Three years ago, I was in the final three days of packing in preparation of boarding a plane, and for two and a half months, moving in with my son and his family. It was an unhappy move born of necessity.
Nearly a year before, my husband of 37 years shockingly died, and I stopped eating or wanting to live. Eventually seeing the concern in my son’s eyes at my weight loss and grief, I’d agreed to eat at least one nutritious meal a day, and I honored that promise, despite the fact that my desire to live didn’t return. I also had to accept that I could no longer care for our house, large garden, and flock of chickens, despite the kind and generous help dear neighbors lent.
So, with the help of good friends and family, I packed up our lives, sold and gave away things I knew I would never need again, sent my flock down the street to the neighbors who already loved them, and prepared to move to a state I’d never set foot in, imposing on beloveds just starting their own new journey.
I was bat shit crazy during that time, and what I packed and had sent to me bore that out in sometimes hilarious ways. I received a box I’d apparently insisted to a stalwart and actively supportive friendabsolutely had to be sent directly to me and could not go to storage. Upon opening it and to my surprise, I discovered a bag of coffee and the coffee pot I had swaddled like precious newborns, as if I was moving to a cave far from civilization, where coffee was scarce, Starbucks didn’t exist, and my coffee drinking son would have no means to boil water to pour over those invaluable, crushed brown beans! We laughed uproariously, but I also began to realize how crazy in grief I’d been, especially since unlike hubs, I wasn’t even a regular coffee drinker.
My son and his family made me comfortable, and I was deeply touched by how loving they were when they’d just moved into their house two weeks before my arrival. I was a miserable, walking heap of wreckage, trying to act like a human being and failing. I’d cry between my online classes, forcing myself to “grip it up” and attend to my students, themselves traumatized from Covid lockdown, and sometimes personal loss. I decided to start each class with a few minutes for them to show me their pets or artwork, so that we all relaxed, shared a smile, and bonded as a community, making an anthropological concept a reality, despite being unable to be together. I hope my attention before, during, and after classes was as helpful to them as it was for me, because those hours were the only ones when I could consistently stay dry eyed and attentive to the needs of others.
Being with family made that possible, and gradually began to bring me back to life. My grandchild returned laughter and joy to my heart and gave me reasons to want to curb my furious anguish and adopt the patience and kindness her Abuelo and my own grandfather always displayed with children. With an inner chuckle, I began thinking “What would Ray do?” a Zen koan, reminding me of the zillion times he’d calmed my quick temper and had me rethink first volatile responses. He did it through his inherent calm, while my son did so via logic. Both have saved me many a time, and I thank them, my father and grandfather, all kind, and patiently loving men, along with mi hermosa nuera, an embodiment of loving patience. A good counselor, friends, and knowledge of things the women of my family survived all combined to get me through those hideous months.
Four years since his death, the pain hasn’t subsided nor the tears stopped. I miss mi Rey every single morning, throughout my days and nights, and have mostly accepted that I always will. I’m less obviously crazy, more able to enjoy bits of my life. Most importantly, I’m acutely aware that I am still surrounded in love, and I know for sure that the truly greatest gift really is “just to love and be loved in return”
I’m sleep deprived and have been waking up each day in a foul mood- a serious change from my norm that would be shocking to my husband, were he alive. My early morning, cheerful gregariousness chafed his pre-caffeinated soul, but I think he’d be saddened by its loss since his death.
I think I have a clearer perspective than many on the disturbing upheavals in our socio-political landscape, and while I’m disturbed and saddened by human actions, I’m not easily shocked by human behavior.
However, AI shocked the hell out of me this morning by announcing that “There are new musical releases from Arthur Rubinstein- would you like to hear them?”
Rubinstein was one of my two favorite pianists as a kid who fancied herself the incarnation of Beethoven, but dude has been dead for some 43 years, so dropping new jams came as an unexpected and unnerving surprise.
Now of course I know it means that either unreleased music has been released or previously “lost” recordings found. It happens. But my initial shock was real, even as my rational mind immediately explained it away.
And you know what else? It brought me joy. I listened to his beautiful renderings of Dvorak and remembered my complete love of music and the piano, my devotion to it, and the joy and peace music has always given me, despite the physical, emotional, and metaphysical pain one suffers throughout life.
For a short while, I was transported to the safety of my parents’ home, the comfort of what I thought was a sure path, my beloved teacher, and the encouraging people in my little world. For a short while, the melancholic passages allowed my tears to flow in release rather than my recent feelings of being stuck in loss, pain, frustration, and doubt.
