Waiting for Something and Not Writing About It

Over the past two months I have sketched out many blog posts.  I have put down some notes about things I'd like to write.  I've even started writing what I thought would be one post, but later decided I needed to divide into about four different posts.  That one was really convoluted and complicated (I know, that's my style sometimes).  I thought of many things while driving to Texas and back at the end of October and beginning of November.  I have done a good bit of thinking about the current public outcry about the treatment of blacks by police and society, and wondered how much I should say and how much I should listen.  And I've been busy with teaching, reading papers, grading, and completing reports at work.

But I have come to see this week that one big barrier to writing here on this blog has been a kind of fearfulness about what is happening in my life.  It started to hit me when I read one of Denise Levertov's poems over a month ago.  So I've decided this is where I need to start.

The poem that I keep coming back to is called "Terror."

Face down; odor
of dusty carpet.  The grip
of anguished stillness.

Then your naked voice, your
head knocking the wall, sideways,
the beating of trapped thoughts against iron.

If I remember, how is it
my face shows
barely a line?  Am I
a monster, to sing
in the wind on this sunny hill

and not taste the dust always,
and not hear
that rending, that retching?
How did morning come, and the days
that followed, and quiet nights?

I bought the book of poems, having read lines from her in a post from The Plough, the publishing ministry of the Bruderhof communities.   Specifically, it was The Daily Dig, a daily email with a reflective quotation and a simple bit of photographic art that comes to me each day.  I looked for further information on the poet, and found that she had written poems about her own process of grief, so I rounded up copies of some of her books from used booksellers.  I've just finished reading the first one, which has the title of one of the poems about which I have posted before, With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads.  The poetic imagination and profound grief work have not disappointed.

About halfway through the book, I came to this poem.  The title put me off, and at first I could not see the link between the title and the poem.  But as the words rested on me for a while, I started to recognize that potential for terror.  The crux is in the first sentence of the third stanza:  "If I remember, how is it my face shows barely a line?"

The poem flows from an experience of utter desolation, face down in a carpet, engulfed in anguish.  The particularities of what is heard, what is smelled and tasted, the reaction of feeling the rending and retching, are not very specific.  But they portray the totality of the pain that the narrator has in memory.  It's not so far away.  The sensory remainder is conjurable.

But it is also not immediate.  The poem ends describing morning and the passing of days and quiet nights.  It expresses shock or dismay at singing out in the wide world.  And thus the "terror" at stake is the narrator's wondering if her ability to live on after such wrenching grief means that she has lost her humanity.  "Am I a monster?"  That is the terrorizing question.  It is stated in the extreme.  Maybe others might find ourselves asking more urbane questions such as, "Have I gotten off track?", or the common adolescent query, "Is something wrong with me?"  Still the heart of the question is the same.

The poet understands that going through something so terrible tears one apart, and the intense grief and pain are the human responses to the loss, the injury.  And so much of what I have written in the past two years has been in the midst of that intense pain.  I've reached out for solace, for understanding, for companions, for salve.  I've dug deep into the history of living a life with Everly.  I've marveled at her complex and expansive goodness.  I've imbibed the faith and faithfulness of my formation as a follower of Jesus, a child of God, a participant in the life of the Spirit.  And the smell of those hard days stayed ever present in my nostrils, the sounds, the images ever in mind.

I turned to everyone who would lend an ear and a kind word, trying to think of how I could go on.  I made pilgrimage to places where Everly and I had gone, to people whom Everly and I had known together.  I thought about what she and I had cared for and how we hoped to live our lives in the world.  I remembered the ways it had gone right and the ways it had not.  I sought to care for our children as she would do, always knowing I could offer my best, and at the same time never be what she was for them.  And I tried to discern what my life should be on the path that continues forward from her death and her absence.

As you know, I concluded that I should continue to teach at Shaw where I have now completed twenty-one years.  To do so, I determined it would be best to relocate back to North Carolina.  Because so much of our lives and view of the world have been shaped by Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church, I bought a house just down the road from there.  In August, I moved to Durham and started setting up household, with the added blessing of having Naomi with me while she is attending graduate school down the road.  And having gotten back to being in town and on campus every week, rather than just a few weeks each semester as during the Texas sojourn, I started trying to become a more complete member of the faculty and participant in the work of the Divinity School.

