With a Little Help From My Friends

Time has flown by. I take that as a good sign. It is two months today since JoAnne died. I was prepared for much more painful grief, but it has not been so. Yes, there has been sadness, but it passes and is replaced with pleasing memories.  My approach has been to immerse myself in all things JoAnne and combine it with a healthy dose of balance. Not everyone has the time to do so nor does everyone choose that path. But it is working for me. I routinely "take my temperature" to see if I am aimlessly wandering or lost. Preparation for the memorial service and reception was a fulfilling task and the evening has become a perfect memory. It will now require considerable time to compose thank you notes for all who joined us on JoJo's long and arduous journey. It will be quality therapeutic time.

We were blessed to have Mark Norlander and his daughter Emily reappear in our lives at a crucial time. Emily was a classmate of Heather's in high school and Mark was their French teacher. They have provided the gift of documenting the memorial service and reception in video and still photos. No less a contributor was our niece Angela who performed yeowoman's service in creating dozens and dozens of images throughout the evening. I have received a DVD of the memorial/reception along with many pictures and an audio file of the service. They are extraordinary keepsakes and I will attempt to get them posted for easy accessibility. Other items related to the memorial will also be posted. I am sure there are those of you out there thinking, "Time to move on." And for many it may be. Since the blog is essentially a journal of experiences, I want to make sure everything is recorded for posterity. Plus there were numerous friends and family who could not attend. Having access to the memorial will allow them to experience what we did that evening.

There are a variety of factors that may be tempering the intensity of my grief. This is all about accepting the new reality that JoAnne is physically no longer a part of our lives. First, when one's work career involves hanging around hospitals and operating rooms for 30 years, you sooner or later realize that people get sick. Illness and tragedy can strike at any age. I will admit to having struggled with that at times. One can get hypochondriacal as their knowledge of medicine grows. I am no doctor, but I know just enough to scare myself. At the same time, one is exposed to the realities of life and given time, we adjust and accept. I was never surprised, shocked or unduly angered over JoAnne's cancer diagnosis. Sad? Oh yeah. But I have long understood that illness happens. Fortunately, the statistics favor many of us living to ripe old ages, but they also favor that each of us will lose someone that we cherish.

Second, the duration of JoAnne's illness allowed time to adjust one's perspective. You learn to create realistic expectations and accommodate the annoyances, burdens and discomfort that illness can bring. Losing a loved one is never easy, but on a relative scale, there are much harder ways in which someone close can die; younger age, sudden, tragic, violent. Grief is a time related experience and if you have time to prepare, the journey may be less demanding. We had time to prepare.

On the other hand, I had a number of people acknowledge JoAnne's death by noting that it wasn't totally unexpected but it was still very sad. I understand what they were saying, but it got me to thinking. I really was taken by surprise that JoAnne died. I have talked about this before. I wasn't confident when she started transplant, but as time went on, I became quite confident that she would survive. My posts around the time of her death may say different, but my current state of memory is that up until the doctors told me it was time to let her go, I was still hopeful. One of my regrets is that I didn't have a final deep, meaningful say goodbye conversation with her. I attribute that to the fact that I kept thinking she would get better and there was no need. Plus, I didn't want to worry her needlessly. I wanted to maintain a positive atmosphere. We were going to get through this. By the time it was apparent she would not recover, she was mostly unresponsive. Take that as a lesson. Say what you have to say before it is too late. We were able to do that many times, but somehow you always seem to miss that last chance. Death rarely comes in the timely, sterile way it is portrayed on Lifetime TV. 

It is helpful that I am surrounded by friends and family who are also grief stricken and/or supportive. By no means do I walk alone. I am able to spend enjoyable time lingering over conversation. I feel cared about and not the least bit lonely. The weekend of the 20th was spent at the lake with my buddies. And when I say buddies, I mean the kind that have been friends since 1st grade in several cases. For 37 years we have convened on the third weekend in July. It is a rare and near matchless experience. When you have known each other for that long, the friendship becomes unconditional. We've seen each other at our best and worst, yet we're still hangin' together. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

We convoke

The Hartigan Cabins
Scene of many crimes

Dock is in
Trust me
We leveled it

The Blue Meanie

Eagle's nest
Right out the back door

Beware vegetarians
There's beef tenderloin
in there somewhere

The infamous walermeton

The routine of the weekend has evolved into a highly predictable sequence of events. That brings comfort. Our time together carries its own definition of glamorous what with spider infested outhouses, but it is serene and spiritually invigorating. We know we will arrive to a crock-pot of turkey sloppy joe's. We sit around the same table eating and drinking to our hearts content. Somebody always hits the vodka/gin/Mountain Dew infused watermelon too hard. Brother Ted insures that our audio and video senses will be blessed with clarity, volume and good tunes. About the only thing changing is that each year there seems to be at least one more addition to the users of C-Pap machines for sleep apnea. A few of us are now staying over until Monday. The pace becomes even slower and more relaxed.

Traditionally, I would call JoAnne from the northwoods or a nearby phone booth before cellular technology. She found those calls entertaining and memorable as they were often influenced by a whiff of alcohol. I would later apologize for keeping her up late. "Not to worry" she would say."You are such a loving and happy drunk!" I missed not being able to make that call this year even though I was properly lubricated for it.

Another tempering factor is that on a handful of occasions in the last two years, I was absolutely convinced that JoAnne was within hours of death. We had been close to it a number of times. Practice does indeed allow one to develop skills and coping mechanisms.

This may sound odd, but I have come to a new awareness of how much we live inside our heads. JoAnne is physically gone, but she is with me every minute of the day; in a comforting way. We built lives together and now I sense that those memories will never go away. If they were painful, maybe I would want them to fade, but they are not. I am so pleased and content with what we two have accomplished in our lives together. The memories encourage and nourish me. For the first time in a long, long while, I wake up in the morning and am excited over what life has to offer. We still talk, but now I always get in the last word. When I jump in the car to go somewhere, I still hear her offer an alternate short cut. I still order the same things on the menu at restaurants that we used to share. Now I end up bringing half home for leftovers. I have to do my own laundry and the sex isn't what it was, but those are a small price to pay for cherished memories.

While going through JoJo's possessions, I came across a journal where she collected items and information that interested her. Part of a sermon from Henry Scott Holland, a Professor of Divinity at Oxford University was written in her hand. Many of you may know it as a poem entitled "Death Is Nothing At All".

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again! 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I find comfort in those words. And so did JoAnne. All I need to do is take a few minutes to sit quietly in our living room where we maintain our small altar for her. I am reminded of how she had struggled long enough. I may miss her, but she is now very much at peace and in comfort. God's grace shines upon her. Had she lived, would we have enjoyed each other's company and generated more special memories? Of course we would? But none of them would have been any better or more profound than the ones we already have. While many good days were ahead, the best days of our lives together were behind us. The creation and nurturing of a family of which to be proud.  No one can ever take that away. In the big picture, does it really matter if one lives to 56, 66, 76 or 86? By 56, JoAnne had filled our heads with many lasting and loving memories. Sadness is having a hard time intruding upon my mind. I will be forever grateful to my JoJo for the gift of so many reverent memories.

The Beast Goes On (thank you Nan. It's perfect)