And for a short while, I felt the sweet tug of aspiration and the hope that my slightly arthritic fingers might regain enough flexibility to mimic my musical hero again, not with the agility of youth, but with a deeper knowledge of what both composer and artist sought to say through those notes and phrases.
Most people seem not to understand the difference between love and relationship, or at least what people think is love.
There are people I’ve loved with a passion, but for various reasons, those people weren’t able to engage or sustain a relationship. Their unresolved or even unrecognized personal issues turned them into psychological manipulators, or distancers, or rendered them inept or unable to express themselves or engage with others in a meaningful way. With one exception, these were sad men, not bad men, and what they lacked-including the refusal to accept that they needed to learn a different way of being- was inherited and learned from people who themselves had never known intimacy beyond the physical.
Sex is not the only form of intimacy and without the others, it quickly wanes. I would never deny its importance and the joy it can bring within a relationship. Done well, it helps create closeness and trust, because in order for sex to be truly great, each partner has to know not only the other’s body, but their limits and fears and thresholds of pain, however that may be expressed. There’s a level of respect that creates trust and allows for further exploration and innovation and perhaps lovely surprises for both. It’s knowing which boundaries are firm and which might be nudged for greater satisfaction. It is playfulness and time traveling and an assortment of discoveries and joys that can extend the shelf life life beyond the body’s physical limits, because really good sex goes far beyond the physical body and into “the Real,” where souls meet and reconnect. It is a gift and the best fun I can think of, and it enhances love and intimacy. But it’s not the only way that relationships work.
The thing with relationships is that they play out in real time, in real dwellings, among real relatives and friends, at real jobs, in the real trivialities of our daily lives. It’s remembering to replace their ice cream when you’ve eaten the last pop, or that they have a meeting or assignment that they’re dreading. It’s letting them sleep while you walk the dog or change the kitty litter, let the chickens out of the coop. It’s alternating who gets up to rock the baby and get them back to sleep. It’s not teasing in ways that amuse you but annoy them. It’s picking up after yourself and recognizing the baggage you brought into the relationship and working on it, not expecting them to do your work on top of their own. It’s being appreciative of their support as you do work on your shit. It is knowing beyond a doubt, that this person loves you and has your back, ride or die, as no one else can or does. It’s taking the risk of showing someone every aspect of yourself over time and realizing that even if they don’t like it all, they still love you and will be there as you slog through whatever muck needs cleaning or ditching in yourself.
That last bit is particularly hard for people who have shame or guilt and they’ll often reject the beloved for loving them, crazy as that seems to others. It’s hard for people to see themselves through the eyes of the beloved when they’ve been criticized, judged, disparaged, or rejected by others, especially in childhood.
Or perhaps they did wrong things that they’re ashamed of, and are afraid to face that or have it known to the person they only want to see them with eyes of approval. They fear- consciously or not- that they’ll lose esteem or even see horror replace the love.
I’ve known folks who were in the military and by doing their jobs, were responsible for the deaths of other humans, and even years later, could not reconcile that with their inner morality/ethics. Some had survivor’s guilt that they had survived when good companions had not.
Some might have treated women badly at other points in their lives, and others could be ashamed of criminal or unethical behaviors in their pasts.
Some, like me, might have done things others would consider trivial and ordinary childhood events, but they still weigh on that person and seep into the relationship. It doesn’t have to make sense to the beloved, but they have to accept the reality of it for their partner and go from there. Comfort, reassurance, and professional therapy can go a long way in most relationships, because even when we understand and accept a person, we cannot fix another person. We can help to create an emotional environment of peace, acceptance, encouragement, and love that allows for healing, but part of having healthy relationships is knowing where to place the necessary boundaries and to know what is and isn’t yours or yours to fix/heal.
I can chant “there, there” or “sana sana” over a bad cut or broken finger, but professional medical assistance is still necessary, and there’s no shame in that, and there should be no shame if the required assistance is for mental health care either. We are not meant to cover every job in relationships. We are meant to want to help, find out how to help, and to the best of our ability, lovingly point the beloved towards the resources required for the particular issue. Hell, going together to the library to look up resources is a great way to express solidarity and for both to learn things.
There are no wrong or right ways, only what works for you both. And that will change over time, as you change. That’s why honesty is crucial from day one. You have to take into account changes that will have an impact on the relationship: returning to school/new job, wanting to move, have more kids or prevent having more. Big or small, your changes have or can have, an effect on your beloved and they need to be informed. Your partner shouldn’t the last to know if you’re unhappy or dissatisfied or disappointed or turned off in some way! Keeping info from them isn’t “protecting”them or “sparing”them, or any of the cowardly lies you might tell yourself when in reality (remember? Where we all exist..) it is denying them choice and agency. It is a sure way to ruin a good relationship.
