I keep having flashbacks to the day Michele killed herself. Discovering her is indelibly imprinted on my mind. Like a sore in your mouth that you can’t stop touching with your tongue, I can’t stop replaying some parts of that Monday over and over in my mind. I realize that the movies I’ve been watching, the phone calls to and from friends, and staying up until I am utterly exhausted, have all been efforts to keep myself from playing the images from her death over and over in my mind.
For the most part I feel like I am doing okay, but then the tidal wave of despair and loneliness washes over me and I am lost for a time. The worst moments of any day are those when I would normal have contact with Michele or see her again after being apart. Leaving work to go home is no longer a joyous thing, instead it has become something I dread. Last evening I was tired, and worn out from a long week at work, I really wanted to connect to Michele. Instead I was miserably alone.
I cried and cried for about an hour, alternating body-racking sobs with fits of anger and rage. The littlest things are upsetting to me now. And big things are so far beyond my ability to grasp as to be alien to my world. So I make lists in my more lucid moments, and when all I know is washed away for a time by flooding grief, I cling to the bits of sanity contained on those pieces of paper.
Caring for Nekko and Taz is helping too. Their unconditional (well for cats, unconditional) love of me is the only solace I find when I am by myself in what used to be our home. Both seek me out in their own way for attention and responding to them gives me a tenuous grounding for a moment or two. I shudder to think what my mood would be without these two wonderful companions.
In the cold light of a new day I am still numb, still in shock, still reeling from this new reality. I realize that I am still circling around the truth of this, refusing to look at it head on until I am stronger in this new empty life I’ve been handed. Facing the truth about Michele’s death will take all the strength I’ve got, and all the resolve I can muster. Attempting that when I am not ready will only result in disaster, and so I’ll wait until my core tells me it is time.
I just yelled at my cat. She was curled up in my arms, being affectionate, trying to lick my face as that is how she shows love. And I yelled at her because I couldn’t get her to stop. Unfettered love, acceptance without bounds when you are trapped in the depths of despair is hard to take.
My two cats are so simple and direct. They love me and accept me without hesitation or reservation. This is the kind of love I used to get from Michele. And now that safe harbor is gone forever. I yelled at Taz not because of what she was or was doing, but because I miss the connection to Michele, I miss the love I got from her.
At some level I know that some day I will feel love again. But today there is a huge sea of grief separating me from who I was, and who I long to be again. The shoreline of my life is now uncharted and unfamiliar, the voyage home will be long and difficult. But I know it is possible. All I need do is weather the current storms of gloom and agony.
I find that my sense of the surreal in all of this is increasing. At my employment engagement we are engaged in a week-long series of meetings to “clarify” various points of the application to be designed and built. The conversations are often long and drawn out, with multiple perspectives and opinions from all corners of the room. Then, when all is said and done, it is decided that the word “custom” should be changed to “other.” Until someone objects and the whole situation spins out of control again; finally coming to rest on the word “additional.”
And all the while in my head there is a voice screaming “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ARGUING ABOUT? THIS IS ALL MEANINGLESS. IN FIVE YEARS NO ONE WILL CARE. HELL IN TWELVE MONTHS NO ON WILL GIVE A SHIT!”
While I may regain my ability to understand the meaningless drivel and minutia that fill in for truth in my job, for now I am unable to comprehend the words individually, much less make sense of the higher order sentence construct in which they are participating.
I am simply moving through life now, like driftwood on the ocean, carried uncaring by currents, tossed and turned by wind and waves, and all the while being carried relentlessly away from the familiar shoreline of my life with Michele by the ceaseless tide of time. I can’t even get worked up what shoreline the tide is taking me towards, or even if there is another shoreline for me.
In recent years I’ve discovered that under normal circumstances I have the short term attention span of a gnat. The technical term for this is N. A. D. D.. Michele would ask me to change out the empty 5-gallon water jug for a full one on the dispenser and, unless I did it immediately, I’d forget. She took to leaving the empty jug in my way coming into the house.
Grocery shopping is another area of my mind littered with sinkholes. I set off for the store needing three, or four items, and spend 30 minutes wandering up and down the isles trying to remember the one thing I really needed. My Palm sports a nifty little shopping list database to avoid that very problem.
The last ten days or so have been anything but normal. I figure I’m doing well to remember my own name, much less anything else. About the only thing helping me out here is my need to be a creature of habit. I have been relying heavily upon long establish routines to get me showered, shaved, dressed (properly) and off to work every day. Because what was formerly a cute form of ADD (Michele actually called me ‘ADD-boy’ on more than a few occassions.) is now a full blown case of Gnat Attention Span (GAS).
The prime example of GAS is happening right now as I can no longer remember the ultimate point I wanted to make with this posting. Oh well, at least I have the piece of paper that explains who I am and where I live.
It’s right here….
Uh oh.
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.