Six Months Ago Today

It’s been six months already that I have lost you, my love of over thirty years, my best friend and companion, my significant other, my better half; and you are gone forever from my life, our life. Six months ago today we put you to rest. Among the many things that I remember from that day is the terrible feeling of loss and loneliness. The horrible sense of being lost and the confusion that I felt afterwards when we returned home from the cemetery. I was surrounded by friends and relatives and yet I felt so disconnected and so appallingly alone. It was as if I was lost in a strong storm and:

“There is no port in this storm, and the one person who could bring you connection is the one person who is gone forever.” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Ever since then I feel so vulnerable. I feel lost forever. It’s as if there is a wall now standing between me and the rest of the world. A wall that I don’t think I can, or even have the courage to, cross over.

In the three plus years of treatments that my husband was undergoing, even though I was dreading this outcome I could never have imagined anything this bad. And now it feels like I am inconsolable and heart broken beyond repair. The pain of losing him is so strong it feels like there is a new me that is forever changed, crushed, shattered, and irreparable. I will never be the same again or see the world as I once did.

I don’t think this feeling of emptiness is temporary as I think I will never be able to return to that old person, the old me. There is an impenetrable silence that resonates within me. The world and everything around me seems strange, and unwelcome. It feels like I am nothing but a bundle of sadness. But the scariest of all these new feelings is how vulnerable I feel when I am out in the world. Something I never felt when he was around.

And so far, no matter how hard I have tried to continue to live and belong I still feel lost and sad and angry that something like this can happen and has happened. And on most days I feel that there is no way out, no matter what anybody else wants for me. The only place that I feel safe is home alone with my books.

I find solace in my isolation. Because in the words of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross:

“But your isolation is not related to your surroundings or the people in your world.”

I know that I will never see the world as it once was to me. I know that I have not only lost my dearest and most precious companion and lover and friend, but I have also lost with him the notion of what should life be. I have lost his and my world, our world. And right now all I want to do to manage my grief and pain is be alone. To quote Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“But whatever one does to survive and manage the grief, being alone often feels safer than being vulnerable with people who may not understand.”

ChK

This Is Not The End

Have you ever experienced a major crisis in your life? After spending days and nights trying to solve the problem you are faced with yet a new one? Just when you think you have come to terms with yourself and are ready to continue your life. How do you deal with it? What do you do?

Albert Einstein wrote:
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

What if the problem we face is not something we created but rather was forced on us? We all have problems at some point in our lifetime. The simple act of making a living in itself creates problems for many of us. How do we make a living in today’s economy? How do we make a place for ourselves in today’s society?

When I was growing up in Lebanon, during the civil war days my worries were the same as any other kid or teenager my age elsewhere around the world. I went to school, went out with my friends. I did community work, went to university, met my future husband there, fell in love, got married, left the country and then after more than two decades left again, this time with my kids. It was not until recently when we faced problems in this new city, in this new country which we call home, that I realized how hard it must have been for my parents to do what they did in those days. How hard it must have been for them to continue making a living under awful conditions imposed on them by the civil war and to hide all their hardship from us. For me and my siblings everything seemed normal and life continued as usual.

Winston Churchill wrote:
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

My parents and generations of parents at the time picked themselves up and continued as if nothing ever happened. The entire community was affected at the time and war became part of every household in the country.

Thinking back I realize that everyone more or less faced the same problems then. They were in it together. But when I live in a normal society how do I make a place for myself? What do I do? How do I handle situations so that I won’t fail? In the words of Winston Churchill:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” 

But where do I get courage from? How can I face the future alone? I ask myself a million questions without getting any answer. I ask:

“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” Winston Churchill

Victory! In my case over myself. I have to find a way to conquer my weaknesses and my failures and get up on my feet and start trying again. Victory over my self doubts. Victory over my depressing thoughts. Because in the words of Winston Churchill:

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

ChK 

Wait And Hope

Yesterday evening I went to pick my son up from the metro station as he had missed his bus. It takes him about half an hour to walk the distance. But it was so freezing cold and windy that I didn’t want him to be on the street walking. Despite the fact that I was dead tired I was happy at the opportunity this would give me to have a talk with him.

After the usual “How was your day” and all he said, “Mom I did good in school you know. And I am doing good at work also. I am productive and that keeps me alright I guess.” I told him he was doing excellent and how proud I was of him. Then to my surprise he said, “It was a tough year. Who would have thought that dad would get sick shortly after we came here. We came to Canada to have a better life. Now look at us. He is gone and we are still here trying to make it.”
And I said, “Now you have to work hard and do better to make him proud.”

