Seven Months: Dreams

I have been silent on this blog for a couple of months now. The shock of my father’s brush with death seemed to leave me incapable of writing about my other sorrows. Then I was hurled into a new job which demanded much mental and emotional energy in July.

But that does not mean that, all of a sudden, grief over the loss of K.B. dissipated. There were the dreams, for instance, dreams in which K.B. never spoke. One night I had a powerfully realistic dream of being present in a room where K.B. and Chris were talking normally. I was astonished that she was alive. I went up and grasped her arm to see if she was really flesh and blood. It was so, and I spoke to her joyously and excitedly, exclaiming, “K.B.! You’re alive!” She smiled, but there was no conversation, and there the dream ended.

Around that time I talked with an elderly lady of my acquaintance about dreams of the dead. She said that she had heard somewhere that everyone has one lucid dream of each deceased loved one in which that person talks to them. She told me that she had such dreams of her parents and of her brother, and in both cases they spoke words of consolation to her. What they said was very meaningful and helpful to her, and she had no more lucid dreams of them.

I was intrigued by what she told me, but envious, too. I do not share her belief that we are all granted one last opportunity, even while asleep, to actually communicate with those we love who have passed away, but I could see the comfort that belief brought her, and I wished more than anything that in one of my dreams of K.B., she would speak to me.

For me, I would take any such conversation as something my subconscious was producing, drawing on memories of all the times we reveled in the opportunity to share thoughts, feelings, and cooking tips. I would not see it as a kind of communication from the realm of the deceased, as my elderly friend would, but rather as…as what? A pleasant illusion, akin to the replaying of a scene from a much-loved movie? Or the chance to feel, even for a short while, as if the unthinkable had not happened and life was as it was seven months and one day ago?

I can only think that the uncharacteristically silent K.B. of my dreams represents my deep sadness at the suddenness and finality of her death. I had no opportunity to say goodbye, to tell her how much her friendship meant to me, and I will never, in this life, hear the lilt of her cheerful voice again. Unless I dream it, and that seems to elude me.

The Third Chance

A week ago my father nearly died. In the middle of the night he had a severe diabetic low. By the time the paramedics got here, he had slipped into unconsciousness. He was as close to death as I have ever seen someone.

But the IV glucose infusion given to him by the paramedics did the trick, and ultimately he regained consciousness. Six days in the hospital stabilized his counts and enabled him to return home in as good a condition as one could expect of a man who is 80 and has multiple health issues.

This is his third chance at life (or maybe fourth, as he had a serious fall from a cliff as a child). Almost twelve years ago he had a heart attack and then quadruple bypass surgery. Since then, rigorous monitoring of his health, an exercise program of daily power walks, and a diet of low-fat, low-salt food prepared by my mother have helped him beat the odds.

A week ago in the middle of the night, as I was desperately trying to feel for his pulse and not finding it—although I suppose it must have been there, faintly, as he was still breathing—I thought, “This could well be it. This could be when my father dies.” I began to think of when the funeral might be, how long it would take my siblings and B. to get here. I considered how my mother’s reality would change and whether she could live in this house alone.

But in about half an hour, he had moved far enough back from the line separating life and death to be able to speak. And within a few hours of being in the ER at the nearest hospital, he was able to give me instructions about an e-mail that needed to go to a friend.

He had dodged the bullet. He had a third chance at life.

Why some people get third or fourth or fifth chances and others don’t even get a second, is of course an imponderable. One can say it is simply down to luck: he was fortunate enough to share a bed with my mother, who noticed something was wrong. If he had lived alone, he would be dead now. On the other hand, those who believe that God has a plan for each one of us would say that this was clearly not yet my father’s time.

I don’t know what I think on this score. I recoil from the idea that a loving God would have “planned” that K.B. be taken from us at such a young age and at such a time in her life. And yet it was to God in the dark hours of last Friday that I prayed for my father.

I didn’t know what exactly to pray. To ask for more years of life for him, especially since he had already survived longer than anyone might have expected twelve years ago, seemed almost greedy.

So I merely prayed, “God, help him.”

Forty Years...and Not Even One

A year ago today it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. This seemed a particular gift, given the record-setting amount of snow we had gotten in the winter of 2012-2013, snow which had not completely disappeared by the beginning of May. And then it started to rain. The days leading up to May 25^th, 2013, were grey and rainy in our city. It seemed too much to hope for that K.B. and Chris would be blessed with a perfect spring day on which to be married, and yet, it was so.

B. and I drove down to the church hall where we had had our own wedding reception not three years previously. We parked there and then got out to stroll in the sunshine to another church, quite near, in which the wedding was to take place.

