It Is Three Years Today That Jim...............

It is three years today that Jim is gone, gone as we knew he would be, gone as only gone can be when someone is absolutely central to your life, when someone's hand is central to your open hand and their scent is central to your nostrils and their voice is central to your ears and their height is central to your eyes and their voice is central to your respondent voice and their mind is central to the workings of your own mind and then they, or in this case, he -- is gone and it's not a dream, he is gone, and it's not a dread or a terror or a phantom, he is gone and it's not your imagination, or the worst phone call of your life, he is gone and it's not a conversation with your best friend, he is gone and it's not a speculation, he is gone and it's not a what-if kind of thing, he is gone and it's not a "what will I do when he's...." because he IS.....because he IS.....because he IS.....well, he's gone.

And you never for one moment thought to yourself, "Well, I'll wake the kids and tell them and then I'll start putting lotion on him," you never once thought to yourself, "Well, I'll wake the kids and then we'll make some calls and I'll start pleading people to come in and kiss him because he looks so beautiful," because Grief tells you what to do, you don't tell Grief what to do. Because Grief tells you who you are. You don't tell Grief who you are. That isn't the way of it. If, during the next few years of your grief, you are overly conscientious, your grief will squirt out at you somewhere, somehow. Illness, perhaps, or depression, which is enormously different than grief, or in some odd manner or behavior or pattern of thought or habit or attitude. Since Jim has died I have been regularly seeing at least three Patients-of-the-Broken-Heart a week which is what I call people who have lost long term mates or children and the kinds of care they need is vastly different than, say, the illness of depression or dysthymia or sadness or the blues. Each of these individuals have been on the verge of developing manic or compulsive or hermetic behaviors.

If living is a form of not being sure, which it is, death is a form of......what? For the living, death is a form of utter speculation, a form of shattering all sorts of lightly or tightly held inner "realities", and the death of a long term mate or a child is the beginning of the oddest type of faith, for the grieving person's psyche can not help but begin the strange wait for the deceased person to reappear; to, as Thomas Wolfe so woefully and beautifully put it, "Come back, grieved ghost, come back!" One waits. One denys it, of course, and no one wants to appear delusional, God, no, but, still, one waits. Esayist Joan Didion would not give up her husband's slippers. When he returns them, he might need them. I have not replaced all of the pictures of Jim and me around the house. When he comes back, he might feel badly.

Instead of speaking about grief, though, perhaps I need to speak about what it is Jim has passed down to me. He has left me with an overall sense that most men are good and patient and kind and trustworthy. I have been, perhaps, a bit more naive than are many women in their early widowhood, but, on the other hand, since nobody ever entirely knows much of anything except for technical or academic matters, it can only be to the good to be able to take a few leaps into the dark. Anyway, once we have lived a long time, it is difficult to tell our bad luck from our good luck. Jim taught me to think like this. Once he said to me, "All our best transformations are accompanied by pain. That's the point of them."


When you are married to a man who can say something like that with a straight face - then hand you a wad of Silly Putty and serve you a platter of cheese and crackers accompanied by the music of Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen, child, you're in business.

It's three years today, Jim, since that long locomotive stopped at our station as we knew it would, and the conductor called "On Board!" for you. We could not keep you. We held you for awhile and then settled you on board and let you go. We love you still, my dearest dear.
The longest train I ever did see
Was a hundred coaches long,
The very first man I ever really loved
Is on that train and gone.
He's on that train and gone, love,
On that train and gone.
The very first man I ever really loved,
Is on that train and gone.
-Love,
Kay, Kelly, Erin, David, Rachel, Michel, Morgan, Jessica and ALeister

Aleister, Alan, the Octopus, Gertrude and Me

On the way to the Seattle Aquarium, Aleister showed Alan and me his new pink braces. "I have decided to give up my fear of the color pink," he said, with a big grin on his face. "Mama Kay. Do you remember when I would not even look at the 'pink aisles' in stores like Target and Fred Meyers'?" "Yes, I do, Aleister," I said, remembering all those times we would have to slink by the girls' toy and clothing aisles as if we were allergic to anything having to do with the feminine sex. "Well," he said, "pointing at his braces," I have decided to embrace my boyness and include girls inside my life. It is GOOD to be different. And girls LIKE boys who are different......don't they?" His voice ended up on an upward, somewhat plaintive note. "Yes, oh, YES, ALeister" I responded. Angella nodded. Alan nodded. Aleister grinned. Alan, Aleister and I put on our warm coats and hats and headed out to the car. We had a ferry to catch.

In Seattle, as Alan parked the car, Aleister came up to me and said, "Mama Kay. Do not worry about if I like Alan or not. In fact, I LOVE Alan. AND he is becoming quite the family member!" I smiled and hugged him. "He IS?" I said. "Yes," Aleister said. "Mom likes him, Charlie likes him, and Grandma likes him. That's one hundred per cent. I don't think he can do much better than that."

Inside the aquarium, Mr. 100% and Aleister jostled around like a couple of kids, then settled down while Alan led Aleister over to the octopus and gave Allie lessons on what an octopus actually feels like, with its suckers traveling all the way down its arms. How amazing, how sad, that an octopus, intelligent creature that he is, can exist in such a small space inside an aquarium.As a practiced snorkeler, Alan has been "held" by an octopus, which I know I would count as being the No. 1 worst thing that had ever happened to me (if it were ever to happen to me), but Alan gets a nostalgic look in his eye whenever he speaks about it. He is one of those people who actually thinks that an octopus is beautiful. I try to keep this in mind whenever he says that he finds ME beautiful. A little active realism never hurt anyone.

We saw sharks. We saw tropical fish so radiantly beautiful they turn up the volumne on one's belief in Something Religious. We saw furry otters. Seals. Starfish. Jellyfish. Stingrays. And, outside the aquarium, we saw tall buildings, restaurants, foreign ships, and water, water everywhere.

I am not comparing the octopus to Alan when I say that here we have two beings, Aleister and Alan, who both find two other beings - in one case human, in the other case, a carnivorous marine mollusk - - lovable. Despite the fact that Aleister loved his Grandpa Jim with his entire heart and soul, he has taken to Alan with the very same heart and soul, which means that ALeister has three characteristics completely and wholly intact: trust, acceptance and hope. And Alan, in his love for the mysteriously gray fleshy body of the octopus, so different in its irridescent gray muscularity than our own, also possesses his own rigorous (and unusual) set of trust and acceptance. He's not kidding. He DOES not the octopus, as well as a number of other creatures and critters and peoples other folks might run away from. Which is one of the reasons I love both Aleister and Alan.

And me? I need to be around this kind of ability to love. I need it the way some need water. I need it the way some need exercise. And, like my beloeved Gertrude Stein said, "It is inevitable, when one has a great need of something, one finds it. What you need, you attract like a lover."