Brownies and society-an anniversary alone

Tomorrow would have marked nine years that Storm and I had been together. Today, I am missing him.

I found myself at a social gathering on Friday evening. I don't often find myself at social events that are not family-based. I typically feel so awkward and out of place that I simply long for home. This was really no different.  As I was standing there trying to decide if I should go first or last, awkwardly waiting for some social cue, it occurred to me that I wouldn't have felt that way if Storm had been there.

Storm instinctively understood some things about me. He understood that I was not good at society. I stood there and thought about how he would have taken the lead, he would've directed me, he would've asked all the questions, carried the conversation, and he probably would've made my plate. In that moment, I wanted to cry. I had to go to the bathroom, had to take a minute. I really wanted to go home right then, but I stayed and managed to make it through dinner. I think I probably smiled in the right places, and I don't think I made a huge mess out of my food. I didn't break anything, and I probably even said the right things at the right time since I don't remember anyone looking at me like I'm crazy. Nevertheless, I escaped as soon as I could politely get away.

That same sort of memory had me crying over a pan of brownies tonight. I began cutting a chunk out and it was on the corner. Storm used to eat all of the edges of every cake or brownie substance that came through the house. He did this because one time I told him that I preferred the middle pieces, and he decided I should never have to eat a crust again. As soon as something came out of the oven, and was cool enough to handle, he would cut off all the edges and leave me only the middle.  It's been some time since something so silly has inspired a crying fit. I guess I was due.

Tomorrow I will not have time to wallow. I don't take time to wallow, because I don't like wallowing. Aside from that, I have responsibilities and Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.

Immediately after Storm's death, getting out of bed in the morning was the hardest thing. More than once, I went back to bed. I didn't have the luxury of wallowing then, either, so I would get up, and stand at the front window, and pray, "This is the day that you have made, Yahweh. Please help me to rejoice and be glad in it." 

I hope tomorrow is not that kind of day. I hope that I wake up and forget all about November 24th. Since that is not actually likely to happen, I pray that Yah will help me be glad and rejoice in it. 

Shalom.

9 Months

Last night I shared my experience, and listened to the experiences of others at the once monthly suicide survivors support group put on by our local Hospice.  I have been to the group several times before, but have missed meetings lately due to the fact that I’m too busy living life, which is better than crying. 

There were a couple of conversations that stuck to me.  Often things will go with me from the meetings, and I quite often pray over others that I meet there, but rarely do I take anything home that gets the hamster in my brain running on his wheel.  Last night was the exception. I can still feel him in there, squeaking away on that thing.   I think I need to get it out so the freaking hamster will find something else to do.

The first conversation was regarding the cause of suicide.  A quick aside: I know that not all suicides are the same, and that everyone is unique.  I also know that it’s hard to hear something about a loved one that seems less than complimentary to them.  However, I have to deal with this my way, and I will try to be respectful to others dealing with this their way.  This is my way.

I started quite the conversation by saying, “Suicide is caused by mental illness.  Everything else is a contributing factor.” This seemed to help the man I was saying it to, but two people in the room objected.  I’m glad they did.  Not ALL suicides are caused by mental illness, but I would amend it to say ALMOST ALL suicides are caused by mental illness.  I wish I had been able to explain but since one of the people who seemed most reluctant to talk opened up about it, and that was good, I decided to let it go, and let him talk.

If I had been able to explain, I would have said this: “Self-preservation is one of the strongest forces in human behavior, and to override that takes not only a tremendous amount of courage (I may expand on that another time, so please don’t get hung up on it)but it also requires overriding one’s most basic self-preservation instincts.  To override that, one has to NOT be in their right mind. 

“It brings me comfort to think of it that way.  Mental illness isn’t the fault of the person who is suffering from it.  It’s like a cancer.  It makes them ill, and it causes them to act ill, they want to die.  Sometimes they seem to get better.  It goes into remission.  Sometimes, they really are better.  But often, it comes back.  Sometimes, it’s terminal.  In other words, it really wasn’t their fault.  Really.”  

In those harsh, bitter days immediately following Storm’s suicide, my world was filled with questions.  My questions mostly remain unanswered.   This one I do have an answer for now:

               Q: Why?
               A: Because he couldn’t help it.

In the immortal words of Forest Gump; “That’s all I have to say about that.”

The other matter was regarding something I didn’t speak on, but I watched and listened.  There was a mom and her mom there, and they were talking about marking a son’s suicide date every year.  They were talking about the various different ways they were doing it each year.  They seemed so worn out and tired from it. 

I don’t think I’m going to do that.  I don’t think I want to.  

