Archive for the ‘Widowhood’ Category
My uncle Wayne died today at 74.
With great sadness I pass along this news . . . my uncle Wayne, who was a brilliant man who’d been a husband, a father, a psychologist, a military veteran, and much more, died today at the age of 74.
Two-plus months ago, my uncle went into the hospital for a heart operation. It was thought that if he had the operation, and it was successful, it would buy him a few more years of comfortable living. At the time, my uncle was suffering from congestive heart failure and a number of other ailments, and he wasn’t enjoying being slowed down by illness (as he’d always been active, before), so he felt he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So he had the operation.
At any rate, he was on the operating table for twelve to fourteen hours, I believe (I may be misremembering), and it took him nearly two weeks to come out of the coma he was in after surviving that operation. I know my aunt was told he might not come out of the coma and if he didn’t, they needed to talk with her about “pulling the plug” — that is, ending his life — but fortunately he did come out of the coma.
When he did, though, he didn’t always know his wife, and he was paralyzed on one side of his body. Physical and occupational therapy was started, which made my uncle very tired — I heard all of this from my Mom, his sister, who heard it directly from my aunt himself — and he had some good days and some bad (the worst being when he was diagnosed with MRSA in his lungs, which caused pneumonia and worse).
They tried a lung procedure a few days ago to see if that would give him some ease of breathing, because he wasn’t able to breathe without the respirator and even with it, his breath came short and fast. (Once again, I was not there — this is all third-hand, but seems accurate. I truly wish I were not among the vast numbers of America’s unemployed or I’d have found a way to take my mother to see her brother, as he lived in another state that was over 600 miles away.) The procedure did not work.
My Mom got the call from my aunt yesterday that the doctors had told my aunt that my uncle Wayne could endure no more, and that his death was imminent. Then we waited, while I did my best not to disrupt my father’s 74th birthday celebration (my parents are long-divorced) because while he knew and liked my uncle, he wouldn’t have appreciated hearing anything bad on his birthday. (Trust me. This was for the best.)
And today, the news came a bit past 12:00 noon that my uncle Wayne had died.
I feel numb, maybe because I was hoping for a miracle. Wayne had rallied at least twice before and I knew he wanted to live, very strongly. But in this case, he just wasn’t able to do any more . . . he had to leave his wife, and his children, and his grandchildren, and his sister (my Mom), and his nieces and nephews, etc., behind.
My uncle was not religious, though he went to the Unitarian Universalist church for the fellowship it offered. He was agnostic, and as such I’d not want to wish him to be in a positive afterlife if that’s truly not what he wanted. (Some people just want to end after this life, and not have an afterlife of any sort, and I believe that my uncle was most likely in this category.) So my usual well-wishes, hollow though they tend to be, are not adequate to this occasion in any case . . . all I can do is wish my aunt well, which I have done, and pray that somehow, some way, all the distress she endured over the past ten-plus weeks will be worth it to her. Somehow.
I am a widow and I would never, ever wish this state on anyone else. It is incredibly difficult to wake up every day, alone, wishing like fire that my beloved husband, Michael, will somehow be beside me, alive again, and that everything I’ve endured is a horrible dream. I’ve even wished, at times, that I were in a coma and that I was dreaming all of this — that he’s alive, somehow and in some way, and that I will rejoin him and everything will be as it was.
But because I do believe in a positive afterlife, I at least have that to hope for, while my aunt, it seems to me, may not be able to hope for that (though I hope in her case that I’ve misread my uncle and that she can — she knows him far, far better than I ever could). And I do wish for that positive afterlife, for more long walks with my husband, for more conversation, for more thoughts on books and baseball and “life, the universe and everything,” what I was blessed to have for the three years I knew Michael and the two years, two months and twenty-eight days we had of marriage on this plane of existence.
Life is short, folks. It truly is. And that’s why I wish those of you who still have your spouses or significant others to enjoy them to the fullest and appreciate them as much as you possibly can even on the bad days. Even though the economy is bad, and you may be suffering financially like never before, try to be grateful for the love you have all around you, and store up those memories.
I’ve found that you can live a long time on them, if need be . . . .
New book review — LMB’s “Cryoburn” — plus remembering my husband, Michael
I reviewed Lois McMaster Bujold’s new novel about Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, Cryoburn, at the “sister” site Shiny Book Review this evening. Please go to this link:
All I’ll say here is, Cryoburn is worthy, interesting, and weighty — but not a pleasure-read by any stretch of the imagination. Make sure you are prepared for this, as Cryoburn, simply put, is all about death — and potential revival, for those who elect it — and that is not an easy or lightweight subject to contemplate.
And as for the writing of the review, it was far more difficult than I’d anticipated. I really, really like Lois McMaster Bujold’s writing — I like it a whole lot. But a novel about death, and about the survivors of those who’ve died but may yet be revived — well, it’s not an easy novel to enjoy, let’s put it that way. (At least not for me as a widow.)
