The book I am currently reading, Dark Hallow by John Connolly, has a line in it about the past hanging in the air waiting to be illuminated by the sharp rays of memory.
This apartment, the places we went together, what’s left of my life, are all suddenly filled with dust motes of the past. And while shining the sharp ray of memory on some of them brings warm thoughts to my mind, most of the time the motes seem to be just out of my reach, as if to mock me and say, “This is what you had and can never have again. My instincts have been to do things this week that are not part of the routine Michele and I shared. This is helping some, but I am all the time turning my head and seeing in the corners of my life all the things we shared, laughed about, and treasured.
I know that a day of reckoning is coming. While I’ve expressed some grief over Michele’s death, I haven’t really touched the high-voltage core of it yet. In a week or three I’ll have moved through the initial shock of this event, and then I’ll be fully committed to the undertoad. Only my friendships and connections to things outside of my life will sustain me then.
Michele always said that you should never make a decision when you were Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. I have certainly been all of these and more this week.
I’ve been making myself eat, even though I have no real appetite. In an effort to keep my mind occupied I made two of our favorites this weekend - Chicken with Rice, and Chili. I’ve got plenty of leftovers, both in the fridge and the freezer. I was afraid before starting that cooking would be hard as it was something we always did together. I did cry some, but I felt connected to her as a result.
I haven’t gotten to much anger yet. but I know it’s there, simmering below the surface. This is the part of my grief I will have the hardest time with; I’ve always been afraid of my anger.
Lonely. I have been too preoccupied with details to really feel this yet. When I stop for more than a few minutes and un-focus I can feel it bearing down on me. I have been talking out loud to Michele a lot this week. So much of my life revolved around sharing my thoughts with her and now I can’t. Well, I can’t hear her answers, but I can still talk to her. And I am. But I am so lonely for her all the time.
There are times when I don’t think I’ll ever not be tired again. I’ve been sleeping surprisingly well this week. But even so I am dog tired all day long. Who knew that grief was such a physically demanding activity. My neck is tight all the time, and my joints are painful and sore. I’ve been trying to drink lots of water and eat well, but I don’t know when I won’t feel tired again.
Five minute chunks is all I’m aiming for now. Just get to the end of the next five minutes. It’s only 300 seconds. Three hundred eternally long seconds.
October 14, 2005 9:30 am
Good morning and thank you all for coming.
You are all here today because Michele touched you, or someone you love, in their life. I had the great privilege to know Michele for the last ten years, and the great honor to be her husband for the last eight. My name is Mark Nichols and I thank you all sincerely from the bottom of my heart for joining me here today.
I would like to tell you a little bit about Michele and her life, and then I would invite anyone here who would like to relate a story or say goodbye to do so. Remember that Michele loved a good conversation more than anything else in the world. She wanted to hear your truth, to see your heart, and to share her vision and her heart in return.
Her father, Joseph Daniel McAvoy was born in Glasgow Scotland, and immigrated to Rochester New York when he was five years old. Her mother, Virginia, was born in rural Currytuck County North Carolina, the last piece of land you traverse before crossing the sound to the Outer Banks and Kill Devil Hills, or Kitty Hawk.
Virginia was the oldest of ten children and so at a young age set out for the big city, and started working in the Naval yard in Norfolk Virginia. Dan, who had joined the Navy as a corpsman or medic, was stationed there as well. They met and were married shortly after World War II ended. Their eldest child, Terry Lee was born in Brooklyn New York shortly after.
Michele was born in Long Beach California on Christmas Eve 1949. Her father was away in Korea and didn’t see his daughter until she was about one year of age. Between the remainder of his service career and a shared itinerant nature, Dan and Virginia moved a lot. Before she graduated from high school, Michele had lived in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York, and Maryland.
Michele always talked about a small farming community in southwestern part of New York where she lived for about two and a half years. Canestio was one of her favorite memories of childhood. In the fall of 2003 we took a trip to New York and were able to find the house where they lived, the grade school she walked to, and the little town square that held the library and movie theater, both of which she loved.
