Grief, Empathy, and Remembrance

We all want to be remembered.

A few weeks ago I attended at a local park a tree walk led by a man knowledgeable about trees. Tom was uppermost in my mind during the walk as his life work had been all about plant life. With an undergraduate degree in botany, a master's degree in native grasses, a Phd in forestry, and years of tree research and first-hand care of trees and gardens, Tom was a fount of scientific knowledge. He would be pointing out plants on this walk, I thought, telling me details of the native flora, enjoying the clear, beautiful fall day, yellow gingko leaves and red maple leaves unbelievably incandescent in the morning sunlight.

But Tom is gone, and every day I am reminded of the loss. After the walk, I lingered to explore one of the trails in the park and was joined by a man about my age who had also attended the tree walk. Along the way, we met a couple of men taking photos of a log covered with what looked like to me to be tiny round balls of fungus or mold. They told us that what I thought was mold was something called "wolf's milk slime," not a mold or fungus at all. My walking companion made easy conversation; he and the other two men seemed to know quite a lot about mushrooms and other fungus-like organisms.

We continued our walk, and my newly-met companion asked me how I kept busy. I told him of my gardening and of the native plant garden I was creating as a memorial to Tom. Then I mentioned that Tom had even collected seed for this garden before he died."Wow," the man said. "That's quite a guilt-laden project, having to plant the seeds gathered by a dead husband for his own memorial."

I couldn't think then of an appropriate response, but in the following days I thought a lot of this encounter. I know now what I would have said if I had had the time to think through an answer: We all want to be remembered. Tom was facing an early unexpected death caused by a disease that wasn't even on the horizon of his health-consciousness. At 61 years of age, he was still a few years short of retirement age; he was leaving a wife who loved him, imperfectly, perhaps, but genuinely and deeply loved him. He was leaving children who hadn't yet had children of their own. I wanted him to know that he would not be forgotten. Creating a memorial garden was a work of love, of remembrance...not a burden. And a loving promise to Tom as he faced oblivion.

A little over a week later I awoke on the morning of my 64th birthday and remembered that this time four years ago we found out that Tom was probably dying. Tom had yet to receive the official prognosis of lung cancer, but we figured death was imminent. I thought of all the people who also faced the untimely deaths of loved ones these past two years as the covid-19 virus was scything through the United States and the rest of the world. Almost 800,000 people have died in the US alone, with more dying every day even as vaccines and booster shots have become available.

Unbelievably, there are people who seem not care about these deaths nor about how they contribute to those deaths in their embrace of conspiracy theories, of false ideas of freedom, and of their own monstrous self-centeredness. Seeing this lack of empathy, my own grief intensifies, often morphing into anger and at times almost despair. My faith in humanity, in our ability to face challenges and to unite in finding solutions, has been irreparably damaged. Even as I recognize in the experiences of others a reflection of my own grief, I stand naked and alone in that grief. Yet it's that nakedness, that vulnerability, that loneliness that arouses my empathy. For all those 800,000 deaths, many grieving loved ones, as I, stand vulnerable, stripped bare by their losses. 

And so, on my 64th birthday, I opened the journal in which I recorded the details of my 60th birthday and embraced again the visceral grief of that day, a day in which I abandoned my plans for a celebration and went instead into the White Mountains of Arizona with Tom.

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November 29th, 2017  --    Wednesday

I had tentatively planned hosting a party for my 60th [birthday], but as Tom's condition worsened, I postponed it, and as the possibility of lung cancer loomed in our minds, I cancelled that plan altogether. Instead, I suggested that we take a short hike in the mountains to celebrate my birthday.

Tom woke early on [that day] and spent most of the morning making pecan pie for my birthday. The recipe in the baking textbook he bought at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, this past August makes enough filling for two pies. We kept one and Tom walked across the cul-de-sac to give the second pie to Bill and Ewa Dent. Ewa said that pecan pie was one of Bill's favorites.

After the pies were finished baking and after Tom had given one to the Dents and placed the other in the pantry, Tom and I packed up to go into the mountains. I had chosen the Thompson Trail, which runs along the West Fork of the Black River and which is accessed from FR 116.

