A Community of Sorrow

Posted on February 20, 2014 by edcol52

communitySince Jake’s death less than eight weeks ago, we have become members of a very exclusive group. It is part of a society that everyone joins sooner or later, but no one really thinks about it much. The Grief Community. The only prerequisite for membership is that you have lost someone or something that is precious to you. It can be a loved one, family member, relationship, home, a precious memento; there are so many things to lose. And of course the degree of grief varies with the type of loss. The worst is when someone you love dies. It is so final. With a home, you can rebuild. With a relationship, you can forge a new one. You can find another job, pocket watch or iPhone. Death, on the other hand is irreversible.

This community doesn’t get much publicity. It isn’t a secret society, per se, but it doesn’t exactly advertise for members. There are organizations, web sites, discussion groups, chat rooms, blogs, and books, all for the purpose of providing support and whatever comfort there may be in ‘company’. After all, aren’t we told that misery loves company? Well, there is plenty of company out there for us. Within that larger community, there are groups of every description for every type of loss. People who have lost spouses, parents, siblings, children, friends, all have a different experience shaded by whatever relationship they had with the departed. The 50-year-old adult who loses a parent has a very different outlook than an expectant mother who loses an unborn child, or a brother who loses a sister to a hit and run driver.

But everyone in this community, anyone who has ever worked with grieving people, anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one, agrees that the loss of a child is unique. Our children are a part of us, literally. They carry our DNA, our heritage; we created dnathem. When we lose a child, a piece of us dies with them, leaving an empty space in our being that can never be filled. There are many groups for parents who have lost children, and within those are sub-groups: Parents who have lost infants, toddlers, 6-12 year olds, teenagers, young adult children, and so on. Groups for different causes of death: illness, accident, suicide, drugs. The permutations are myriad. Again, each group has a different perspective, but the overarching theme that unites us all is the anguish, the heart-wrenching sense of loss, the pain, both physical and emotional of our children being cheated out of their future, us out of ours. It is such a tragic waste. Every parent thinks about it, tries to imagine what it would be like. The reality is like nothing you can ever imagine.

There is no other human experience with which to compare it. People are born, they live, they die. That is the way of life. But when a child dies before his or her parents, it is a disruption of the natural order. An abomination. The world suddenly turns topsy-turvy, and nothing is ever the same. Nothing. Ever. The. Same … Ever. It is as if you wouldn’t be surprised to see the sun rise in the West, or birds fly North for the winter, or Summer follow Autumn. Parents are not supposed to bury their children. They just aren’t. Parents are not supposed to inherit their children’s belongings, it is the other way ’round. Parents aren’t supposed to spend their golden years pining for their dead children, wondering ‘what if’ …

My life is divided into two parts. The Before and the After. There is no going back. I struggle every day to make sense of the After. There is no sense to be made. It really is a cauldronmoment by moment affair now. There are occasions where I feel slightly sane, can function on a basic level, go shopping, out for a dinner, visit with friends. But suddenly, without warning, it can get ugly. The emotional ambush strikes at any instant, transforming a pleasant experience into a cauldron of anguish and longing. If only I could brew up a magic spell to bring him back. And there are times when I just feel shitty. No two ways about it. Don’t want to get out of bed, don’t want to leave the house. Don’t want to speak to anyone, go anywhere, do anything. That passes eventually, but I don’t have to apologize to anyone for feeling that way. Our friends and family understand. But only insofar as they can.

In the past few days I have spoken, via internet messages and emails, with many parents who are grieving for their lost children. Of all ages, from all causes, from just a few months ago to ten years on. It is an amazingly diverse and compassionate group. And the benefit, if you can call it that, is that these people know what you are feeling, no matter how old their child was when he or she died, no matter from what cause. There are subtleties of perception, differing perspectives, ways of dealing with it, but at the core, the degree of pain is identical for everyone; it is an unbearable agony that has to be borne. These people have been through it, are going it through with you. We all have insights to offer each other from wherever on the road we happen to be. It is a constantly changing and evolving landscape. There are many similarities in what we all write, those of us who have chosen to chronicle the ‘After’ lives we now lead. The experience manifests itself in so many different ways, yet all so alike.