I have mentioned before the huge smile illuminating K.B.’s face as she walked down the aisle and as she and Chris exchanged vows. I have never before seen a bride who was so much the embodiment of pure joy. She had been through so much in her life: losing her brother and mother at heart-breakingly young ages, experiencing the breakdown of her first marriage, raising two small children to young adulthood on limited resources. But as Chris said at her funeral, her orientation towards happiness helped her cope with life’s challenges. When she and Chris married a year ago today, all those who loved K.B. felt that yes, now things were turning out right: she had finally met the man who was able to truly appreciate her, and with whom she was able to create a love that would enrich not just their own lives, but the lives of their new blended family and of their large circle of friends, too.

Those of us in the church that day beamed with her, too, knowing that they would be embarking on an exciting journey together, one in which they would delight in the achievements of their children, wait on tenterhooks for the news of the births of grandchildren, walk on beaches around the world, and support each other in new endeavours, such as K.B.’s desire to become a published author. And then January 9^th, 2014, happened…

A strange coincidence for B. and me is that today is also the 40^th anniversary of his uncle and aunt. All weekend there has been a family reunion to celebrate this milestone, and today there was a combination church blessing of the long-married couple and baptism of their youngest grandchild. At the community centre where we dined and danced last night and then gathered again today to have lunch, there was a photo album with pictures of the shower and of every moment of the wedding itself. B.’s uncle wore the outfit he was wearing as a groom 40 years ago, and B.’s sister wore her bridesmaid’s dress.

As I looked around today at the huge number of people gathered to mark this important anniversary, I reflected on the ties that are created when two people exchange vows. From the commitment of the aunt and uncle in 1974, their family grew from two people in a couple to 24 people, including children, grandchildren, step-grandchildren, as well as the spouses and partners of their children. On the back of the church bulletin was the text of one of the hymns we sang, and one of the lines was “May through their union other lives be blest.” And that made me think of K.B. and Chris.

They may not have had a full year of married life together, but in the months they had, they acted as models for how to open one’s heart fully, with joy and generosity, to another person. They also established new connections between the members of their own families and between their new family unit and their friends. Of course it is tremendously difficult not to be mired in grief at the loss of the life we all hoped and expected they would live together. But the life they did live together has left a legacy: those vows they made, and the love they shared, will echo down the generations.

Through their union, our lives were, and will ever be, blessed.

The Joy of Tea

Fairly regularly I find myself using the search function of my e-mail program to read over some of the hundreds of e-mails K.B. and I exchanged. This makes me feel as if her voice is still with me, and I do miss both her writing voice and her actual voice, very much. It reminds me, too, of the delight we took in sharing silly, bizarre, intriguing, or baffling tales of human behaviour, including our own. And then there are the many, many e-mails in which either she or I asked, “Are you free for tea soon?”

For most of my adult life I had been an inveterate coffee drinker. I looked down at tea drinkers for their choice of beverage, which I saw as a thin, insubstantial sort of drink. It was as if they couldn’t handle a true caffeine kick and so settled for something less demanding.

My coffee snobbery suffered a body blow around the same time that K.B. and I started becoming close friends. I’d like to think that this was because her influence was leading me to become more enlightened, but it had more to do with the fact that I was starting to have heart palpitations. Various tests showed that nothing was wrong. The cardiologist asked me if I drank coffee, which I admitted I did (although only ever one or two cups a day!). He suggested that I might be getting more sensitive to the caffeine in coffee, something that happens to some people as they age. Another one of the joys of getting older!

So I started having a half-decaf/half-regular cup of coffee in the morning. That still bothered me, so I switched to all-decaf (the horror! I had previously ranked decaf drinkers even lower than tea-drinkers). Finally it became apparent that coffee drinking could only ever be an occasional part of my life, and I grieved the loss of what I had thought had been a core part of my identity. I’m not keen on labels, but coffee-drinker had been one I’d proudly worn.

Oddly, however, the caffeine in green, black, and white tea did not seem to bother me. It seemed fortuitous that just as I was starting my tentative steps into tea appreciation that K.B. and I started spending more time together. K.B. was an aficionado of tea: she had an impressive collection of teapots (eight in her office alone), and she was particularly interested in single-estate teas. One time when I was back in St. John’s and in a new tea store there I texted her to see if there was anything she wanted, but since they didn’t have any single-estate teas, the answer was no. She was particularly fond of a tea from an estate called Needwood, which her teenage daughter thought was infinitely hilarious.

