Choice

Its all about choice.  Damn!  You mean I can't just sit back and wait for the magic to happen?

The journey of grief and sorrow is not a straight line.  It is not controllable.  There is a lot of "going with the flow".  In fact, I wouldn't have it any other way.  The only control is how I react to it.  I know how to deny pain, stuff pain, ignore pain, pretend pain doesn't exist.  But only for a little while.  It will ALWAYS come back to bite me in the behind.

I would like to believe that the worst days of grieving the loss of my love are behind me.  I am not foolish enough to buy into that.  There will be moments, or perhaps days, where the feelings overwhelm me, bring me to my knees, where I snot all over everything, wail about the unfairness of it all, curse the universe for the agony I may feel.  And that's OK.  Because those are just moments.  Those are feelings that I must feel, must express, to aid in my healing.  They come up for a reason, they are a part of the process.  They suck.  But I cannot live there.  I choose not to live there.

It is easy to play the victim.  It is easy to be helpless.  But I am neither a victim nor helpless.  Yes, at times I feel like a victim because Tom is gone way too soon and our very happy marriage on this plane is no longer there.  Yes, there were/are times when I feel helpless.  But come on, really?  Me?  Helpless?  I have tons of help available to me just for the asking (or whining, as the case may be).  I have family who love me.  I have friends who love me.  I have people who will gladly help me.  So helpless, I am not.  Sometimes I just have to open my mouth because those friends and family are not psychic (but how I wish they were!)

There is that word again, "choice".  I know all about misery.  I am not as comfortable with it as I once was.  I don't like it.  In fact, I refuse to live in it.  It is all 100% refundable if I would like it back.  But I don't want it back.  I have another 30 years or so to continue living.  I am NOT going to live it in misery.  I am NOT!!!!! 

I believe in an orderly universe.  It may not be an order that I understand, but there are reasons to everything.  I do not believe in coincidence.  I believe in synchronicity.  There is a reason that Tom is no longer here.  He had done the work he came to do.  I wish it were different.  I still hold his medical team accountable for his early demise.  That is a battle yet to be fought.  And there is a reason I am still here.  I don't know what that reason is, more will be revealed, perhaps more will be required. 

So I have a choice.  I can choose to marinate in pain, or ignore pain, or embrace pain.  In embracing it, I feel it and set it free so it does not control my future.  I can choose to be happy or deny happiness.  I can choose joy. Or I can choose to ignore it, be blind to it.

Yes, there will be times that I will have a pity party for myself.  It is only a place I visit, not a place I live.  I hope that you will kindly understand and allow me those moments.  But slap me out of it I unpack and set up housekeeping. 

Today I choose to do the best for me, to choose gratitude, to choose joy, to choose happiness.  I may not feel it all the time.  I will fake it until I make it.  But I choose to move forward.  And in moving forward I am not leaving the past behind.  I am bringing the very best of it with me, for without it, for without the years with Tom, I would not be the person I am today.

How do you say goodbye to a friend?

Monday morning, at 11:05 am, Don Rothschild left this life in search of his next adventure. Two weeks prior he suffered two massive strokes that severely damaged his brain. He was 6 days shy of his 59th birthday. His family, in a very loving act, decided to discontinue life support. He died about six days after they did so. It was clear that their primary concern was Don's comfort. He was moved to a palliative care unit, disconnected from the ventilator and provided continuous pain relief and oxygen to make him comfortable. I envision Don enjoying the continuous morphine drip and quietly letting go from this earthly life.

I did not know Don well at all. I think I met him for the first time at the 4th of July picnic. He was my husband's friend, a new friend at that. Don joined Tom's band, Beyond the Blues, earlier this year as a keyboard player. He added a certain "je ne sais quoi" to the group. Every Sunday, Don would drive to Novato and he and Tom would then drive up to their studio in Santa Rosa. Throughout the summer he and Tom started to get to know each other. They would golf together and sometimes I would meet them for dinner at the Club after they finished playing. At that picnic where I first met Don, another of the band's member had recorded a rehersal. It was the first time I had heard them play. It was clear that Don could rock the piano.

Don had an interesting outlook on life. He also had a very dry sense of humor. He could make me laugh. He could also set my teeth on edge. But that was the essence of Don. Many of his friends in the fellowship have talked about him, people who knew him better, who supported him during his struggles. In fellowship language, he died clean. That is a miracle, and a tragedy that he had to leave us now. When one enters middle age, finding and building friendships is much more difficult. Don and Tom were building a friendship that Tom enjoyed, and is going to miss.

He will be missed by so many. The members of Beyond the Blues will miss his musical contributions, and as Pat would say, his chops for the music. His friends and family will miss everything about him. And Tom will miss the opportunity to build that deeper friendship with him. I will miss him too, and the opportunity to get to know him better.

Travel well my friend. We will all meet again and you can tell us your stories as only you can.