A Surprise on Valentines Day

Valentine's Day I went out to Arlington National Cemetery carrying roses for Jim and found a surprise waiting.

In the six days since I was there last they had set the new tombstone with Jim's name engraved on the stone. I knew it was coming. In fact I had called to check on it. They told me it would be about five months after the burial August 1 - and it was.

I was grateful the workmen who set the stone were so respectful of the stones I have brought from our travel collection and left there since August. They replaced them carefully - arranged almost exactly as I had.  Another evidence of the honor and care they give to the deceased and to the families.

But I was not prepared for my feelings.

Sad and glad.

Jim died March 6, 2012 - so we are only 17 days away from his one-year anniversary. If March 6th had come and gone without the stone in place I know I would have been disappointed and sad. However - not having any warning - left me breathless.

The presence of the stone feels like a period - an ending. Another chapter of Jim's book closes.

But, I don't think of it as the final chapter in the book I share with Jim. It is just different.

I am comforted by that.

Remembering Valentine's Day

Remembering Valentine's Day.

Last year Jim was in Sibley Hospital in Washington, DC on Valentine's Day - his final hospitalization.

He arranged with our son Jim to bring in this rose so that when he asked me to get him something for the cabinet on Valentine's morning - - it was waiting for me to find it.

Jim was a darling "romantic" and he loved Valentine's Day. From the time we were dating he gave me a single rose - and often something else. I cooked a special dinner. Less special when there were also "kids" under foot - more later when we were an empty-nest couple.


Today - I have the card, cannot find the vase which I did bring home from the hospital -

 but I have this picture and a very dear memory - actually many very dear and sweet loving memories.

Today I will turn the car radio to 50s on 5 on Sirius Radio and drive to Arlington National Cemetery with a single rose - - and wrap myself in those memories.

I recently read a book - Understanding Your Grief  - in which the doctor-author talks not of healing your grief but of reconciling it in with the new life you are living.

I am trying to do that.

I am not resigned - from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

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Today, during her workshop, Elizabeth Ellis, master storyteller-teacher, read this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay to the group. When I heard it, it sounded a note in my brain and touched my heart.

"I am not resigned - "

Jim Schoettler on the deck of the USS Hornet.

Oh, how I agree.
This poem speaks to me - - for me.

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the
love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not
approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the
world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Home - 1

Ellouise and Jim Schoettler - 25th Wedding Anniversary

On our 25th wedding anniversary (1980) our teen-age children put on a really nice

buffet dinner and cake cutting at our home.  It was a warm group made up of people from many aspects of our life together.  It was a lovely evening.

Jim and I bought and moved into this house - where I still live - in 1970. It has seen many gatherings that linger in my memories. In fact the whole house reeks of those memories.. gatherings, holidays, birthdays, just quiet evenings and busy days.  Jim's presence is strong here. Sometimes it makes me cry when I realize it is 6:30 PM and I am expecting him to drive into the driveway, open the back door and walk in. But he doesn't.

I do not want to move. This house is home and it carries 43 years of our history.

As I wake up from the shroud of fog that has been around my shoulders and mind for the last 11 months I realize how much there is to do here.  

Jim's illness was primary for a year and now I have to catch up.

I bought a new front door this month. That's a story. For one thing, what do I know about choosing a front door, not to mention the "sticker shock" for a decent door and storm door.  I cancelled the order the first time and then re-did it. Then they came and measured. Hopefully I will have a new door by the middle of February.

I still haven't donated our old Toyota. It is sitting its usual place in front of the house. Sometimes when I drive down the block I see it and when my first thought is "Jim's home." I start to cry.  I guess its time - but I still don't want to let it go.

On he Hill of Tara, Ireland  20008

You see this is what has happened. As I wake up for the fog of first shock and grief -  like a modern day Rip Van Winkle - I know that our life together is over - "til death do you part" - and so be it - but after 57 years Jim and I are too inter-twined for me to accept that. 

I am trying to figure out how to move ahead - and keep him with me.

Moving Forward - slowly

I haven't written here since December - because it was just too difficult. The "firsts" without Jim piled up on me:
i.e. Christmas, return to California and visit to Jim's home town, our anniversary (57). These were plain hard! Lots of crying as well as bittersweet pleasure in the memories.