Will you screw up? Inevitability. Again, that’s reality. We all do and will, mostly in silly, downright stupid ways that will annoy, perhaps anger, even inspire amused pity in the partner who wonders how they can love such an addle brained fool. In most cases, you’ll even have a good laugh about it and it might become one of those family stories, shamelessly dragged out with friends you trust, among the many stories from everyone’s enduring friendships. The person who screwed up might be first to tell on themselves, noting their own idiocy and fallibility. Those first years together are guaranteed to create such stories, and most are just that: the errors made in getting to know each other, innocent boundary crossings, silly missteps and mistakes. A friend and I both had husbands who used our cutlery for tools because the toolbox wasn’t handy! Annoyed, yes. Forgivable, absolutely! Funny? Most certainly, and the four of us had a number of loving laughs about the daffiness our guys shared. They, in turn, could laugh about our little foibles, like my insistence that you shouldn’t change directions when mixing batter. Believe me, I know it’s daft, and I shake my head at myself and laugh along. If I know nothing else, through my experience and professional training, I know that humans are bundles of contradictions and comically complex. Life gets a lot easier and far more enjoyable once we can own that and laugh at ourselves.
Bigger grievances, true hurts will obviously require real attention, and when trust is broken, if repair is still possible, understand that it can take a very long time and complete self monitoring to rebuild. The aggrieved party is the one who’ll decide when they’re satisfied, not the perpetrator. A real hurt might require that professional assistance we mentioned earlier. Automatically saying you forgive the person or even wanting to be able to forgive them is unrealistic. Boundaries and trust broken is a big deal and has to be handled with delicacy and commitment. Just because the offender gets tired of the dog house, they don’t get to push their way back into the main house of their partner’s heart. Their ego has to be put aside and they have to commit to making amends. And just as in AA, they have to understand that their willingness to make amends doesn’t give them an automatic pass. The loved one can continue to love you but they may not accept your offer until they know that their heart and peace and boundaries are safe. If that will happen or how long it might take cannot be predicted or limited. And if the person who originally ignored what was best for their partner is now unwilling or unable to make that commitment, they don’t really know what love is.
And that’s why knowing what’s most important to your partner and respecting that comes first. If you will not understand that and commit to that level of care, you can never reach those “higher”levels of intimacy and the satisfaction and happiness that they bring.
Is it always easy? Hell no. Is it worth it? Yes, beyond measure. I’m old and have done a number of things, seen a lot, heard more, made more mistakes than I care to admit, and I can think of nothing more important in any relationship, whether friendship or lover. All relationships go through changes. I have a couple of friends from my teens and over the years, we’ve lost touch, had disagreements, reworked how we know each other, and renewed and created new understandings of how we’re friends as we go through life and move further away from the kids we were. Aspects of those original relationships are there, bound by shared experiences, humor, and love, but if forced to remain the same and stagnate, respect and love would die.
My sister and I had a fourteen year age gap, so as adults, we very consciously worked on getting to know each other as individual adults with very different takes on our childhoods and parents. It allowed us to move away from the family story into our own sometimes shaky, but genuine relationship.
All good long term relationships require flexibility, adaptations, and humor. What makes them doable is love and commitment. I learned as much from my son as he from me and my love for him allowed me to rethink, even put aside at least some of my ideas about child rearing and the world. I continue to learn from him and his family, because their experience of the world isn’t mine nor is their world the world of my past. So I try to keep that in mind and work to resolve inevitable differences between our strong wills. We’re all worth the effort, because I know that they and all my loved ones enhance my life and make my world and the world a better place. They and I are worth my sometimes bruised ego or the pain of adapting to new ideas and realities, and I love them enough to sometimes request the difficult conversations.
We can change most easily through love. It never stops growing, and our capacities are built to accommodate that amazing, sometimes mind-blowing growth.
As an adult, I have never made New Year’s resolutions. I have a couple of traditional rituals, but they don’t involve promises of any type. I also don’t consider January 1 to be the start of the year and chalk off continuing or new annoyances to be the final dregs of the year until the Lunar New Year begins.
However, in an attempt to at least shift a bit and move past the grueling and unbearable level of anguish I’ve been in since my husband died, I made a personal resolve to try to be more present in my life and accept the reality in which I continue to reside. To live and not merely exist.
