On the Threshold of Eternity. Image via WikipediaLike so many in attendance at the funeral, Scott told me to let him know if I ever needed anything. Though, I don't think he, nor I expected to actually take him up on his offer. Calling him for help was incredibly difficult and humbling, but I truly had no one else to turn to. And before I picked up the phone to call, I actually tried to talk myself out of it by telling myself that it would make me look too desperate. But then I thought, "Who am I kidding?? I am desperate!" So I swallowed my pride, made the call, and explained my dilemma of having spoken to Roman's girlfriend who told me he knew the whole story - and I told Scott about Roman not having other friends for me to turn to.
"Didn't he have any friends?"
"No, not really.."
"Yeah, I was wondering that at the funeral." Scott confessed...
Scott then told me how he noticed Roman and Erica getting cozy at work. When he finally asked Roman what was going on, his suspicions were confirmed. Scott mentioned that he did not consider her to be a particularly nice person. In fact, "cold" is actually the adjective he used in describing her. I also got the impression that she wasn't particularly attractive to Scott in general, but he never said that outright. It was just my take on how he spoke...or maybe even my projection. More specifically related to me, Scott confirmed that Roman rarely spoke about me at work, but he stated that when Roman did talk about me, he highlighted my accomplishments and my being "highly educated." When I brought up the cold reception I received from their colleagues at Roman's funeral, Scott's response was that they were "clique-ish sometimes." The conversation was awkward and uncomfortable for both of us, but I was forlorn, and Scott was nice enough to give me some answers, in spite of his personal hesitation. In hindsight, I know we talked for about 20 minutes, but beyond what I just shared here, I don't remember much. My memory and my mind's relationship with time really started to change around this point in my life. I think it was all just too much for my brain to comprehend. I think I blew a mental fuse.
Thanksgiving rolled around about week after I spoke to Scott. As one might expect, that holiday season was particularly emotional for me. In recent years, I had become something of a gourmet home chef, so Thanksgiving was a big to do for Roman and me. The year before he died, I planned a very elaborate spread for the two of us, to which Roman would say with childlike enthusiasm, "This is going to be the best Thanksgiving ever!!!" whenever my menu plans came up. My cooking brought out the best in him, so Thanksgiving was one of those times when he was particularly warm. Though that said, he still never wanted to include family or friends on the feast. We always saw my family on Thanksgiving, but if I ever brought up seeing his family too, he would stop me short by saying something like, "ah, my family doesn't do that stuff..."
The year he died, I did not cook for myself, but instead went alone to my aunt's house for dinner with my family. Still very distraught, my family was powerless to help when they saw that I was not enjoying myself. In several instances, I found myself reassuring them on Thanksgiving and in the days that followed, that it was okay not to know how to help. I didn't know how to get over what I had gone through; how could I expect them to have the map? I couldn't, so that year was hard for everyone. And when I got home early from my aunt's house that Thanksgiving night, I found myself missing Roman terribly. Even after the mess he put me through - I missed him. So once again, I reluctantly called Scott.
The conversation was no less awkward than the first, especially since he was spending Thanksgiving with his girlfriend. Hopefully she understood my dilemma, but I did not have the energy to think about that. I felt like a big enough jackass calling him in the first place. But I needed to talk to someone who knew Roman well - and Scott did. As we overcame our initial clumsiness, we got to reminiscing and laughing about Roman's constant inappropriate razzing of Scott around the office.
"Roman was such-an-asshole!" Scott said as he chuckled.
His candor was comforting and refreshing. Not merely because he called Roman an asshole at a time when I happened to be very hurt by him, but because he was honest. Roman often was an asshole, but since he died, suddenly it was taboo to call a spade a spade. It was as if, since he was gone, we had to make him out to be some kind of God fearing saint. But he wasn't...not in the least. If he was, I suppose this blog would look very different right now.
