finding hope in the depths of despair…
As some of you may have surmised (from both my writing here, and the lack of writing over on Lori’s blog during the last couple of days,) this week has found me in a darker, more dangerous spot than I ever could have imagined just a few short weeks ago.
While I fully expected Christmas to be a difficult time, the Holidays truly struck me like a ton of bricks––even heavily medicated as I was.
If you had the misfortune to call me on the phone over the last week you probably got an ear-full of sobs and wailing… that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing from morning ’til night. Sorry, but that’s just how it is.
By Friday I was such an emotional wreck that I had to take the day off, having been sick to my stomach all night in some sort of grief-induced flu. At that point it was apparent that I was beginning to lose my grip on everything that I’ve been trying so hard to hold onto: my sanity, my love for Lori, my need to be able to function in spite of my grief (I’ve got bills to pay after all,) and the dreadful balancing act of pain and hope.
Saturday found me thrashing like a fish out of water... I didn’t want to see anyone but I didn’t want to be alone… I sobbed constantly, my heart feeling as though it were ready to implode under the weight of my lost love.
I took long walks with the dogs, and wailed like a freakin’ banshee. I shouted at God, pounded my chest, and kicked at small flowering plants unlucky enough to be in my path.
My good friend Lance––one of the few folks in my life who can apparently stand within the gail-force wind of my pain––kept me company, and kept me from hurting myself as I gave words to the frightening emotions that have been eating me from the inside.
By Sunday I was ready to commit myself. They tell you that with each tear you shed, there is one less tear to shed in the future, but after crying all day, every day, for over a week, I had found little relief… where as early on after Lori’s death a few hours of crying would leave me in an exhausted but peaceful lull, these new tears did nothing but fuel the fire of grief––it was as though I were shedding tears of gasoline.
When I’d reached the last few steps I could take before literally and actually falling onto my knees and braining myself on the pavement, I had the idea to reach out for help.
Real help. Fuck those lame therapists at Kaiser I’d been seeing, I needed to call in the big guns. Whoever and wherever they were.
I decided right then and there that if I were ever going to get through this bereavement in a healthy and timely manner (as I know my dearly beloved would want me to do––that’s what TRUE LOVE is,) I was going to need someone to walk me through the process: hold my hand through the tough spots, show me the jagged places where I might get tripped up, and point me––literally point me––towards the tiny little light that lies at the end of the tunnel.
Luckily for me, my family has a lot of great connections in the cancer/bereavement/grief communities, and with just one call to my father and step-mother I was quickly connected to a wonderful woman named Theodora, who promised to help carry me through this exhausting, heart wrenching, gut churning process called bereavement.
The great clincher is that besides getting personal help from Theodora as a Bereavement Facilitator, next week I will begin attending a 14-week Workshop designed to take you step-by-step through the process of grieving.
As a highly pro-active male, and someone who really prefers to have some kind of map to the terrain he is trying to navigate, the idea of having concrete steps to take in order to facilitate the processing of my grief, seems like a freakin’ godsend. Why wasn’t this offered to me earlier?!
While I don’t expect to find any magical short cuts to happiness, I do expect to find well-written directions towards the various tasks and processes I will need to complete in order to move out of my pain, and into another happy day.
Now I don’t know about you, but I believe my dear wife Lori’s legacy should be one of LOVE, not MISERY. And I fully intend to live up to her beautiful legacy by learning to both honor her incredible and irreplaceable presence in my life, and simultaneously learning to move beyond the pain of loss and back out into the light of her love.
Thank you so much, Flo & Pops, for acting so quickly on my behalf––because of you I know feel hope where yesterday there was nothing but black despair.
And for those of you who many need it, more info on the Healing Through Loss and Grief group can be found at their website: www.lossandgrief.org
You can also check out the book used in the workshop, The Revised Edition of The Grief Recovery Handbook : The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death Divorce, which comes highly recommended by many, many readers… just read the reviews!
January 1st, 2008 at 10:11 am
Hi Cary,
I’m so sorry you had such a horrible week but I look forward to hearing about your Bereavement Facilitator and the workshop, it sounds like a very good step.
Last night I could hear a rather maniacal laugh coming out of me a few times during my evening at home with Brian and Amy. I said in regards to anything we were doing “what the heck, it’s the last day of the year.” and would laugh a little loud and it felt kinda weird. I finally turned to Amy and said, “I guess you can tell how ready I am for 2007 to be over with, it’s been a hell of a year.”
I knew that waking up today wouldn’t put all the loss and sadness behind me yet I was ready for some kind of marker for a turning point in our lives making way for happy times to start outbalancing the sad.
I talked to Lori last night while I was in the bedroom alone. I can’t remember exactly what I said but I spoke loud and clear saying I missed seeing her in her physical form but felt her strongly all around. I said I wanted you to find happiness and I knew she wanted that too. And I said, I love you buddy.
I thank Lance and Flo and Pops and Mom and all the friends and family who have been there for you and for me and for Lori.
