Tag / grieving

by krubesch

Black Eyed Susan

“It’s because people are so perishable. That’s the thing. Because for everyone you meet there is a last moment when your hand slips from theirs, and everything ripples outwards from that, the last firmness of a hand in yours that every moment after becomes a little less firm until you look down at your own hand and try to imagine just what it felt like before their hand slipped away. And you cannot. You cannot feel them.”
History of the Rain, Niall Williams
Susan Posted this quote in her blog titled, “Ah Well”
https://susanmdougherty.me/page/4/

I know that Susan would write this blog post much more eloquently than I am able to and I keep waiting for an alert to let me know that Susan has written about her death on her blog, but she can’t because she is gone. I know what it is like to lose a parent at a young age and it feels like death has surrounded me for a lot of my life, as I have lost many people I have cared about. The difference between Susan’s death and others is that she suddenly passed away while in Spain on vacation (while I was housesitting for her and taking care of her new dog). Most people in my life have died long and slow deaths from dementia and heart disease. I know how to deal with death when it happens slowly over time, but sudden death feels so very different.
There was not any time to prepare or to tell myself that this could be the last time I would see her. I find that I get a lot of closure from telling myself things like, “this is the last time we are going to have a sleepover” or “this could be the last hug I give her.”

It’s still hard to fathom that our evening marathons of Pitbulls and Parolees will never happen again and that I won’t really be going back to the house that felt like my 2nd home. I know that these things sound silly, but so many of these thoughts keep going through my mind. I found myself thinking that I was so happy we finished watching the entire series of Longmire not too long ago. This was a show we started watching with her husband, Patrick, (I was his caregiver for the last 1.5 years of his life) who had Lewy Body Dementia. In a way watching Longmire made us feel close to Patrick and remember the days we all spent together.

My heart feels so achy and burny everyday and I miss her terribly. There are so many moments throughout each day where I go to text her and then remember that I can’t. I had no idea how often we communicated until now. Not only was she my wife’s boss, my former boss, a former classmate, but also one of my closest and dearest friends. I had no idea when I started caregiving for Patrick, that we would become so close. It all still feels like a very bad nightmare.

Susan was the kind of person who put thought into everything she did. She would surprise me with gifts that I had saved on my Pinterest boards for Christmas or my birthday. Her cards were meaningful and beautifully written and she made me feel special. There are not many people that I allow through my walls into my heart and I realize now that is because I have been hurt very deeply in the past and it hurts so much when I do- and something like this happens. This is when I hear Susan’s voice in my head telling me, “it is better to have loved and been hurt than never to have loved at all.” And I know she is right, I just feel like I can’t stand how much it hurts right now. I have been hearing her voice lately (no one needs to worry!) in similar situations. It’s pretty comforting that I knew her well enough to know what she would be saying to me now.

Memories of her consume me in the strangest places. The other day I was in the grocery store and it was like everywhere I turned she was there. I knew her in such an intimate way from working in her home that I am quite familiar with what she ate and how some of these items changed with the seasons. I am reminded of her with the Boar’s Head honey turkey in the deli, the peanut butter and chocolate Cheerios in the cereal aisle, the tiny potato rolls that she used for sandwiches, the pumpkin english muffins that she would eat for breakfast with cinnamon butter in the fall, and Nutella that she would ALWAYS have in the pantry that she liked to spread over Nabisco nilla wafers when she wanted a sweet treat. I also am reminded of Patrick with the chili Fritos, egg malt balls at Easter, and the pudding we fed him at the end of his life.

I am also reminded of Susan on a daily basis, by our new dog, Casey Joy (named by Susan)- who was supposed to be Susan’s new dog when she got home from Spain. I had picked her up from Lifeline after she got spayed and was staying with her at Susan’s house until she was supposed to return home. Leah and I keep joking about how of course Susan would die and leave us with another dog. When Casey acts up, we look at the ceiling and tell Susan to make her dog behave! Having Casey is a nice reminder, especially when she is cuddly and gives me hugs. I know that Susan is watching, loving that Penny and Casey are starting to settle into each other and laughing when we yell at her to control her dog.

I find myself looking at pictures of us over and over and re-reading all the emails she ever sent me. I have screenshot so many Facebook posts and texts that she has sent me over the years because I don’t want to forget her kind words and feel this need to fill this heartbreak somehow. I have been wearing the jewelry she gave me everyday and I freaked out today when I realized my necklace had fallen off until I found it in my car. It’s like I am scrambling to find anything that will make the ache go away and make me feel closer to her.

Something that no one knew, including my wife Leah, was that Susan was the person listed on my safety plan with my therapist. What is a safety plan? It’s an agreement I have with my therapist in writing about what I should do is I start to have suicidal thoughts and want to hurt myself. Thankfully, I only had to call or talk to Susan about 4-5 times over the course of about 2.5 years. She was amazing and so helpful when I would get in this head space. She treated me with love instead of fear and seemed to know when I was struggling even before I said anything. She often told me that she would be so mad at me if I ever hurt myself and I took that to heart. It’s really painful to know that I no longer have her as my person and changing that paperwork breaks my heart. I will be forever grateful to her for showing me unconditional love and being there for me in ways that a lot of people are not able to.