In 2009, a married couple—who were actually the parents of one of K.B.’s daughter’s schoolmates—opened up a combination tea shop and imported British foods store. As soon as K.B. found out about this place, it became a regular stop for us on our Saturday outings. Not only did the tea shop serve tea in proper china teacups and teapots with silver strainers, but they made all their own baked goods, too. While I tried a different dessert each time, K.B. was always faithful to their teacake, which she deemed perfect.

So this time a year ago, when K.B.’s future sister-in-law, J., and I were hosting her wedding shower, it made sense that the theme would be afternoon tea. K.B.’s female friends and soon-to-be in-laws gathered at my house where we sipped tea from my collection of old teacups and nibbled dainty treats. The place was decorated with teacups filled with rose buds, arranged by J.

The last time K.B. and I saw each other on a social occasion (as opposed to the last time I saw her, when she dropped off the jar of lemon curd before Christmas) was on November 30^th, 2013. She had suggested that I and another friend and her mother-in-law and sister-in-law go to the special Christmas tea at the tea shop.

I knew it would be an insanely busy day for me, as there was a work-related event just before we were to meet. As I was madly peeling down the streets of our fair city, trying to get from one end of town to the other in an expeditious manner so as not to keep everyone waiting, I thought for a moment, “This is too much! I should have said I wouldn’t be able to meet them!”

But once I was there, it was, of course, just a delightful occasion. K.B. had urged us to wear hats, but only she was wearing one. At one point her sister-in-law took a photo of K.B. and I with our friend Y. That is the last photo of us together, and I treasure it. It makes sense that it would have been taken in a place we visited so often, engaged in the ritual of tea drinking which had not been part of my life before K.B. had entered it.

I have not been back to the tea shop since she died. It’s one of those things which still feels too hard. But last Saturday I had three friends over who had been here for K.B.’s shower a year ago, and together we drank tea and ate dainties in her honour.

A Recipe from K.B.: Hudson Baked Beans

I feel that this blog has not been living up to its promise of providing occasional culinary digressions. So today I will provide a recipe created by K.B.

K.B. was always on a quest of some sort related to food. Whether it was attempting to find a rare ingredient in an obscure recipe, or whether it was trying to find the best possible way to create a particular dish, she was intrepid. In late 2011 she blogged about her mission to create baked beans just like those from a can:

“I’ve read about people who obsess over things. I’ve met them. I’m one of them. Now, I’m not talking obsessive compulsive disorder. I mean obsessing about getting something just right, down to the smallest detail. Even if you’re only doing it because…then you can say you did it. 

People who make miniature models, for instance. Or recreate historic clothing, dying wool they spun themselves, weaving it or knitting it into something using only tools that someone would have had access to in whatever era they are imitating. 

I tend to spend large amounts of time trying to get certain eatables just right. Baked beans kept me busy for years. I happen to like – but due to allergies can’t eat – tinned beans. It took me ages, but I can now make home made baked beans taste like Libby’s canned beans. Backwards, I know. It would be better to spend time (assuming I worked at Campbells or something) making tinned food taste home made. But there you have it. Three years, obsessing over beans.”

I was fascinated by this particular quest (which went so far that K.B. once brought a slow cooker filled with the beans into work). I weirdly love the taste of plain canned beans in tomato sauce, too (no pork for me, as I’m vegetarian). To me they summon up memories of one of my comfort meals as a child, canned beans on toast made from white bread.

When I read that K.B. felt she had created a recipe that duplicated this taste, I asked her for the recipe. Here is a vegetarianized version of it; I assume that the original version contained a half-pound of salt pork rather than the veggie bacon.

“Hudson Baked Beans*

2 cups navy beans

8 cups cold water (I use bottled, but only in Saskatchewan because of its hard water)

1 tsp salt

1 cup diced onions

½ pound veggie bacon, fried up

½ cup brown sugar (I’ve used light and dark. This recipe was light.)

1-3 tsps Keen’s Mustard Powder (Yup, always Keen’s.)

¼ tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tin tomato paste

½ to ¾ cup molasses, table or blackstrap (If I use 3 tsps of the mustard, I use the full ¾ cup of molasses)

2 glugs of ketchup

Method

Soak beans in cold water, overnight or at least six hours. Add tsp of salt and bring to a boil. Simmer gently 1-2 hours. At the 1.5 hour mark, get some beans in a spoon and blow on them. If the skins split, they’re ready. If they don’t, or only a few do, keep simmering.

Drain the beans but KEEP the water.

Mix 2 cups of the water with all the ingredients listed after the veggie bacon. (Keep any liquid over the two cups, you might need it later.)