February 13^th is going to suck.  Make no mistake.  I’m probably going to cry, and I’m probably going to eat chocolate, and have a movie marathon, and stay in my jammies all day, use a whole box of tissues.  I might even let the dogs on the couch.  That day is never not going to be what it is.

However, the biggest part of my struggle with all of it has been fighting through the anger and betrayal to be able to just grieve the man I knew.  Storm was an amazing human being.  He was my southern fried Aussie redneck.  In public, he was who he was at home.  He was loud, rude, obnoxiously honest, and way too free with his opinion.  He was angry, and bitter, and not afraid to use that energy to control the environment around him.  He could make himself the center of attention in an instant, and then disappear so thoroughly in a crowd that even I had to search to find him.  He was larger than life, and people were drawn to him for reasons I am sure I will never understand.

Out of the public eye, he was all of those things, but he was also Rose’s Storm, my husband.  He loved me in an unreasonable way.  It was uncompromising and unflinching and bared open for the world to see.  No one who ever met him didn’t know he was married to his Rose within 5 minutes of meeting them, because I never left his mind or his lips.  At home he put me first, always.  He tended to me, to use his words.  He asked if I was hungry, did I need a drink, is something wrong, would you like a hug, Love?  In fact, he spent half of his days some days asking me how to make me happy.  One neighbor said we talked to each other like we were in a movie because we spent so much time speaking our love out loud.

That’s the man I want to remember.  That’s the what I want to commemorate.  Not the last few unfortunate minutes of our life together, but the other eight years of love and kindness and friendship.  I want to mourn HIM, celebrate HIM, miss HIM, and his presence and his person, and not focus in on the last thing he ever did.  

Right now, I’m not sure what I will doing February 13^th.  It’s a still a ways away, and I have some living to do before then.  I tell you what I won’t be doing February 13^th.  I won’t be setting any balloons loose, or releasing Chinese lanterns, or liberating any butterflies. I don’t judge anyone who does so.  I just don’t think that’s how I want to cope.  I hope I’m doing something so amazing and so incredible that I don’t even care that it’s February 13^th.   I don’t intend to turn it into a personal holiday.   

What I’m going to do is celebrate his life.  I’m going to celebrate his birthday, every year, no matter where I am or what I am doing.  Every year.  January 3^rd.  I’m going to buy a bottle of whiskey, and every year on his birthday I’m going to drink a shot to him and toast him with anyone nearby who’s willing to drink with me.  I’m going to try to make it a good day, and try to do things he would have enjoyed, but mostly, I’m going to think about his life, and not his death.

You see, I would like to believe that the heavy importance of February 13^th will start to fade some day.  I don’t want to define the rest of my life by that day.  I never want to forget Storm Treasure.  Hell, like anybody ever could forget Storm Treasure. :D  What I do want is for it to fade.  One year, eventually, I’d like to totally forget it’s February 13^th.  I never want to forget January 3^rd. 

Ultimately, I am most grateful to my father, Yahweh, who pulls me up each day, and helps me to rejoice that each day is his.  He hears this widow’s prayers, and he has put a light on the path to healing.  I am grateful for the level of healing that I have reached in a very short amount of time.  I am grateful that he forces me to look at things honestly and never compromise to soften the truth.  I am also grateful that he is kind to me, and sends me comfort and friends and smiles and chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.  Most importantly, he sends me wisdom, often from the mouths of others.  May we all find shalom.

Today I went to a memorial of a woman that I barely knew.  I listened to the lovely things her friends and family had to say, and I admired a woman that had such a profound effect on those around her.  Though I'm cordial with her husband, I can't say I know him well.   I went because my god told me to be there, and because I wanted to show my support.

It wasn't long after I began going to my little Baptist Hebrew Roots church this year that I heard that the wife of the associate pastor, who I only knew by name, was ill. I think I met her one time.  In fact, I'm certain she wouldn't have known who I was.  She passed away early on Friday morning, leaving a quite obviously large and aching hole in the lives of those who loved and were impacted by her love and her faith.

I can't help thinking how rough this past Shabbat must have been for her husband.  Storm died at 4:16 on a Friday morning.  I had  survived that Friday, full of well-meaning huggers and kind visitors and loving people who, with complete sincerity, spoke to me the platitudes they have learned to say when someone dies.  I had talked to the people who had to be talked to.  I had made the phone calls I had to make.  I had answered the police and the neighbors and the questions and the dogs scared looks and the phone over and over again.  Night finally came that Shabbat, ending that worst day, and for the first time in 23 years I dreaded a Sabbath.