She also talked of spending summers at her Grandfather Parker’s farm, working in the field, and playing with her cousins. But I think her most cherished memory of childhood was being a member of the Elizabeth City High School marching band. She often spoke of Mr. Calloway, who led the band, and his high standards for his students. More than once she said that he had a profound effect on her life and that she was very grateful to have known him.
Elizabeth City is also the site of one of her greatest regrets. Her family moved to Baltimore the summer of her junior year and despite her efforts to stay with family or friends, her father wouldn’t hear of it. So she lost the chance to complete her senior year with her friends, and never got to play first chair in the band.
After high school her family moved to Florida, near to where Dan’s parents had moved. It was the late sixties and a time of great turmoil and uncertainty in the world, and especially here in the US. Michele actually dropped out for a time, living on the beach in St. Petersburg for about three months. Deciding that she wanted more from her life she moved back home and went to work in her father’s gas station, learning how to perform oil changes, engine tune ups, and general mechanical work. To this day she still loved taking things apart and cleaning them and putting them back together. After a series of jobs she managed to get a clerical position with the Records Division of the Tampa Police Department.
In the first of several instances where she displayed her true courage, she fought for and won herself a position as the first female crime scene technician in that department. She went on to become the crime scene technician supervisor and training officer.
After ten years with TPD, she quit, took her pension money and put her self through college. She earned undergraduate degrees in Criminal Justice and Psychology, and a Masters Degree in Counselor Education. With her experience testifying in court and her connections to the law enforcement community, she was able to develop several highly regarded and successful domestic violence, anger management, and sexual offender treatment programs. As a result of her work she was invited to be a part of a task force that successfully drafted new legislation altering the manner in which the courts treated domestic violence participants.
Growing wearing of dealing with one of the toughest populations in psychology, and taking an incident of breast cancer as a sign, she left Florida and moved to Colorado in 1995. She put what would fit into her car, including a reluctant cat, and drove her self to Colorado Springs. She literally started over with nothing. As a consequence of her willingness to move with nothing, I always made sure that I did the packing when we moved. Within three months of arriving there she and I met on America Online. We spent the next year talking on the phone, sometimes for hours a day. In what surely have been fate looking out for us, her long distance bill was mistakenly charged to a large company that didn’t notice until the last month she lived there. As neither of us could afford to fly, we agreed to meet half way, in Salinas Kansas. The two weekends we spent there in 1996 cemented our love for each other and we resolved to be together always.
In February 1997 she moved to Illinois to be with me, and we were married in July of that year. Due to my career, and the ups and downs of the computer industry, we moved from Illinois to Washington state, then to South Carolina, back to Illinois, and finally to Kansas. For those of you keeping score, that’s twelve states she lived in.
She delighted in the coincidences between my life and hers. Her father was born in September and served in the Navy. My father was born in September and served in the Navy. Her mother was born in March and worked as a nurse, my mother was born in March and worked as a nurse. Lee, her brother was born in Brooklyn in May, as was I.
Here in Kansas she had started to pursue her third career, as an Adjunct Instructor in Social Sciences for Kansas City Kansas Community College. She loved the atmosphere and the people there. The college is committed to cultural diversity and she was proud to be a contributor to that mission. She loved the interaction with her fellow faculty members, and with her students. She completed a course in, and was certified for online instruction. I always said it wasn’t fair that I had worked for two decades with computers and still had to drive work when she had a job where the commute was to the living room.
Along the way Michele accomplished some pretty amazing things. She was a ranked chess player in the early 1970s, reaching Master status. She was also a member of Mensa’s One percent club. She never talked about these accomplishments because she said they were just a part of her and not the whole truth of her. She was a woman of weight, who had an easy grace with her size. She always said that we all have differences; that the gift of her weight was that she couldn’t hide her difference from others. As a result she learned to be very accepting of others but also determined to help them discover their hidden difference and to come to terms with it.