Around that same period, two of my oldest and dearest friends took turns coming over to keep me company. I had not spent much time alone with either friend in recent years because life had gotten so hectic, but having them there with me again was like no time had passed at all. We bonded over funny movies and guacamole, we talked about my losses with Roman, and caught up on the details in our lives over the last couple years. So much had happened in my life in just three weeks that I could barely comprehend it all. Though my friends were instrumental in helping me make some sense of it at the time. And in an indirect way, both of my friends could relate to aspects of my losses due to their own experiences; one with a string of health issues and the other with a cheating husband of her own. While neither friend had experienced the death of a loved one, they both had nonetheless known circumstances that arose from beyond their control. They too had suffered their own losses and had been dealing with their own forms of grief as a result, as they attempted to cope with how their lives had changed. This was when I first really began to recognize how grief operates in areas that do not relate specifically to death.
As is typical with grief, bouts of anger and sadness fluctuated wildly and often coexisted at once. Eventually though, the floodgates of emotion really opened; and when they did, I was powerless to stop my tears. It was not hysterical crying, just steady streams of brokenness. Of course, during the course of three weeks, I experienced a lifetime of hardship; the break up of my marriage that I had convinced myself was stable, my seemingly healthy husband's sudden death, the realization of the extent of his ongoing deceit about his feelings for me, and his affair with a certifiably horrible person. It's no surprise that the third blow hit me especially hard. And it caused me to experience emotions, which combined with the sadness, guilt, and everything else I had experienced since the day he dropped the bomb - left me with a broken heart and a psychological concussion that included lasting clinical depression and anxiety. Not to mention major disruption to my sleep/wake cycles, which also affect me to this day. My trauma was threefold, so when I finally fell with the last assault, I stayed down for the count. It took a couple weeks after that final blow, but eventually I did get up with the help of some counseling, various medications, support from loved ones, and other distractions, which I will share in detail in a future post.
Once I stood up though, I took off running. I ran away from the painful events of November 2006 as fast as I could and didn't begin to really look back in any meaningful way, until I started this blog in October. However, in truth, I only took the step of looking back because I could not run any longer. Four years of attempting to get over three distinct and complex layers of grief, each with its own set of baggage, got to be more than I could shoulder. Particularly because in the past two years, budget cuts made my job stress increase immeasurably. As a consequence, my pace began to slow notably to me around the same time as the budget crisis, but it halted dramatically and noticeably to those who knew me sometime last year. I finally stopped running due to a collapse of my own in December of this year, when I simply could not do it all anymore.
For a long time my goal was to get over and move past what I had experienced. Until now, much of my attempts at coping were aimed at doing just that. But here's the thing I know now...Homey don't play that. Nope, that's not how traumatic loss rolls. Grief plays on grief's turf and on grief's terms. So anyone who has experienced a life changing trauma, and thinks they are going to "just get over it," I caution you to think again. That's not to say it doesn't get easier. It does. The wounds do heal, but wounds leave scars and in this case those scars are known as grief. Grief is the cognitive and emotional process we go through when we try to cope with the experience that gave us the scars and is the same process that enables us learn to live with the scars themselves. It's a bit of a paradox. Moreover, grief indeed operates in various stages as the famed Kubler-Ross model of grief indicates in deceptively simple terms. But what people do not seem to realize, is that the well known theory greatly oversimplifies the process, particularly for those facing complicated grief due a complicated loss.
Grief that results from traumatic loss is not neat, tidy, or convenient. The stages are not clearly defined when they cycle. Instead they are rude and intrusive...like a sloppy roommate who won't go away, or a disgusting recurring viral herpe blister outbreak. Anyone who gets occasional cold sores KNOWS how irritating those bastards are! And for the record, I only get the cold sore mouth version from time to time (mostly triggered by stress..joy!). Roman thankfully did not give me any STDs during his exploits.
Neither gross herpes nor obnoxious house mates one will go away, so the key is learning how to live with the menace; which is easier said than done, I know. Their griefy counterpart will eventually go out for a figurative pack of smokes and will leave for a little while; but if the loss has a big impact on the bereaved's life, make no mistake, grief will return in some form as soon as the right trigger is pulled. And that's the rub that makes grief such a D-bag; someone you care about dies and in moves grief to take their place. Nice exchange...Not!
Grief is not something that makes itself at home just in the lives of people coping with the death of a loved one. I think it's a fairly common process for many people after they experience some form of loss, be it physical or emotional such as divorce, health problems, accidents, house fires, loss of a job, loss of a limb, molestation, or what have you. All result in a form of loss - often related to the loss of personal control. And in its place is the grieving process. What a crappy new life companion, I know. But I digress...