Honestly, it may not help, having someone who ‘gets it’ to talk to. Sometimes I think nothing can make any difference one way or the other. That I will just have to figure it out on my own, and that is true for each of us on this journey. But it doesn’t hurt either. There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who have lost children and those who have not. We now belong to that horrific club no one wants to join; the price of initiation is far too high. There is some comfort in knowing we are not alone, timetablethat what I am feeling isn’t crazy, or that I am not expected to behave in some specific way at pre-determined intervals. That I can just do and feel whatever the hell I do or feel, whenever the hell I feel like it, and that’s okay. It may not sit well with some people who have no idea of what we are going through, which is everyone in the “haven’t lost children” group, who might expect us to follow some idealized grief timetable. But with my people, those of us in the “have lost children” fellowship, whatever, whenever is just fine with them.

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Friends and Family, Grief, Healing, Jake Colman, Support | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Pages in a Journal

Posted on February 19, 2014 by edcol52

journal-writingI have been looking at some of Jake’s journals from the past couple of years. In each one, the first 5, 10, 15 pages are filled with the most diverse writings. Philosophy, ramblings, shopping lists, recipes, lists of people’s phone numbers, to-do lists, goals, dreams, plans, a sketch or two, followed by a book full of empty pages. These books are sadly symbolic of his life. At first so busy, so much to do, so many people to call, so much to be, and then … nothing. Just a blank slate that will never be written on. All the people never phoned, the groceries never bought, the wonderful meals never cooked. All the dreams that won’t come true, the ideas that won’t come to fruition,  the photographs never taken, the people who will never be touched by his special gifts. Our loss is the world’s loss. Yes, I should be grateful for what I have, what he did, what he left us, what we may do in his name, but my heart aches for what could have, should have been. Nothing to do for it now, I’ll just have to learn to live with that ache. I’ll never get used to it, but what other choice do I have?

Posted in Daily Ramblings, Grief, Jake Colman, Jake Writes, Memory, Sadness | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Ambushed!

Posted on February 17, 2014 by edcol52

Today started off just fine. Clear sky, bright yellow sunlight. Everything seemed to be okay. We had a lovely time the previous evening at our friends’ house, eating corned beef hash (one of Jake’s favorites) popping popcorn and watching, or more accurately, not watching movies. Technical difficulties. We did watch about 5 episodes of Modern Family, though. The first time I had seen the show, how could I have missed it all these years. Hilarious. Lots of laughs, and a pleasant good night. I did have some strange dreams, including a fragment with Jake, bicycles and a restaurant. That’s all I remember.

I have been getting up every weekday at 6:30 (ish) to go to shul to say kaddish. I trundled off to shul, the morning going smoothly, or so I thought at the time. I read through the service somewhat perfunctorily; I am mostly there for kaddish. To elevate Jake’s soul. Or so they tell me. At the end of the morning service there are 5 different places to say kaddish all within about 5 minutes. Between the second and third, my mood began to shift. Halfway through number three, I was in tears and could barely speak. There was no external trigger that affected me. Without any warning, the memory of Terry and me kneeling beside Jake’s grave a couple of weeks ago flooded into my brain and crashed into the tenuous truce I have with my emotions. That picture, so clearly remembered, devastated me. Brought it all back with a vengeance. I struggled through the rest of the service, eventually regaining my composure enough to bid everyone good morning and head home. During the 30 minutes I was inside, the fog rolled in, damp and cold, perfectly matching my mood. I drove home emotionless, everything drained out of me. Chilly outside, chilly inside. A regular fucking chilly-fest.

Yesterday I wrote about the cycle of grief. Today I embraced Depression. I crawled back into bed and slept till after noon. Nothing mattered more than being able to escape from myself for a few more hours. The thing is, even though we can assiduously avoid external triggers, don’t visit places that evoke memories, avoid certain people, certain things, we can’t stay home forever. But the rub is, we ambushcarry our memories with us. Wherever we go. We can erect walls around ourselves, externally and internally, but these memories are always there, able to breach our defenses without warning. The Grief Ambush. It is so unpredictable and capricious when it strikes.