And I thank you for being the greatest brother a sister could have.
Love you,
Kizzy - Jan 1st. 2008
January 1st, 2008 at 10:13 am
I thank Lori too. She really knows how to radiate love. I feel it every day.
Love,
Kizzy
January 1st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I just read the handouts for the workshop. They give me great hope.
Love
Pops
January 1st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Hi Cary!
I’m so glad Theodora was helpful. I think she is a guardian angel that appeared at a most perfect and needed time. It sounds like the workshop process fits well with your style of navigating through life. I look forward to seeing your smiling face illuminated by the light at the end of the tunnel.
Love
Flo
January 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hang in there, Cary. I’ll be doing my best to send you good thoughts.
January 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Cary,
I feel very weird writing. I don’t know you and I live waaay across the country, in Atlanta. Anyway, I found Lori’s blog when I had a diagnostic mammogram last year at a young age (I’m 31) and was doing research on breast cancer in young women. I did a google search, and here I am today. Anyway, I was fortunately fine, but I kept checking her blog periodically. I was so sorry to read about her death. Even though I didn’t know her, it saddened me for weeks.
I’m fortunate to still be with my “true love,” but your story, and other, similar ones even closer to me, have led me to grasp how fragile it all is. I’m rambling now, but the point of this comment is to say that your recent entry makes me proud of you, even if I don’t know you.
Here’s why: When my father died five years ago, I watched my mom go through the pain of losing her lifelong partner (not to mention my own pain). Unfortunately, she’s was not willing to get down and dirty with her emotions, and her repression almost killed her. None of us could convince her that she needed the assistance of others to heal, and just now is she starting to emerge from a 5-year cocoon of grief. So much time lost, so much love she was unable to give in that time. I’m happy that you are recognizing what you can’t handle right now and are taking steps to get deeper help from a professional. You deserve it.
I think it’s brave, ballsy and uplifting that you are able to share your raw emotions and experiences so freely with friends and strangers alike. I think, ultimately, your candor will be your salvation.
Anyway, no real point here, but you’ve got a loyal reader and support way across the US in Georgia. Take care of yourself. Your journey is not an enviable one, but it is one over half of us will face at some point in our lives. Keep writing, it means something to people.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 am
I found your wife’s blog when I was going through kidney cancer, also at a young age (31). I’ve continued to read and sometimes post, but really felt I had to after reading this. I hope this workshop and Theodora will help aid you in any way you need. Your loss and pain are just so raw and new, I cannot imagine what you are going through. Please know that you are in my thoughts, and many others that you don’t really “know” except through blogs and posts and photos. I’ve been thinking of you and hoping that you will feel the positive thoughts being sent your way from many people, including I am sure your beloved wife.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
Dear Cary,
Take all the time you need, and I’m sincerely hoping and praying for better days ahead. Have a wonderful year ahead.
Love, Frances
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Like all of the above who have commented and all who have not but wanted to, I am here for you, LIKE A ROCK. You can kick me, toss me, bang your head against me, yell at me, scream at me, but I will be here, ever still to weather whatever you got, if only ‘virtually’ and yet perpetually, LIKE A ROCK.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Cary, I kept up with Lori’s blog and was devistated when I read that you had lost her. I know that there are no words to sooth you right now, but please do know that the edges of grief do get softer, and there really will come a time that you can face the day with hope and joy in your heart. I care Cary, I really do. God is still there with you, just as Lori is with him.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:24 am
You and Lori have been on my mind all day today, starting with pix that Kizzy sent out of her awesome wedding. Going through paperwork on my desk this evening, I turned over a green CD jacket and there was Lori’s memorial CD. So finally I just had to write to let you know - hey, been thinkin’ ’bout ya.
Hope a stranger’s smile brings some happiness!
I told my Ma all about you and Lori, and she’s very smitten with the love you two heap upon the world (Lori even still through her blog with people still finding her and thusly you). Trust that my Ma is praying for ya and truly cares. She’s like that.
http://www.zeptember.com/photos/v/family/danmommeky.jpg.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Cary reading your site and Lori’s was so very touching. So glad you are going to go to the grief counseling for assistance. You words just touch me so on your special love you and Lori shared and I could feel your pain. Know attending these sessions will be the start in the right direction to help you dear. My Sis Mary Ann lossed her husband to cancer last year and she’s been going to grieve counseling for a year and it has really helped her to get through each day….it takes time after a loved one has passed and holidays are so hard. Just take it one day at a time and one day you’ll be able to move forward with your self, it’s what your darling Lori would have wanted you to do. Bless you. Arlene (AJ)
January 4th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I’m a complete stranger to you who stumbled upon Lori’s site and have since spent hours reading. I have no experience with grief like yours, but I couldn’t let this post go by without letting you know that you are in my prayers. Thank you for sharing your memories and your beautiful love for Lori.
