Memories

“I can’t understand,” says Jackie, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I thought it would be so wonderful to return home, to drive through Iowa on our way out west, to look at the old farmhouse, to show my kids where Mom used to live. But it was awful. It was all broken down, dilapidated. Nothing’s the same. I remember the huge trees we used to climb when we were young. They’ve all been cut down.” 

Jackie pauses. “One thing’s for sure. Our work together has changed me. I didn’t go numb. I definitely felt my sadness.” 

I feel Jackie’s sadness as well. And my own. Although I have no attachment to my childhood New York apartment, the home I lived in on a small lake outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan during my 30s and 40s was my idea of nirvana. Leaving that home was gut-wrenching for me; seeing it again was worse. I felt as though both the house and the landscape had been defiled. The atrium had been ripped out, replaced by a slab of wood covered by a carpet and a piano. And my beautiful weeping cherry tree was no more. I couldn’t stop crying. And that was when my husband was still alive. Now when I return to the Ann Arbor area I can barely tolerate driving by the highway exit to what was once my home.

“But it is a bit silly,” Jackie continues. “I hadn’t been home for over 30 years. What did I expect? It’s not like my family’s there anymore. In fact, my Mom and sister are right here in Florida. Why isn’t this home?”  

The question of where’s home. “Well, why isn’t it?”

“It is home. My kids were born here. I feel as though I’ve lived here forever. And, as I said, most of my family is here. And when I talk about Florida right here, right now it does feel like home.”

“And your sadness lifts.”

“Yes, that’s true. But when I think about standing in front of that old farmhouse I feel lost.”

“’Lost.’ That’s a good word. Sounds like you’re saying that you lost your past, lost your home, lost your foundation. As if you were untethered, floating in space.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“And when you think about being here in Florida, about your life being here, you feel reconnected. This is home.”

“Yes. Right.” Jackie pauses. “It feels weird though. Like I’m split. If I think of being here, I feel fine. If I think of being there, I’m overcome with sadness.”

I feel shrouded with sadness myself and worry that my sadness makes me less able to be helpful to Jackie. Our stories aren’t the same. She does feel a sense of home in Florida, she does experience a sense of connection. I try to get outside myself and focus on Jackie’s feelings. 

“What about if you think of your childhood memories of that home, of, for example, climbing the trees, playing in the yard?”

“Well, right now it just feels sad. All I feel is the absence. There are no more trees to climb. But I think before I went back to Iowa it used to make me happy to remember. Not that everything in my childhood was so great, but still, I remembered the good times and it made me smile.”

“Perhaps as the memory of your present visit fades, those positive childhood feelings with come back.”

Jackie frowns slightly. “This seems like an odd conversation we’re having. It’s almost like we’ve switched places. I’m the one who’s feeling my sadness and you’re the one who’s trying to get me to stop feeling it.” 

I immediately realize the truth of Jackie’s statement. It’s as if the sadness was too much for me, not too much for Jackie; as if I wanted to escape my own sadness, not that Jackie needed to flee hers. “You’re absolutely right, Jackie. I apologize. You were feeling your sadness and doing fine with it.”

“Did you think it would be too much for me? That I’d start going numb again?”

“No, Jackie, I didn’t. Truthfully, this was more about me than about you. I think I’m the one who wanted to get away from my own sadness, so I was thinking I was being helpful by trying to get you away from yours.”

“Wow! I’m sorry I made you sad.”

“You didn’t make me sad, Jackie. We all carry sadness inside us. And when it comes to the surface we need to do just what you’re doing, feel it and feel it until you don’t feel it any more. It’s part of living life.”   

Before Death Does Us Part

“I don’t know what Pete wants from me,” Jackie says in her high-pitched voice, dissatisfaction oozing from every word. “I’ve already seen him through his surgery and now there’ll be chemo. And I’ll be there, picking up the pieces, as always.”

“You sound so angry, Jackie,” I say, stating the obvious.

“Look, he smoked for 30 years. Yes, he finally quit but, guess what, his years of being an ass came back to bite him. And guess what again, just when we get the kids launched – that’s the word these days, isn’t it? – he goes and gets lung cancer. So he’ll probably die and I’ll be left on my own to go looking for a new man at this not so young stage of my life.” 

I squirm in my seat, rubbing the thumb nail on my left hand. Jackie continues.

“I’m still being the good wife. I make his meals, I serve him, I clean up, same as always. I look at him sitting there just staring into space. But, yes, all I feel is anger.” 

And all I feel is sadness. Images of my husband’s illness and death flash through my mind – doing “laps” around our living room with his walker for exercise, determined to stay with me as long as possible; his final days, loudly proclaiming, “I love you, Linda” before going into hospice. Our love never wavered. My love still doesn’t waver, six years after his death. But perhaps I’m feeling not only my sadness, but the sadness Jackie cannot allow herself to experience.

“No sadness, Jackie?” I ask.

“What, I can’t feel angry?”

