On going home again

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." ~T.S. Eliot

Ask me a year from now whether or not it's true. I'm thinking that I'll be moved into the house I was raised in by the end of the month. When I was in Gr. 13, the Gr. 13s were given a room to hang out in during their spares. Most of the talk centered around how we were going to get from our small town to London, Toronto - anywhere where something/anything might happen. The guys seemed to do a lot of fantasizing about how great life would be if they became gynecologists. All that fantasizing paid off as I remember being asked often why such a small place managed to produce such a large percentage of the gynecologists at the closest major teaching hospitals.

Somehow I always knew my destiny would be to return to the farm I couldn't wait to leave. Could it be because my father had night terrors right until his death about all the various ways the farm could kill me - drowning, fire, drifter, attack by a rabid fox, pesticide exposure, being run over by farm equipment, etc., etc.? My personal fears were attack by rooster or being chased like Captain Hook by a crocodile. We don't actually have crocodiles but thanks to the marshland being turned back to a wetland, snapping turtles and copperheads have returned.

It is wonderful to have a place to go when life figuratively explored. With most things being different, home is an anchor, a rock, something familiar. As the weather warms, packing seems less daunting. I had built it up in my mind to be an enormous hurdle. In reality, I not only know belongs in each room but also what my mother used to keep in each drawer, cupboard, closet.
I even remember the books that my mother and grandmother kept in their bookcases and packed up books accordingly. At 60, one has as many family members on one side of the veil and the other. I get to be the living memory so the future can truly understand the past.

So now the big question is how many of my friends stayed and how many of my friends will be coming back to end the journey where it began. Maybe I should create the equivalent of our old Grade 13 room - a place for planning, dreams, hopes, a future. I understand people are healthier and act younger if they are surrounded by the music, gadgets, etc. that remind them of their days before they became whatever adult role they took on. Perhaps moving home is the fountain of youth. Ask me next year.

Didn't See It Coming

Hunting for a quote I read this week about death being all around us while we fail to comprehend that the next death could be our own. I'm obese, inactive and don't take medical warning signs seriously so wouldn't have been the least surprised if I had died that night. What totally blindsided me was my husband's death - the most obedient patient a doctor could ever hope to encounter. He'd had an annual physical recently, was conscientious about having colonoscopies, did 100 situps and pushups every morning, gardened, walked every day, had a very limited medical vocabulary because he wasn't medically curious or talkative about health. It's enough to make me want to throw out my entire collection of preventative medical books and declare it's all in the genes or the length of string the muses have knitted or in the stars.

I requested an extensive autopsy and I want that report like I've never wanted anything before in my life. If I could have, I would have followed his body to the autopsy room and made diagrams of everything (can't draw a straight line or get my circles to close but we're talking desire not skill here) The doctors and hospitals were excellent - more upset about Stephen's death than I was. I accepted that he wasn't going to make it as soon as I knew his aorta had dissected from the heart to the groin. The heart surgeon stood by the phone waiting for confirmation that the aorta hadn't separated inside the heart right up to the moment of Stephen's death. He really, really wanted permission to rush him into surgery. Even after Stephen died, the medical staff worked really hard to resuscitate him. I thought he was lucky to leave this world quickly with just enough times to say his goodbyes, prepare his soul and have some quality family time. He talked to me until the second he died. I can't talk running around the block not that I ever run around the block. What were the chances that someone could be so lucky twice. Why bring someone back from an easy death so he can get to do it all over again in some agonizing, nightmare of an exit?
I want that autopsy so I can intellectualize the process in depth. Know exactly what I failed to observe. I don't have any guilt about failing to pick up on things. It would be like a colorblind person feeling guilty about not being able to accurately describe the colors in a painting. I wasn't the kind of wife who checked her husband's outfit before he left the house. In 31 years of marriage, I wouldn't have been able to describe what my husband was wearing to the police on any day. In fact, I'm begging my son to sort through the clothes in the laundry room and tell me which ones are Stephen's. I'd sort clean clothes into 2 categories - clothes belonging to guys and clothes belonging to girls. Stephen wasn't any different. In fact I'm really pissed that he wore my brand new jacket to the hospital instead of his coat. And I'm hoping when I find the bag of clothes returned by the hospital that his new running shoes are in it because I don't want to replace my totally worn out ones when I know his fit me. No, I just want to visualize what was happening inside him. When I fall into bed at night, I see him jumping out of bed and grabbing his chest that night in December. I want to be able to visual the story from beginning to end - from whenever his body first started becoming unglued until the blood reached his brain stem. Did it happen quickly or had my husband slowly and imperceptibly become unglued cell by cell over the course of our marriage?

I feel like Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro. This odd thing happened. I need to write about the inexplicable. I need to visualize it, understand it, communicate it because that's who I am. I don't want to identify myself as the widow. I want to be the observer, the writer, the curious one.