Those efforts met with many successes, and some struggles.  I began to see emerging some of the characteristics that I remembered in myself from earlier days, and I believe they are also characteristics that Everly admired in me.  My life was taking new shape, and I was finding myself investing in my work and academic life in ways that I have not for many years.  A number of close friends and colleagues invested the time in me to engage my thinking and encourage my efforts, awakening a confidence I did not remember feeling for some time.

And thus, I arrived by increments to the place and time Levertov's poem describes.  Everly is on my mind daily.  I speak of her whenever I get an opportunity.  I have pictures of her in all the places I go.  But no longer does each day bring wrenching sobs.  I don't mean they never happen, but they are not so frequent as they were.  I am more likely to think and speak of her in pleasant memory and timely insight, without it always shifting into sharp pangs of grief.  So when this poem sank in, I thought to myself that I was somewhere along a path of change that put me in the midst of one of the grief tropes--that of the person who is noticing the change of intensity or even wondering if he "will forget her face" as the time passes.

I tend to resist almost any sort of classification system for human personality and behavior, including the so-called "stages of grief."  Yet there is little denying that over time the human mind and emotions can find a path of adaptation to the new circumstances of loss.  As I have mentioned before, fellow widower David Forbes calls it "renorming."  I'm adapting to the new normal.  And the new normal now includes my trying to make something of my life without Everly walking with me.  I've written this many times now, yet it can be a troubling thought.  Am I being unfaithful to her love and her importance if I am no longer so intensively feeling the pain?  This is the question the poem asks so harshly, "Am I a monster?"  It is the question asked in the Psalm of terror, "How can we sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land?"

And so the poet faces the very same dilemma.  How can I sing?  And I think even further, how can I sing out in the world where people can see me?  I remember many times in the past year, and it still happens, when I seek to sing in church or I play music that I love, tears begin to flow and the words get choked up in my throat.  But sometimes I can sing.  And I might even feel like cutting loose a tune in front of people now and then.  Yet it contradicts a way of being that had become my standard.  It had become my characteristic way for some time to be the grieving widower, the pitiful, sad man.  Somewhere along the way, I have become less comfortable in those clothes.  I notice myself carrying on work and participating in groups without bringing all things back to my loss of Everly.  I wonder how this is possible, knowing how rough it has been during this season of life.  I find myself telling people, as I get to know them, about Everly's death without getting choked up.  I wonder if that makes me seem cold, even though my inward gaze still sees the time of weeping as present.

Once in a while, not every day and not even every week, I may find myself overwhelmed.  It may be at home, in the office, on a drive, or just about anywhere.  I've borrowed a term from Kate Campbell for those times:  "fade to blue."  It's from one of her songs, and it describes well the sort of drift into a sorrowful place that seems to have to happen now and then.  But those times have become rarer, if not less intense when they do come.

So this week I realized that my frustration over not having written for this blog in so long had somewhat to do with this poem.  Upon first reading it, I thought that it would make an excellent jumping off point for describing part of my journey of grief.  But perhaps subconsciously that nagging question was pressing in the other direction.  I was not sure I wanted to put a public face on how things have changed.  Is something wrong, that I don't feel the same pain the same way?  I don't believe that to be true.  It is not wrong.  It is next.  It is different.  It is walking another step.  It is living.

The change came from a whole lot of intentional work, of striving to keep on living, of discerning the particulars of a life I hope will be well lived.  Yet with all the effort, it also "snuck up" on me, as we say in these parts.  It came as something waited for without waiting.  It makes sense, but it was not itself the goal.  The goal was to live an honorable life that holds on to all that I have received from knowing Everly.  One outcome was to begin to find meaning and purpose in that life that offers its own rewards, even without her to share it.  I don't call it moving on.  Thank you to bob and mj patterson-watt for teaching me that we don't "move on."  That implies leaving Everly behind to go do something else.  So all of you friends of those who are grieving, there is another cliché to drop from your vocabulary.

