Tag Archives: love

The Winter Of Grief II

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My mom was 64 years 10 months old when my dad died from a heart attack while driving to work in Tampa, FL.

I’m 63 years 10 months old.

I wish I could go back in time and interact with my mom with the wisdom gained from what I am experiencing. It’s not that I wasn’t compassionate, it’s just that my compassion would be on a whole different level.

One painful insight that I’d bring to our relationship is the knowledge of how the person’s life lingers and how the trail they left offers constant memories which both deepen and lengthen the grief.

For example, today, after visiting Lynn I went through her collection of papers and books from the last few years. A literary tower balancing precariously on the piano bench.

And I stumbled across the attached picture. The crossed out “2020” speaks to some procrastinating, but I love how dang aspirational her list was. Ward Lake laps, haha. The “Oregon hill” is McKenzie Pass which I raved to her about after each of my ascents.

“Surf in Gull Harbor current” meant kayaking to the mouth of the harbor then riding the current into the harbor. Sometimes in the boat, sometimes not.

“Hike a lot” unchecked. “Hike Mt. Eleanor” unchecked. Fuck, why didn’t we go on more hikes?

The wisest thing anyone has said to me during this ordeal was a hospice chaplain who said don’t focus so much on Lynn’s mortality that you ignore your own. That was piercing. And stuck.

I wonder, what if things were reversed and Lynn had to interact with my material wake. Would she take the seven iron out of my golf bag and hold the grip seeking some sort of cosmic connection? Yeah, I think she prob would.

Here’s what I think about my own mortality. Lynn had just over four years left when she cobbled together her “Summer Fun” list. I’m guessing she assumed she had more than four summers left. I know I did.

I do not want to save up for the future, to put things off, to assume a long, healthy future.

One of the simplest ways I’m doing that may seem silly. These days, my uniform is t-shirts and jeans. I have about 10 t-shirts, some that I like to wear more than others. And I have one fave, that I used to reach for and then stop and say to myself, “I should save that for next time.” Now, I look for it and wear it whenever it’s clean. Because of Lynn.

Without being morbid, take your mortality seriously. Don’t wait. Hike. Cycle. Be on or in the water. In your favorite t-shirt.

It’s Happened

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A large part of the rationale for the move to the Adult Family Home three months ago was that I could recover, and therefore Lynn and I could heal and get in sync, and spend whatever time is left as positively and peacefully as possible.

I am not in a good place, but a much better one. Way, way less stress. FuFu, Alison, and Jeanette, among many others, have saved me.

As a result, for the last two months, Lynn and I have enjoyed my visits. We look at photo albums. We listen to music. I tell her about my day. We loop the hood.

Most of all, we touch. I hold her hands and massage her calves. She hugs me tightly as if she’s not going to let go. We press our foreheads against each other. I caress her head as she falls asleep. We kiss.

It’s how we communicate.

I’ve never partnered with someone who is dying, so I’m improvising. All the time. What to say?

Last week I kneeled on the floor next to her hospice bed as she cried before napping. I told her I loved her and that she was okay, which of course, was untrue. Then I told her how sorry I was for what she’s experiencing. And that she’s been fighting it every minute she’s been awake for a few years and that was why she was completely exhausted. And that I wanted her to Rest even if that meant being alone. I told her how much I am going to miss her. More tears.

Then I told her she wasn’t alone and wouldn’t be alone. That she is bearing the fruit of having built such a caring and loving family.

We have had a much more intense relationship than you would probably guess. Intensely good most of the time, intensely bad some of the time.

I told her I was skimming an old Apple Note I wrote from when we were in marriage counseling five or six years ago. And how my one regret is all the time we wasted being mad at each other. I asked her to forgive me for being so stubborn and selfish. More tears.

I suspect she wanted to say something similar, but I was okay with her not being able to because I wanted to take most of the responsibility for our epic, sporadic struggles.

Even though we wanted to at times, I told her we never quit, and that was something.

In hindsight, we probably wasted 10% of our time together being too mad at each other to thoughtfully interact. Even though we learned to repair things, 10% of 38 years is almost four years! What we would do to have four years back.

More than Lynn, I accepted that we were never going to coast conflict free like some couples seemingly do. That the heartache was part and parcel of the intense intimacy. Again, in hindsight though, I wish we had far fewer, less intense conflicts. Fewer days where we couldn’t even talk to one another.

