How to Survive

Last night I received a phone call from a former co-worker with whom I have not had contact in more than 20 years.  I expressed delight at hearing from her and asked how she was.  There was a silence and then in a tremulous voice she said "well...not very well."

As it turned out, the man she describes as her soulmate for the past 10 years had just died, unexpectedly.  She said that she was "doing this all alone" and that she didn't know what she was supposed to do.  My heart went out to her.  We had worked together for a couple of years and she always reminded me of Jeri.  

We talked for a long while and I learned that her neighbor had come to bring food (I didn't ask if it was ham) and criticized her for the condition of her house, which didn't help any.

She said she couldn't think of who to call, so called me.  We were working together when David died and she knew I had been through something like this before.

I finally asked if she'd like me to come over in the morning (we had a show to review that night so I couldn't go right over right then).  She thanked me and said she would like to see me.

Before I went, I found a little book that had been given to me in 1986 by a woman I worked with.  It was a new job.  I had only been there a couple of weeks when my friend Gilbert died.  Though of course I had been through deaths before (including that of my sister), Gilbert's death was the first to hit me so hard and I was having a difficult time keeping it all together while I worked.  It was a small office -- just four of us -- and this woman went out to lunch.  When she came back she handed me a book called "How to Survive the Loss of a Love."  I have probably written about it here before.  It's by Peter McWilliams and Harold Bloomfield and is a very thin book, just a little over 100 pages, that can easily be read in half an hour.  It contains prose and poems and it lays out what grief feels like and how to recover.  

It explains at the outset that loss can be as devastating as the death of a loved one or the breakup of a romance...or something as small as moving to a new house or the loss of a job or a tooth.  The degree of the loss will determine the length of the grief, but there is still a grief to get through.

This may be the book that has had the biggest impact on me in my life.  I read it every day and marked my progress through grief by how far I could get into the book before I started to cry.  It was a few months before I could read the whole thing without tears, and by then I was on the road to grief recovery.

The thing about grief is that you never "get over it."  When you lose someone you love, you grieve.  The grief comes in waves.  Just when you think you are starting to feel better, you get hit with it again.  I described it as hills and valleys.  You start in a deep valley and gradually climb up to a hill and then slide down into a valley again.  Over time the hills get higher and the valleys are less deep and the slides come at longer intervals.  (Heck, Gilbert has been dead 30 years and I had a brief slide at a recent Lamplighters show, thinking about all the other Lamplighters who have died since then.  My sister has been dead since 1971 and before dementia took her, my mother once in a GREAT while could still feel twinges grief about her death.)

You learn during this process that while the person whom you grieve is no longer here in the flesh, their spirit becomes a part of the new person you become following their death.  Gilbert is always with me (in addition to finding me parking places), David and Paul are always with me.  Kathy and Peach are always with me.  Who I am today is the me that I started out being, and the me that was affected by my love of them.

I went off to see my friend this morning.  and spent some time with her.  My heart ached for her because I knew how she was feeling, especially since she doesn't seem to have a support system around her.

Comforting people who are hurting is a difficult thing.   As I read somewhere "death rewrites your address book."  People you thought you could always turn to turn their backs, and people you never dreamed would become friends are there for you.  I remember a woman after Gilbert died who told me that I was "too public with my grief" and I never heard from her again.  This was someone with whom I had shared many of her own traumas and tried to be supportive, but when the shoe was on the other foot, she couldn't handle it...which, of course, just escalates the depth of your own grief.  You've not only lost someone you loved, but you lost someone ELSE you loved who doesn't want to have anything to do with your grief.  (We never did see each other again and last I heard she had Alzheimers.  I don't know if she is still alive or not.)

I have seen people I knew well in this town spy me at one end of a supermarket aisle and turn and walk away to avoid running into me.  While that hurts, I remember the death of a boy who was friends with our kid.  I didn't want to go to his memorial service because I didn't know what to say.  I did go, but I don't think I spoke with his parents at all because I felt so uncomfortable.

So I understand why people act the way they do, but I also remembered that the people who helped me the most, especially after David and Paul died were the people who just let me talk.  People seem to feel if their names come up, it would be too painful, so they act as if nothing is wrong.  I remember Walt's mother's cousin in Ireland saying to us, when we arrived at her house, "Now, I won't bring it up again, but I just wanted to say how sad I was that David died."  She then would not mention him again.  Ignoring him completely like that buries him even deeper.  When you have lost someone, talking about him/her lets that person be alive again, however briefly.  I may cry, but it is cathartic.

I didn't do anything magical today.  We just sat and talked.  I found out all the information about how he died, I found out how they met, the things they did together, etc.  Just chit chat.  She cried a little (even I cried a little), but it was good.  I think when I left she felt a little better.  

I will check back with her in a couple of weeks when the shock has worn off and she is really in the throes of grief and see if she needs to talk again.  Or maybe she won't need me again, but I'm glad she called me.  It was good to see her, though sad that it had to be under such sad circumstances.