It was a beautiful day, sunny, clear, cool, but not cold. The mountains in that area were rather smoky. Tom thinks that the smoke might have been the result of a prescribed burn in the White Mountain Apache Reservation. We had noticed the large plume of smoke beginning its ascent yesterday on a drive back from Show Low on AZ 260.

We did not hike the entire 3+ miles of the trail. Tom didn't want to overdo it--he could tell the effect on his breathing at an altitude of over 9,000 feet, and the decreased oxygen caused by the mass in his left lung. We stopped for lunch at the second fish barrier and afterward walked just a little farther past it before turning back. I also complained of some short pains in my chest; they subsided fairly quickly. [I didn't know it then, but I was suffering from acute aortic stenosis at the time, caused by a birth defect, and 6 months later would have heart surgery to correct it.]

Since Tom began suspecting lung cancer, our conversations had focused on most immediate concerns. Tom's regret for a future he might not see guided my own conversation. How can one bring up plans for a summer garden when one's companion suspects he may not see that summer? In the past, our conversations frequently touched on future plans and aspirations. Now they didn't. Instead, we talked of the day's weather or the actions we should take to help us face Tom's possible death or--at the least--possible medical responses. I had even sent a PM on Facebook to M.D. Anderson in Houston (the hospital has a FB page) asking questions about how quickly one could get into a cancer treatment program--and whoever answers queries replied to mine. And on Monday, Tom filled out the online form to enlist as a new patient in the event that he would need cancer treatment. We wanted to be as prepared as possible to have our "boots on the ground," so to speak.

So Sunday, my 60th birthday, we decided to enjoy the day as best we could, and for the most part, we did. After our hike, we drove along a Forest Road to reach Big Lake, a very popular tourist destination in the summer. Campsites there are arranged months in advance and quickly fill up. This time of year the campgrounds are closed because snow usually covers the ground. But this year the fall has been unseasonably warm. We noticed just a few patches of ice in some shady parts of the river and the Thompson Trail. Otherwise, the ground was clear, very dry, and crunchy.

While walking around one of the campsites near Big Lake, Tom and I noticed rectangular brown packages, about 4 inches long and an inch or so wide, stapled to several trees, only to Douglas Fir, I think. Tom reached up to examine one and discovered they were plastic blister packs, a round circle in the middle of each rectangle holding something yellow in color. Tom said that the packs held material that were infused with pheromones that are digusting to a beetle to which the trees were susceptible. The pheromones repel the beetles. The Forest Service, he said, places these in high-demand places.

As Tom was describing this to me, I was thinking of all the knowledge Tom has about trees and grasses and nature that he has shared with me over the years. This is one thing I would lose, losing Tom--this instant access to such knowledge. Many a time, while writing a poem or a letter I would have some questions that would need answering--some detail of a grass or a tree--that I would need to give that poem or letter the specificity I wanted. And Tom would have the answer or suggestion as to where to find the answer.

Leaving Big Lake, I suggested that we drive back home down Water Canyon Road, a gravel road that winds over the tops of the mountains and then twists and turns down steep cliffs to Round Valley below. As soon as we turned onto the road from the black-topped AZ 261, we saw driving slowly toward us an ATV with two men dressed in camouflage. As we drove closer, we saw that they were gazing intently up at the top of a ridge near the road. I looked up, too, and then pointed out to Tom the focus of the hunters' interest--two elk cows. Tom stopped the truck for a few seconds before continuing on our drive.

At one point, I noticed another Forest Road that veered left over the open grassland on the tops of these cinder cones that dot the landscape. "I wonder where that road goes," I mused. Tom immediately turned left onto the road, and we bumped across the open, grassy landscape. "I bet it meets up again with AZ 261," I said. (It did.)

As we drove through the golden grasses lit by an afternoon sun, I thought that this would be heaven--to be in a truck with Tom's hands on the steering wheel, listening and responding to Tom's passing comments on the landscape or on some topic the landscape and animal and plant life conjured. We could drive on and on together, I thought, one sunny day following another, looking out the open windows of a Ford Ranger, driving through eternity.

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Summer has arrived, and I'm working in the heat

 

This week temperatures are supposed to reach 90 F for the first time this year. We have had such a lovely cool spring in the Atlanta area, but now summer has arrived, and I am still preparing my garden areas for future planting. 