My unsolicited advice. Don’t take whatever committed relationships you’re in for granted. Be as proactive as you can. Trust one another enough to talk about what lies below the surface so that resentments don’t build up. Learn to listen and get more comfortable probing your partners’ feelings. If possible, by yourself, or together, enlist the help of a professional to learn to have fewer, less intense conflicts.*

Most of all, don’t assume you have many years and decades left, because you may not.

*LOL, I’m gonna get slammed for that wee bit of hypocrisy. :)

Just How Loco Exactly?

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After my last musing, SW, a close friend, texted me, “Please be more specific. I’m curious just how crazy you are.” Which made me smile.

The return text, “Where to begin?”

But then, I pressed pause. And thought about self compassion. And how I need to muster more of it given this most challenging chapter of my life.

And so I started to think about both sides of the ledger, the “irrational” and “rational”. The irrational mostly consists of what most objective observers would conclude is poor time/money decision-making. Meaning, I regularly do things that I could pay others to do for far less money than my increasingly limited time is worth.

But sometimes I just like popping the AirPods in, cranking up the Biebs, and washing my car in the driveway. Or washing the windows. Or cleaning the house. Which brings a documentary to mind about Japanese elementary schooling. When asked why young Japanese students clean their school at the end of each day, one Headmaster said, “Cleaning creates a calm and gentle spirit.” Love that. Sometimes there are less obvious, less tangible benefits to laboring yourself.

Without detailing the “rational” side of the ledger, suffice to say, there would be many more entries. In retrospect, I think I’ve done an extremely good job picking my parents, picking my in-laws, earning, saving, and investing. The first two highlight the role LUCK has played in my life. I wasn’t anywhere near perfect with respect to the other three, but I have made disproportionately more thoughtful decisions than thoughtless ones.

In my early twenties, when I was gifted some money from my parents for the first time, I had this deep-seated impulse to make the most of it. As an educator, I knew I’d never make bank. As a result, I educated myself about investing, and as our assets grew, we assiduously avoided lifestyle creep.

So much so, that family and friends get infinite amusement from teasing me about being too frugal for my own good. Yeah, I admit, often I am, but we still have lived posh lives, even by Western, late 21st century standards. And what my “friends” always fail to mention is that I’ve done a very good job growing our assets and taking the long view.

Which means now, we can pay for 24 hour care for The Good Wife without losing sleep. Which is a real blessing and one of the clearest indicators that my rational side has more than compensated for my irrational quirks.

For SW, here’s a lil’, lil’, on the quirk front. Yesterday, I traded in the Elonmobile for a new rig. I concede, I have a car prob, specifically, churning through them. The new rig comes in eight colors. I ended up with only my fifth or sixth fave color because it was the best deal I could find in Western Washington. By about $3k. I consciously told myself, configure the rig in whatever way will increase the odds of keeping it longer than my sad (sick) average. So I got the top trim, points for that. But deduct the same points for settling for a bottom-half color.

Also, SW, I spent way too many hours watching reviews, thinking about alternatives, and alternatives to alternatives, and then ultimately, interacting with dealerships.

Now, my “friends” are ripping me for being an ICE ICE Baby again. Mr. Fossil Fuel. A retrograde. To my many critics, take a number. Two of my fave “new car” texts today were, “He is milquetoast and has completely given up.” And “Your car matches UCLA’s performance” which was just mean.

Shifting gears, pun intended, I aspire to be more like my mom and wife, meaning way more generous. I took a baby step two weeks ago when I gave Olga a $3,000 (the money saved on the dud color?) bonus for being such an amazing help with Lynn over the last year. Because she lives check-to-check, it was like I had given her $30,000. As tough a Russian-Ukrainian woman as you’ll ever meet, at least on the surface, she broke down in tears.

So, forgive me if I cut myself some slack. Savings to soften the devastating blow of MSA. Savings to help the hijas and lighten others’ burdens. Savings to enable Olga to breath a little easier for a few months.

Just not enough savings for a bitchin’ colored rig.

On Dying

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Great title, Ron. What’s the opposite of clickbait?

The rollercoaster that is living with and caring for someone with Multiple Systems Atrophy careened down to the bottom of the track Tuesday late afternoon/early evening. Lynn’s body shut down. And I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. This was late into a long two-day stretch without our normal a.m. help. So I wasn’t in a good place, and Lynn, of course, was in a much worser one.