******** SPOILER AND REMEMBRANCE ALERT ********
Reading Cryoburn stirred up all sorts of issues I thought I’d dealt with in my grief cycle, because I completely understood why Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan made the choice she did at the very end (in her “drabble,” a short bit of story in 100 words). I would’ve done exactly as Cordelia, and for the same reasons, were our medical technology more advanced at the time of my beloved husband Michael’s passing; if a man has brain damage, and it is extensive — whether it’s from lack of oxygen or whatever else — and medical science cannot bring him back to the level he was before the brain damage, what kind of life would that be?
Fortunately I did not have to make that determination. Michael fought hard for life and I knew he wanted to stay with me. I desperately wanted him to stay with me, too, and prayed hard for that miracle to occur. But it wasn’t to be; his life on this plane of existence ended, but who he was and what he was all about lives on. That’s what Cordelia understood that her grieving son, Miles, did not get — maybe could not get. Simply put: the most important thing about her husband’s life, or mine, is this — he lived it his way.
If you’ve followed my blog to this point, or know anything about me at all, you know full well that I will do whatever I possibly can, ethically and morally, to keep Michael’s writing alive. I will finish it since I must, even though I wish with all my heart and soul and spirit that Michael were still with us in the totality of his intelligence, bright spirit and strong will. I’d rather he were alive to do this, because I loved watching him create, and I loved reading his stories.
Still. I am the only one left who understands what he was getting at, and I can write his style (with great effort, but I can do it). That’s why I will do whatever I can to complete his work, because in that way and only in that way do I feel like I’ve remembered Michael properly, as the man he always was — creative, alert, intelligent, witty, and beloved beyond words.
It’s important to remember a person as he lived, not as he died. That’s why the process of creation is so important to me. It was important to Michael, too, because writing something, creating something, meant we’d done something no one else on the planet was able to do in the same way. Creating is one way of exerting your own sense of individuality, of how you see the world, and it’s the best way to remember a creative person, in my opinion.
At any rate — while life is for the living, it’s also for remembering, positively and with great care, the honored dead. Maybe that’s why it was so hard for me to like Cryoburn, as it hits way too close to home for comfort.
Open Season on the Widow(er): More about Debbie Macomber’s “Hannah’s List”
Before I start into today’s blog, I want to first point you to the book review I just did at Shiny Book Review:
I had a hard time containing my rage and frustration after reading Hannah’s List. There are so very many things wrong with this book — and all of them start with the premise: why would a man who’s grieving get a letter from his dead wife (written as she lay dying) asking him to remarry forthwith because he should have children — as if children are owed to him in her view — and then give a list of three disparate women who, in Hannah’s view, would make her husband Michael an excellent second wife?
Most if not all of you know I am a widow, and thus, Michael the doctor’s plight is not unknown to me. Anniversaries are hard — the first one in particular, but they never get any easier, and grief has its own cycle — one that doesn’t obey any time clocks — that the widow or widower must endure.
Doctor Michael Everett, the hero of Hannah’s List, has been grieving for one year — apparently author Macomber thought this was just much too long for a vibrant man in his late-thirties — and we’re supposed to believe that Hannah, his wife, is a selfless, caring, giving saint for finding three women she thinks will appeal to her husband to succeed her after her death.
Excuse me, but when did this woman die and become God(dess)? I mean, isn’t it up to Michael — the widower — to decide when or even if to date again? And certainly, if he had the sense to pick Hannah in the first place and she was so damned good for him, why wouldn’t Hannah realize that he still has that good common sense that led him to her in the first place, so he’s still capable of finding another good woman by himself? And that he doesn’t need to be led by the hand in order to find someone else?
Some of the feelings Michael the widower had in this book didn’t ring true to me, either. From page 318:
How well she knew me, how well she’d known how I’d react once she left this world. But for the first time since I’d lost her, I felt not only alive, but — to my complete surprise — happy. I saw now that her letter had freed me; it’d given me permission to live. The letter, with her list, was a testament of her love.
Once again, we have the saintly Hannah, and the barely-thinking, barely-able-to-reason Michael — who is of all things a doctor and should understand at bare minimum what the grief cycle is all about — and I just don’t buy it.
Either this man had the sense he was born with to pick wisely once, so he can pick wisely a second time without being led by the hand, or he didn’t — but if he didn’t, he needs a lot more help than the manipulative, meddling Hannah could ever possibly give him.
There are not words for how much I profoundly disliked and despised this book, and I hadn’t expected to feel this way as I have enjoyed just about every other book Debbie Macomber has ever written — most especially the ones featuring scatterbrained angels Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. Those are funny, heartwarming and even healing books that make me laugh and think.
But all Hannah’s List made me think was this: open season on the widow(er). Because apparently Ms. Macomber does not believe a widow, or widower, can think for him or herself and must be led, kicking and screaming, back into life by the first available man (or woman, or alien, or whatever) who’s willing to take an interest before it’s too late.
Humph!
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