Every time we moved to a new home, I would wait for spring to see what plants emerge that previous owners planted and cared for. Then I would decide what to keep and what to replace (the green, non-native bushes often disappeared first). This year many flowers from bulbs emerged: bearded Iris, Japanese Iris, tulips, paperwhites, Grape hyacinths, miniature gladiolas, and a few daffodils. I planted more daffodil bulbs in the fall and so inadvertently added to those already well-established. 

Last year the previous owner had planted zinnias in a front flower bed with perennials, so when I pulled up the dead foliage late last fall, I sprinkled zinnia seeds in that bed, and the new plants are now over a foot high.

One of the first tasks I had as a new home owner was to have a gardening shed built in my backyard for my gardening tools. As I organized the tool shed, I thought of Tom, who was responsible for buying (or finding and repurposing) most of the tools I hung on the walls. Everything I do that relates to gardening reminds me of the many years we shared the tasks of planning, planting, cultivating and gathering of the fruits of our labors. Gardening for me is the best way to remember those years and the love we shared.

Now I am adding to the garden areas that were already here at my new home. My backyard is too shady for growing vegetables, so I dug a bed in the front yard for tomatoes, peppers, and basil, attaching that bed to one already there. And yesterday evening, after the cool of the evening had reduced the temperatures to the low 80s, I extended the original flower bed again to accommodate my plans for dividing the Irises and miniature gladiolas which had begun crowding the bed.

My dream world would be one in which I have all the time for gardening, reading, and the occasional long trip, without having to pay attention to deadlines for paying bills or doing house repair. In the past, I could depend upon Tom to help with the mundane duties of everyday life. Now it's all up to me, and some days I get a little anxious over the small emergencies that suddenly appear or the decisions I have to make that I once relied on Tom to make or to advise me in making: Should I drive to Texas to retrieve my diningroom furniture, or should I fly? Should I set up a U-Haul pod to deliver the furniture, or should I hire a small U-Haul truck and drive it myself? (Everyone cautions me against the latter. The problem is that I really don't like flying anymore.).

But gardening centers me. I even like the manual labor....when I'm not in pain. My right hip began hurting a few weeks ago,  and the pain wouldn't quit, so I went to an orthopedist who gave me a cortisone shot. In a day, the pain had disappeared, and I was out in the yard, digging up more garden beds. I hope to finish before the pain returns.  

In the midst of that pain, I consulted a landscaper about preparing garden beds in my front yard and building a dry rock creek bed for rain water diversion, but after meeting in person, exchanging several texts and emails, she dropped out of sight. A friend who works in real estate tells me that "the most reasonably priced people are always flawed that way." So here was another decision:

should I get another landscaper? My friend sent me several suggestions. But then I had that shot, my hip pain disappeared, and I thought I might as well do what I can while I can. I have reached the age at which pain and death are always in the background. Tom's early death--as well as those of his parents years ago--just reminds me of the transience of our lives. And so I will do what I enjoy as long as I can.

I do enjoy the manual labor of gardening. Otherwise, I would have immediately called up another landscaper (a task which I will do for the dry rock creek bed unless I get REALLY motivated and long-term pain-free). But I know that my physical strength and capabilities will not last long, so if I can just get those gardens dug, then I can spend the remaining years doing a little weeding, planting, cultivating, and enjoying the fruits of this early labor, leaving what heavy work remains to younger hands and pain-free hips.

Mind and Memory: Downsizing A Book Collection After a Death

 

I have in my house anywhere from 400-500 books, roughly calculated. These books range from poetry to histories of people and civilizations to political screeds to science fiction and literary novels to books on the natural world and our place in it. In my widowhood, I am trying to downsize in many ways. The first was moving to a much smaller house on a small urban lot. The second was placing in a storage unit all that I could not fit into my house until my adult children could decide what they want of the family furniture, their childhood toys and books, and their father's tools. Now I am trying to downsize the number of books I own, and I find the process difficult.