Put half of the beans in a bean pot. Sprinkle the onions on top. Put the veggie bacon on the onions, then cover with remaining beans. Pour the liquid over everything. Bake in a 250F oven for 6-7 hours. At the three-hour mark, take the pot out and stir everything together. If they seem a little too saucy, add some of the remaining bean liquid, or water if you only had two cups of the bean water. Sometimes I take taste test at the six-hour mark.”

*Named after K.B.’s hometown of Hudson, Quebec.

Laughing and Crying

Last weekend B. and I went with Chris and a couple of other friends of K.B.’s to a burlesque show at a local theatre. K.B. loved dancing of all varieties: Scottish country dancing, belly dancing, ballroom dancing, and, most recently, burlesque. She had started taking classes about a year and a half before she passed away.

She had had the chance to perform in several shows during her time with the troupe. For some reason I hadn’t managed to catch any of these (I know one she had to bow out of at the last minute because of a migraine). The only time I did see her dance in this style was at her wedding reception, when she and the rest of the women from the group showed off some of their moves. I joined them on the dance floor at one point and they urged me to “shake what my momma gave me.” It was so much fun. I asked K.B. about learning burlesque, too; in the fall we were trying to arrange private lessons for the two of us plus two more friends, but the timing didn’t work out. We were hoping to make another attempt to set up lessons for the four of us this winter.

So this was my first opportunity to see the women who danced with K.B. in costume doing their full routines. They were wonderful: funny, sexy in a coy, teasing way, and clearly enjoying themselves immensely. There were women ranging in age from their 20s to (probably) their early 60s and in body type from the very thin to the heavy-set. I envied them their self-confidence, their ability to revel in the beauty of their bodies. The audience could not have been more supportive: they hooted and cheered and at the end gave the performers a standing ovation.

I was so glad we were there so that I could see the full glory of a burlesque performance. I laughed so much; many of the women were talented comedians. But it was painful to be there, too, and not just because they paid tribute to K.B. in words, pictures, and dance. It was also because I felt that by watching the women of K.B.’s troupe perform in a way that K.B. loved, that I was learning about an aspect of her life which I had only partially understood previously. The joie de vivre, the sense of humour, the delight in one’s own womanliness: it was as if the spirit of K.B. was with us.

One would think that I would simply be able to enjoy that feeling, but no: it brought back the agony of missing her. Interspersed with the times when I was laughing with the dancers and admiring them were the moments when I felt that I was going to burst into tears again. I so wanted K.B. to stride on stage with that huge smile on her face, shaking what her momma gave her.

I kept it together until we got home and went to bed. And then I cried and cried.

Three Months

April 9th

Three months since she went to the hospital that day. It was in the depths of winter; now melting is finally starting to take place, the scent of damp earth is in the air, and the cats are warming themselves in the sunbeams streaming in through the French doors. The season in which she died is itself passing away.

Three months: should it not be time for the rawness of the pain to have eased? Some days it feels that way; other days, not. Yesterday and today have been days when it has been as difficult as ever. Last night I had a long conversation with one of my dear friends whom I have known since childhood; we had been in touch through social media since K.B. died, but had not actually spoken. 

Just “catching up” and explaining to her what the last three months have been like for me plunged me back into that aching despair. The tears kept flowing for an hour, to the point that it was almost difficult to talk. Even after the tears abated, my head pounded and my eyes ached from the physical effort of crying.

As emotionally and physically difficult as it was, though, talking to this friend was therapeutic. She has been through tragedy in her life, too, and she was able to share her experiences of grief in a way that made sense to me. She confirmed that all the first milestone dates are hell, so having a virtual breakdown on my birthday was perfectly normal. Her ability to empathize, and her tender concern, warmed my heart for an hour when my face was slick with tears.

The sadness led to another difficult night and a strange morning. It was announced today at my workplace that I was to receive a new position with more responsibility. Congratulations poured in. I was humbled to know that my colleagues respected me enough to be pleased at this development. I informed friends and family of the news, and they responded with even more kind words. But in the moments in between the kind e-mails and social media comments and office visits and phone calls, when there was time for quietness, thoughts of K.B. and what happened three months ago reasserted themselves.

By Any Measure

Recently I had lunch with a friend and the conversation turned to K.B.’s death. This friend had only met K.B. once, briefly, so what she knows of her comes from me. Because we have known each other quite a long time, she was able to detect that K.B.’s death is something with which I am still struggling. We ended up talking for quite a long time about what it means to lose a very close friend and what kind of an impact that has on one’s life.