Who would have thought he would become sick so soon after we moved? I know how hard it is for my kids, for my son and daughter to go on in this new place without their father. Leaving their world, the life they had in Dubai, their friends and all behind as teenagers was hard enough for them, and then to lose their father? I try to be strong for them but sometimes pain just gets me and I feel paralyzed.

Sunday was mother’s day. I got this beautiful and touching text from a dear friend wishing me happy mother’s day and asking me to enjoy the day as if he was here with me. And for the first time in thirty years my mother was physically with me on that day, except now he was not. And I thought of all the mother’s days past and present. Of all those people missing their mothers and their loved ones. To quote Alexander Dumas:
 
“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. 
“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words, ‘Wait and Hope.’” 

Wait- stay, remain, hang around, linger, stop, kill time.

Hope- expect, trust, anticipate, wish, look forward to.

No matter how big our loss and tragedy, no matter how deep our pain we still hope for the better. We still think and wish that someday soon something good will happen to us. As Alfred Tennyson wrote:

“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, 
Whispering ‘it will be happier’…” Alfred Tennyson

But then no matter how broken I am, no matter how shattered I am spiritually, no matter how deep I have sunk in my sorrow there are moments as I watch my kids grow where:

“Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.” Lemony Snicket

ChK

If I Have To Be Alone

The other day I met up with an old friend in the food court of a busy shopping mall here in Montreal. I usually avoid the food court area of shopping malls, especially on a Saturday afternoon because of the crowd. I hadn’t seen my friend for over two decades and when she suggested we meet at the food court I agreed without any hesitation. On the assigned day, at the appointed time, I walked through the crowd to where my friend was sitting without feeling the slightest discomfort. Jodi Picoult writes:

“Did you ever walk through a room that’s packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step?”

Any other day, I would have been so uncomfortable walking through such a crowd. But on that particular afternoon despite the people I could hardly feel anything. Is it because:

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn’t be filled?” Jodi Picoult

Lately I don’t know who I am anymore. I try hard to find meaning in the things I do. I do my best to meet with old friends and make new ones and try to be among people so I won’t feel that lonely. But at the end of the day I go to bed regretting my actions. My heart feels so empty that I can hardly recognize myself. Arthur Miller wrote:

“If I have to be alone I want to be by myself.” 

But I don’t know who I am anymore. Did I lose myself with him? Then why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? When all I want to be or do is continue the way I was. Why am I trying to fill my life with things I don’t like to do? Why am I lost? Even though from the outside I may look the same, sort of intact, I am never quite the same as before. I have tried to put myself together. God knows I have. But all I can do:

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”  Arthur Miller

I go back to that day, to the time when it happened. I try to find the meaning in what happened. Why it happened. I spend sleepless nights regretting the things I didn’t do, we didn’t do together. I spend my days thinking about life and death and love and all. Only to realize that:

“Life, woman, life is God’s most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.” Arthur Miller

ChK

A Year Of Firsts

After tragedy hit us, me and my kids, we were all shocked and confused for a while. We were confused because it happened too soon and without any signs, sort of unexpected at the time. We were angry and sad and spent days talking and thinking and wondering if there was anything we could have done to change things, only to realize that death is as much a part of our lives as life itself. It didn’t take long for our lives to fall back in order. As C.G. Jung writes:

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”

Everything is still the same from the outside except he is gone forever. We each play the role assigned for us in our family, in our society, in this world. But there is this emptiness in our lives that will never be filled no matter what. Because:

“The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.” C.G. Jung

Yesterday on my way to an appointment I drove by Omer De Serres, where my late husband shopped for his art supplies. And I remembered how just a few days before his death he bought new canvases and some oil paint. It was the first time I was passing this way after a long time. With tears in my eyes I realized that this year was a year of firsts. First birthdays, first Christmas, first Valentine’s, first Easter, first anniversary. First of everything. And in this year of firsts:

“There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course.” C.G .Jung

Sometimes when the day is over and the kids are back from their different schedules we sit and talk. And the talk usually centers around their late father, how proud he would be of their achievements no matter how insignificant these were to the rest of the world. How he used to encourage them, us, and how when it came to his own paintings and his art, he used to joke and tell us, “One day after I am gone my paintings will be so valuable.” And the kids would reply and say, “Why not now, when you are alive? Why talk about going? You’re not going anywhere.”

At the end of the day when I retire to bed desperately wanting to hear his voice, but knowing very well that his presence was so real and his absence so finite, I feel so lost. I think of his paintings and of how he valued art in all its forms and shapes and my heart fills with a new kind of hope. And I know that as long as I continue in his footsteps and turn to my books and writing (the only form of art that I can do well) my life would be worth living. In the words of C.G. Jung:

“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.”