Then the 5p meds and my amazing dinner kicked in and she bounced back enough to ask, “What would you do?” And so, I told her.

“I’d probably give up. It’s hard to know for sure, but yeah, I might throw in the towel and let nature run its course. You’re way tougher than me. Which is kinda ironic isn’t it, since I often said you were too damn delicate? Yeah, in the end, you turned out to be way tougher than me. Maybe I have some Erwin Byrnes in me.”

Then I told her that a not inconsequential subset of people on the MSA listserv choose death with dignity or they voluntarily stop eating and drinking. Because they want to assert some modicum of control over the downward spiral.

In the past, after reflecting on her mom’s decision to stop eating and drinking in her final two weeks, she’s said she’d do the same someday. That time is not now, but her will to live isn’t what it appears on the surface when she flashes her golden smile. Her will to live is gradually flagging. Hence her question, “What would you do?”

Last night J asked her if she enjoyed visiting with her college roommates online and she surprised J by saying, “Not really.” Having eavesdropped on the conversation, I intuitively knew why. Because she will not be giving a toast at either of her daughters’ weddings. And she will not be traveling anywhere. The roommate’s normal catching up was a painful reminder of things lost and how her world keeps getting smaller and smaller. Of course, they didn’t intend for that, and they didn’t realize it because of . . . the golden smile.

Lynn’s question, “What would you do?” prompted me to think even more deeply about her daily life. Yes, I am a complete mess right now, but I’m going to get better. And I’m going to renew my passport next year, and I’m going to catch up with you hopefully, and add lots of events to my calendar that I’ll look forward to. I am bullish on the future.

What does Lynn have to look forward to? Or maybe, more immediately, what brings her joy? Me, especially when I’m okay enough to joke around. The labradude appearing suddenly under the wheelchair. Picking dead leaves off the tomato plants. SchittsCreek with the hijas. Saturday lunch with the gfriends. Always, Saturday lunch.

For me, I don’t know if that would be enough. If I was her, I’d feel almost entirely like a spectator of others’ lives, not an active participant. I’m not sure I’d feel enough purpose to keep fighting through all of the adversity. To be so damn dependent upon everyone for everything. Again, she’s starting to wonder if it’s enough too.

Whether to passively live as long as possible or more actively speed up the dying process a little or a lot is a deeply personal question upon which reasonable people disagree.

One thing I know for sure however, is that everyone who is dying slowly, should get to decide for themselves what to do, if anything, without any outside pressure. That’s why I keep telling Lynn my probable throwing in of the towel doesn’t matter. That she gets to decide how to live out her ninth inning. Which is one important factor in the move to an adult family home. She will be cared for by pros, not a shattered, amateur, impostor of a caregiver.

In saying I’d prob let nature run its course, I also shared my way of thinking about death which took shape following my dad’s sudden death when I was 33. At first, I was mad at the world that I’d never get to find out where our newly evolving friendship was headed. That he didn’t get to hold Jeanette. That so much promise was cut unfairly short. Then, somehow, I consciously pivoted to celebrating our nascent friendship and all the positive memories I had of him growing up.  

My intentional approach is “choose to celebrate” all the positive memories instead of being eternally upset that the movie cut off before the ideal end.

I told Lynn not everyone lives 64 years. And not many people have as fulfilling a 40 years (38 married) as we’ve enjoyed. I told her that, eventually, I will be okay, largely because of all the positive memories we made. She seemed receptive to my quirky thinking, but I can’t be entirely sure. Equally possible, she thought, “How did I get stuck with a bonafide whacko?”

I just don’t think we can do both simultaneously, we have to choose one or the other. I choose to celebrate. Is it a panacea for softening the blow of loss? Does it speed up the grieving process? No and probably not. Is it better than the alternative? Of being mad at the world? Of staying mad at it? Most definitely.

The Ultimate Litmus Test

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At the end of life, how does one know whether they’ve lived a good life or not? More personally, how will you know if you have? How will I?

Many of us live as if professional reputation, material wealth, and social status are the key ingredients, but watching The Good Wife get closer to the end provides an altogether different litmus test.

Which is this. Have you been a good enough friend, to enough people, long enough, that they’re there for you at the end? Or has a certain self-centeredness and peripatetic life left you mostly alone?