For example, I went to a pen show yesterday with a friend. He is the father of a friend of Jake’s from elementary school. We strolled up and down the aisles looking at thousands of beautiful pens. Both Jake and I have a thing for fountain pens. Old technology in general I guess. The entire time I smiled to myself thinking how much Jake would have loved it. I met a gentleman who repaired a pen I had brought for just that purpose. It was an old pen of my Dad’s I recently discovered. Normally I would have had it repaired and given it to Jake, a keepsake from the Grandfather he adored. (I now use it to write in my ‘other’ journal. A keepsake from my son.) I told this to the guy, and he stared at me with a curious expression. He admonished me never to part with the pen. Turns out, he lost his 19-year-old son some years ago. Drowned while scuba diving. Jake was a diver too. Still no problem, no tears. I had a drink with Adam at the bar afterwards, looking out onto a golf course below the hotel, bathed in the golden light at the end of day. I watched a pair of golfers, maybe father and son, stroll past talking animatedly, even managing a wry apachesmile at the thought of Jake’s and my golfing adventures. You would think the entire afternoon would have been a perfect opportunity for a Grief Ambush, might think I was crazy to invite one in such an obvious way, but it stayed back. Maybe because I was on guard, it remained hidden in the rocks, waiting to strike me unawares. This morning it pounced.

Eventually, I got up, dressed for the second time and made some tea. A longtime friend of Jake’s and her mother were coming over to visit and share memories, so I pulled myself together in time to welcome them with smiles. We had a lovely hour, drinking tea, eating some little pastries and reminiscing. Erin, Jake’s friend, told us the story of when she first got to know him. At her birthday party years ago. Jake came with a bunch of other boys, but not being one to go to a party without bringing something, arrived with two pinatas filled with candy. It turned out to be the life of the party. That’s what he was. The life of the party, any party.

There is nothing we can do to defend ourselves from the ambush. Nothing we can do to protect ourselves from our memories. We don’t want to, really. They bring such sweetness along with the sadness. They are what we have that still connects us to him. They’re all we have left of his life that isn’t an inanimate object. Our memories and other’s memories. By sharing them, we learn more of what an extraordinary person our son was, can relive times when we were truly happy, can let other people know who he was, and help them keep him alive in their own memory. We have to invite those memories in, but we do what we can to watch out for that cunning bandit waiting patiently for when we least expect it. (As if we have a choice or can control it.) It can steal all of our joy, leaving us with nothing but the bitter dregs. We can’t allow that. We must learn to take the delight with the anguish. Smiling through our tears, his memory lives on.

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Dreams, Friends and Family, Grief, Healing, Jake Colman, Memory, Sadness | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Cycles

Posted on February 16, 2014 by edcol52

4-Seasons-540x540Life is filled with cycles. There is the cycle of the seasons throughout the year, spring, summer, autumn, winter. The cycle of months. There is the cycle of the days in the week. Within each day is the cycle of hours: dawn, day, evening, night. Cycles rule all of us whether we know it or not. When do we wake? When do we eat? When do we tire and go to sleep? Cycles for everyone and every living thing. Plants know when to bloom, when to bear fruit, when to lie dormant. Animals know when to breed, when to migrate, when to hibernate. All ruled by cycles. All predictable and consistent. Day always follows night, spring always follows winter.

Grief has its own cycles, but they are wildly inconsistent and unpredictable. The classic “five stages of grief” (originally developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross through her work with terminally ill patients): denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, don’t line up like spring, summer, fall, and winter. They aren’t the phases of the moon, one flowing into the other. It isn’t a checklist, it’s not instructions like putting together a bookshelf from Ikea. Everyone has their own rhythm and progression. They repeat in an endless loop always changing the order: denial, anger, depression, anger, denial, depression, acceptance, denial, anger, bargaining, anger, acceptance, denial, bargaining, depression, anger, denial, acceptance, denial, acceptance, anger, and so on. I can go through all five stages in a single day, in a single hour. But the one constant throughout all the stages is the sorrow and sadness. The feeling of ineffable loss. The terrible waste of it all.

Much has been written on and about this classic model, there are others too: J. William Worden’s “Tasks of Mourning”, Therese Rando’s “Six R’s”, the “Dual Process” developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Strut. In all of them, dealing with grief is an ongoing process. An open-ended process. The loss of a child, or any great loss, isn’t something you just ‘get over’ in time. It takes work. One is expected to confront their emotions, to accept warning signthe reality of the loss, to work through the pain, to relinquish attachments, to relocate emotions, to shift our focus, to readjust, to accept a new reality, to move on. There is no timetable, no schedule, no estimated time of arrival. You just keep on travelling, with no expectation of arrival. In fact, there is no arriving, just the journey now.

