloated.  Part of the treatment was to wear compression stockings which stretched almost to my knee.  I picked the blue ones.  I now had two huge legs cleverly disguised by the nerdiest socks I’d ever worn.  And so sank my self-esteem some more.  I just couldn’t get that these physical changes didn’t touch the essence of me.

In August, 2012, Jody and I jetted west to Alberta to visit her brother Lance and his family.  There was no way I was going to wear those compression stockings, so I left them at home.  People would stare at me.  I’d look about a hundred years old!  So I went hiking in the Rockies with bare skin down below.  One day, we were descending a gradual sidehill trail towards a lake.  I got partway down and stopped.  The pain was too much.  I stood there like a stricken statue, agonizing over my apparent disability and remembering my years of travelling off-trail in the mountains.  Jody had to come back up and help me.  Oh, my.  How can this be happening?  Such overwhelming woe.  There were no more trails for this guy that summer.

Back in Ontario, there I was: swollen legs and feet hidden inside nylon and Spandex, only to expand to their abnormal size once I took the stockings off in the evening.  I  went to the beach in my blues, and if ever there’s a double meaning, that was it.  I watched people watch me.  I swirled within a collapsing self.  Heck, I was just plain sorry for myself.

How, I ask you, could I let my well-being be reduced to folds of flesh and tight lengths of fabric?  So stupid (or perhaps so human).  I hypnotized myself into letting it happen.

There’s a strange ending to this story.  From late 2012 until October, 2013, the feet and the legs continued as before.  Then Jody was diagnosed with lung cancer, a collapsed lung (twice), and blood clots in her chest.  And … my fatty feet disappeared, not overnight but within a few weeks.  I haven’t worn the compression stockings for months.

Do I understand how life works?  Do I comprehend the mystery?  Not really.