You’ll only know which of these is the case if you die slowly. Some of us will go quickly like a friend of mine who fell over dead on his bike in Italy last summer. Although he didn’t have time for the “close friend” litmus test, his memorial service provided positive clues to a life well lived.

Based on the “close friend” test, Lynn has lived an exceptional life. Unfortunately though, she’s unable to take solace in that knowledge. Because like many of us, she’s incredibly hard on herself.  My unprovable hypothesis is that the built-in feeling of inadequacy began at birth with Lynn wondering, “Why didn’t my mom want me?” Almost certainly, it didn’t help when 45 years later she contacted her birth mom only to learn she still didn’t want any kind of relationship.

Consider the last 48 hours. Yesterday, Lynn participated in a zoom call with her four dear college roommates. “Participated” meaning listened intently and smiled throughout. Today, an hour before Pastor Carol was coming by with communion, Susan texted to see if she could pop in. I said she could join Lynn and Carol, Carol happens to be Susan’s pastor, and the three of them visited for over an hour. I could go on and on. Lynn’s support network has blown my mind. She is being loved and supported by so many people none of whom are the least bit phased by her worsening symptoms like her loss of voice.

Some bring art, some bring pictures, a lot bring food. In the end, they just want to be next to her. And to see her smile. When we’re without her smile there is going to be a painful void in a lot of people’s lives, not just A’s, J’s, and mine.

I intend on honoring Lynn’s eventual legacy by prioritizing friendships even more.

Paragraph to Ponder

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Susan Rothchild in The New York Times:

“My son, Chauncey, died a few years ago of a fentanyl overdose. He was a brilliant, eccentric autodidact, an excellent farmer and chef, but he chose to work as a carpenter and plumber. He was not good at either job. Yet, when he offered to build my new bathroom, I said yes. Now every time I take a shower and see the dribbles of grout on the wall, stand on the still-unattached drain plate or get drenched using the hand nozzle with a mind of its own, I think of him. I will never get them fixed.”

Two Worlds

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Public and private. All of us behave a little or a lot differently whether we’re in public or not. In extreme cases, people live “double lives”.

The dichotomy between Lynn’s public life, by which I mean when friends and family visit, and private one, where I’m the only person around, is so glaring that it got me thinking.

Specifically, I’ve been pondering why she’s not just okay when friends and family are around, but especially smiley (and today, extremely giggly) and physically better than normal. There’s a wonderful lightness. I guess it makes sense learning what we’re learning about the importance of close interpersonal relationships to our overall health and well-being.

But man, the whiplash that comes when friends and family leave is intense. And disorienting.

When home alone she pops boosters between timed meds and her body is off and on, and when on, she’s bored, and she struggles with any sense of purpose. There’s a heaviness.

Why am I telling you this? Not sure. Maybe to help you mentally prep for this phenomenon if you’re ever a primary care giver. Or maybe I’m letting you in hoping for some sort of connection.

Last night, I had an epiphany. A tough one that I was hesitant to share with Lynn because I expected a negative/defensive reaction.

I told her I had an observation I wanted to share with her. “You have a restless spirit.” There, I said it. Fortunately, I was wrong, because she didn’t argue the point. She listened carefully as I told her I missed her, that it felt like all of her time and attention was taken fighting her Multiple Systems Atrophy. That there was no time or attention left for me.

That I felt more like an employee than best friend.

Most people confined to a wheelchair and unable to do hardly anything independently watch a lot of tv and read. Since Schitt’s Creek ended, Lynn doesn’t watch tv and her reading glasses, despite repeated trips to the optometrist, aren’t working well enough for her to read much.

Thus, when alone, if she’s feeling okay, she’s in constant motion searching for something to do. Anything to do. Or she’s laid out on the couch waiting for her meds to kick in. The only time she’s not on the move is when her body completely quits or she’s asleep.

Our convo, mostly about how dying is scary and spiritual malaise, deepened. She cried and said she didn’t know “I loved her that much”. I took in what I think was her deeper message, “I didn’t know I’m that lovable.” I told her lots and lots of people love her.

I told her I was having a hard time dealing with her restlessness and with her constant MSA fight. That caring for her took all my energy, that there was no leftover energy to just hang. And that it would be really sad to spend our final months or years together not really together.

Case in point. Saturday and Sunday nights I throw dinner together for the fam and then sit at the kitchen island with my own dinner while one or both daughters join their mom at the dining room table. Hell, during the week I do it too, leaving Lynn to eat by herself. Yeah, you’re right, I am a lowlife.