Michele loved her cats and doted on them shamelessly. She was often moved to tears by great music. Her favorite piece was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, particularly Ode to Joy. She had a wonderful sense of humor and wit, and could tell a good joke. Her laugh was infectious and made you feel warm inside to hear it. Together we shared a love for simple pleasures like making a pot of spaghetti sauce or baking a cake. Her favorite places were quiet corners of nature. She would have liked this garden very much. When living in Colorado she was just minutes away from Garden of the Gods and used to go there every week to sit in the splendor and quiet.
She was hugely interested in the world around her, avidly following politics and social issues. Where I am a liberal she was a social anarchist, fiercely committed to feminist issues. She sent money every month to Women for Women International, where it was used to provide education and employment opportunities to women in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and trouble spots around the world. She was greatly concerned that we were ignoring warning signs about the impact our race is having on the planet, and that ever widening gulf between the haves and the have nots in the world was leading us to disaster.
Her favorite book was Illusions by Richard Bach, and her favorite movie was Harvey. She would always ask people what their favorite movie was, and was saddened when they didn’t know. She loved Vietnamese Beef Noodle soup, plates of raw veggies, and steaks cooked over charcoal. Her favorite desserts involved chocolate. “Why waste the calories on anything else?” was her motto. Even though her Christmases growing up were difficult, she had worked hard to make that time of year magical and filled with wonder and joy.
If she were able to speak to you all today, she would tell you that she had a rock solid belief in the essence or soul we each posses, and of its eternal nature. She believed we each had a purpose, a reason for being here. And, that once we had accomplished that lesson, we moved on. She also believed that we have many lifetimes, for there are many lessons to learn. She cherished the divine in each of us and didn’t like dogma that restricted or took away that essential piece. In fact at the age of eight, she was excused from church for standing up and asking the minister where in the Bible was the hurtful message he was giving his congregation. In the final weeks of her life we were reading a wonderful book called The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur. It had helped her to reconcile some of the concerns she had about spirituality, and I think it eased her spirit.
Finally if she was here today physically, and not just in spirit, I would tell her again that I always loved her and that I always will love her. Michele, I am so blessed to have been your best friend, lover, companion, partner, husband, and love of your life.
I lov eyou Tinkerbell. Goodbye
The physical impact of grief on me has taken me by surprise. Emotionally I thought I knew what to expect, but the nausea, cramps, feeling light headed, being constantly thirsty, and feeling wobbly when I stand, have all taken me quite by surprise.
Over the past few days I’ve been quite active preparing for this morning’s memorial service. I know that I was using the need to get things done as a way of “self medicating.” While there are still some odds and ends to be dealt with I’m now faced with a normal schedule. As if anything will ever be normal again.
As I type this I realize that the hurt inside is unexpressed emotion. I’ve cried on and off every day this week, but I don’t think I’ve had a good unrestrained cry yet. In the past whenever I needed to express something deep through tears I always turned to Michele. She would hold me and comfort me and allow my tears to run their course. Then we would talk and I’d find the truth of the situation and be able to move on. I think I have been avoiding letting the floodgates open because I am afraid I’ll be swept away by the grief, and because I have no safe place to fall any more.
A part of me is angry at her for leaving me, and leaving me with all this emotion to deal with. The bitter irony of this situation is that every time some one calls, or there’s a special gesture with regards to Michele, I want to tell her all about how wonderful, caring, sweet, and loving the people around me are. Only she isn’t beside me physically now. I have to tell her in my heart.
I know better than to shoulder this grief by myself. I just don’t know where to turn yet to find a place of solace and comfort. For there was no place of refuge greater than in the arms of my sweet, glorious Michele.
One of the hardest parts about this is feeling separated from myself. The part of me that Michele brought out is inaccessible to me now. Whether I ever get any or all of that part of me back will be determined in the days, weeks, and months to come.
This Mark, sitting here in the middle of the night struggling with feelings, images, thoughts, aches, pains, and grief, is different than the on from Monday before her death. There was a personality that only came out when she was in the room. I remember him, and I miss him. I know that eventually new facets of me will come to the fore, but I am saddened that the part of me that was hers is gone with her.
