Chapter 33. Grief work

Every day is a journey,

and the journey itself is

home.

– Matsuo Basho

Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings

Life goes on. I keep saying that, don’t I? It seems like life ought to stop to allow for my heartache. Instead, we keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Saturday, March 13, 1999, the day after we come back from Iowa for dad’s funeral, finds Gregg and me with Seth at St. Olaf from 8am until 2pm for Scholars’ Day. Seth interviews for a Regents Scholarship: $6,000 in financial relief for most, but for us with Gregg’s 65%-off tuition benefit, the honor is worth just $500. 

[We learn later that he receives the scholarship; still he decides that Carleton is a better fit.] 

Mid-afternoon contains a headache, with me taking a pain-killer and napping. After some late afternoon writing of some thank you notes (for food contributed and memorials given for my dad), the evening includes supper together. Becky’s boyfriend Mike joins us after their afternoon movie watching.

  

In this week after Dad’s funeral, we continue with counseling. Gregg has a session with Maureen that John attends. I’m not happy about us covering the $300 cost of the counseling, but we do: to pay for the counseling is better than not doing the counseling. In searching for some of the underpinnings of the affair – of what contributed to Gregg’s move toward rebellion – we discern that the grief and abhorrence of Becky’s loss of childhood innocence has had a role in the marital straying. Gregg especially felt powerless and angry about it.

So he and we need to work through the John stuff. I deal with Becky’s abuse with my usual coping mechanism: by obtaining information. I start into the book Child Abuse Trauma. I want to understand how Becky has been affected and also understand my own childhood ‘trauma’ (though I don’t think I’d been overtly sexually abused, I am aware that parental emotional neglect feels to me like a kind of abuse). I am taking a 100-day break, per Maureen’s suggestion, from alcohol. On March 17, I am at day 53 (yes, I’m counting).

It’s nearly prom season and Becky wants to shop for a prom dress. I figure it’ll be good for me to be distracted with other things than loss; we go and have a good time shopping.

The weekend finds us back in Storm Lake. Mom wants to go through Dad’s clothes, and there’s always work on the house that handyman Gregg tends to.

The next week --

March 22, 1999

To Gregg via email: And thanks for sticking with me - I'm terribly sorry that I'm still needy...that I still struggle with this depression stuff - I hate it for me and for you...I'm so *sick* of it - sometimes I just want out.

Please don't personalize my anger and sadness - I have some issues to work through and they do involve you and your family and me - but it really is my problem to find my way through, mine to figure out - I'm sorry that you end up suffering some of the negative consequences (like feeling hurt when I have a hard time with your parents, and other stuff).

I have both emotional distress and physical distress. 

I get a diagnosis of fibromyalgia in the late 1990s. There’s also headaches. March 24, 25, and 26 of 1999 are headache days – I throw up a couple of times on the second day: once at home before going to work, once at work in the mid-morning. I sleep in the afternoon before picking up the kids from school. Some headache relief after the nap feels good. Youth group leader is over for supper that night of March 25. After supper I work on Seth’s scrapbook – I want to have it ready for his graduation, less than two months away. Only a mild headache on day 3. Looking forward to a massage that night: maybe tension in my muscles is contributing to the headaches?

It’s late March, spring break. Becky exchanges her 16-year old birthday present of an amethyst ring for a pretty little diamond. Danny, Becky, Seth all have friends overnight. It’s noisy, with music thumping on main level and also in Becky’s second-floor room next to my bedroom where I’m attempting to escape. I shower and go to bed early; try to read but fall asleep.

Life feels burdensome.

I am aware that I need to either go looking for fun or learn to better enjoy the present moment.

“Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled –

to cast aside the weight of facts

And maybe even

to float a little

above the difficult world

I want to believe I am looking 

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --

that the light is everything -- that it is more

than the sum of each flawed blossom rising

and fading. And I do.

-          Mary Oliver

March 30, 1999, is an exciting day. Becky passes her driving test! Plus Merri and Ron Swanson have a baby girl and I get to be present as supportive doula.

March 31, 1999

Becky took her driving test to get her license yesterday afternoon and she was sooo nervous - she knew that she couldn't parallel park well and that she might have some trouble doing a 90-degree back into a drive. Well, she got a kind elderly gentleman who was in a good mood, and even though Becky was "kinda far" (Becky's words) from the curb on the parallel parking, and one other time in parking at the curbside, and even though it was too windy for her to do her 90-degree backup (the wind kept blowing the examiner's flags down!) -- he PASSED her! 

