This morning, as I do every morning, I wrote in my journal. I started with “good morning pages” followed by a note about my whereabouts and the quality of my sleep. Today, it happens to be on the deck of a small, grey wooden cottage atop a cliff overlooking the north channel of Lake Huron. After a challenging session with the coffee maker, I ambled out to the deck with a white and black dappled mug of lukewarm java, despite my yearning for a steaming and frothy latte.
I turned over the cushions to find the dry side, as they were damp from the overnight dew and positioned myself to watch the sun rise. Behind me, the full moon, a large white pearl, hangs in the western sky.
While I waited for the sun to ascend above the eastern horizon, I noodled over what next to share on the white lined page. I have been having health challenges, so I shared a few lines about the current state of my seemingly chronic nausea and discomfort. After a long and uncomfortable treatment that left me exhausted and hesitant to swallow over a throat scraped and battered by tubes, I am sipping broth and seeking soft and bland food. I have a one-month reprieve, and then it happens all over again. This, an attempt to open a blocked bile duct.
After registering my physical update, I moved to the sad and nonexistent state of my writing initiative – the term itself an oxymoron. Several months ago, I was filled with creativity and clarity around how I wished to proceed with my yearning to write about everything and anything in my body and soul. A dear friend in a writing group spoke words that were as true for me as they were for her – my life is better when I write. With a long and storied history of self-abandonment it is not a surprise to me that her words, landing deep within my psyche, did nothing to change my behaviour. Until now.
It seems to me that my 6th decade has been one of reconciliation. Over and over and over again. My children are adults and becoming parents themselves. Their time, energy, and hearts are divided into pieces that exclude me. My fear of irrelevancy and abandonment is always lurking. My marriage is long, stable, and risks complacency and, for me, irritable boredom. Rather than lean in, I tend to back away. Some friendships are deepening, others withering, as I face my truths and values. My professional (and paid) career has wound down – organically and gently. I’m ok with that. While I falsely believed that my family and friends were strong and healthy, illness and death have become part of my life rather than extraordinary events. Daily I work to find an equilibrium between grief and gratitude.
A death leaves an irreparable hole in our hearts, while illness gnaws at the edges of our spirit and slowly guts us. My work is to find a place of compassion and equanimity so that I am not consumed and paralyzed with empathy and self-centredness.
When my sister-in-law bled out due to a chronic liver disease, she was sustained on life support for six weeks. After her children were notified to come to her bedside, I was the next call. Sitting in the dark vinyl chair, looking at myself with foiled spikes sticking out of my head, I told the colourist that I had to leave immediately. Along with my husband, we went daily to the hospital to sit with my brother, who was almost always alone, taking shifts sitting by the machines and unrecognizable form that was his beautiful and vibrant wife. On a sunny morning in mid-May, we got the call from the doctor that her kidneys were failing, and we needed to let her go. I had known for many weeks this would be the outcome; in fact, I had wanted it sooner, for everyone. It wasn’t my timeline. I learned that my brother had to be ready, to be depleted of all hope, to surrender.
I wasn’t able, ever, to get a sense of his adult children’s grief. They seemed distant and avoidant. I told myself that is why I showed up – every day. I suspended my life – living in 24 hr slices of time, focused only on my role as grief companion for my eldest brother. I still wonder why I thought it was only up to me. My tendency to assume if I don’t do it, nobody will, carries me into situations and stories I am now not sure I needed to be in. At least, not as the main character.
Two days before she died, my brother called me and said to back off. He didn’t want me there. I was devastated. Then he apologized, I was relieved. Three months after his wife’s death, he met a woman and started a life with her, I was confused. Then he shunned us and chose her; I was angry. Then I understood that his greatest fear was being alone – he would sacrifice anything and anyone to have a breathing body beside him. I was sad.
Now I am reconciling his return into my life. In a combination of courage and self-preservation he unchained himself from her grasp. Now he cares – is it a switch that one can turn off and on?
Maybe that’s what the age and stage of reconciliation is all about.