Books are more than an accumulation of words. They represent our interests, our hobbies, our obsessions. They evoke memories: This book I read to Tom when we were traveling to Houston, Texas, for his cancer treatment. I collected these books when I was directing a program for Japanese students at a university in Georgia. Here is a book by an author whom Tom admired. (Should I read it as homage to him?) These are books given as gifts to us by our children. Those books are all by a British novelist whose writing I loved so much I collected over the years as many of her books as I could find online or on dusty shelves of second-hand bookstores. This stack of books on a shelf represent a time and place: Arizona, when I was living there and reading about Native Americans in the West; Texas, when I first began gardening with herbs; Minnesota, when I was learning to identify the native flora there. And so on.

And though I have read many of these books, many others have not been opened as the life of the mind gave way to the incessant call of daily tasks and diversions. So as I take this book from the shelf, I determine its fate with a bit of guilt. Should I give it another try? Or has my interest in that subject now been replaced by other interests?

I also have discovered that online reading--whether news reports, magazine articles, or Twitter--have affected my attention span. A book has to be really engaging for me to stay interested. I have also recently subscribed to Audible and have discovered that listening to someone read while I crochet or do some other craft is more efficient than trying to watch on Netflix those dark and cold Scandinavian mystery series I like so much. No losing a stitch while reading subtitles!

I want to cull this book collection with emotionless precision, identifying and rejecting every book I know that I will never read or turn to for reference. But that means being honest with myself and recognizing that so many obsessions and interests faded quickly as more mundane tasks took precedence. That means letting go of some dreams and aspirations. And these books are a kind of map to my and Tom's shared intellectual life, its incompleteness, its abrupt and much-too-soon disruption by Tom's death, leaving me adrift in a sea of sorrow in which nothing seems quite as important as it once did. All those books I bought to inform me of the world lose their charm in the swells of grief. And yet, it's hard to let go as they anchor me to a life I once led.

Gardening alone after 41 years

 

Cleaning up our Arizona garden alone, spring and summer 2020

The last five months of Tom's life we spent in Old River, Texas, staying at the rent home of one of my sister's, a home that had once belonged to a great-aunt. The chemo having failed after a year of slowing the cancer, Tom was put on a trial cancer medication. However, the cancer either spread or the trial medication caused swelling and a blockage to his colon occurred. He was in and out of MD Anderson Cancer Center hospital a good part of April and most of May. Surgery finally eliminated the blockage, but there was no cure for the cancer. Told he would live just a few weeks, Tom lived for five more months in which we were able to return to our home in Arizona three times, a week each time. So the spring and summer of 2019, when we would ordinarily be gardening at our home in Arizona, was spent away from the garden we had created there.

When I returned to Arizona in December, a month after Tom's death, I found a weedy, overgrown garden, and in the spring of 2020, I was determined to clean it up myself. I set to work digging out the weeds and turning over soil with a shovel. It was hard work, and I relished it. Grief is a lonely experience, and there in Apache County, Arizona, in the middle of a pandemic, the loneliness increased. The manual labor kept me occupied in a way that no other activity could have done.

Cucumbers and Scarlet Runner Beans covering a trellis that Tom built

My 2020 crop of Sweet Armenian Heirloom cucumbers did very well.

As we had abandoned organized religion years before, our love of the natural world and our transient experiences with it became much more important to me and Tom. So in working in the garden, noticing the change of seasons and the abundance of all that we had cared for--the grapes, the apples, the flowers I had planted and those planted by a former owner that I tended, and now the few vegetables I chose to grow in the weeded garden--I was paying homage to Tom and to our life together.

I planted several kinds of sunflowers that summer of 2020

Cassie and I taking a break from gardening, summer of 2020

The first week of September 2020, I said a final goodbye to the last garden Tom and I had created together. Now I am trying my hand at urban gardening near Atlanta, Georgia, in zone 7b.

My yard here in Georgia is very shady. Two large water oaks in the backyard shade half of the front yard from early-afternoon, onward, and the backyard is shade or part shade. The water oaks are old; violets and monkey grass grow in crevices near the ground, and one tree has a large mushroom growth on it.

 When old water oaks begin to decay, the rot spreads rapidly in their roots, and they can fall more easily during heavy downpours or windy weather. However, a local arborist advised me not to have them cut down, and so I anxiously watch them in every windy storm that passes through.