I feel more connected to Michele and to myself this afternoon. Somehow the memorial this morning removed the block I had that was preventing me from reaching her fully. Pete saw a monarch butterfly come into the table with her pictures and urn, circle it and then flit off to the side. He said, and he is a confirmed agnostic, that he felt a shiver go up his spine and he knew that Michele, whom I call Tinkerbell, was there in that moment. How appropriate that she use a butterfly when she was always Tink to me.
Later while the bagpipes were playing Amazing Grace the breeze picked up and I felt her brush across my face. Having the memorial my way, and in my time, allowed me to day the goodbye in public that I needed to start moving again. Over time I will say goodbye to her in private. Only goodbye isn’t the proper word. I will never truly let go of her, so what I am doing is saying fare thee well, and Godspeed to your essence on its journey home.
{{ $image := .ResourceGetMatch “mmn.JPG” }} December 24, 1949 - October 10, 2005
Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend, Doth close behind him tread.
Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew - And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
~ John G. Magee, Jr.’s poem “High Flight”
With the uncertainty surrounding Michele’s health this weekend, with a full body bone scan scheduled for tomorrow, we have been thinking and talking a lot about quality of life this weekend. Both Michele and I place a high degree of importance of our life’s quality. I’m sure everyone reading this would say that they do too, who wouldn’t?
But have you ever really sat down and rationally thought about what that means to you? What would you be willing to endure to stay alive? Or, put another way, what would you not be willing to endure, preferring death instead?
For me my greatest fear as always been something that caused me to lose my ability to communicate verbally or otherwise, leaving me trapped inside my mind. I think I could handle going deaf but blindness would be unbearable. As I age and become more aware that my body will one day start to breakdown I have become aware that some day I will be dependent upon others to take care of me. In our western society that usually means living in an assisted living facility or worse, a nursing home. Without knowing more about it those two options represent to me a total loss of self determination. My ability to live my life as I see fit would be taken away, and control over nearly every aspect of my daily existence rendered to someone else. And not someone I choose or had a loving relationship with either.
For the past seven years Michele has battled a variety of physical ailments, often times enduring painful and embarrassing episodes not knowing when they would lessen or stop. Learning on Friday that she has a metastasis on her left tibia and that metastasis could be the return of breast cancer has been a huge blow to her resolve. While the Internet is a great place to do some ad-hoc research, it also gives new meaning to the phrase, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” While we read that the weakened bone can be repaired with a pin, and that localized radiation can stop the cancer, and systemic chemotherapy can ensure it hasn’t spread elsewhere, we also understand that breast cancer metastases tend to attack the ribs or pelvic region before extremities.
So we are both scared today. Scared to go to the test tomorrow and learn what this truly is. Scared not to go and continue the hellish existence fear, uncertainty, and doubt have left us in since Friday. Our worst fear is that this cancer is advanced, that even with radiation and chemotherapy they’ll have to take her leg. Or that having taken her leg they won’t be able to stop the spread. The worst part today is the not knowing.
The best part today has been a deepening of the faith and love we have for each other. We’ve been reading aloud a wonderful book called The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur that has explained away many of our questions and doubts about spirituality and the divine. I know that my thoughts about my essence or soul have been eased considerably by this book, and I believe that Michele’s have as well.
Over the past three days we’ve talked and laughed, cried and raged. We’ve held each other, and provided that all important real physical connection to another we each need to survive. No matter what happens I am going to come out of this with a new sense of what is important and what isn’t. Focusing on the relationships I have with others is the most important thing I can accomplish in this lifetime. The love I feel for others, and the love I feel back from them is the only thing I take with me to the next place of existence. All the physical trappings (note the root word trap) stay behind.
Go to the ones you love. Tell them your truth. Forgive them for their frailties and transgressions. Learn to love yourself. To forgive yourself for your frailties and humanness. Become a human being not a human doing.
Yesterday, especially last evening, was rocky for both of us. After plumbing the depths of despair on Friday we both came back towards normalcy Saturday. One of Michele’s best friends, Laura, called and they talked for a long time on the phone. Being able to connect to someone outside of our immediate situation was a very good thing. Michele was able to sort through her feelings and fears without having to worry about me in the process.