I am afraid that over time I will start to forget her voice or what it was like to be around her. She was also the only person who really understood what it was like caring for Patrick and she often told me that I was the only person who truly knew the ins and outs of his disease because we were both in the thick of caring for him on such intimate levels. It hurts that out of what felt like a trio of friends, I am the only one left.
I know that Susan would not want her death to derail the progress I have made with my depression and I keep trying to remember that as I feel like I am swimming upstream through a fog. I am extremely grateful and thankful that I have had the opportunity for the Dougherty’s, Patrick, and Susan to be a part of my life even though I would have liked to be able to have spent more time with them both. A lot more time.

It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it-
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it,
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.
Mary Oliver

by krubesch

Coping

 

“A riot is the language of the unheard”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Picture from popularresistance.org

I started this blog post last week and left it unfinished because I hit a wall.   After the news that there will be no charges in Michael Brown’s death, I have a lot more to say.

I am writing right now in an effort to get my thoughts out of my head by putting them on the screen in front of me.  I’ve had this heavy feeling since Friday when I learned that a good friend’s 26-year-old son had been killed on Tuesday.  His death was the result of a standoff with cops and he was shot five times in the chest.  This death weighs on my mind because his father was in the process of trying to get him some mental health help.   David, the son, was living in Alabama and in that state you can’t have someone committed against their will, so his father was trying to bring him back to Georgia because one can be hospitalized against their will for 72 hours.   They were trying to get him help, but his mental illness ultimately resulted in his death.

I am very aware that this could have been me.  It could have been a member of my family. Mental illness does not discriminate.  It affects the rich, poor, middle class, educated, un-educated, every race, celebrities etc. I’m trying to point out that it’s not always someone else, this affects all of us.  This is the reason why I started my blog- to bring about awareness and to help eliminate the stigma.  Things could have turned out differently for David had there been resources and the necessary avenues to get him help.   David’s death could have been prevented.   The entire system is fucked up.  Our police are trained to put a person down like a dog in the instance of any threat instead of coming up with a more humane way of handling a potentially deadly scenario. I get that they have to protect themselves, but shooting someone five times in the chest seems excessive. The system is broken and needs to be fixed.

Michael Brown’s death could have also been prevented.  It’s crazy to me that in this day and age that we have not come up with a better way and that it seems like there is a news story everyday where an African-American teenage boy is killed in cold blood.  I can’t help but ponder how last nights events would have been different if the cop that killed Michael was African-American and if he was caucasian.   I think there would have been an indictment and more outrage over Michael’s death.

Some friends of mine on Facebook have commented that it’s ridiculous that the citizens of Ferguson are destroying store fronts and resorting to violence in the wake of last nights news.   I see this as their way of coping.   They don’t feel heard.  In reality most of us know that looting and getting into fights are not the answer to the injustice of Michael Brown’s death, but in our emotion mind we forget this.   I believe that Ferguson feels like the only way to get attention brought to this situation is to do it in a big way.  What bigger way than to set the city ablaze? After all the justice system has already failed them.

In a way,  David and Michael’s deaths reinforce the reason why I keep relationships at a distance.   As a lesbian, I have to make a conscious decision whether I want to have children or not.   My wife and I have decided we are better aunts than mothers.   For me, I don’t think I could handle the loss of a child.   It’s enough that I’ve allowed myself to be in a relationship with my wife, that I’ve made myself vulnerable in that way terrifies me.   I often find myself in a tug a war in relationships.  I pull people close and then push them away- even Leah.  It starts to feel dangerous if I depend too much on any one person.  I’ve learned how to cope with loss by almost eliminating the possibility completely.  My friends and therapist tell me that being vulnerable and connection make life worth living, but at this point I am not convinced.

I am a woman of privilege- I’m white, middle class, educated, and insured and it’s been difficult to find a psychiatrist who gives a shit and a therapist who I can actually talk to.  The amount of money I have spent on my health since February is atrocious.  I was and am lucky that I was in the financial position where I can spend $85 a week on copays for therapy and my DBT class.  That’s not counting PCP, gastro, or psychiatry appointments. I can’t imagine where I would be right now had I not had these privileges.

My friend is left to cope with the death of her son and try to continue on with her life.  In a way, all the best we all can do is learn how to cope with what life throws our way.   The key word is “learn.”  Some of us do not develop the proper coping skills as children because we are focusing on survival and as adults we have to learn ways of coping that are healthy and won’t result in an untimely death.

I’m tired of the bullshit.  I’m tired of how we shy away from certain people because they seem unhinged or how we ask someone how they are, but we don’t care and don’t want a real answer.  I’m tired of pleasantries.  I’m also tired of reading news stories about police brutality against those who are in marginalized groups.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/24/ferguson-ruling-civil-unrest_n_6215654.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-powell/response-to-ferguson-syst_b_6218332.html