SAFELY TETHERED

Yesterday at my singing lesson, Elise, my teacher, said something that made me pause: "if you don't know what your're supposed to do, you can't be expected to do it."  To me, that exactly describes what it was like when the woman I loved for 50 years died.  I didn't know what to do.  I'm gradually becoming aware of what I'm supposed to do, little pieces of the puzzle are revealed each day; one day it's to smile at a pleasant memory of Gwen, another day it's to remember that our love did not die, today it took a different track; remember that it wasn't always sweetness and light, there weren't always birds chirping and hearts floating above our humble abode.  Part of this healing process will involve coming to grips with those moments also.

More to follow; I'm off to a potluck backyard picnic with members of the caregiver support group that I attended during all of Gwen's illness.

The potluck was fun; in some ways that all seems so long ago and part of a different world.

Recently someone, either my brother or my sister suggested we attend the German Festival that's held in a park, appropriately called German Park, near Ann Arbor.  We haven't attended it in a long time, but I am filled with shame and remorse when I remember the last time we attended with my brother and his wife.  Early in the evening, something Gwen said angered me to the point where I left here there and drove home.  That still bothers me; it embarrassed me, but even more it must have made Gwen feel just awful.  I don't recall that I ever apologized in words for acting that childishly, but I know that I made some adjustments in my life that brought Gwen and me closer together shortly thereafter.  The path of true love is not always strewn with rose petals.  My good fortune is that Gwen never quit on me, even when I acted horridly.

 I'm sure I could look up research on the grieving process and find that little of what I have experienced since
Gwen's death is all that unusual; after all, every second of every day someone else is joining the ranks of those who mourn the death of a loved one.  Arbor Hospice sends me a monthly publication with articles about what to expect in the grief process.  I read the articles, but with a sort of resentment.  It is always a generalized description of a specific experience--mine.  My experiences and emotions can't be generalized, they are who I am, and no one else on this planet is now grieving, ever has grieved, or will grieve the loss of my perfect partner who graced me with her presence for fifty years.  So, strange as it may seem, I don't read  or  listen to a lot of material about what I'm going through; to me it would be almost like cheating--cheating myself out of the most genuine human experience that any of us will ever have to experience.

Part of that experience involves accepting the fact that the woman who added so much security and stability to my life is now gone.  This poem is about that, I wrote it on June 8, the day that marked 48 years of our marriage:

SAFELY TETHERED

On our wedding day we

tied a knot that bound us for life;

became rocks for each other.

Our life together rose, like a balloon;

from the flowering of youth

to plans for growing old together,

sometimes wandering,

but always safely tethered to the rock

that was our love.

Not even the dark evil malignancy

that faded away my rock,

can undo the knot

of always and forever love.

Our balloon will not be allowed

to drift aimlessly through an empty sky.

We will not be set free from our mooring.

John A. Bayerl, June 8, 2011

I'm not sure that poem will mean much to anyone but you and me, Dear.  Even some of my foolish behaviors never came close to untying the knot we tied on our wedding day; that's always and forever.