I mentioned that K.B. was such a good person; she was remarkable for her ability to concentrate on the positive, no matter how dire the situation seemed. She was tremendously openhearted, embracing in friendship people with all sorts of interests and temperaments, of all ages and backgrounds. The "Instant Karma" story from her own blog showed how her first (and second, and third…) impulse was always towards kindness, no matter how unkind someone might be towards her. I feel so lucky to have been the beneficiary of that loving kindness more times than I can tell.

The friend to whom I was telling all this responded by saying that K.B. would have seen those qualities in me, that I had that same sort of goodness in me and that was likely a reason why K.B. and I bonded. I instantly, firmly had to correct her.

This is not false modesty. I know, through rigorous self-examination, that K.B. was a better person than me. I can only hope to aspire to be the cheerful, generous, thoughtful person she was, a person who always gave people the benefit of the doubt and wondered how their circumstances might motivate bad behaviour. At the time of the events described in the “Instant Karma” story, my take on the woman who insulted K.B. and swore at her was, “This woman is off her meds.” If I had been the recipient of her abuse, I doubt I would have been able to restrain myself from responding with a few choice words of my own. I certainly wouldn’t have gone back to offer her assistance a second time. I likely would have written her off.

By any measure, K.B. was good in a way that I am still working towards, and on many days feel very far from attaining. There were numerous occasions before she died when I said to B., “If only I had an ounce of the goodness K.B. has, I would be doing very well.”

I don’t mean to say that K.B. was a saint. No, there were people she disliked, and there were a couple of occasions when I thought her assessment of someone was not accurate. But did I ever see her be mean-spirited, or harsh, or sullen, or resentful? Never. As someone who struggles daily with tendencies towards being irritable, judgmental, and impatient, I am aware that I am lucky to have had her in my life to serve as a model for how to treat people, whoever they might be.

K.B. in Her Own Words: Instant Karma

This time of year when the roads of our fair city are covered with deep ruts of compacted ice and snow, drivers frequently find that their cars get stuck. Most folks passing by do the right thing and stop to help by giving a push. K.B. was famous for always giving a hand.

One day, however, she encountered a stuck driver who most definitely did NOT want her help. The story is best told in her own words, as she posted it on her own blog three years ago. I was the friend who appears in the story, and I can testify to its accuracy!

Instant Karma

"The title was suggested to me by a friend who was there for the whole of the story I’m about to tell you. I’m glad she was there for the weirdness. Why? Because sometimes I watch people shake their heads in disbelief as I answer truthfully when they ask something like “anything interesting happen today?”

When something that is odd for most people but seems par for the course for me happens it’s nice to have a witness. Or, as in this case, witnesses. I don’t think you can count the swearing person as a witness to her own craziness. And no doubt, in her mind she was the one encountering a crazy person. Certainly in this case that’s what the woman thought. So, on with the story!

The Girl and I were going to a tea with a friend on Saturday. The original plan was to meet there. En route to picking up The Girl, the friend that we were meeting called. She was stuck – or rather her car was – could we go to her place and help her get unstuck? Of course we could! Not only was she a friend, but this is Saskatchewan. There is an unwritten code here; you see someone stuck, you help get them unstuck. And not just because one day you too will be stuck in snow and require help. It’s just the done thing is all.

So I got The Girl and on we went. When we got to the alley behind my friend’s house, her car was just by her garage, well and truly stuck in the snow. The large expanses of snow-covered ice weren't helping the situation, but the main problem was definitely the snow bank the right front tire was buried in.

We tried pushing but it was clear that it needed shoveling and/or something to provide more traction on the ice. Stopping to decide what to do I noticed there was another car stuck further up the alley. So when our friend went to get a shovel, The Girl and I walked over and offered to help. And the woman who was stuck said “no thanks, ugly, I’ve got it covered”. And she stalked off. And I stood there trying to figure out what she’d said. Because it sure sounded like she’d just called us (or at least me) ugly. But that didn’t make sense. I don’t mean because I’m a beauty, I mean just as a reply to an offer of help it didn’t really make sense. Like someone asking you what you want for supper and saying “football game on the weekend”. The two just don’t go together. In the end, though, we just walked back to the car and she walked back to her house (she was stuck several houses away from her house).

She went into her house, slammed the door and in the clear cold air of winter we could hear her as she shouted “F***!!!!”. No mistaking THAT word, even muffled by being yelled inside a house. Now who knows what was behind that. Maybe she had a job interview that she was going to miss because she was stuck? But…why not get help, then? The Girl and I looked at each other, both a little puzzled. But with a shrug we just turned away.

