Rationalizing and Other Survival Tactics

How do people make it to old age? How did people get through the Holocaust or Hiroshima? Emotionally, I mean. Do you get used to your loved ones dying? I remember Mary's reactions to Rita's death (short physical break-down) and Angie's (started to cry but then tucked it away and never let it out again). How did she deal with Bill's death? Did she ever think she'd marry someone else about eight years later?

Oh, I know grief is such a fickle thing. It varies depending on who died and under what circumstances and how close you were to them... and I guess your own mental and emotional state. But it's so hard to really understand what emotional pain feels like until you've experienced it--and even then, it's hard to bring that feeling back to your emotional consciousness. Too dangerous, I suppose. A survival tactic. I mean, we can say, "Oh, I know how you feel," but at that moment we don't really feel that pain again. We know. It's an intellectual thing. Even when people say, "I feel your pain," or "I really feel for you," they may not really be feeling it. Maybe if someone said, "My heart just aches for so-and-so," they might actually be feeling some sort of discomfort in the chest area. Of course, I'm really just talking about myself. I can't speak for others, really.

I don't even know why I'm carrying on about this. Well, I mean, I do know. I'm trying to work things out. Why do I feel so much more pain in connection to Mary's death than to Gina's? I mean, Gina was like my mother growing up. But Mary was my baby. I lived with Mary. Every time I get in the shower, I have a hundred memories flooding into my head. Every time I fold the towels or put away the silverware... when I'm driving along in the car and her absence from the seat next to me is as much like a physical presence as her living body had been. But why was I so better able to deal with the death of my sister who was only two days away from being 42, the age I'll be turning this summer? Why do I still have tears not only spring to my eyes so often when I start thinking about Mary, but they come in torrents with all of those sobbing sounds you associate with, with... real and immediate and unbearable pain? How can I miss Mary so much?

A part of my brain that's somehow not participating in the emotional business pipes up and says, "Well, you're probably not just grieving for Mary. It's for all the people you've lost. All the chances and hopes and, well, everything you've ever lost. You're just grieving. And you've probably got some self-pity mixed in there along with fear. It's all very natural." So I say, "Thank you, Dr. K," but I'm a bit miffed that this emotional reaction I'm experiencing can so easily be rationalized away. I prefer the other response that I get from people like JA or S in Germany, "Healing takes time! You're in the middle of a process--you took care of her night and day! You've lost your purpose in life! Of course, you're still upset!" When I was visiting my friend in KC, MO, recently, it seemed like every other sentence out of my mouth had the name "Mary" in it, and she was so understanding. (She also understood my desire to stay near Mom now since her own parents are the same age. But that's a whole nuther kettle of fish...)

I haven't gone through Mary 's clothes. I just can't bear it. I took something out the other day. Oh, it was a pajama top. The cloth is like a flannel-y jersey, so I'd put it away in the closet for her to wear in the summer, but I'd kept the bottoms in her pajama drawer. I'd come home early from a concert (my brother G and his wife P bought the tickets and took me with them--Chris Issac--very enjoyable evening), and I felt like putting on some pajamas so I'd feel more relaxed. I don't wear pajamas, so that's why I had to pilfer some from Mary. When I took the top out of the closet, I smelled her. Isn't it funny how we each have our own smell? Perhaps there's some man-made smell mixed in (aftershave or perfume or laundry detergent), but people still have their own smell. One of my brothers and his family always smelled like hamster chips to me. You know, those wood shavings you put in hamster cages.

It was such a shock to me, that I could still smell Mary, even though she'd been buried about three months earlier. I think the sense of smell is more visceral than that of sight or even touch (probably because we tune out the latter so very much--survival tactic). It was a real shock. When I saw her hair in the hairbrush, I'd already experienced that with Gina, so I was sort of prepared for that physical evidence of her existence. But it was like Mary's ghost stepped out of the closet.

Well, while I was standing there, I realized that there were some gowns hanging there that I'd never even liked putting on her (sometimes things got dirty so fast, I needed a large number of easily washable items just to have something to put on her), so I quickly took them out, along with the pajama top I'd wanted, and put them in a bag to give to the Goodwill. The rest, I cannot deal with. I tell myself that I need time. Surely I will know when the right time has come to be able to do something with her clothes. Am I just being a baby? Doesn't matter. No one else needs the space.

But I got another shock when I was waiting for my laptop to restart the other night and glanced over at the side table. It slowly dawned on my that I was looking at a baggie of Andes mints I'd given her to nibble on. How long ago had that been? My initial reaction was to grab the bag and toss it in the waste basket, but I left it there. Don't touch it. Don't deal with it at all. Then I saw her Pretty Birdie Baby lying in her Silver Swan dish next to the mints. I picked it up and turned it on. "She'd pretty much forgotten you, hadn't she?" I mentally ask it. It chirps and moves its head back and forth. I find myself saying out loud, "Talk! Talk!" just like Mary did. Should I give this to Mom? She loves birds. But, no, she wouldn't appreciate it like I do. She's think it was just a thing. But it's more than that for me. Just like Mary's wheelchair is much more than a wheelchair for me. And that's really silly, isn't it? I mean, Mary only had that wheelchair for about the last six years of her life. That's 92 years without it--longer than most people even live!

I guess I've nattered on enough. Just an update on my big "after Mary" plans--S in NZ has asked me to stay 2 months! That means I'll probably be traveling for 4-5 months. That's a long time to be away and leave my dogs and cat, much less Mom and the innumerable doctors' appointments she could have in that time-span. Is it the right thing to do? And as if that's not a crazy enough prospect, I've got this other idea in my head. What I'd really like to do before I die: go to Paris and do the Patisserie Diploma at the Cordon Bleu. It's basically the same tuition price as here. And I'd be getting language training! It's always irked me that I never mastered French, considering it was my first foreign language and that I have a BA in it. There's a part of me that feels a real desire to do something... daring or adventurous. A lot of people would consider traveling around the world for 4 or 5 months to be adventurous, I'm sure, but I'm looking for something else. A part of me wants to do this thing that seems slightly insane and would require a fair amount of courage so that afterwards, I can say, "I did it!" and smile to myself and know that no one can take that away from me. Oh, I should know better. I should know that I'll look back and say, "I can't believe that was really me." But, you know, there's also this really, really odd thought coming to me so often that I can't deny it. I want to be an enabler. I want to enable people in my family (or friends) to come to Paris because I'm there. Maybe I'm just trying to justify my own plans, but it would please me to no end if by my doing this thing, I made it possible for other people to do something equally wild for them. Does that make any sense? The program lasts about eight months, by the way--long enough but not too long. Well, I don't have to decide about it tomorrow.