I also decided that I will indulge in “I told you so” and acts of petty revenge whenever possible. To whit, my first act of “Petty” in 2024:
I was minding my business, checking the information for a past order on Amazon, when their bot asked me to review past purchases. I ignored it and it asked again, this time stating that if I wrote five reviews it would tell me a joke. My reviews come cheap and I’m a sucker for a joke. Today marked 1,000 days since my beloved died, so for the sake of a laugh, I started writing.
With each one, there was an encouraging Bot note counting down the number to completion. But when I finished the five, BOT had booked! No joke, no thank you, nada.
This didn’t sit well with me, so I decided to contact Customer Service. The service bot couldn’t cope with the fact that I had a problem not directly related to a specific purchase, so I was soon directed to a human by phone.
To the poor woman who called, I patiently explained the problem, acknowledging that it was unlikely that she could help. Following my explanation, she was, as expected, confused. She then contacted someone else who was also stumped. I asked if there was an IT person who could send the joke or change the program so that people weren’t being promised items they couldn’t deliver on. Of course, they were helpless and remained befuddled, despite my obvious amusement. (As a friend noted, they might simply have told a joke over the phone, but I don’t think their English or job description covered this situation.)
After hanging up, I decided to email Amazon, explaining the problem and demanding compensatory jokes as well as the originally promised joke. I said that I knew they carried them, because Amazon Echo’s got jokes! Terrible jokes, but jokes, so I knew that they warehoused them somewhere, perhaps in Bezos mind.
I now await my jokes. I won’t give up and will contact them daily if necessary. A promise is a promise. The BOT specifically said “I’ll tell you a joke” not play a joke on me. As a worker and union member, when I complete a job, I expect payment. I’m retired, have time, and a weird sense of humor. This can become part of my daily sadhanna/spiritual practice. 🧘🏾♀️Like the Blues Brothers, I’m on a mission from god. (Not that God, the one “karens”are always entreating. Yeesh, people!)
The Force of Pettiness is strong within me this year, and I will not be denied. Beats crying every day, and I have a lot of anger that my husband died. Might as well use some of it creatively. Excelsior!
Saturday will mark two years since my husband died. Two years since I went singing into our guest room, where he’d slept because he was sick and didn’t want to wake me or risk my health. He thought it was the flu, but in 37 years, he had never been sick for more than 24 hours, so after day two, I’d made an appointment for him to see his doctor, on what turned out to be the day he died.
I was laughing at us both, thinking we’d overslept, and saying “wake up, sleepyhead-somebody’s got to let the chickens out!
And I danced into the room singing “Wake Up Little Susie,” amazed that we’d both slept late, and expecting to see his grumpy, pre-caffeinated morning face, with that begrudging smile he’d first muster for my benefit, but which became real when I kissed him and made him laugh.
I won’t go into the horrid details of that discovery and morning- the shock that’s lasted nearly two years and the PTSD I still struggle with. What I do want to say is that although I can as yet see no future for myself, it has been my personal Beloved Community who have consistently done that for me. They have held me, and listened to me- crying, wailing, confused, furious, hopeless, “bereft, bothered, and bewildered.” They sat with me and helped sort through his things. They worked hard and helped me pack up thirty seven years of our lives together, even the things they knew were ridiculous and I’d dispose of later. They’ve walked me through basic things I could no longer figure out, and they’ve been always kind and given me the shoves I’ve needed at just the right times. They’ve kept me alive and held the space I might someday walk into, where Life resides and maybe flourishes.
Some wise person once said to me that when you can’t see your future or how you’ll make it, that’s when you’re creating something new, not just moving the pieces around. I know that is true, but honestly? Right now I don’t care, I don’t wanna! And I know I’m sort of holding myself in an emotional hostage situation, but I want to just do enough to feel less pain. I kinda hate the thought of “life going on,” y’know? I have a lovely next door neighbor, who’s happily married to his second wife. His first wife died, and he recently told me that she was diagnosed only a few months after they married: can you imagine?!? Anyhow, he shared his story of grief and “nothingness” before he met his current, beautiful wife. And he also shared that every once in a while, something will trigger that sense of loss and pain, despite his happiness and general contentment. I was both touched and relieved when he told me that. To know that it’s possible to regain joy and still grieve the beloved lost. That love grows around the grief.
My loved ones-kin and kith- are like the gold used in Kintsugi, helping me to find my scattered, broken pieces, and believing that I will again be a whole, yet different and beautiful self. In unexpected ways and levels, community is Life.
Love begets Love. When I found out that I was pregnant, I saw a constellation of stars. It was as though I had a window into cosmic bliss, experiencing joy like I never knew existed. Whatever my shortcomings as a parent, my son was wanted, loved, and the source of the greatest joy and grace I’d experienced. If I have in any way become a better person, it is because of him.
