From December 2000 through March 2002, I was hit by a series of profound losses; first my father, then my mother-in-law, to whom I was very close. Then we all experienced the collective shock and grief resulting from the September 11th attacks, which was profound and lasting.
Finally, I learned belatedly of the death of one of my closest friends, a man I had been involved with in my twenties, and then remained close friends with for over twenty years. His death was the tipping point that sent me into a profound grief from which it took me over three years to fully emerge.
I was very fortunate in that I was already in a period of near-frenzied writing at the time; I was actually in the process of editing my first book of poetry when my dad wound up in Hospice care, at which point I "temporarily" shelved the project, and then he died a few days before Christmas. I never did publish the book of poetry, although I kept writing.
In what may be the ultimate irony, the working title of my book of poetry was: "The Gift of Loss."
Following my mother-in-law's death, my (now former) husband and I both became very ill with a severe flu, him gravely so, as it turned into pneumonia. It took a long time for us both to regain our physical and emotional stamina.
I poured much of my limited energy into journaling, which helped to keep me sane during that period, and continued writing poetry like a fiend at night before I went to bed. Although I still wasn't coming up with what I really wanted to say, I was getting closer.
Following the attacks on 11 September 2001, I found myself crying in front of my computer a high percentage of the time, and also found myself writing more and more about my years of living at the beach in Santa Monica and Venice, California, which was coincidentally the period in my life immediately preceding my meeting Ted.
The night before my winter came
you lay amid the room of nurses and caretakers
struggling for breath to the last.
In the early morning the call came
an accented voice saying your daddy has died
and then a dial tone.
Four days before Christmas
the first day of what was to become
the longest winter I would ever know
The cold the wind the funeral the charming town where you were born
The day Bush II took office which I knew
you would have despised
Stumbling through my days
in a haze a mist a fog a numbness
seeing hearing wanting nothing
Then Mae began to fail
as we prepared for a journey afar
and traveled onward
San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Domenica
then on to Martinique, as dolphins escorted us into port
where you sat up in bed and said something has happened to my mother
The cold the wind the funeral the blooming dogwoods
The joy and tears of family gathered as one
then flu and flu to pneumonia I almost lost you
The long black climb back to walking and stamina
and some semblance of normalcy
was all that we could muster
Our anniversary came and went
the one we'd said for years would be our best and brightest
but arrived when we had neither energy nor will to celebrate
And then one fall morning over orange juice
I sat and watched a tower burn and then a plane fly into the second
knocking the wind out of my sails and releasing tears I had yet to cry
As a nation we wept and mourned our dead
Three thousand dead as our Constitution was to become
and I reached out to all but the one I should have called first and last
Sorrow became my bones numbness my breath
as I felt my love slipping away yet could not call or would not
were you then willing me away so that I might remember as you had been?
So many things then were reminders
my thoughts of you nearly constant as constant you were in my heart
then you were gone and my semblance of a life collapsed
The facade I'd built so carefully now stood useless
the walls with which I surrounded my heart now so much rubble
dwarfing those dragged and ripped from Ground Zero and dumped overseas
Your death ripped my heart out and then his for good measure
As he awaiting me at home at first unaware he had just lost his wife
to a dead man she had left over twenty years earlier
You died the last day of winter
but that was when my winter started in earnest
and would not let me be
No cold no wind no funeral no word at all
no ability to move forward with my day and no idea at first why
bursting into tears at a film which was not sad but was set in Venice
No one called me no one wrote I had no message and yet
my writings from that time turned to California and to you albeit indirectly
yet when I learned I would be traveling there I could not call you
And when I stood before your house and left a note
I was so shaken that I left it on your neighbor's house instead
because in truth I already knew what I could not accept
Widowed by a man I never married
so afraid to love and be loved that I bolted across a continent
breaking both our hearts in the process
In truth I never meant to harm you
I did only what I thought you wanted me to do and it was only when you died
that I learned my folly
Had you known what I was up against
you might have made a different choice and so might I have done
but what was done is done and cannot now be changed
But your death left me with a gift
and showed me my marriage for the facade it was
and me for the person I had been
In your eyes I could see the best of which I was capable
and to my mind there can be no greater gift than to show someone
the best of themselves through loving eyes
And as my shackles were released and fell away
I became once more the woman you had known so long ago
and came to love myself once more
And now my marriage is ended
on the date of my father's birth the birth of a new life
new people new meetings new experiences new day
Now is the winter of my discontent
grown cold and distant with drizzling rain
turned to sunshine and it is spring.
30Nov2005
I am again including a spoken word recording courtesy of Sound Cloud, as dSound is still "processing" the first 3-minute clip I uploaded over three hours ago. C'est la vie.
And I would love to hear your take in the comments.
Cuttings Are Rooting – Day 75 – Daily Haiku
Signs of Spring are Here – Day 74 – Daily Haiku
In Gifts from the Heart – Day 73 – Daily Haiku
L.A. Guitar Quartet – 4 Variations on Twinkle Twinkle Star - Music
Rupert Holmes – The PeopleThat You Never Get to Love - Music
Water is My Path - Day 72 - Daily Haiku
no-man – Lighthouse – Live Music
Steemit is My Place – Day 71 – Daily Haiku
Trip to Memphis - StreetPhotography
What If – Day 70 – Daily Haiku
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All words and images are my own.
I took the first photo, above, at Dog Beach at Fort deSoto State Park, in St. Petersburg, Florida. If you look closely, you can make out the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in the background. I took this with one of my Canon PowerShot digital cameras, but I don't recall which model.
The photo of our dog, Lolo, and our late cat, Miod, I took as they were cooperatively begging at the dinner table, despite our longstanding rule of not feeding them from the table.
You can see how much that deterred them both.
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