ChK 

 

The Fearful Acute Suspense

In her book ‘On Grief and Grieving’ Elizabeth Kübler Ross talks about anticipatory grief. She writes:
“Forewarned is not always forearmed. Experiencing anticipatory grief may or may not make the grieving process easier or shorten it. It may bring only feelings of guilt that we were grieving before the loss actually occurred.”

Ever since my husband was diagnosed with cancer I was filled with fear and anxiety. The fear of losing him was so strong that it paralyzed me on most days. I wanted to believe the doctors when they said they’d cure him. I believed him when he said, “I’ll fight this.” I spent days on the internet investigating the disease, the outcome. I spent days and sleepless nights reading people’s accounts of their illness and the end result. I couldn’t function properly. I was constantly worried.

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” Corrie ten Boom

Now that he is gone, I wish I had been able to live each day as it came instead of worrying about our tomorrow. I was so caught up in my anxiety that even my husband used to tell me, “Your eyes are scaring me. You have this look on your face. What are you thinking about?” And of course I couldn’t tell him about my fear. I couldn’t tell him about my anxiety.

Anxiety: Nervousness, concern, worry, unease, angst, fear, fretfulness.

Every time I accompanied him to his doctor’s appointments, I couldn’t help but tremble at the thought of what the doctor might say. Even on days that he was free of the disease I would sit next to him and look at his face and wait for the doctor’s verdict. I would dread the day when I would have:

“To hear the phrase “our only hope” always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn’t work, there is nothing left.” Lemony Snicket

There is nothing left but suffering. After his last visit to his oncologist my late husband said, “My doctor is so positive.” I don’t know if he believed him or not, I don’t know how he felt that day as we walked to the car. All I know is that I was so anxious and frightened that I could hardly breathe. The suspense was killing me. To quote Charles Dickens:

“The suspense: the fearful, acute suspense: of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to be doing something to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them!” 

ChK

It’s Okay I’m Here

Almost a year ago I wrote:

Last Saturday afternoon I accompanied my daughter to a book sale in Montreal. The sale was organized by the Friends of the Library. The place was not very far from our home and easy to locate. Inside the arena where the sale was taking place there was already a significant crowd by the time we reached. And rows and rows of books, in both French and English. My French unfortunately being poor, I walked over to the English section. Books were arranged on tables sideways, so it made it easy to read the title and the author’s name. They had books from the old masters as well as the latest bestsellers. Hence I indulged myself in the process of choosing what I thought were good books for me to read. I put the books written by authors I liked into empty cardboard boxes placed underneath the tables. Books written by authors whose names I hadn’t even heard of I had to check first to see if their story was to my liking.

After only a short time I noticed that people were, like me, scanning the jackets and only afterwards either returning the book back to the table or placing it in their boxes. It dawned on me there and then that people only chose what books to read based on the stories.

Yesterday I set out on the same trip again. And once more I went with my daughter to the sale. The book sale was held at the exact same location as last year, but unlike last year the trip was a sad one to undertake. Since we went there without my husband. Throughout the drive I remembered all the things we had done and all the things we had said on our way in the car. And yesterday when I parked the car in front of the arena my daughter said, “This is exactly where dad parked the car last year mom.”

As I entered the place a terrible sense of loss overcame me. See, my husband was passionate about books in the same way I am. He never missed a book sale. And no matter where we were, whether in Lebanon, Dubai, Rome, Venice, Paris, Hong Kong, Australia, New York, Memphis, Los Angeles, or Montreal, we never missed going to bookstores and book sales. And at book sales, we each took a basket and filled it with whatever books we liked. My kids used to joke and say, “How come dad always ends up with the best books in his basket?”

And on days like yesterday I miss him more than ever. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote:

“Death is but a transition from this life to another existence where there is no more pain or anguish.”

That knowledge helps me. To know that he is no longer in pain and is not suffering. Yesterday while browsing through the books I felt him beside me. I heard his voice in my ears. It was as if he was pointing out to me the books that he knew I would love to have and read, since yesterday was the only time that I put the books in my basket without reading the jackets to find out more about the stories. And when we came home and my daughter went through them, she said, “Mom, you got some nice books here.”

I said, “I know,” and I smiled. The same way I know that the only thing that really lasts forever is love. I will miss so much the love I had, the life I had with him. I will always love him and forever miss him. But I also believe that he is with me, laughing with me and smiling at me as I hear him say, “It’s okay, I’m here.”

ChK