It's only a year later that I'm coming to the point of comprehending how quickly it all happened and how much I wish I could have been even more present throughout the experience. For myself, for her, for our kids.
Looking through photos last night, recalling specific conversations and moments shared before and throughout the final thirteen months of her life dying of Cancer, and listening to an archive I have of voicemails left over the nine years that spanned the range of heartache, separation, frustrated co-parenting, to gratitude for my presence through her diminishing presence and fading ability to respond to myself or others at all, forces me to face what I have yet to face fully. The significance, the magnitude, the loss of somebody that I struggled with at times throughout even those final months. Due to years of complicated emotional entanglement that we never quite fully unraveled.
I had a dream last night in which Lucky drowned. The details are irrelevant, the circumstances were accidental, but the point was that he drowned. That dog annoys me 75 percent of the time and is a joy 25. The annoyances are not intentional, not conscious choices, not on purpose. He's a dog. A particular breed with its character, influences and learned responses. He's hyper. He's highly impulse driven. His presence takes me off task and is a daily frustration.
Yet I still love him. I was devastated in the dream by the feelings surrounding his demise. I woke up feeling it too. I felt a loss, not a relief, of something I valued more than the inconveniences: his presence, innocence, and positive influences on my family and me.
The Zen/stoic path I've been trying to follow has, as a cornerstone, the notion that the only thing you have control over is your reactions. It's something I understand, value, appreciate and agree with, yet it's challenging to apply consciously and consistently after 60+ years of unconscious response to the latter.
I could not control Linda or her Cancer. As much as I felt throughout her final year that I was managing my responses as sincerely as possible, I realize now that I was and am still removed just enough, guarded just enough, and controlling just enough to have kept the realities of the ticking clock's incessantly increasing volume out of my mind. Throughout this, I wasn't as aggressively mindful to fully set aside our history and indifference and be more compromising in my acceptance of the connection we shared, fractured and fragmented as it was for over two full decades.
Now, I long for a second chance to be as present, direct, and honest as I would be today. To have said more about my regrets instead of defending my actions and choices, regardless of how strongly I felt a need to do so. The two can and did exist in parallel. I think there's so much more I could have done, and losing that access amplifies its absence.
Kathy said yesterday that she was and remained deeply affected by this loss, more than her parents or brother Jay's passing, even though she was not as close to Linda. That's how I often feel too. I default to the survival skill of compartmentalizing it as ambivalent grief or one of a few other counseling terms used to describe the struggle between apathy and devastation. Yet I still feel a loss for my kids, myself, and primarily for her.
I know from experience that this wound will leave lifetime scars on our kids. I harbor regret for what could have been different had I tried harder to foster a healthier relationship post-divorce, maybe pre-divorce, or just been honest from day one that it wasn't where I belonged at all. But for her, my struggle continues to be reconciling if anything could have made her worry less, enjoy more, let go of the fear, and focus on living her life to the fullest. By seeing every moment she had consciously as a gift. With an end in mind as an absolute reality, our perspectives and priorities can change dramatically.
During the nine years between our separation and her passing, I gradually built a modest playlist of songs that captured many of the feelings I experienced in each phase. I sat today at the foot of her grave, listening to many of them and singing along softly. Here are a few key references based on various circumstances, intentions and interpretations. I'll spare you the narratives.
And I, I never meant to cause you trouble
And I, I never meant to do you wrong
And I, well if I ever caused you trouble
Oh no, I never meant to do you harm
- "Trouble" by Coldplay
Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
- "How to Save a Life" by The Fray
Looking through some photographs, I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true
You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes
Now, the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn't really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all
Although for a while our path did seem to climb
When you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
- "Fountain of Sorrow" by Jackson Brown
I don't love you, but I'm lost
Thinking of you and the ghosts
Of so many special moments
That passed so quickly at the time
And now they come and track me down
And echo round and round and round
And time goes quickly
Or disappears completely
And I feel like I fade away
Like drowning
- "Drowning" by Joe Jackson
It's out of my hands, out of my hands
But I miss my friend, I miss my friend
So this is the price of honesty
But I'm not sorry
For every path you follow there's another left behind
Every door you don't kick open there's a million more to try
And for everything you've taught me here's the one
I've learned the best
There is nothing but the moment
Don't you waste it on regret
- The Moment" by Toad the Wet Sprocket
And I
I would give anything
But for the grace of God I'm here and still aware
We know the end is overrated
We've become the walls we raise
We don't believe enough but we still care
Standing on the edge without a prayer
So come on, come on it's all we got
Our hands are full, our lives are not
The loose affiliation with the real
We're sleeping at the wheel
All of the time we've lost
All of the love we gave
And now these hands are tied
I can't help thinking
That I was in a daze I was losing my place
I was screaming out at everything
Waiting for the walls to come down
Before my moments starts to fade
But everything that's perfect falls away
- "Sleeping at the Wheel" - Matchbox 20
All that we had and all that we've lost
It comes down to now, we're moving so slow
It happened so fast, maybe it's all we had
- "It's Only Love" by Rob Thomas
Tonight
Looking back on all this life
It's funny how the time goes by
And how, sometimes
It slides away
- "I will" by Matchbox 20