He was always his own person: a kind, protective, funny, and serious little soul. He is that rare person who can be completely in the moment and who always knew when he was in a good time and always expressed gratitude. Precocious, often wise, occasionally harsh, always supportive, he remains the person who can make me laugh to tears and of whom I am most proud. He has become a man I am happy to know and glad to consider a friend as well as a good son and great family man.
When he walked down the aisle to marry his most beloved, uniting our families, and lovingly accompanied by my own dear father, I thought I would burst with happiness. As I turned to see the generations of both families and felt my Mother’s blessing, I knew that indeed, the Circle was unbroken.
It has been a wonder to watch them grow as individuals and become even closer as a couple over the years. They had suffered quietly for years, using every means possible to sustain a pregnancy, always having their dreams dashed. They carried that sadness with grace until finally being advised to give up.
I didn’t, and I made ceremony at home, entreating my ancestors and hers. Earlier, they had joined me on a fieldwork trip, where the most respected elders chastised me for having only one child, but then took my boy aside and blessed him. Magical thinking? Yes, but I held the hope that the charms or just the way that people eventually relax after letting go of disappointment sometimes results in a “miracle.” Meanwhile, we looked into adoption and other options, knowing that any child that came to us would be OUR child, wanted and loved.
A few months later, I asked my son -a tv producer- to film an event I was chairing at the college where I taught, and he agreed. It was rare at that point for us to be able to get together outside of regular family visits, so I was especially happy to have a few hours with my son and to show him off to my colleagues. After setting up the cameras and staging areas, he suggested we take a break before the activities started and people poured in. Sitting in the dark and quiet auditorium, he put his arm around me and pulled something out of his duffle, saying he wanted me to see something and handing me what looked like a photograph. It was a sonogram of his daughter, my granddaughter, somehow already resembling her Dad at this early stage.
If I thought the heavens opened when he was conceived, I can tell you that the entire universe sang at that moment. I can count on one hand the number of times I have wept from pure, uncontainable joy, and that moment is the most memorable. My serious, often somber child, was lit up like a million Christmas trees, Times Square at night, and the Aurora Borealis in spring. For the next several months (and ever since) I was to see the deep dimples he has when smiling, every single day.
I’m here to tell you that Life presents us with many opportunities and occasions for happiness. When I conceived and again when it was confirmed, I experienced unexpected joy. My life has not been an easy one and joy was not my companion, so its visits were always special, appreciated, and noted. I didn’t know that anything could make me happier than my own child had, but I’m here to tell you that the joy of seeing my child’s happiness made my heart open up a whole new chamber. I went back into the gala in a haze of joy, my face swollen from the happy tears we’d shared and my brain on autopilot for the rest of that wonderful night.
And then she was born, and again, my joy was for their joy: my son and the beautiful soul he’d brought into our lives through love and marriage, the woman who made him aspire to greatness, and laugh, who brought out his silly side, and for whom he felt pride and gratitude. This beautiful couple were finally graced with the child they so wanted and who had- artiste that she is- built up this tremendous anticipation before gracing us with her presence on the stage of Life. Our little star was born and my heart was overwhelmed with love for this person who made my children so happy.
But then somehow, my heart expanded even further as this little blissball grew, and I loved her for herself, this shining, bright eyed wonder whose face danced with aspects of everyone I’d loved in my family, along with features from her gorgeous mother. And as she has grown, new heart chambers have emerged to accommodate my Bliss, as well as heart rooms for all of the new friends and family who’ve come into our lives because of this once tiny seed of love.
So that’s it. I just wanted to say that Love is real. It’s precious and fine and often illusive and illusionary because we humans are basically assholes with legs who tend to miss our own good times or screw them up by trying to capture, control, or otherwise change what is. It’s painful in its absence and wrenching in loss. But sometimes (perhaps as a reward for good deeds but likely for no particular reason at all) we are *blessed* with Love, true and abiding. I think that we are never exactly “deserving” as it’s popularly put, but we are graced with it and made better by it and we should cherish it. Always.
And so for me, each and every year that I live, this date is the Second Day of Bliss and Gratitude and I give thanks for my gifts of Love, from the bottom of my now endlessly expanding heart.
Love begets Love. When I found out that I was pregnant, I saw a constellation of stars. It was as though I had a window into cosmic bliss, experiencing joy like I never knew existed. Whatever my shortcomings as a parent, my son was wanted, loved, and the source of the greatest joy and grace I’d experienced. If I have in any way become a better person, it is because of him.
shamamaspeaks 