Need to Blog

How do you thank your 500 closest friends for all the help and support they provided at the time of your husband's death? The basket of cards, notebook of who brought what, registry from the funeral home, phone calls, volunteers who have been working on my new accommodations, people who stop me on the street and want to help has been overwhelming. And then there's the social networking crowd. I'm been really committed to MOOCs (massive online courses) since 2008 and all of them have been about forming personal learning networks in cyberspace.

There really is only 2 ways to handle this. I'm creating a mid-Lenten newsletter for those friends with known real world addresses. Included in the things my husband left me are over 600 sheets of Easter letterhead paper in a half dozen different styles and lots and lots of boxes of cards. Stephen was known for being excited about Christmas 365 days of the year but so far I've only found 100 sheets of Christmas letterhead and fewer boxes of Christmas cards than Easter cards so I guess spring was his season for looking at liturgical clothing and coming home instead with a package of paper. I guess that's the priestly equivalent of studying the latest styles and contenting oneself with some small item in the currently hot color.

On a larger scale, I've decided to return to blogging and talk about the little discussed topic of grief. It's really important to do so because the next big money maker for the pharmaceutical companies is convincing the medical establishment to include grief extending beyond 2 months in the compendium of psychiatric disorders that require a prescription. This is foolhardy because grief is one of those times when neuro-plasticity kicks in and the brain forms all kinds of new connections the leave one more than a bit wiser. It's really a lot like coming home with a new baby - a totally new world view requiring an amazingly large number of new skills. Mostly you wonder how you could have spent your entire life surrounded by widows and have no idea that you were entering a life phase which would give you a new perspective on everything.

In addition to widowhood, I've also had a total hysterectomy, turned 60, am receiving forms about my retirement when I haven't had a job since 1984, am moving from parish housing to my childhood community and am expecting to have an empty nest soon so I'm not even going to pretend to be able to sort out which change is related to which life event.

So click the link to Martha Beck's blog article about what she has learned from skiing - an activity I could learn nothing about without bloggers as I had a serious knee injury when I was in elementary school. http://marthabeck.com/2012/03/choosing-a-line-insight-from-martha/
What I need at the moment is the line of insight that will show me how to get from the rectory to my own house. Stephen was always the one excited about the new possibilities that would open up with a change of parish. He would go into overdrive and do all the moving stuff. My stuff would get purged; his stuff would get moved. He'd work like a whirling, twirling Dervish and I'd get into the car on moving day. I wasn't one to throw out anyone's stuff but my own. So this whole sorting through Stephen's things and organizing a move is totally new and as exciting as baby throw-up and stinking diapers. If he'd had any warning whatsoever that he was about to die, he would have been excited about the journey he was about to embark on and have down his whirling, twirling Dervish tossing, cleaning, moving thing and I could just have dealt with what he hadn't tossed of my stuff.

Friends of the Library

Friends of the Library are providing a tea each day this week for groups that frequent the library. Yesterday was book club. We were discussing the Novel "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova. The Friends waited patiently until we finally paused to bring out the tea, juice, platter of fruit slices, and platter of cookies/brownies. Unfortunately a sip of the tea created a second wind and we launched into a flood of book, movie and tv show recommendations. So the lovely friends sat at the table behind us and waited for almost another hour before they could gather up their leftover offerings and go home. Although I'm sure it was annoying, everyone is friends with everyone else so no doubt all will be forgiven.

Some of us from book club will be back today as the library has asked the calligraphy club to come in to create a display and do some calligraphy. This time the Friends of the Library who agreed to serve tea and goodies happen to be members of the Calligraphy Guild. So if we should get a second wind of enthusiasm from a sip of tea, it will be without that tiny bit of social awkwardness attached.

Life Coach: Philip E. Humbert

Click on the title and you'll connect to Philip Humbert's newsletter archive. He has newsletters going back to 2002. As he was a minister before becoming a coach, I feel that I have a sense of where he's coming from. I've never actually used a coach myself but I've been aware of the coaching movement back to its earliest days on the web. Coaches specialize in different fields - some are business coaches, some specialize in interpersonal relationships, etc.

Need Space to Think

I'm off tomorrow to Antrim, N.S. Think it has a couple of other names but Antrim is what the post office uses. Let's just say that even with directions and a GPS, it's hard to find. Don't have a return ticket because I don't know how long I'll be there.

Waka Waka This Time for Africa

Waka Waka This Time for Africa is my favourite motivational video. Odd as I've never played a contact sport in my life. My dad wouldn't even let my brothers' play sports. He needed their work on the farm too much to risk unnecessary injuries. We took the bus to high school. It waited long enough for us to participate in afternoon clubs but definitely not athletics.