Waking up that day was waking to the second worst day of my life.  A few bright spots were in the day.  My daughter brought us breakfast, and her father-in-law brought Malachi, and he brought sunshine to my heart.  The day improved, and so did my life.  But that first full morning, that first Shabbat sunrise, the whole day looked like a bleak desert of empty time.  It was the first day I remember looking out the window at the sun, too bright and shiny when I hurt so much inside, and saying out loud, "This is the day you have made, Yahweh.  Please help me to rejoice and be glad in it."  He heard my prayer that day, and the many, many mornings I would say it after that.  I realized today that I no longer say that in the morning.  Each day starts with a soft, purring cat, and is full of work and service and joy and great blessings, and there is no time for me to wallow in pain and trauma and grief.  Life is short, and it is for living.

My church is like homecoming for me.  I still mostly try to make myself small, and still mostly feel out of place, like a single gray chick among the yellow ones.  I walked away from church and church fellowship many years ago; I was a gray chick even then.  My belief grew and changed and I developed my dogged determination to learn and obey Torah.  I had searched for congregations, and had given up.  The only reason I went to Cornerstone that day was because the father impressed upon me I needed prayer, and I remembered this church kept a Sabbath meeting.  I went and received the prayer, and then the message, and then the food; all nourishment to my broken soul. I tried to be small and invisible, and the Father mostly let me. I thought I would only go the once.   Somehow, I found myself waking up again and again on Shabbat morning, and making my way to the little church, and trying to be invisible in the pew.  Each week I felt a little better, a little more equipped, and a little more in awe of my god.  Each week I received something that helped me gain insight into the past week, and to get through the next, and it was all nourishment to my soul.  I'm sure the Father saved my heart through this church, and it might have even saved my life.  I have come to love these people, and their beautiful hearts.  

Today, watching these folks who love Torah so much express their love for this woman made me love them even more, and helped me realize once again how very blessed I am to have found them.  I realize how much I love the air in my lungs, and the feel of the cold against my skin, and the sound of a room full of people fellowshipping in His name.  I realized how much I love my soft cat, and my warm bed, and my quiet life, even if it isn't the life I would have chosen.

I am constantly humbled that Yah hears my prayers, and that he sees me at all.  The knowledge that this IS the day that Yah has made, and he wants us to rejoice and be glad in it has driven me from bed morning after morning, and the knowledge that I would be embraced in his love through my fellow servants in him helped me to rejoice in it at least once a week.  Yah has created something in the Torah that is more than just words and laws and rules; it is the framework of his love for us.  It is the embodiment of the caring and kindness he shows toward us every day, and it is the medicine that helps the grieving recover, and the brokenhearted to find healing.  Psalm 119 is all about the glorious blessing of the Torah.  Vs. 50-51 This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life.  The proud have utterly scorned me, I did not turn aside from Your Torah.  Also vs. 93 says: Let me never forget Your orders, For by them You have given me life.    My favorite is 165: Great peace have those loving Your Torah, And for them there is no stumbling-block.   By believing in Torah, I knew what I was going to do that first Shabbat; rest.  The same as I have done every one since, and before it.  Resting. Though I dreaded the long day without Storm, I took comfort in knowing what to do that day.  I rested in Torah, in my grief, and in my Father.  I know that, whatever horrible things might happen in life, the rules have already been established at the foundations of creation.  All that I have to do is obey them, and Yah will take care of the hard stuff for me.    

I saw that same faith in the husband tonight.  I saw the grief, the pain, and that familiar feeling of "what am I supposed to do with myself now?"  But I also saw that framework of Torah.  That knowledge that whatever pain and sorrow life may bring, there is such a blessing in knowing that the guidelines for what to do are already in our hearts.  That faith that the Father has set his will into place, has spoken the creation into being, and he has spoken his law into being, and it is very good, and it will comfort and bring peace.

Maybe that is what I was there for; to see a mirror.  To see my own faith in Yahweh's Torah reflected back in the face of another believer who has lost that which they had cleaved to them and now find their love bleeding out.  To see the reflection of myself nine months ago reinforces where I am now in recovery.  Maybe I dunno.  I do try to understand, but I mostly try to obey.

Nobody wants my advice, but if I were to give it to a new widow or widower in faith, I would say this: Yah sees you.  He knows your pain, and he will bless you.  He will lead you out of this time of darkness and into the light, because the darkness has not overcome the light.  Just obey, and keep your faith, and it will be rewarded.  THIS is the day that Yah has made.  Yes, even THIS day; the one where the most important person in your life died, is his.  Try to rejoice and be glad in it.  I would tell them it gets better, and to take care of themselves, because they are the temple of Yah.

May Yahweh bring this family shalom.  May he hold them in their loving arms.  May he help them rejoice in every day.  May he remind me to pray for them daily.

Amen.