When I am in the anger cycle, part of the anger is that I now have a lifelong task that I didn’t ask for. I no longer have the luxury of just living, working, playing, relaxing. No, I have to ‘work on the process’, will be ‘processing’ forever. I had so much else to do, I didn’t need another lifetime project. Thanks, Universe, for the gift that just keeps on giving. Acceptance? Not likely. I will never accept it willingly. Get over it? No way.

Another week ends, another week begins. I have read that the first six months are the most difficult. I have also read that the second year is worse than the first. I don’t have to read any books to become an expert on grief. I already am. It doesn’t really matter. It can’t be worse than that first awful moment, and yet it can. It is.  As the ripples spread out in the pool, we don’t know what effect they will have in a week, a month, a year. We will only know when the ripples wash over us. For now, we just go through the cycles wondering which one is coming next.

ripples

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Grief, Healing, Jake Colman, Memory, Observations, Sadness, Tragedy | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Another Shabbat

Posted on February 14, 2014 by edcol52

Today was another unremarkable day. I guess that is also progress of a sort. A little puttering around the house, lunch with Terry, and a walk along the jetty in the afternoon. It was one of those beautiful Los Angeles winter days, pure blue sky, clear slanting yellow light, warm breeze. Bright outside, darker inside.

The restaurant we ate at, La Vecchia in Ocean Park, is fraught with memory. Jake started his candle business there many years ago, made tee shirts for them, became friends with the maitre d’, all the waiters, hostesses and barmen, and, of course the owner, worked pasta1there for a spell as a cook, welcomed by all, a typical Jake story. It was one of our favorite places, and we ate there nearly every week. About five or six years ago, we just stopped going, and haven’t been back since. We no longer know anyone who works there, no one knew us, and that was a relief. I couldn’t have borne to tell the story yet again. We munched our pizza and pasta in relative calm, no tears, wrapped in many memories. I could almost see him behind the line, tossing my pasta puttanesca in the pan and plating it for me with a wink and a grin.

As Friday evening approached, the melancholy began to descend. Another Shabbat without him. It’s not as if we saw him every day, or spoke with him every day. We visited him in Palm Springs every couple of weeks, took him shopping, out to dinner. Even though he wasn’t living with us, his presence continued to inhabit our home. He had a very strong presence. We phoned him every Friday afternoon to wish him a Shabbat Shalom and to tell him we loved him. Every one except for the last one. (One of many unresolvable regrets.) Now that he is gone, his absence felt so keenly, his solid presence in the world has been replaced by something more ethereal. His spirit, whatever that is. Just as strong but different somehow. It now inhabits my every waking moment, some sleeping moments too. I take him wherever I go. But I always did.

When he was living, part of him was with me all the time. Every parent knows what I mean. We carry our children around with us. We are not always conscious of that, the day-to-day aspects of life prevent us from thinking about them constantly, but he was always there in the back of my mind. I knew he was okay, was alive, wherever he was. I would see something cool, “Oh, Jake would dig that”, I’d think. Terry and I talked about what he would like us to bring him on our bi-weekly visits. Even thought he wasn’t constantly around, we always had the expectation of seeing him again. That is a luxury I no longer enjoy. Although, I do still glimpse him all the time. Last week I thought a young man walking on the street was him. Same unkempt bed head, same scruffy beard, same Wayfarer sunglasses, same slight swagger as he walked. The impression was so strong, I almost rolled down the window and called out his name. I nearly drove my car onto the sidewalk because I was staring at him so intently, trying to turn him into Jake. It didn’t work.

shabbat 3Now it is evening. Terry lit the candles to welcome the Shabbat Queen. It is time to pour out the wine and bless this day of rest. But for us, there is no respite. No rest from the weariness. No rest from the sorrow. I will try to get through the blessings without dissolving. We will have a quiet dinner, so much left unspoken. But not unsaid. Tomorrow we’ll join our community for a time, surrounded by people who truly care for us, and that is a blessing for which we are eternally grateful. We shall try to rest a little. Try to recoup some strength to face yet another week without our darling son in the world.