Loss and Grief

As I have mentioned here probably more times than you want to read, the death of my friend Gilbert in 1986 was my first experience with loss. I had, of course, been to many funerals. I had even experienced the death of my sister, which should have been a big trauma, though since we had never been close, that loss was not as acute for me as others assumed it was. But Gilbert's death was the pivotal moment. The moment when I really began to experience grief, to know the meaning of "grief work."

The pain of Gilbert's death was compounded by the fact that my other good friend, Phil, who had been my close confidante for years (all fat girls should have gay confidantes!), chose that moment to end our friendship. It was a double whamy. The painful death and the slamming of a door which could not be re-opened. It was a terrible time.

I had also just started a new job at that time and didn't really know my co-workers all that well, but one woman, Debra Lilly, observing my depressed demeanor in the first days of my return to work went out at lunchtime and when she came back, she handed me a book. It was a thin little book called "How to Survive the Loss of a Love." I have been grateful to her ever since, though we lost contact years ago (only recently reconnected on Facebook).

The book dealt with all kinds of loss, from death, to the break-up of a romantic relationship, to the loss of a friendship, to something as simple as the loss of a tooth. It dealt with how our grief cycle goes, from taking years to recover to perhaps a couple of days to recover (as in the loss of a tooth, for example) and offered help in dealing with each of the stages of grief.

That book was my guide for months as I worked through losing both Gilbert and Phil. I read the book every day, and my gauge through my grief over Gilbert's death was how far I could get through the book before I started to cry. I never fully recovered from losing Phil, mostly because while the possibility was always there because he was still alive, there was never any closure. But in time I came to accept that there was nothing I could do about it. He's long dead now, and it still hurts.

I never joined any support group because I didn't know of one where you could bond with people who had lost friends, but I toughed it out on my own. Walt was here, of course, and sympathetic. He was sad about Gilbert's death too, but didn't feel it on the gut level that I did.

A friend lost her mother earlier this year. She's a "tough it out on my own" person as well, but she eventually joined a support group and was surprised at how much help she received from sharing her feelings with others in that group. Today there was a Service of Remembrance for all the members of all their grief groups and she invited me to come with her, which I decided to do.

It really was very nice.

The service was short, but meaningful. I liked the lighting of five candles (only four of which I remember): one for grief, that we grieve the loss of the person we loved, one for courage to move forward in life without the one we loved, one for memories of all the fun we had together and all the good things we shared, and one for hope as we move forward into life without the person we loved. It was very moving.

There was a ceremony where we all were given roses onto which we put the name of the person who died and put them each in a vase on a big table in front.

And then a guy sang a song which was designed to elicit the most emotion of the night. It looked like a mosh pit of some famous performer, with all those tissues waving in the air from all the boxes places all over the room, and all the nose-blowing as the singer sang.

When it was all over, there were refreshments and I met the others in my friend's support group--very nice people all, and all having lost parents. I overheard someone use a funny term something like "It's been two years and I still have 'grief brain.'"

I'm glad I went. I don't know that I really needed to be there, but joining with other people who have suffered great loss and feeling the supportive energy is always helpful for any painful loss. I hope.

What if...?

This entry is difficult to write, but I thought about it on the ride home from San Francisco last night and decided that while I've pushed all these memories way to the back, I really want to bring them forward and examine them, and maybe someone will stumble on this some day and find a little comfort and a little hope here.

Last night was the 22nd G.R.U.B., or the Gilbert Dinner. Twenty-two years of meeting at some restaurant to raise a glass and toast our friend Gilbert Russak, who died on Bastille Day in 1986. We've had large groups and small groups at this annual dinner. This year we were 10 and when time came for the toast ("Oh--it's you") it was followed by other toasts, one for Adrian, one for Jeanne, one for Dario ... people we have lost over the past 22 years. I decided we were like a tontine without a prize at the end. We'll continue to meet, year after year. Our numbers will gradually shrink until there will be only one person left, who will probably go to the greasy spoon, The Big Heart, and collapse over one of their artery-clogging burgers. What a way to end it all.

I had to laugh about us after dinner ended and while the bill was being calculated (always a challenging task...why do we always end up $20 short?) I looked around and realized that everyone had his or her cell phone out, trying to find the calculator built into the phone.

Not a geek in the room. There were lots of comments about "I think I have that, but I don't know how to use it..." and lessons shared by people who had figured out that particular function, but maybe not another function. Really kind of funny at the time.

During dinner, we talked about how Gilbert would have gone crazy for the Internet. He missed the Internet by a few years but he was such an information whore that had he lived to see Google and the explosion of information on the Internet, he would have been in hog heaven. Especially for someone who had as much trouble sleeping as he did, having a computer in the middle of the long night would have been a godsend. But he didn't live to see that.

And that was what started me remembering that horrible, horrible night in 1986 when I received the call saying he had died following what was supposed to have been a simple in-and-out surgery. Nobody expected him to have a heart attack in the recovery room.