Since then I have begun thinking about these same days this time last year as Jim's status began to deteriorate - - - memories I hope some day to forget. I had softened some of the tougher ones by talking individually with a counselor - - until I attended my first Bereavement Group Meeting this past Tuesday afternoon.

Ten women gathered in a very comfortable and pleasant parlor at a local church education building. During the introductions all of us mentioned that we don't know where to start in re-creating our life - our new life. Even so, the first exercise the leader asked us to do was "to tell the story of your loved one's death from the onset of the last illness to the death." What the hell?

However - being an obedient group member, I dove in first and told our story -  Jim's and mine. All the way to holding Jim in my arms as he died and then dressing him in his familiar beige cashmere sweater before our family arrived to see their father/grandfather in the bed at home.

All the way through my rapid fire telling I was uncomfortable, feeling this was too personal to share with a group of strangers. 

The organizers who are the "bereavement counselors" must have information informing them this is the way to go. So far as I am concerned - it's not! It's painful. It stirred the pot of memories and sent me reeling. Upshot? I doubt I will go back. Even though I will feel sorry not to do my share of listening to everyone else's story.

But, I have learned that I need to look out for myself - and in this case I am.

The experience left me wondering - was their pre-planned agenda more important than hearing what we all said? I wish they had listened.

I would have welcomed help with moving forward - and I think that would be a wonderful help to each of the others as well.  Asking to hear the stories strikes me as seeking to satisfy the curiosity of
the organizers
- unless some of the women are just bursting to tell that story again - and again - and again.
 
Let me tell you something - I have struggled since March 6 to work through each day and to put up a "brave" front so people would think I was OK.  Most of those days I have been anything but OK. However the play-acting did and does help. I have journaled through a dozen notebooks, talked privately to positively helpful bereavement folks, trusted friends, my sisters and our children,  read books about "making it through", worked on the business of closing up Jim's life and our life together - - and been grateful for my storytelling work.

Although I have "sinking spells" and crying many days, after 10 and a half months I am stronger and moving ahead -- one baby step at a time.

I guess that really is progress.

O me O my.

Woke up this morning from a dream about Jim.
Started crying. "Come on", I say to myself, "That doesn't help".

The rest of the family arrived last night. Their plane was late so by the time they arrived I was asleep.

Today our Christmas Holiday really begins.

If Jim were here he would tell me its important for me to join in - to be part of the celebration.

We are here together - because he isn't here.

All our family is grieving too. I am the mother - but - - -
I don't know whether I can play "let's pretend" and join in. Or, be the mother.

At home, I live alone. Its a surprise to me that I have grown to like it. My grieving times are mostly very private. I get through them, pull myself together and then, face the world.

I had not thought about the fact that being in the family group in tight-knit surroundings I would feel very exposed - emotionally - often choking on my feelings.

In the books "on grief" they tell you that people say grieving makes people very selfish. People say people who are grieving think only of themselves. It must seem that way. But the truth is - at times you can't think beyond the ache in your heart . I think that's what some people don't understand.

I am sure I did not understand the aching loneliness of grief and how it colors the world before I started to feel and live with it.

A wise friend advised me to look at this situation as a "workshop". What have I come to learn from being here - in these circumstances?  Curious idea - not sure it will work for me - -

You mean this is another F-ing learning experience?

A for Effort

Let me tell you how I experience some aspects of grief. ** Yesterday I was sitting in a Starbucks on a busy street corner in Lafayette, CA. Christmas music filled the air. Despite my best efforts to hold them off tears started pouring from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.  I could not control it. ** I am out-of-my-home-area on my sentimental journey to California. For one week I have been "strong" - holding all feelings back. Acting like a "big girl". No crying. ** Now sitting in this very nice small Starbucks where Jim and I have had coffee in past years something has knocked down my defenses and I am crying.  Just a bit at first - and I work hard to push feelings down - because if the tears start I won't be able to stop them until they have dried out. ** I feel incredibly alone - and there is nothing to do but to face it. ** I miss Jim. Its that simple. ** When the realization that he is gone forces itself to the surface - it is absolutely too much. That sounds dramatic doesn't it. Well that is how it is with grief. It is dramatic and you work really hard to hide it. If you are grieving you get "credit" for not showing it.