Shabbat Shalom

Posted in Daily Ramblings, Friends and Family, Grief, Jake Colman, Jake's Spirit, Memory, Progress, Sadness | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

What’s the Lesson?

Posted on February 13, 2014 by edcol52

This morning I found this post and photo on my Facebook feed from Jessie E., (the girl in the lower left of the picture) a long time friend of Jake’s:

Liebe Ed and Terry,

I am currently in the process of writing you both a formal letter where I will share my emotions and other buried memories of your son, but literally as I am writing this letter… I had to stop and describe to you this fabulous nostalgia – what I remember so strongly of Jake’s personality was his ability to explore such vast worldly subjects, and his terrific knowledge and deep understanding of life and to not only question the unknown, but to challenge it as well. His mind was like a labyrinth of insight, and he always had something useful or hilarious to teach me.
I will forever remember him for this unique quality and for his ability and drive to teach others. Thank you Jake, and I miss you dearly.

That is fine, lovely sentiments, but this picture brought overflowing tears:

jakejessieBetween the two of them they perfectly capture the essence of who Jake was. The deep thinker, the explorer, the inspirer, the teacher, the joker. It was the photo that got me, really. These kids were having so much fun. His boundless joy radiates from this photo, his captivating smile shining brightly. Oh Jake. You are exploring the unknown now.

What do you still have to teach us? That we should be grateful for what blessings we have, that we should cherish our loved ones, as we never know when they might no longer be with us? That we should tell our children how much we love them all the time because we won’t always be able to? That the universe is a beautiful, disorderly, unspeakably cruel place, and we should do our utmost to bring as much light and love into it as we can? What’s the lesson here? That I should be grateful for the time I spent with you, however short, and not rant and rail that the time is over? That I should be happy Jake touched so many people so deeply in so short a time, and not grieve that we are now deprived of his humor, grace, and wisdom? That it is enough to “keep your memory alive”, and not want desperately to have you back again?

It isn’t enough. I want so desperately to have him back again, and that is that. This will never change or diminish. It only grows more acute as time goes on.

So sail on, Jakey Jake, wherever you may be. You had such a profound lessons to teach us when you were here, I only hope I can divine what you are trying to teach me now.

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Friends and Family, Friends Write, Grief, Honoring Jake, Kindness, Memory, Photography, Sadness, Support | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Foggy Days

Posted on February 12, 2014 by edcol52

fogYesterday passed in a fog. Outside and inside. When I left the house in the morning, the ocean fog blanketed the world in its grey mantle, softening shapes and sounds. I couldn’t see much more than a couple of hundred feet down the road. It matched the internal fog I fight through every day. Everything is grayed out, colors, tastes, experiences, and like yesterday morning, I can’t see very far down the road. I have no idea where this road leads, this road of sorrow we now travel; it too is clouded by fog. I can’t imagine what our lives will be like in six months, six years, without Jake.

We had so many hopes and dreams; there were so many possibilities for him. All dashed to pieces. As someone I know observed recently, we live through our children. These hopes and dreams were for him, but also for us. We wanted him to succeed, to use his tremendous gifts to accomplish something great, to raise a family, pass his gifts on to his children, and them to their children. Carrying on the continuum of life, family, tradition. These were our hopes, our dreams and our possibilities. Also now dashed, and that is a huge source of our tremendous pain and longing.

As parents we allow so much of ourselves to flow into our kids. We strive to teach them how to behave properly, the difference between right and wrong, how to take care of themselves, how to be in this world. We provide them with opportunities to learn, to grow, to experience all the wonderful things life has to offer. The assumption is that they will return our investment in them by becoming good people, by doing good things, being kind, doing “the right thing” even when that thing is not the easy thing to do. We want them to grow up, get married, have children of their own in which they will, in turn, invest themselves and by extension, little bits of us. We want them to have rich, full, meaningful lives. We want them to be happy. Their accomplishments, their satisfaction, their happiness flow back into us as time goes on. That is how we get repaid. This is how it is meant to work. Now our investment has been stolen, and we will never get it back. So much of us went with Jake; we carry so much of him inside of us. But we will never see his life come to fruition, will never see the full return on that investment.