I, too, had a long talk with Laura, and felt better for it. The light of a new day strengthened Michele’s resolve to go forward with the bone scan on Tuesday. And we both were able to feel less out of control as a result. However late in the afternoon we started doing some Google searches for things like “metastasis” and “bone scan” and “cancer.” We also searched for “osteoporosis”, and “bone disease related to blood loss.” What we found was not encouraging at all.
There are two types of bone cancer: primary and secondary. Primary is when the cancer starts in the bone, or bone marrow. Secondary is when another cancer in the body attaches to the bone, or metastasizes. Seen on an x-ray the metastasis looks like a dark stain or even a whole in the bone. This describes exactly what her leg x-rays from Friday show. Upon reading this, and seeing that none of the other possible causes for her leg pain matched we both realized that she truly does have cancer.
We spent the rest of the evening in kind of a numb stupor. Earlier in the day the upstairs neighbor’s dog barked incessantly for several hours. We called the office and complained, and given our stress level, we may have over done it a bit. The idiot mitten in the office told the guy upstairs that we had called, and pretty much what we had said, including our threat to involve the SPCA if the barking didn’t stop. He knocked on our door just as we were finishing what passed for dinner and wanted to apologize. Then he wanted to get into having “heard that someone had threatened to call the pound.” We denied having any knowledge of that and got him out of our doorway as quickly as possible.
Both of us were very upset by his intrusion and by the break of confidence by the woman in the apartment management office. It did give us a focal point for some anger and we were able to vent some of our frustrations as a result.
This morning Michele woke me up as she was having a nightmare. After I woke her and we talked for a bit she complained of nausea, so we moved her to the big chair in the living room. While she was sitting there her breathing suddenly got very ragged and labored, and she looked very far away to me. After a few minutes her breathing got slower and shallower, and she opened her eyes and told me that she loved me. I told her that I loved her, and that I was right there with her. From my view point then it seemed like she slipped into a peaceful sleep. She woke up, coughing from reflux, about 20 minutes later. Her recollection was that she was dying. She remembers hearing her heart beat in her ears, and thinking that it was very peaceful.
I helped her move back to the bed and we spent a tearful time there holding each other and being together. She is sleeping quietly now. I am glad she is getting some rest, the past few weeks have been especially difficult for her, and if she is going to survive the tests on Tuesday, and what ever lies beyond, she will need all her strength.
I have terribly mixed feelings about everything now. She has suffered so long with the dysfunctional uterine bleeding/menorraghia, and more recently with IBS, that a part of me wants for her to be out of pain and suffering. At the same time I want to keep my partner, my friend, my lover, my wife here with me always. The only guide I have for now is the part of my integrity that says it isn’t proper for my to take care of myself by forcing her to change or be something she isn’t. While I may want to rush her to the hospital and force every medical remedy known to man on her, that would only be taking care of me. If I truly love her, and I do, then I have to honor her determination about what happens in her life.
Yesterday was surreal; even now it feels like it was happening to someone else. The doctor prescribed some Xanax for us to use to lessen the anxiety of the situation. Around 7 we each took one full tablet. I know that it made me feel vague and floaty, which given the circumstance wasn’t pleasant. Still I couldn’t get worked up about it so I guess the stuff works.
I think we both were hoping that this morning we’d wake up and everything would be fine, that yesterday would have just been some awful nightmare. But today is here, and the nightmare is real. Neither of us knows how to act or what to do, if the disease is far enough along to have destroyed bone mass, one has to wonder what else it has compromised.
In the light of a new day, with this horrible knowledge, we are beginning to understand that her DUB and menorraghia, and her IBS may in fact not be just those simple things, but rather interconnected pieces of this cancer.
Today we are going to stay close to home; with her leg so painful (and with the jeopardy of it breaking very real) there really isn’t any place she can go safely or comfortably. We’ll watch movies, cry, and talk. We both recognize at a deep level that expressing our true emotions, no matter how outrageous, is the only way forward with this.