January 5th, 2008 at 6:45 am
I’m sorry that you were feeling so low. I hope today brings you some peace.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’m sorry to hear it’s like this, Cary. That’s how it is.
I’d like to say something like, ‘I hope you cheer up soon.’ But that would be dishonest, because I’ve made this journey too. It’s miserable, and unfortunately it’s anything but a linear process.
If it were easy, then perhaps there’d be nothing to gain. In fact there’s a lot, although not much of it is visible right now. In the meantime, maybe you can adjust your expectations a little - since knowing what you do, you really can’t expect to be “over it,” whatever anyone else might think. And frankly, you wouldn’t want it to be, would you?
All I can really do is to wish you, ‘Good grief.’ Just go with it, as best you can, and try to let it do its work. Be miserable. Go on. Let it out - there’s no shame, and maybe that’s what you need to do.
Spirits up (well, within miserable limits, anyway) and all best wishes to California from London.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Thanks Roads,
All I can really do is what my dear wife would expect me to–––move forward with my life, one painful step at a time, until I can find my wait out of the sorrow and into the joy of life again.
I suppose we “mourners” are all on our own unique path… with many similarities and many disparities as well.
Lori was about as pro-active as a person can be, and I am as well (it’s part of what made us such a great team!) and I know from both my conversations with her, and from her very basic nature, that she would not want me to wallow in my loss for too long, but instead to revel in the love that we shared.
Indeed, she clung so desperately to this precious life… I could not live with myself if I squandered my own.
Anyway, like I said in my post, I’m not looking for a short cut, but simply someone to hold my hand as I attempt to navigate this rocky path.
I have no expectations of ever “getting over it.”
I do, however, have strong expectations of moving into a space where I can remember my dear wife the way she would want to be remembered–––as a source of light and love and happiness, not of pain.
I suppose, in the end, I refuse to look at myself as anything but blessed… blessed by five wonderful years of marriage, blessed by a lifetime of memories (though we had to pack them in tight!) and blessed by the love of the most incredible woman in the world.
For that I give thanks each and every day. Even amid the tears
January 8th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Cary
No, I didn’t think you were really looking for shortcuts.
And I know exactly what you mean when you say, ‘She wouldn’t have wanted to see me as miserable as this.’ I went through the same loop myself, and of course it’s absolutely true.
But perhaps you can still try to cut yourself some slack about it. Because that’s just how it is, really.
There’s not all that much you can do about theway you feel now, and Lori would understand your situation entirely once she saw what it was really like.
I can remember watching Love Story as a kid, and blinking back the tears so that no one would see me crying for Ali McGraw. And I can remember the gut-wrenching moment when the realisation dawned on me that we would live out that movie script, too.
But the reality is that no amount of educational films or imagination can beforehand can prepare you for this.
The scale and strength of what you are experiencing falls far outside anything that so many people ever experience, or even what Lori herself might have expected.
But you’re not alone. Others have walked this path before. I’ve recommended Kate Boydell’s book “Death - and How to Survive It” before. It may not be available in the US, but if you e-mail me, I’ll happily send you a copy in the post.
In the meantime, there’s a condensed version of the Guide to Bereavement at http://www.merrywidow.me.uk
It’s the best work by a distance on the subject that I have ever come across. Written by someone who lived through it herself. And it really is most terribly good.
January 10th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Hi Cary,
Happy to have “discovered” your site through Roads. Truly moved by your love for Lori. She must have been a truly beautiful person. Glad too that you decided to setup the memorial blog for her. I know she must be very proud of you.
I know the pain, longing and deep wounds left behind by someone truly special as I recently lost my wife Mariel too. Together with our 9-year old daughter Sam, I must now find my way through life honoring her memory and learning from everything she had taught me about it but never really took very seriously till now. All her dreams are now mine too, at least it gives me something to work on for the rest of my own life.
Sharing with you life’s biggest challenge. Praying you that you find some strength through her short but meaningful life of love.
With kindest regards,
Bong
January 25th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Cary-
I don’t know how I came across your blog, but sometimes there are reasons we never understand. I just lost my best friend a month ago to complications of her brief stint with ovarian cancer. We were friends for 25 years and I had not seen her for a few, but we spoke weekly for hours and if not a few times a week.
This is not the same as your love for your beautiful wife, but pain is pain and loss is loss. I am crying for your pain and no words from this complete stranger can take away what you are experiencing. It is a process one must endure (alone) because no one knows the exact hell you are feeling.
It is great you are getting help and working with others who have experiences in loss and can guide you through this.
I know that your friends, family and others reading your written words wish they could take away that stinger, hug you and make it well.
I also think that your writing is assisting you to live each day and move on.
Forgive my intruding on this very personal time in your life, but somehow I hope this virtual hug reaches you. I promise to keep you in my prayers, no offense, I believe in the power of prayers and will ask other people to keep you in their thoughts.
I hope all moves forward for you and you find that your life will always be worth living.
With hope, faith, love and peace
A Stranger from the same land