In the years since Roman passed, I have remained in contact with his mom and she cat sits for me when I go out of town. She also gave me her blessing for sharing my story on this blog. She understands why I chose to write about my experience, though I don't think she is eager to read it. After all, Roman was her youngest son. He was her baby. It was something that I constantly reminded myself of when I was pushing past my anger in planning his funeral. And it's the reason I asked her to keep Roman's ashes until we finally decided where to scatter them last year. Roman may not have been my husband much longer, but he would always be her son. And my heart breaks for her for that; which brings me back to the complexity of my grief.
My grief for Roman has existed on many levels, not just as his betrayed widow, but as someone who knew him well, who recognized his potential, and who once shared a life with him. In recent years, I have learned that the way people grieve - the complexity and range of emotions that they feel or do not feel (as was the case for my friend who initiated Part 1 of this blog series) - in addition to the degree of havoc grief creates in the bereaved's life, depends very much on the way that living person related to the now deceased person when they were alive. The role grief plays in the bereaved person's life after the death of another person, depends directly on the range and complexity of emotions that the deceased person elicited when they were here, and the havoc or peace they created when they entered a room. Grief is about coming to terms with the loss of someone or something important, and the loss of the ever changing relationship that once was, but never will be again. Complicated people leave complicated legacies - and in their place, resides complicated grief.
With regard to my friend who asked for my advice...she did not feel emotion when her family member died, because she did not have much of a relationship with him in life. It turns out that her family member was a bit of a stubborn, grouchy, old man. So since he wasn't a nice guy and he didn't establish relationships with his family, there was little love lost when he was gone. And that made my friend feel guilty. Though, I sincerely believe that her true feelings were warranted. In her case, the decedent was very uncomplicated and set in his ways. It may sound harsh, which is why my friend probably felt pressured to put on a bereaved facade, but the truth is, when some folks die, few people notice because of the choices that person made in life. No relationships means no connections, and that in turn means little to no grief for many of the living. Obviously, that was nothing close to my personal experience. Regardless though, because I have experienced such complex grief myself, I could understand why my friend reacted the way she did.
My experience was exactly the opposite as my friend's. For me it was crushing emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and even physically at times. And unfortunately, there is no magic wand to make it easier, faster, or more forgettable. Which is why, in the years since Roman's death, I have found the demands of my job to be insurmountable at times.
With regard to my friend who asked for my advice...she did not feel emotion when her family member died, because she did not have much of a relationship with him in life. It turns out that her family member was a bit of a stubborn, grouchy, old man. So since he wasn't a nice guy and he didn't establish relationships with his family, there was little love lost when he was gone. And that made my friend feel guilty. Though, I sincerely believe that her true feelings were warranted. In her case, the decedent was very uncomplicated and set in his ways. It may sound harsh, which is why my friend probably felt pressured to put on a bereaved facade, but the truth is, when some folks die, few people notice because of the choices that person made in life. No relationships means no connections, and that in turn means little to no grief for many of the living. Obviously, that was nothing close to my personal experience. Regardless though, because I have experienced such complex grief myself, I could understand why my friend reacted the way she did.
My experience was exactly the opposite as my friend's. For me it was crushing emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and even physically at times. And unfortunately, there is no magic wand to make it easier, faster, or more forgettable. Which is why, in the years since Roman's death, I have found the demands of my job to be insurmountable at times.
As a school psychologist, I am in the business of helping; but there is no simple, easy, quick fix way to do that - though, people demand it regardless. And the way some people go about demanding said magic fixes, often triggers in me a whole boatload of old grief because stress is my main personal grief trigger. Whenever the stress gun is fired, I relive the physiological feeling of being a helpless passenger on a doomed flight. Each encounter with a money grubbing advocate, crazed parent, or catasrophizer, clucker, or complainer colleague (see my 'soul suckers' post) causes my pulse to pound in my eardrums, my mouth to go dry, my heart to sink into my stomach, and my fight or flight response to kick into overdrive, as if my world is about to fall apart once again. Likewise, in response - even four years later - I often am helpless to do anything other than cry when I have those physiological responses. Still nowadays, when I cry, I can't stop - even with the help of antidepressants. And the timing of my tears is usually completely inconvenient; like say, right before a big contentious meeting with a nasty parent and a clucker colleague. That's what I mean by grief playing on grief's terms. When it surfaces, I have to deal with it, no matter how un-grief friendly the present moment may be for me. What's more, being that I was once a task oriented, organized, and structured person, it is now very foreign to me to feel so out of control and vulnerable when something triggers an emotional response from me.