Apparently, turning away was not the done thing, because the next second her back door slammed open and she screamed “Get a F******life!!”. And I do mean screamed, people. With the intensity of someone who has been harassed for weeks by people making her life a misery.

How odd, was my first thought. I mean, I have a life. There I was on a Saturday with my daughter and a friend, off for tea and some book shopping. Sounds like a life to me! I didn’t know what her day was like, though, so best to just leave her alone. (I have a co-worker whose mother was treated horribly for no apparent reason only to find out the next week- when the customer apologized - that the abuser’s wife had just died and he was getting donuts and such for everyone who had waited through the night with him at the hospital. He was beside himself with grief and hadn't meant to be so rude to her. So now I think twice or even three times when someone is rude to me for no apparent cause. Who knows what's going on in their life at that moment?)

Between shoveling snow away from one tire and putting kitty litter under the others my friend’s car did get unstuck. And despite the rudeness, I thought perhaps we should try one more time to help the swearing woman get unstuck. So The Girl and I walked towards her, and I said “kitty litter helped get this car out, maybe it would help with yours?” She did answer, and she didn’t swear which you would think was an improvement in relations. Not exactly; her reply was “you are MENTALLY ILL, go get some HELP”. Screamed at full volume. Naturally.

My first thought was that she was telling us that she was mentally ill. And didn’t want help. But she repeated herself, so her intentions were perfectly clear. The Girl and I, for offering to help get her car unstuck, were ill. Mentally ill. Clearly, only a madwoman offers to push a car out of a snow bank. Didn’t think I needed help, but I was willing to leave and at least get some tea. And maybe she would be able to get the car out some other way. Wait for spring, perhaps?

One other thing, the best bit of all, in a way: the title. Why instant Karma? It’s because when we told my friend about the first rebuff, she said that the woman only got stuck in the first place because she was taking great pains to NOT help my friend get unstuck and out of her way. She decided it would be better to go the long way around and not help. And that’s how she ended up stuck in the snow at the other end of the alley.

I was going to call the post “but I want to know the story” because that is what kills me about stuff like this. What was this woman’s problem? Why was she so angry? Why take it out on people trying to help? I hate not knowing the rest of the tale. But I’ll live with it. And hope that whatever was making her so unhappy got better. No one deserves to be that angry and unhappy all the time."

Her Wedding Jewelry

                                      

                                  Chris and K.B. on their wedding day, May 25, 2013

A year ago, K.B. was busy with wedding preparations. One of the decisions she had to make was what sort of jewelry to wear. The necklace was easy: she had purchased one with a large moonstone, her favourite stone, at a rock and gem store on Vancouver Island some years earlier, and she’d always been looking for the right opportunity to wear it.

K.B. had liked the hair vine that I had worn at my wedding a few years previously and wondered if she could borrow it to wear on her own special day. I was delighted to be able to loan it to her. It was made by a craftsperson in Maine who had a shop on Etsy called Shellscapes. The vine consisted of a brass wire on which were strung small dried starfish decorated with crystals and glitter, freshwater pearls, more crystals, and one aquamarine. 

Being from the East Coast and having a March birthday—aquamarine is the birthstone of March—the hair vine had seemed a natural fit for me. It worked for K.B., too, as she was such a water-oriented person and Chris, knowing that, had gotten her an aquamarine engagement ring.

By March of last year she had already picked out her wedding dress, an adorable retro-style baby blue lace dress with a cotton candy pink crinoline. K.B. thought the pink belt she was planning to wear would be enhanced with a piece of vintage jewelry, perhaps a rhinestone brooch. I was able to help her out with this, too, as I inherited all my grandmother’s and aunt’s sparkly brooches from the ‘50s and ‘60s. It was such fun picking through the collection with her to find the one that was just right.

But of course, no piece of jewelry could rival the tremendous smile on her face that day last May…or her bare feet!

                         The vintage brooch and the hair vine (the aquamarine is at the far right)

Birthday Abyss

March 18th

 

I have become familiar with the concept of grief triggers, those events, memories, objects, or sensory experiences which initiate an intensification of the grieving process. What I didn’t expect was that my own birthday would trigger the episode of most profound despair over the loss of K.B. since the period right after her death.

I still don’t know why this was so. K.B. and I had not had a particular way of marking each others’ birthdays. I would not have expected to have seen her on my birthday, which B. and I have celebrated since we got married by doing things like going out for dinner or seeing a play.

But my upcoming birthday seemed to trigger a flashback to the first birthday I celebrated after B. and I started seeing one another five years ago. Perhaps this is because this year B. was organizing a party of 20+ friends and family members to play laser tag with us, the biggest such gathering for my birthday since that one in 2009.

