TheBanyanTree: The Dark Place

[Margaret R. Kramer]

2/21/05
Hi Love:
How did your day go? Day one down and four to go! Susan says she is buying
me lunch tomorrow, she did not say where, maybe the Korean place (I love
that HA), But her heart is in the right place.  MISS YOU ALREADY!  Last
night when I went to bed I tried to sleep and I kept thinking about
something I had to do. So I did some and then I woke up and thought what I
had to do ---------------did that all night then when I turned over and you
were not there I started all over again.  The guy about the ceiling was here
at 2 sharp! He left an estimate of $445. I think that is still high! So I
will try and see what has to be done for me to do it. Got the drive snow off
(most of it) Bought Fish for supper tonight. Baked potatoes to go with. Ice
cream--------buns,and thoughts of you!  Darn dogs want in so I will close
this for now/
LOVE YOU TOO MUCH!!!!!!!
Ray and Geo.

“I was going through Alice’s drugs today and was getting ready to dispose of
them,” Joe said.  His wife, Alice, died from colon cancer a year ago.  She
was on home hospice care and she died in Joe’s arms.  He took care of her
from the very beginning of her illness.

“And then I decided to keep them.”

“And why?” I asked.

“Because I want to analyze them.”

“Analyze them for what?”

“Well, I want to analyze why they gave her so many drugs and whether or not
that made any difference.”

“Joe, she’s dead.  Why her doctors ordered those drugs will not change the
fact Alice is dead.”

“I know that.  But I want to analyze what they were trying to do.”

That is typical Joe response to going through Alice’s things.  He wants to
get rid of stuff, but he can’t let go.

There is a set of sheets he wants to keep.  I told him that in a couple of
years, he’ll wonder why he kept them.  He’s keeping her work shoes.  He kept
her deodorant.  He’s kept all her medical supplies.  He’s given away a lot
of her clothes, but he still has a closet full of them.

I’ve gone through Ray’s papers.  I’ve donated or thrown out Ray’s clothes.
I disposed of his drugs right away and the stuff from the hospital couldn’t
get to the garbage can fast enough.  Joe worries a lot about who or what
people will do with her stuff once they get it.  I’m more like they can
throw Ray’s stuff in a landfill for all I care.

I will admit that I have weird Ray stuff that I keep.  I keep his wallet in
my underwear drawer.  I keep his shaver in the medicine cabinet.  I’ll never
use it nor will anyone else, but I keep it.  His coffee mug is in the
cupboard.  The things that are dearest to me are in a tub in our bedroom.
My husband’s life in tub.

My most treasured things are his journals, emails, greeting cards, videos,
and pictures.  I kept all the wood things he made.  Of course, his workshop
is intact with all its valuable tools in the garage.  I kept his flower van.
I kept his cat, September.  I always keep his heart next to mine.

Everyone has a different approach to going through a spouse’s belongings.
Some people, like me, go through the things fairly soon, and other people
like Joe, lag a bit.

But the worse thing about Joe and me is that we go to what I call the dark
place.  Joe, much more than me, will re-visit the death of his wife.  He’ll
begin with the events leading up to her death and go to the moment of her
death.  He was alone with her.  And then he had to call the nurse to come.
And then he began making the family calls.

As a compassionate person, I know he needs to talk about it.  I know he
needs to re-live it to some extent, but as his girlfriend, and also as a
fellow griever, it’s difficult for me to go to the dark place a lot.

You see, I spent a lot of time in the dark place even before I met Joe.  I
re-lived Ray’s death and the events leading up to it a million times over
the first few months after he died.  And I’m sure I’ll begin re-visiting the
dark place a lot again as January passes into February and I begin my march
towards marking the anniversary of when Ray died.

The dark place is a horrible place where guilt and blame and self-hatred
exist.  When I enter the door to the dark place, I immediately begin blaming
myself for Ray’s death.  I go through coulda, shoulda, and woulda over and
over again.  Then I watch him once more take his last breaths until he was
still and quiet.  He was at peace, but my rocky and messy world just began.

And then longing begins as I walk through the dark place.  I long for Ray’s
presence.  I long for his touch.  I long for his spirit to envelope and
engulf me.  I begin to remember all the wonderful times we had together.
Then I spice it up with all the times I shoulda been loving, I shoulda been
more understanding, and I shoulda been the woman he wanted me to be.

Somehow, I find my out of the dark place.  I feel like I’ve been raked over
the coals.  I’m hungover with raw and sore emotions.

I visit the dark place less and less and when I do, it’s a private visit.  I
rarely talk about Ray’s death anymore.

But when Joe begins his visit to the dark place, he brings me along with
him, and I plummet down into a black hole and pretty soon I’m re-living Ray’
s last moments as Joe re-lives Alice’s last moments.  And in a weird way, we
almost get competitive about it - whose spouse had the more spectacular
death or something.

If I were just a compassionate friend to Joe, I would walk with him in the
dark place.  But as his lover and a grieving widow myself, it’s too much.  I
’ve told him several times, I’m not the right person for him to talk to
about this very often.  Once in a while, I can handle it, but I can’t visit
the dark place as often as he does.

I usually visit Ray once a week at the cemetery.  I always cry as I approach
his grave.  I kiss his stone and tell him how much I love him.  I left him a
candy cane today.

I stopped by and visited my grandparents, too.  Their section is older and
there are very few wreaths and decorations on the graves there.  Most of the
people buried there fought in World I and World War II.  I slogged through
the snow to brush off their poinsettias.

I’m so proud of all those veterans.  The cemetery is so beautiful.  I’m so
glad that this place will be my home after I die.  And I won’t have to visit
the dark place anymore.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms
too full to embrace the present.
~Jan Glidewell
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