I guess I'm just different now. I'm more emotional, more sensitive, more anxious, less patient, less focused, and less controlled - Oh, and my executive functioning is out to lunch. These days, I do think I'm kinder, more conscientious, more articulate, more grateful, and more empathic. I have also developed an affinity for writing that has sprung directly from my losses. Likewise, now I do laugh more than ever before and I have a greater appreciation for life's simple pleasures like humor. But I also don't care as much what people think and increasingly, I find it extremely challenging to refrain from drop kicking any person who is rude, mean, entitled, pushy, obnoxious, and/or self-absorbed. Whereas before, I was more adaptable towards self-serving people in the rat race of day to day life. Now however, as I said, I'm just different...because of my experience; because of my grief. In some ways better, in some ways not, and in some ways just plain different. In many ways though, I think I have grown into myself more than ever before, which is a profoundly positive experience that grief can elicit. However, unrelenting job stress has no doubt been a major factor holding me back from fully expressing whatever potential I now have as a result of my loss - because stress constantly digs at my old wounds.
So here I am writing this blog, trying to help myself make sense of it all. That's all. The intent was never to "get over" anything. I'm just doing my best to live with it and to come to terms with the ways in which I have changed and evolved - and trying to do it in a way that brings about something positive for others as a result of having an honest glimpse into my loss. Sometimes, I surprise myself these days because things I do or say are not like the "me" I once knew. Like writing publicly about my lying dead husband's infidelity with a wicked biotch - that's generally not the kind of thing I would ever have dreamed of doing in the past. I was too shy and played my cards too close to my vest for such a bold action, but now, as I said, I am much less deterred by the prospect that people might gossip, judge, or misunderstand my intent. So this is me now...the life experience changed version of "me."
Writing about my experience really has been quite the catharsis. It has been healing and clarifying in many ways, but I am not daft enough to think that this was the final frontier. No, I know from experience that this was just part of the process of learning to live alongside my grief for Roman and learning to live with my experiences of loss. Now I understand how doing so will help it all become less and less burdensome as it tags along with me and my daily to do's.
Writing about my experience really has been quite the catharsis. It has been healing and clarifying in many ways, but I am not daft enough to think that this was the final frontier. No, I know from experience that this was just part of the process of learning to live alongside my grief for Roman and learning to live with my experiences of loss. Now I understand how doing so will help it all become less and less burdensome as it tags along with me and my daily to do's.
Roman is gone, but never forgotten. And believe it or not, I have learned to forgive him. That's not to say I never feel angry or hurt when I remember what he did, but I forgive him for making mistakes in his life. I'm not clairvoyant, so I do not know what would have become of him if he would have lived, but I truly believe that IF he knew he were about to die, he would have done things differently. He may still have fallen in love, or lust, or infatuation with the girl from Borders, but I do not think he would have lied like he did. Roman would not have wanted to go out like that. I know he wouldn't.
Roman had many good qualities and is not defined in my mind solely by his actions in his final days. He was complicated, a bit on the spectrum, and he was himself a gifted writer. I plan to share his writing in a future post. A vegetarian and an animal lover through and through, I never saw an animal that didn't warm up to him immediately. Likewise, Roman was conscientious about environmental pollution and always cut rubber bands and plastic six pack cola holders before putting them into the trash so that they would not end up around the beak of a duck somewhere, like he had seen on TV. Also, Roman always returned empty grocery carts to designated "cart return" spots, rather than leaving them in the parking lot where they might roll into a car door and scratch someone's paint. He was generous, but level headed, and he taught me how to live within my means financially. Something I didn't truly 'get' until fairly recently. True, he could also be a real jerk sometimes - but he was also human, just like the rest of us. Much to his personal chagrin.
The song that inspired the title of this post..
Related articles
- Vanished: Grieving a father's life, not his death (psychologytoday.com)
- No grief for clichés (mindhacks.com)
- New Ways to Think About Grief (time.com)