What was the connection with K.B.? In 2009, she made the cake for that party (chocolate with lemon filling and cream cheese frosting, all my favourite tastes). She and I also exchanged lengthy e-mails afterwards, analyzing how the party had gone and discussing B.’s gifts to me. It was quite early in the relationship, and I needed her perspective on these things!

This year, I couldn’t get that party of five years ago and K.B.’s presence at it out of my mind. Why didn’t I have photos of that night? Who might? Who was taking pictures? Might they be able to find ones with K.B., or her cake, in them? I know I have some pictures on my old cell phone of the cake she made the next month, for the party on Brian’s birthday. Why didn’t I take any of the one she made for me?

Again, guilt at my negligence began to seep into my skull. The awareness, too, that this year there would be a party for me which she would not be able to attend was unsettling. Chris would be there; her son would be there; her sister- and brother-in-law would be there. She would not be.

I began to feel despair tightening its grip on me. The day before my birthday I spent a lot of time reading her blog; I miss her writing voice (and her actual voice) so very much. I also made a cake but experienced some challenges with the recipe, and of course that brought back thoughts of the many times before I had phoned her for advice in the same kind of circumstance.

I slept poorly the night before my birthday; insomnia has been dogging me of late. On the morning of my birthday B. brought me his gift, the Hyperbole and a Half book. I was so pleased by it, as we have laughed over that blog so many times. The morning went downhill from there, though. The feeling of wretchedness dragged me down even further to the point that I spent most of the morning crying.

Even as I walked to a nearby restaurant to meet my friend Y. for lunch the tears were pouring down my face. By some act of will I was able to climb back up to a state of relative composure by the time Y. arrived. I didn’t bring up how I was feeling out of fear that I would break down utterly in public, and the conversation was sufficiently engaging that I was distracted from my state of sorrow for an hour or so.

But once I left the restaurant I started sinking back down into despair again. The tears returned. I haven’t cried so much since the dark days between K.B.’s death and her funeral. My yearning for her to be with me, my sense of desolation, and my fear that I will never recover from this loss coloured the day for me.

I was able, again, to force myself to get into “social mode” and participate in the laser tag games in the evening. I was even able to enjoy it when it was going on. I won the second game—but my first impulse was to call her to say, “Hey! You’ll never believe it! I beat your video game-playing son!” Oh…right.

The socializing afterward kept me busy as I circulated and chatted with everyone. I was so grateful that members of her family were there with mine and with our mutual friends. Once I got home, however, even though I was able to appreciate the fact that all these wonderful people had been there to offer me their good wishes, I still could not accept that there was one person who should have been there—who would have loved to have played laser tag with us—who was absent. It was too much to bear. Another night with very little sleep.

The sense of desolation was particularly intense for the next couple of days. Anxiety over my cat’s health worsened, sleep was elusive, and I began to worry that I was slipping over the precipice from grief into a more worrisome state. I read Wynn Anne’s blog post on the difference between grief and depression. However, I was unsure which category I fit into: I definitely was not wallowing in self-hatred or thinking about harming myself, but feelings of despair and hopelessness? Check and check.

However, on Monday morning, I woke up and something just seemed different, just imperceptibly a little bit…better. It was not that I had suddenly “gotten over” my grief. It was just that the ability to feel emotions other than extreme sorrow returned and the tears became less frequent. I felt less like I had fallen over the cliff into depression and more like I had landed on a ledge on the way down and had been able to scramble back up and over the edge of the cliff. And for now, that is enough.

Life and Death Decisions, Feline Edition

March 7^th 

During these last two months of grieving the loss of K.B. the spectre of another possible death has loomed in our household, that of my beloved cat, Hildy. She will be 14 (roughly) this year, and since last May she has been experiencing a major health problem (to put it bluntly, she has been experiencing long bouts of constipation—and this is on top of a long-lasting mysterious allergy which no vet has been able to pin down). 

We have altered her diet several times, tried a dizzying array of medications, packed her off to the vet numerous times, sought a second opinion from another vet, and still, the problem persists. Nothing has solved the problem, and it seems to be getting worse. Obviously, a cat that cannot perform this basic bodily function cannot be expected to have a terribly long lifespan.

And so we come to issues of life and death again. As the owner, I would be the one to make the call, in consultation with the vet, as to whether she ought to be put down. I can hardly bear that responsibility, although it is implicit every time you take a companion animal into your house and it becomes a member of the family. 