Gilbert and I had a strange relationship. He was my best friend and for the period of time that we were friends, I guess I got a lot of my identity and self-esteem from being with him. He taught me so much. It was at a point where my own nest was beginning to empty and I had more time to spend in San Francisco, and Walt was more tolerant than most men would be at letting his wife spend so much time with this gay man. For some 3 years, my life was really centered around what Gilbert & I were doing, what project we were about to do, what event we were going to attend.

When he died so suddenly, I was totally lost. It was as if the bottom had dropped out of my world. Oh there was still my life here in Davis, Walt and the kids, but that exciting bubble I had been living in had burst, the person who was at the center of it was gone and, as many people in grief feel, I just didn't know how I could go on without him in my life.

My plan was simple. At some point, would just climb into his car in his garage in his empty house, turn on the engine and I wouldn't have to think about that any more. The pain would go away.

But I didn't do that, obviously. The idea seems unthinkable to me now. And it wasn't really a serious plan at the time--but I did consider it. It hurt that much. I learned, then, that there is a reason for funerals. It's a lot of busy work for the survivors. It keeps your mind occupied. I couldn't die until I'd taken care of business. I got his house ready for his relatives, who were flying in from Oklahoma. I took care of them, helped them make funeral decisions, got through the memorial service and the scattering of his ashes. I would postpone my one way ride in the car until that was all over.

But when it was all over, there was the house to take care of. I didn't want strangers pawing through his stuff. He would have hated that. So I paid the company that was going to settle his estate and bought all the contents of the house (they offered me a good deal) and I started taking care of his stuff myself, keeping too much, giving a lot away to friends, sending stuff to the dump.

By the time I had done all that work, I didn't want to kill myself any more. I was learning how to live with the pain and Gilbert had once again taught me a lesson, this time about how to start dealing with grief.

It's been a long time since that night when I thought about climbing in his car and ending the pain and as we drove home from the Gilbert dinner, I thought of all the wonderful things that have happened in the past 22 years, the things I would have missed if I had killed myself.

The internet, for one thing. He wasn't here to see it, but I was and obviously it has become an important part of my life. There is a whole community of friends who are now special parts of my life becuase of the Internet. Real friends. Face-to-face friends I never would have met without the Internet.

I wrote a book, with the help of my friend Alison Lewis. I never thought I would be able to write a book, but it was so important to me that the accomplishments Gilbert made in the last 10 years of his life be chronicled. So "The Lamplighters History, Part 2" was written and I'm so very proud of it.

I would have missed the entire history of Lawsuit, and all those concerts I loved attending.

We traveled. I never thought I would see a foreign country, but two years after Gilbert died the family traveled to England and Ireland and had the very best family vacation ever. It created a real special bond with the kids and it kicked off a love for travel that Walt and I have shared ever since. How sad if I had denied myself the opportunity to broaden my geographical horizons.

I met Steve, who for a long time was jealous that he was always being compared to Gilbert. Why? Just because he's a gay man in show business with whom I worked on musical projects? Pshaw. Steve was the door that opened after Paul died and the thing that filled the hole that Gilbert left behind. Would I rather have Gilbert and Paul back? Of course. But they were each tormented souls who, I suspect, are happier where they are, and what wonderful adventures I would have missed by not having Steve's friendship.

Peggy came into my life. This fascinating, exciting woman who also took me on adventures, who made the most mundane fun, who reactivated my love of photography, who shared my love of wild animals, who gave me the courage to travel around the world to continue the adventure. Her friendship is very special and how sad it would have been if I had not been around to meet her.

I was working at a typing company when Gilbert died. Since then I learned medical transcription, worked for most of the doctors in town, managed two medical offices and became a theatre critic. Quite a lot in 22 years. And I enjoyed most of it, making wonderful friends in the process.

Cousins Day! How sad if I had missed the opportunity to connect with my cousins and have these wonderful experiences we've been having for the past year and a half.

There were, of course, the sad things that happened over the past 22 years, including burying David and Paul, but I think the one thing that living through the grief of losing Gilbert (rather than giving in to the immediate desire of just wanting all the pain to go away) was that I learned that grief, no matter how intense -- whether it's the loss of a friend, or the loss of a child -- gets better. People say "you'll never forget him," which is somewhat silly. Of course you don't forget somebody that you loved or a child that you raised. Of course it always hurts on some level. But you learn that life can be beautiful again, maybe not today, maybe not for a long time, but there comes a day when the air around you sparkles again, when you hear the birds singing and think it sounds beautiful, when something excites you again, and when you realize that you are so glad to be alive, and how much richer your life is for the experiences that you've lived through....and survived.

I really do understand when people say that death is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I'm glad I didn't choose it. I'm glad that with the support of wonderful people -- like Walt -- I hung in there and gave my own life a chance.

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Tomorrow is Cousins Day--finally. Rasptinis and "65" and catching up on the past two months. Next journal entry will be posted late.