Oops. I guess I followed my feelings instead of hers.

“Of course you can feel angry,” I say backtracking. “But I’m not sure I understand the intensity of your anger. Do you feel angry for the things Pete did in the past, or because he’s sick, or because he’s going to die or for some other reason?”

“Well, he wasn’t such a great husband, that’s for sure. He was a good provider, I’ll give him that. But once he got home all he wanted to do was to be catered to. Me and the kids didn’t matter. Just give him his dinner and let him relax and watch TV, no talking about anyone else’s day or, heaven forbid, any problems. And in the bedroom? Forget that. It was what he wanted and when he wanted it. That’s one advantage to his being sick and coughing all the time. I got to move into one of the kid’s bedrooms and he couldn’t give me too much grief about it.”

I shudder internally. Jackie’s hostility is almost too much for me to bear. “What about when you got married, Jackie? What did you love about Pete then?”

“That was a lifetime ago.”

“I understand, but what did you love about him?”

“Why?” Jackie asks, staring at me defiantly.

I blink, knit my brow and look back at her. I’m beginning to think that it wasn’t only my sadness I was feeling after all. “That doesn’t seem like such a strange question. Why are you asking me why?”  

“You don’t like me being angry. That’s what I think,” she says crossing her arms over her chest.

“Perhaps,” I admit. “And perhaps you don’t want to risk feeling sad.”

“Why should I?”

“Well, remember what you said about Pete’s cigarette smoking coming back to bite him in the ass? That’s what can happen with feelings too. If you only feel your sadness and not your anger, you could, for example, end up being depressed. If you feel only your anger, in addition to missing out on a lot of love and closeness in your life, at some point you could be overwhelmed by your sadness or perhaps get physically sick, for example.”

“Sounds like a lot of psychobabble to me.”

“You know, Jackie, it seems like it’s not only Pete you want to stay angry at. It seems like you want to stay angry with me too.”

“I think you just can’t take my anger.”

“How about if I mull over that possibility and you consider whether you’re keeping your sadness at bay so you don’t have to deal with how scared and vulnerable you feel. Maybe we’ll be able to meet somewhere in the middle.”  

George

Today is my late husband’s birthday. In honor of that day I have decided to relate my experience of presenting my book, Love and Loss, to my professional organization a few weeks ago. Many in the audience were friends and colleagues. Many had known George.

In my presentation I discussed my motivation for writing the book – to memorialize George and our relationship - as well as to illustrate my now staunch belief that a therapist’s present life circumstance greatly affects her work and her patients. I discussed issues of confidentiality and, at length, the question of self-disclosure. I am far more revealing in my book – and in my blogs – than is usual for a therapist, and an audience of professionals would understandably be interested in this question.

During the break, several people – mostly friends who knew George well – came up to me and related how present I had made George feel, how much his aura permeated the room. One related his experience of their first meeting, his wit and sardonic humor; another spoke of his kindness and humanity; and still another about his satisfaction with his life and his inability to feel envy. I felt warmed. I had accomplished my goal. I carried George with me and was able to bring him to life for others.

I resumed my presentation. At the end, in the course of the discussion, I mentioned an experience I had with a young woman patient about three years after George’s death. She asked me three questions: Where was I from? Was I married? Did I have children? As she and I talked about why she was asking these specific questions, at this specific time, my own mind remained fixated on the question, Am I married? Assuming I answered her questions - and I have become more comfortable with answering patients’ questions as opposed to deflecting them – I realized there was no way I could answer that question in the negative. To say that I was not married felt to me like a denial of George and my relationship, a relationship that still very much existed for me. So, when I answered the question I said my truth, “I’m a widow.” The patient burst into tears, opening up a new avenue of exploration.

All this I told to my audience. A lively discussion ensued. One friend and colleague asked if rather than lying to my patient, I could have said that her questions were certainly legitimate and important, but rather than answering them, I would like to understand what they meant for her. I hastened to explain that I would never lie to a patient, that the issue for me was that to say I wasn’t married felt like a disavowal of George and our relationship and that I couldn’t possibly get the word “no” out of my mouth. Another colleague said that regardless of what we tell our patients, they will see us how they need to see us.

Then the man who had brought up my lying to my patient, raised his hand again. He said that he realized that he himself had just fallen victim to such a distortion: He saw me as married. I was married to George. And since I was married to George I honestly could not tell my patient I wasn’t married. I smiled. I loved it! My connection to George was so strong, I had succeeded so well in taking him with me in my mind, that others still experienced me as married as well.

And this man wasn’t the only one. Another friend assumed that when I brought up that experience with my patient, I was talking about a time before I had ever known George, before I was indeed married. And when I related the entire experience to yet another friend, he too was surprised, saying of course I was married, I was married to George.

And so my beloved husband lives on within me and within those who knew and loved him. I am extremely fortunate to have had this very special man in my life. And on this day, his birthday, I express my deep love and devotion.