Isn't that marvelous - it's almost unheard of for those license guys to give any grace... we're convinced that God was being so kind and gracious to us.

The gift of Becky passing her driving test comes during a time of her feeling awkward and mad at herself. She knows that her boyfriend wants to kiss her and she kinda wants to kiss him, but has avoided it so far. My take is that she has some understandable hesitancies.

I have SO MUCH anger against John and the misery he’s brought upon Becky and our family.

Yet there’s also some misery relief. I record that Gregg tells me, on this last day of March at lunch, that I am pretty, and he offers the healing statement of

"I was a fool - I'm sorry" (about the affair).

On a Friday in early April, as we do each spring, Gregg and I uncover flower beds and rake and pick up leaves and branches to take to the city composting area. I trim and prune plants and bushes. Gregg works at the shop, making the rest of the doors for our kitchen cabinets. In the evening we go out for dessert with Tiltras. Saturday holds more work. In general, we work lots: Gregg does side jobs, I do touch-up painting and other household jobs. There’s always work to be done.

Saturday evening we go to a Michael Card concert – time off! Sunday morn breakfast at church includes serving, then over to friends for dinner, and finally, for Gregg, Becky, and me a trip to Nerstrand State Park in the afternoon and early evening to walk trails. Headaches accompany me, but at least they are mostly mild.

The middle of April finds me tired, and going to a chiropractor for my neck and back pain and a hope of relief from the headaches.

Gregg and I keep working at relationship: I have a session with Maureen April 19, 1999. It’s just me this time.

April 20, 1999

A new development that sent a knife through my heart - Gregg talked in his sleep early Sat morn - graphic words of sex with Allure (he used her name, spoken very clearly)... so it's hard for me not to think that that is what he is wanting, at least on some level - and it hurts so hard.

The only other times that I've heard him talk clearly in his sleep have been similar words, again sex with Allure, in November of 1997 (when he was pulling away from her and their relationship and deciding to 'come home' (his words) - he told me about the extent of their relationship in January 1998, a couple of months later.

But, I recognize that having me hear those words (of f*** talk in his sleep) could be fueled by the evil one - to throw a wrench in everything.  
So, I'm considering all angles, and asking God for discernment, comfort, and His love.

I’m also keeping my antennae up.

I struggle with anger some more. 

Danny has a band concert on April 29, and I posit that we’ll likely see Allure and Steve since their eldest daughter is also a 5^th grader. I don’t plan on talking with them, but it still brings up intense feelings and much anger as I remember different things that were said or done.

May 3, 1999, Email to Gregg;

A quote that I take to heart....

Do not praise yourself nor slander others:

There are still many days to go

and anything could happen.

–Kabir

Thanks for talking things through with me honey... thanks for being willing to work on knowing me and making yourself known to me. I want to be one with you (without losing ourselves, but instead enhancing each other). 

Thanks too for initiating prayer last night - it soothes me, makes me feel protected and loved and more secure - to have that bond with you, to together go to God and trust Him alone, to share His love with each other.

It feels like Gregg is not as available as I think I need, but I’m feeling like I am needing more than any person can give. He seems preoccupied and has his own stuff to work through. I want to be understanding and supportive, but instead feel more like a burden as I struggle through fears, insecurities, depressive thinking.

Mothers Day, May 10, 1999, starts with disappointment but gets better. I get sweet notes from Becky and Danny.

Becky writes,

"I know that I can always turn to you in times of confusion for words of wisdom. 

I know I can always cling to you when I'm scared.  

And I know that if I have questions you will answer them without judging me for asking. You are the definition of a great mother.  

When I look around at my friend's moms I honestly see all of their best qualities combined in you. 

You've been so supportive and understanding. For the last 16 years you've emptied yourself to fill me up with a love for God, and a compassion for others in this world...

I thank you for being compassionate and understanding enough to work hard and keep our family together and one that I so fully enjoy each day and can so easily be proud of. Thanks again for being yourself.  I couldn't ask for anything more in a mom."

Danny writes,

"thank you for making meals for us, for reading to me, for taking care of my wounds, for being so gentle, and for knowing what I am thinking"  

I am touched. 

[A note from much later, about the sweetness of mother-child relationship: Rebekah gifts me with beautiful meaningful icons, purchased from  Central American artists, of mother and child symbols; the lovely pottery or stoneware moves me each time I gaze upon or hold them, and the relationship behind the gift moves me so much more deeply. I have the BEST daughter and am unexplainably grateful for her. I am grateful for all my kids, truly.]