We can only imagine how it could have been. How much fun we would have had with his kids, spoiling them as grandparents are supposed to. Family dinners, trips, sharing holidays, all the good times we should have had, all the good times we won’t have. We are left now with what we do have. The finite memories of the time we did share with him, but it isn’t enough. There was supposed to be so much more. I want it all, and can’t have it. Like a petulant child, I cry, “I want it. Give it to me. It isn’t fair”, but no matter how much I rant and rave, thrash around on the floor in a tantrum of grief, it will never happen. I just can’t have it. Eventually the rage, frustration, sorrow and agony subside, like any tantrum, and I am left with the feeling of helplessness. This emptiness. Exhausted by my tears. But all these emotions are still there, a constant undercurrent, making everything flat and grey and difficult to see.

So we meander through the fog. The landscape shrouded in mist. Not knowing where we are going, but still plodding on toward that unknown destination. It is all we can do.

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Dreams, Grief, Jake's Spirit, Memory, Observations, Sadness, Tragedy | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Books and Bowls

Posted on February 10, 2014 by edcol52

Today I got two stacks of letters ready to mail. The first was made up of some bills Jake left behind. I wrote a brief letter explaining the situation to the creditors and printed copies of the death certificate. Seeing those documents over and over as I folded them and stuffed the return envelopes did nothing to mitigate the surreal world I now live in. There is still this vast dichotomy. I know it happened, Jake isn’t coming home, but I can’t really process it. Six weeks in and it still doesn’t feel real. I mean, how can it be? Jake, of all people.

The second was a stack of letters to publishers of Jewish children’s books asking for librarydonations to Jake’s library. I outlined the tragic story, and shared a bit of Jake’s unique relationship with books and reading. He was an early reader, a very early reader. We intentionally fostered this from the beginning, reading to him every day practically from birth. He became an avid and voracious reader. He loved books. All kinds of books. Jake had a thirst for information, for adventure, for mystery, for science, for literature, for the journeys to all the magical and varied worlds to which books transported him.

The juxtaposition of these two tasks caused me to look at once forward and back. Back to the last few months, and what might have been. Examining what we did, asking how we could have prevented this, what we should have done differently, what happened that Saturday morning. It is a futile exercise, there are no answers. It doesn’t really matter now. We did what we did, what happened, happened.

I also looked forward to receiving boxes of books from generous publishers. To creating the team that will bring Jake’s library into existence. Fund raisers, builders, volunteers, readers, leaders, donors of material, time, money, and effort, all united for a common goal: to keep Jake’s legacy alive for the betterment of children. A lofty goal, perhaps, but Jake was such a huge thinker, to strive for anything less wouldn’t be worthy of his gigantic spirit.

Later, some dear friends took us out to dinner. Sitting with them, enjoying their company, talking, laughing, planning for a future, seemed normal and right. Jake was there with us. Approving the steaks. Commenting on the bread. Enjoying the mashed potatoes. These are friends who are both Firemen and Builders. They were there from the very first instant, and continue to walk beside us. Always will. We are blessed to have such people in our lives.

BowlsA casual acquaintance just sent me a link to some interesting information about the Solfeggio Scale of tones and their effects on the spirit and mind. How different frequencies have different effects; eliminating fear and guilt, transforming grief, facilitating change, re-connecting and rebalancing. We were planning to get a Tibetan singing bowl, now we know what frequencies to look for. So touching, such a simple, seemingly trivial thing from a person I barely know, but he took the time to send something he thought might help us through these dark times. Something that might bring some healing, and help us move forward. Such a tiny gesture, but gigantic in its way.

Thank you everyone. Near and far, close and casual, met and unmet. We are so grateful in so many ways to count all of you as friends.

Posted in Coping, Food, Friends and Family, Grief, Healing, Honoring Jake, Jake's Library, Jake's Spirit, Kindness, Memory, Progress, Support | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Forever Young

Posted on February 8, 2014 by edcol52

In reading some of the “grief literature”, and in comments and discussions I have seen, I have learned some new terms. “Grief Spasms”, those paroxysms of anguish that grip, periodically often without warning. “Chronic Sorrow” describes exactly what condition a loss like this creates. It is like arthritis, or asthma, or lupus, or cancer. Nothing that can be cured, only managed. The problem with sorrow, is there are no prescriptions, no medications that can ameliorate the terrible sadness that washes over me from time to time. There are myriad suggestions in the books and blogs out there as how to “get through it”, how to “rebuild”, but as anyone who is going through this, has gone through this, life will never be the same. I am becoming an expert on grief.