Now I am trying to figure out how to garden in a partly shady yard, and I have been watching the movement of the sun across the property, a difficult task lately since we have had so many rainy or cloudy days. This will be my first garden without Tom's imprint. I want to make the best of it in honor of him and of our many years of gardening together.

Some of the produce from my 2020 garden in Arizona

 

Tom planting shallots in our Arizona garden, 2016 or 2017

New Home Responsibilities

 

In late August of 2020, I sold our house in Arizona and in September moved to Georgia where my husband and I had lived before, near Atlanta. I have now lived in Georgia three times: first, with Tom and our two children, from 1996-2003; then, with Tom and our daughter (our son being at university in Texas) from 2007-early 2011; and now, I alone have purchased a home where I plan to stay until I can no longer care for myself. That's the plan, anyway.

The move has been difficult, but I have managed it. Within the first month or so of my move, hurricanes landing on the coast of Louisiana brought torrential rain to the Atlanta area, and a portion of my crawlspace/basement flooded twice. The roof also leaked. I was somewhat prepared for the roof; the inspection had indicated its need for replacement. The basement, however, was a surprise. My first priority was having the roof replaced, which was done quickly and efficiently by Rock House Roofing. Then I spent weeks interviewing representatives from basement waterproofing companies before deciding on a company recommended by my friend and real estate agent and her husband, a contractor. I had the basement encapsulated, with a sump pump installed and a de-humidifier plugged in.

The house I purchased, built in 1954, is much smaller than the one Tom and I purchased in Eagar, Arizona. Most of what could not fit in this house went into storage, and I arranged to have shelving and cabinets built to add storage space for books and other items. I had blinds installed in the large windows of the sunroom (once a carport) to add privacy to the room which is now my craft room and exercise room. And I ordered bookshelves for that room to hold my huge supply of craft material. When this pandemic is under control, I hope to locate a creative reuse store to which I can donate craft remainders from projects I have completed (or not). I need to downsize my stuff, beginning with the storage unit. Then I should do a thorough evaluation of all the stuff I have managed to cram into this 2/2, 1300 square foot house.  (Zillow lists the house as having 1092 square feet, but that's incorrect as that square footage does not include the now-enclosed carport.)

I have spent months watching how the water flows from the street, down into my sloping front yard and into my back yard. I am planning a dry rock bed to divert water that flows down the driveway and collects at the front of the sunroom/craftroom. I already removed grass and weeds, laying bare the soil that serves as an outline for the bed of the diversion, and the water now follows that pathway rather than collecting at the sunroom front door. Erosion has already done my work at the side of the house where the slope of the landscape encourages more rapid water flow toward the backyard. The top soil is deeply eroded, exposing roots from a neighbor's tree. 

Now solely responsible for all the tasks that Tom and I once shared, I have risen to the occasion, but not without anxiety. Tom was quite a handyman, and I am not. So when I ordered a shelving unit for the bathroom, I had to assemble it myself, a task that Tom once would have taken on and completed in short order. It took me several hours, but I got the job done. Same with the compost tumbler I bought. There are tasks I do not want to tackle, such as removing and replacing ceiling fans with lights. One ceiling fan/light fixture broke shortly after I moved in; the light and fan pull chains locked up. The fan switch locked up while on; the light switch locked up while the light was off--so I can turn the fan on at the wall switch but not the light.  Another ceiling fan is awkwardly arranged: the pull chain on the fan comes down through a small hole in the glass lamp shade of the light fixture, making it difficult to pull and operate. Once I am two weeks past my second covid shot, I will be looking for a handyman to deal with these issues as well as a few others.

Now that spring has arrived, I have begun planning how to garden in my urban yard. Gardening was an activity that Tom and I shared with great pleasure. Both of us enjoyed the manual work, but now I am feeling my age. I dug a round bed for herbs recently in one of the sunniest parts of a largely shady yard, and my right hip has been hurting since. I also dug a flowerbed near the house where I hope to plant some amyrillises that I have grown from bulbs since 2011 or 2012. The original bulbs multiplied many times, and I gave plants away before I left Arizona. However, the two large pots of several plants remaining I hope can be transplanted successfully outdoors and survive Atlanta winters. 