The idea of losing her at any time would be completely devastating, as she was the first cat I got on my own and we developed a strong bond, one which has survived despite all the times I catch her and administer pills or squirts of syrupy laxative. But to have to have her put down now, while I am still trying to absorb the reality of K.B.’s death, is too much. I think I would be entirely crushed by grief.

As a caring pet owner, though, I have to think of what is best for her, not for me. I think that I am being honest with myself (and with the vets) when I say that despite her condition, she still seems to have a good level of energy. She is as bossy as ever, she meows vigorously when she wants her tummy scratched, and she continues to enjoy being brushed and combed. Her appetite is reasonably good—it’s just that what she eats does not processed out the back end anywhere nearly as often as it should.

Is she suffering? With cats, it can be hard to tell. They keep their cards pretty close to their chests in these matters, as a friend said. Some-times she licks herself compulsively on the lower abdomen to the point that it is red and sore down there. But is that enough to say she has no quality of life? Another friend whose dog was recently put down said that there will be a sign, that somehow I will know when the time has come. I don’t feel that I have had that sign yet.

So I continue to wait and watch. I cancelled another trip that was to take us away for several weeks because I don’t feel that it would be fair to ask a house-sitter to take on this responsibility, and because I would be sick with worry about her the whole time. I pray that she makes it at least until spring, because I would like to take her lifeless body out to the farm for a burial directly after the procedure. But she has already defied the odds already; she may surprise us all by living even beyond that.

She complains bitterly when I administer her medicine, and she howls each time I cram her in her carrier to take her to the vet. Sometimes I say to her in exasperation, “I am trying to keep you alive. Would you rather be dead?” Would she prefer that to all the pills and syringes, to all the discomfort she is in, to the needles and other indignities she endures at the animal clinic? I can’t know; ultimately, I have to make some judgment call as to where she is on the continuum of suffering.

Love Abides

March 2^nd 

Today in church the epistle reading was the famous passage starting at 1 Corinthians 13: 1, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…”

Tears immediately welled up in my eyes. The passage is often read at weddings, but it would be a misreading of Paul’s words to view them as a description exclusively, or even primarily, of romantic love (the word used in the Latin version of the New Testament, caritas, expresses the Christian conception of the love of God and the love of one’s fellow humans). This passage speaks to me of the outpouring of God’s love for humanity, but also of the ability of the human heart to experience and express limitless love.

Why did the tears appear at this moment? Probably because so many of the verses made me think of K.B. and her open, generous heart. “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude; it is not arrogant or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right.” K.B.’s life was a model of total commitment to a positive and life-affirming understanding of love. Many of us who were close to her feel that we were fortunate to have been blessed by the friendship of someone who focused on the best in us and loved us despite our flaws.

Then, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” If I hadn’t been in the choir when this was being read, I think I would have yielded to the impulse to cry at this point. The love we felt for each other never ends; it will continue to be a bond between us. It will help me go on, to bear the loss of such a dear friend, to endure the shock and the pain.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” The mystery of what Heaven is like, what her new reality is something that is still challenging for me. The promise that eventually I will have that clarity, that there will be a reunion of some sort, does provide a degree of consolation.

“So faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Love abides. Love is the greatest of these three, and it abides. Perhaps this is the lesson I need to take away from this wound to the heart.

Love abides.

The Person to Blame for the Long Winter

                           Snow drifts outside our bedroom window, St. John's, Newfoundland, Christmastime

Feb. 26^th 

I seem to be the only person on the planet content to see winter carry on for a while longer, especially in my city where the bitterly cold temperatures set in in November and continue to plague us with no end in sight. This has nothing to do with finally reconciling myself to the realities of winter and accepting that ice, snow, and extreme cold will continue to be forces to be dealt with for at least half of every year of my life.

Nor does it have to do with embracing winter, as B. does. I still haven’t acted on my intentions to pick up snowshoeing or cross-country skiing or even daily walks, no matter how cold it is. I only begrudgingly acknowledge the beauties of winter, such as the snow-covered trees on a sunny day when there is an achingly blue, clear, sky. Learning to love winter will be a lifelong challenge for me.

Nor does it have to do with having been in the Bahamas and feeling refreshed by a holiday south. Much as it was lovely to have basked in the warmth and been able to walk around in summer clothes for a week, it does seem a distant memory now.

I think what it is is that as long as it is winter, it will seem that the time when K.B. was with us was not so far in the past. The last time I saw her, it was December, and it was cold. Once it is spring, it will be the first new season without her. And once it warms up, we will be closer to the painful anniversaries of May (her shower, her and Chris’ wedding) and her birthday in June. I feel like I need time to slow down, and if that means stretching winter out, so be it.