While I am a lowlife, I probably deserve a few points for being vulnerable and risking the convo. Sadly, in part, I risked it because soon we won’t be able to have back-and-forth conversations of that sort.

But not being especially centered myself these days, it’s really tough to take on her anxiety about dying, her exasperation at MSA’s relentless progression, and her general unease and utter restlessness. Especially given the cost that restlessness is taking on our friendship. For now.

Postscript: We ate dinner together. Afterwards, there was more slow dancing in the kitchen. The roller coaster keeps rolling.

A Surprise Swing Dance For The Win

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A very good friend of mine has been “unlucky” in marriage. Three divorces. Although the first was so short, and he was so young, he doesn’t count it. A mulligan if you will. So, for all intents and purposes, twice divorced.

Of course, you and I both know luck has nothing to do with whether committed relationships endure.

After his last divorce, about five years ago, he looked in the failed relationship mirror, and really didn’t like what he saw, negative patterns of his own doing.

In no time at all, he fell hard for partner four. So hard, he turned to a therapist to avoid sabotaging it.

No dude in the history of dudes has ever told another dude everything they talk about with their therapist. But my friend has confided in me a bit about his therapeutic journey including his initial question of “Am I an asshole?” I could have saved him a lot of time and money by simply saying “No, you aren’t an asshole. Not even close.” But his initial question was his way of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” Which lead to, “What work do I need to do to avoid fucking up this relationship?”

Relationship Four really warms my heart. I asked him what explains his positivity and joy in this new relationship and without hesitating, he said, “We have fun together.” I herby submit that as a litmus test for any committed relationship.

I don’t know anyone over fifty who has pivoted as much as my friend. The key ingredients as I understand them—introspection, humility, vulnerability, and self-compassion. Inspiring stuff.

Fast forward to a text he sent this morning. And I quote, “And then to top the evening off, I showed M how I had spent the last five weeks secretly learning to swing dance to surprise her for her 50th birthday. Yes, that’s as much as I can manage after five weeks. I can’t dance! And I’m a slow learner.”

The low res video nearly brought me to tears. Just the two of them, swing dancing in front of a big ass swing band in a New York City club. It’s so beautiful. Because it represents so much damn growth. He’s prioritizing her happiness. And so the happiness comes back to him.

On my run this afternoon, I kept returning to the vid in my mind. And all the innumerable podcasts I’ve listened to and “think pieces” I’ve read that lament the problem of boys, and how to raise men, and how to teach masculinity.

My friend’s surprise swing dance is the most manly, most masculine thing imaginable. Because it’s the result of all the intrapersonal work he’s done.

I firmly believe the “boy-man-masculinity” discussion is completely pointless. Instead of asking, “What does it mean to be a man?”, we should ask, “What does it mean to be a decent human being?” Instead of obsessing about getting masculinity just right, we should shift our focus to the personal attributes we want all young people to embody, irrespective of their gender identities.

Especially how to be caring, kind, and selfless. I am incredibly proud of my friend for piecing together an equation that fosters those exact attributes.

Introspection + humility + vulnerability + self-compassion.

How To Stay Together

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My amazing playwriting aside, the Jeff Bezos/MacKenzie Scott divorce is an illuminating tale for people committing to one another for the long haul.

The conventional wisdom is that a lack of money and related money fights explain why so many relationships fail. That’s certainly true, but not the whole story. Even people with money can have devastating money disagreements because everyone has a unique money history and no two people will ever think about it the same way.

The bottom line. Couples don’t explore their “money compatibility” nearly carefully enough in the early stages of their relationships. The key is to figure out whether you and your partner are more similar in your thinking about saving, spending, gifting, and investing than not. No, that’s not particularly sexy, but do you want to measure your relationship by decades or not?

One little complication, by which I mean, huge complication. People change over time. Maybe MacKenzie didn’t know Jeff wanted to be the richest person in the world because he may not have wanted to be until his first or one hundredth billion.

What to do about the unknown? Anticipate that your thinking about money will change over time, not radically, but moderately. Similarly, anticipate that your partner’s thinking will change too. Meaning “money compatibility” is always a work-in-progress. Talk about saving, spending, gifting, and investing with some regularity or run the risk of serious differences creating dangerous cracks in the foundation of your relationship.