There are days--actually, every day--when I wonder what purpose do I have to carry on. Tom and I were married for 41 years, and our marriage--though not perfect, as none is--was a happy one and one in which I looked forward to being a part of into our retirement years. I so miss Tom's wittiness, his humor, his love of puns, his intellectual and emotional companionship, his love of the natural world and his knowledge of it. And I miss his ability to perform those many handy tasks that I never cared to learn to do myself. 

But I do carry on. The cats do their part to make sure that I do: every morning between 6:30 and 7:00, Cassie begins caterwauling for breakfast, and Mimi begins crawling all over me while I am trying to sleep. I rise to feed the cats, and the day begins. Purpose being perhaps overrated, tackling and completing ordinary tasks gets me through each day. And one day, after my second covid shot and after my adult children are thoroughly vaccinated, I will once again be able to visit family I haven't seen in over a year and meet for the first time our first grandchild. If only Tom were here to share that last event.

First herb bed in the new home: rosemary, lavender, regular thyme and lemon thyme, chives

the compost bin I assembled

My yard is full of violets

Grief

 My husband was a very private man, and he did not want me to blog our grief as he died of lung cancer. And so I stopped writing on my blog post just before we found out that the immunotherapy trial in which he was participating had not kept the cancer from spreading. Tom was admitted to MD Anderson Cancer Center hospital with a blocked colon, and he was in and out of hospital from April to the end of May, dealing with serious issues associated with a blocked colon. During that time, I learned to change sterile dressings and took copious notes and asked lots of questions of medical personnel. I was his advocate. 

These were difficult months as Tom was discharged from MD Anderson Cancer Center with the prediction that he would live only weeks. He lived five months beyond that prediction.

And now I am alone, a widow, and the months and years of managing my grief have taught me how lonely grief is. I have moved beyond being "a woman of a certain age" (as Barbara Pym, the English novelist would describe it), into my sixties, alone with two cats in a home to which I moved perhaps too soon across the country....in the middle of a pandemic.

How are people coping with grief during a pandemic when social isolation is paramount to prevent the spread of disease? Are they like me, every day getting up to feed the cats and then to scroll for an hour through Twitter for all the latest posts from journalists and political junkies that I follow? Do they then get out of bed, dress for the day, make the bed, and prepare breakfast, sometimes a bowl of Greek yogurt with two teaspoons of the last apple butter that Tom canned from our apple trees in Arizona and perhaps some walnuts or banana? Do they then mentally review the list of things that must be done and choose one or two to be sure to complete? Another day, another check on a list that doesn't seem to get shorter?

Do they find themselves at times wondering if anyone would really miss them if they were gone? 

It's difficult to find a purpose in this grief that grapples not only with losing a lifetime partner and friend but also with losing a father (my dad died in January of this year)--and all in the middle of an isolating pandemic. In the last few months I have tried to capture that grief in words, and one morning I woke up with a phrase running over and over in my head. Later I sat down to write this poem in which I finally capture the best I can the grief I am experiencing from Tom's death.

TODAY I WILL

Today I will arise late

from a bed barely warm with slumber

and count the pills for the morning and evening ritual,

the metered medicine snug in its cages of plastic, 

with lids that snap with precision,

the sound of responsibility, of safety,

of nothing as soft as hope

but rather a hard steely defiance of death.

Today I will unload the dishwasher

and stack in it last night's remains,

the wine glass with its round red stain,

the skillet with its crusty ring of a listless meal.

I will dole out to the cats their own portion

and turn on the kettle for tea and caffeine.

I will wipe cat puke from the crumpled quilt

and vacuum the cat hair on the sofa.

Today I will pour my tea and sit in the sun,

listening to the angry wren scolding at the suet feeder,

warning me away so she can peck in peace.

I will identify familiar songs of birds waking up to spring,

the downy woodpecker, the titmouse, the brown-headed nuthatch

waiting out my presence for their turn at the feeder.

If I sit still and silent long enough,

they will fly from the trees and nervously approach.

Today I will remember to be kind

to those who suggest courage and gratitude

for this day with its promise of spring and renewal,

for the flight of birds and the musical chimes in the breeze.

Today, as every day, I will see stretching ahead

the flickering mirages of weeks that recede

into a future that still, still, forever still,

remains without you.

Anita Dugat-Greene 2021