I am coining a new term, one I haven’t heard before, “Grief Fatigue”.

It is exhausting being this sad. Moving through the day, it feels as if I am walking through a palpable substance, sapping my energy. I wake up tired. By the end of the day, I am worn out. I am tired of the sorrow. I am tired of being sad, of the constant ache. I wish I could just decide to be done with it, but that just isn’t possible. And it has only been six weeks. Six seconds. Six years. The journey forward seems so long, that’s why we say “one day at a time”. One moment at a time is more like it. We will just have to learn how to better “manage” it.

Last night we had a friend of Jake’s (and ours) over for dinner. We reminisced about the good times we all shared, how Jake wanted to help everyone he met, often to his own detriment. I wish he could have found a friend like him. Somehow, I was able to say Kiddush without breaking down, I guess that means something. Perhaps I used up my tears at shul that evening. Shabbat always brings my feelings right to the surface. The cup of emotion is so full, like the brimming cup of wine over which I said the blessings. Almost overflowing, held in check only by the surface tension of the liquid. So fragile, the least disturbance, the slightest motion, a breath of air, breaks the skin and the wine spills over the rim and drips onto my hands. So it is. No matter how calm, how I might be able to laugh at a joke, smile at a friend, the least disturbance can unexpectedly cause the overwhelming sorrow to flow.

jakecandlecakewToday in shul, a friend of ours said something that at once gave me comfort and brought sadness. It is a lot like that now. He said that for us, for him, Jake would always be young, would never grow old. That is the Jake he would remember. The vibrant, alive, laughing Jake. Friend to everyone. I remember all the Jakes. The delicious infant, the precocious toddler, the confident child, the amazingly literate, knowledgeable and capable teenager, the young man embarking on the journey of a lifetime. That journey cut so short. We won’t know the 30-year-old, the middle-aged Jake, the old Jake with a life’s worth of accomplishments behind him. We wanted him to grow old. We’ll never know what he could have done. We only know what he did in the brief time we shared with him. And he did so much.

Posted in Ceremony, Coping, Daily Ramblings, Friends and Family, Grief, Healing, Jake's Spirit, Memory, Progress, Sadness | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Morning, Afternoon, Evening

Posted on February 6, 2014 by edcol52

Mornings are the hardest. Except it gets bad in the afternoon, and evenings are the worst. There is no time of day when I don’t miss him. What concerns me, is that as time slides by, I don’t miss him any less. To the contrary, I miss him more and more each day. This scares me. How much more can I miss him? How much more can I yearn for his return? If Spinal Tap’s amps go to eleven, my Sorrow Meter goes to a million and eleven.

It is the most random things that spark the memory. In fact there isn’t much that doesn’t remind me of him now: Pastrami sandwiches, fountain pens, Wayfarer sunglasses, laptop computers, Katzs-Deli-735mm cameras, balsamic vinegar, model trains, Starbucks coffee, Ducati motorcycles, Parmesan cheese, welding tanks, LED’s, tiramisu, submarines, zoris, gelato, bow ties, scuba gear, Chinese food, high-waist pants, shave ice, Italian loafers, Ford Mustangs, key limes, cable cars, golf courses, Ray Bradbury, spaghetti Bolognaise, sea turtles, lemonade, electronic candles, tee shirts, pizza, rockets. There is a story and a memory behind each of these things and a zillion more. His interests and activities encompassed such a diverse universe. There were very few things he wasn’t interested in, and when he was interested in something, he learned everything there was to know about it.

I wrote a letter soliciting donations from publishers for Jake’s library today, with the help of a dear friend. It is good to have friends. I had to stop from time to time as tears blurred my vision. No more than three or four times, though. We are moving forward with this project, there are a thousand and one details to work out, but we are determined, as are so many people, to bring this to fruition. It was good having something positive to do.

Tomorrow will be the 6th Shabbat, but who’s counting? We will get through another morning, another afternoon, another evening. We will light candles and bring his spirit into our home once more. Maybe this week I’ll make it through three lines.

Posted in Coping, Daily Ramblings, Food, Friends and Family, Golf, Grief, Healing, Jake Colman, Jake's Library, Jake's Spirit, Memory, Photography, Progress, Sadness | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments