Moonlight and Momentum

I drove home tonight and looked up at the moon. As I saw the moonshine cast upon the fresh snow making my path home sparkle, my heart felt heavy. My heart is always heavy these days. But as I noticed the moon, it became even weightier. I wondered if I would ever look at the moon with joy again. Now, when I see the moon I am taken back to that night. The night I drove to the hospital in the back of my Audi, with a policeman driving. I stared at the moon. We were following your ambulance. I hadn't cried yet at that point. Adrenaline was surging. When I'd seen you wheeled out of our front door, on a stretcher, they'd said you had a faint pulse. There was hope. I stared at the moon. My mind raced. I thought of so many things and somehow also nothing at all. I clutched something. I don't remember what it was. My purse? My phone? Your wallet? Kevin's hand? A stone? I don't know. But I know I was looking at the moon. I know I was praying to the moon.

Now, I go days without opening the blinds in our bedroom. I turn my back on beauty because it hurts my eyes. I still say my gratitude prayer, like we did nightly while we admired the view from our room – but I can't look anymore. I avert my eyes from the glittering citylights, the acres of pines, and the moonlit scape. The beauty taunts my heavy heart. Some nights I sleep in another room, distancing myself from the comfort of what it felt like to be so loved.

It's been four months since you left this Earth. It's been four months of daily tears, barely coping, chasing my tail in slow circles, and living in a womb of confusion. Not a day goes by when I don't walk into our bedroom and expect you to be sitting casually between the sheets. My ignorance irritates me, but I guess somehow I still live in disbelief. You would have a book in your hands and a tired, sly smile on your face. You would pat the mattress to your right – my spot. I'd bounce into bed and kiss your cheek, lovingly. Reaching over and flirtatiously removing the book from in between your hands, I'd dogear your page and set it down on your nightstand. As you laid down on your back, I'd slide on top of you. You'd reach over your left shoulder and flick off the light. The sounds of our love would be the last noises we'd make that night. The moon would cast silent flickers on our walls from between the slivers of blinds – the night's voyeur.

And yet, every time I walk into our bedroom, you are not there.

I know there is no set pace for grief. There is no seven-minute-mile that I can train for to speed up this pain. But, honestly, I think this is a process I don't want to speed up. Some days, I'm all grief. Head to toe, can't get out of bed, immoveable sadness. But most days, I'm all over the place – neither here nor there. Sometimes my arms are stretching forward but my feet are stuck in quicksand. Sometimes my body is full-speed ahead, but my heart is pumping backwards. Sometimes I dress myself up in a pretty package – sparkly paper, bright red lips, stiletto Louboutins, and a bow on my head – but the box is empty. I've never felt so off-kilter and I've never felt so slow.

I used to feel an emotion and know what it was I was experiencing. It's something we learn as infants. I get pricked, "Ow!" I feel pain. I see a smile, "Yay!" I feel joy. I am given a hug, "Aw!" I feel love. I am spooked, "Ah!" I feel fear. But now, my emotions are a snowball. I can no long decipher one emotion from another. I am hurt. I am not just upset, instead I feel all the feelings. I am given a wonderful gift. I do not feel just gratitude, instead I feel all the feelings. I drink three glasses of wine, now I really feel all the feelings. It's exhausting to not be able to pinpoint your own emotions. Particularly because you and I used to communicate so clearly about the way we felt, what we were experiencing, and why. Now, I know nothing. I just know I am sad, I feel gratitude, I feel love, I feel panic, I feel anger, I feel loss, I feel fucking everything. This is the first time in my life when there are days when I think, 'Damn. Can someone just give me a pill so I stop feeling so fucking much?!'

It's been four months. People ask me big questions. Where will you go from here? What's next for you? Today, I moved a pile of your stuff from the den to the studio. I saw your drum kit and I fell to the floor. I crawled to your throne and I pulled myself onto it. I sat behind your kit and listened to the sound it made when my tears hit the snare, then the tom, then the snare, and then the tom. As I sat, listening to my percussion beat of sadness, I struggled with frustration. I am used to moving with momentum. I'm used to accomplishing tasks with determination and pace. I'm used to answering the big questions with gusto and knowing. But now, in this place, I can't. I'm moving in slow motion and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I don't know anything. And I can't answer any questions, theirs or mine.

I moved three things today – a pile, a box, and a rug. And that was accomplishing a lot. Because with each movement comes reminders of what was and what will not be.

I moved the pile and had to confront the drum kit.

I moved the box and discovered what was inside – hundreds of old letters, notes, and cards. You had saved over two decades of correspondence. I got lost in your world. It made me sad because I wanted you to be able to be there with me, telling me the stories behind each letter. I read love notes from teenage girlfriends who I can't remember if you ever told me about. I wanted to read those love notes and hear your subtext. I wanted to hear about where those girls are now and smile because they loved you in a time before I knew I loved you. It makes me happy to know you were loved. I thought about the decades of love notes that I had planned to write to you and that you were supposed to save in those same boxes... and then more boxes because you would run out of space in the box you had. I saw all the letters your mom sent you. She wrote you at camp when you were a kid. She wrote you a poem when you graduated high school. She sent you birthday cards each year. She sent you letters just because. But now that you're gone, she can't write you anymore. I thought of all the boxes that would go unfilled.

I swapped a rug that I didn't like with one I found in storage that I did like. And for the rest of the day, every time I walk through the room, I stop and wonder if you would like it there. I consider switching the old rug back just to keep the room how it was when you were here. I am living in your catacomb and I can't fathom leaving.

Change is inevitable, but it is taxing. Movement is unavoidable, but momentum is rare. Big questions loom, but there are no answers in sight.

I drove home tonight and looked up at the moon. It was a crescent shape. I noticed how it looked like a ladle that could hold anything and just let a slow drip spill out. I imagined you, as an mischievous angel, balancing yourself dexterously on its crescent ridges. You always loved to climb things. I tried to look at the moon with something other than disappointment, 'I prayed to you and you let me down...' I tried to look at the moon the way you and I looked at it when we admired the view from our bedroom window. But, I couldn't. I averted my eyes. It hurt, as if I had stared at the sun for too long. I'm simply not there yet. Instead, I am here, feeling it all.

Stages

I have heard that there are five stages of grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was the doctor to develop the theory – though in time she went back to say that she wish she'd explained the stages in a different way because society had taken them as being linear and universal – which she did not intend. Her work was meant as a kindness, not a cage. I have not looked up the stages of grief. I know anger is one, acceptance is one, and I think denial is another – but that's the extent that I'm familiar with. I have opted not to look up this process because like everyone, my sorrow will be unique. There is no sense in trying to assign a sequence of events or a right/wrong to what's happening in my body and mind. If I over-analyze (which is my natural tendency) I run the risk of harming myself more rather than allowing my natural process to unfold. At least that's where I am right now.

However, in this grief, I have been confronted by MANY emotions. Included are: guilt, confusion, denial, horror, anger, sadness, loneliness, confusion, fear, emptiness, astonishment, heaviness, constriction, nausea, inspiration, nostalgia, numbness, ambition, action, inaction, pity, self-judgment, bravery, insecurity, self-harm, depression, compassion, love, and sorrow. Some of these terms may be synonymous, but I have felt them all in various degrees, depths, and definitions.

I'm back in the States. I'm sitting in the bed at your sister Berkley's house that you and I slept in three weeks before your death. We spoke about the doorknobs in her house; they were the runner up choice for our renovation. You liked the wallpaper in her bathroom. We read poems written by a dog out of the book on the back of the toilet. We walked to yoga and really enjoyed the class we attended. You took a picture of me holding a giant leaf next to my face from a tree we passed by while walking to class. It was bigger than my face. I always liked giant leaves and I thought it was cool to see one in the middle of the city. You ate a Chicago-style hotdog, with pickles. I did too. But I added ketchup when no one was looking.

But now the visit is much different. I have cried more since I've been here than I have in weeks. The last time I was here, I was the happiest I had ever been. Now, I'm the saddest.

My grief is manifesting in a new way. It's as though the protective sheaths my body has offered me – the cushions – are deflating. The reality is really sinking in – again. I already thought it was real, that this had already hit me. But it hits in new ways now. The meat cleaver has been sharpened. The pain is fresh and palpable all over again. I feel paralyzed by the pain.

When Jesus's cousin, John the Baptist, died tragically – Jesus got on a boat and traveled to a desolate place to think and pray. When he arrived, crowds had heard of his arrival. They journeyed by foot to meet him and ask for his ministry. And when he saw them, he turned outward rather than inward. He helped others. While Jesus had intended to be alone and mourn, he was able to turn his sorrow into deep empathetic compassion when he saw that's what the world needed. He allowed the grief to empower him.

There have been moments, days, and even weeks through this process when I've felt ambitious. Where I've felt that I can take this pain and create something out of it. I will use it to help others. I will write a memoir. I will use this loss to create something beautiful to memorialize you. I have gone so far as to be in action and planning. That inspiration felt good. It kept me moving. It kept me nurturing. I can understand how such deep sorrow can liberate selfless action.

Until it can't. Until the adrenaline runs out. Until the blood wears thin. Until the body simply drops. And that's where I'm hanging now. I'm in a dark causeway.

Even though I'm surrounded by beautiful support. I am with your sister, one of my oldest and dearest friends. I hold your nephew in my arms and look into his innocent eyes, and I ask for you to shine out to me through him. But I am so, so raw. I am stuck in a pit of self-woe. I know this is part of the nonlinear and bewildering process. I realize my feelings, according to Ms. Kubler-Ross, are not crazy, they are probably very much in line with the five stages I am supposedly experiencing. But nevertheless, I do not feel strong, I do not feel connected, and I do not feel motivated to be empowered. I need my legs back underneath of me.

So today, my sweet love, I ask for your help. I ask you to pull me up in whatever way you can. Make a light twinkle around my periphery. Meet me in my dreams with a kiss or even a fart. Smile at me through invisible space so I can feel your aura. Let me know you're here, somewhere or everywhere. Let me know you still love me. Let me know, so I can go back to being brave.