If it's not moving on, and it's not monstrous, what is it?  You won't surprised if I say that it is a form of grace.  It is grace to live on in the face of unbearable loss.  It is the superabundant possibility of the grace in which we stand, wherein waiting (suffering) produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.  It is an unexpected life, partly undesired, yet bursting with grandeur, with "the dearest freshness deep down things."  Therefore, it may be moving, but without the connotation of being finished with something past.  It is a continuation of walking with a changed presence of my beloved.  And as I let myself think of what might come of the life we have thus far shared, I'll agree with the Indigo Girls, "When you're learning to face the path at your pace, every choice is worth your while." 

Out of this comes my Advent meditation.  Waiting for the little child who will lead--God the baby entering our world, and now each year waiting again.  In this season, I wait to see what this new life will be.  I wait to write, partly because I fear what it might mean.  Yet as Everly would assure me, I don't need to fear.  Her message, like that of the angel on that blessed night, "Don't be afraid, for there is good news of great joy."  Don't postpone it.

Our Anniversary, a Day to Remember That There Is Good in the World

A year ago I sat at a dinner table with Everly, David, Naomi, and Lydia.  There was a bouquet of flowers from the children to honor the occasion.  Everly and I were sharing our 33rd wedding anniversary.  We had been busy all day at the beach and looking around in Cozumel.  Back on the ship for dinner, we were having a good time and happy to be together.  I toasted the evening and said to all our Broadways gathered that night, "It's been thirty-three great years, and we will do this again thirty-three years from now for our 66th anniversary."

It was a joyful time, even though Everly was struggling with back pain and other cancer pain.  We were together with our three children for this vacation on the cruise ship, just the way Everly liked--there was no planning of meals or preparing and cleaning them up, no driving or finding hotels.  We just moved in for the week, slept when we wanted, ate the food, toured as desired, and relaxed.

Through her long illness, I tended to hang on to any optimism that I could.  I kept up my hopes, and on our anniversary I focused on the possibilities for managing cancer and living a long time.  In fewer than two months, she would die.  But at that point, I was pushing the idea of having 33 more years together.  As it turns out, we are stuck with only 33.  The rest of the years are what might have been.

So today, I am looking back across many anniversaries.  Because the recent history of dealing with cancer still looms so large, memories of many of those days do not seem so clear.  For our 20th anniversary, we took our first cruise.  It was on a small cruise ship and lasted four days.  Everly and I relaxed together and did some touring to ancient Mayan ruins in the Yucatan.  On our 13th anniversary, I passed my dissertation defense to complete my doctoral studies.  When I got home to bask in that moment, I received a call offering me my first job as a professor, a one-semester sabbatical replacement at Elon College, just down the road a ways from Durham.  That was a day to remember. 

On our second anniversary, in California, we took a weekend trip to Carmel-by-the-Sea, where we stayed in a bed and breakfast and enjoyed the beauty of the village.  Our first anniversary was a day spent at Pier 39 in San Francisco, discovering a little kiosk called "Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chippery," which was getting ready to expand to be a huge national chain.

That first anniversary was, of course, one year after two very young people, practically still kids, had mustered up the courage to make commitments to one another to "let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor."  We promised to share our whole selves and whatever possessions we might have or acquire.  We gazed into one another's eyes, surrounded by an unfaithful world where people seldom keep their commitments, and promised unending faithfulness to one another and to the God we both serve.  We received the encouragement and embrace of God's people, the church, to help us live up to these commitments we made to one another.  And we never looked back.

On that day, the potentiality of a loving, caring home began to take shape.  It was six years later, back in Texas, that our love for one another and for God was enlarged to include a tiny baby boy.  That treasure came just days before our anniversary.  Then every three years another child arrived, fairly close to our anniversary day, until we had received the blessing of the three beautiful children who have now grown into their own adulthood.  That wonderful uniting of two lives to make a home has borne fruit in these beautiful people--David, Naomi, and Lydia.  Were Everly and I not able to accomplish any other good things, we could be satisfied to see so much goodness come into the world as these three people bring every day.

I faced this day with some trepidation.  A day for good memories is now also a day to be reminded of the depth of my loss.  The anniversary date returns, but the life together is no longer what it was.  I got some good advice to seek out some friends who would be understanding of how this day matters and affects me, and ask them to spend part of the day with me.  So I called one buddy to meet me for breakfast, since we were already working on getting together.  The middle of the day was teaching a class, and I could press through that responsibility without much difficulty, mixing in a reflection on Everly and this day as appropriate.  Then after class, my friends Willie and Jay hung out with me for the afternoon and evening. 

There were extra blessings of phone calls from family and friends, texts and messages of support.  What had seemed would be a very rough day turned out to flow along smoothly.  My boat was buoyed by the love and support of others.  I didn't sink.  I kept on sailing through.  There were tears at times, some moments of heartache, some times of feeling deep love, and all the kinds of emotions that one might expect.  But no great wave of sadness swept over me.  There was sadness, but not despair.  I made it through the hardest "first" yet. 

This will be, I think, a difficult two months.  From this time last year and on through July, the news was never quite good news.  There was still hope that a new treatment regime might put us back on a track toward shrinking the tumors.  There was encouragement that radiation could make the increased back pain go away.  There were possibilities that continued to keep me as busy as necessary to facilitate Everly's seeing the doctors and going to the clinics where we hoped to find help.  But finally in early July, the possibilities began to disappear, and eventually only one likely outcome remained.  The shift from medical intervention to hospice care came suddenly, and she only lived a week beyond that change.  So the milestones coming back around at this time of year are not necessarily the ones I would wish to be remembering.  Even so, I need to live through them reflectively and receptively with eyes and ears for what I need to understand about those whirlwind days of 2013.

I know that the conventional wisdom says to try to remember the joyful happy times and not only the sad and painful times.  I get that.  I don't really need people to be reminding me of it.  I have not forgotten the beautiful, pleasant, joyful, contented times of living with Everly.  But I also cannot deny the pain of those days when hope for recovery turned to hope for relief and ultimately to hope for release from all her suffering.  Hope never died, but we had to learn to hope in new ways.  Just like I wrote about her dad, she had fought the good fight.  She had run the race and finished the course.  She could now receive the crown of righteousness that her virtuous life had earned, that Jesus had provided by grace. 

So I can remember all these things.  But especially this first year, I also must remember and reflect on the days which were passing so rapidly, so filled with frustration and questions, too dense for full understanding while we were in the midst of them.  Days that for me might have seemed full of anticipation for a turn toward the better were the very days in which she was not getting better.  She had some sense that her end was coming, even though she was determined not to give up.  I was less aware, or less ready to see the signs.  She was weakening fast, and I was still grasping at potential remedies.  All too soon, her struggle became too great to bear.  Remembering this is also a good thing.  It is an honoring of her whole life.  I'll not deny the strength and courage she showed as the disease slowly took away her capacities to live with the vigor she had always known.  They were days of struggle, days of loving, days of intimate conversations, days of grace upon grace.

How many people get 33 years to share a good life together?  Not nearly enough, if that life can have the kinds of joys that Everly and I were able to share.  So this date on the calendar, May 24, will remain a day to mark what is good in the world.  A young singer, Marc Scibilia, penned some lyrics that touched me deeply when I first heard them about a year ago, just before our cruise.  Is it a great song?  Maybe not, but it does speak a clear truth about how one ought to face the vicissitudes of existence.  Find the good, and hold onto it with all you've got.

It takes a lot of time.
There's so much you've got to leave behind.
But hold it like a treasure if you can find
Something good in this world,
Something good in this world.

There's so much hard earth to dig
In these days of curse that we live.
I'm absolutely sure that in the midst,
There's something good in this world.
There's something good in this world.

And life will try to take
Your innocence and your grace.
But no matter what comes to your door,
You've got to keep looking
For something good in this world.

As long as a memory of Everly remains in me, I will never doubt that there is something good in this world.  She is the treasure to which I hold, the one I found to be the good worth living for and even giving myself up for.  I'll let nothing take that from me.  Today is a good day, a reminder that there's something good in this world, and I have known her.