Dark Night 01

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I hardly know, Sir, just at present--at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

"What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar, sternly. "Explain yourself!"

"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see."

—Lewis Carrol

Dear Gorgeous,

This past week I was plunged into such darkness. Every day, almost every hour, for four uninterrupted days, I was in tears, the emotional pain that I was sinking into was a tar field that I was struggling to move through like those of La Bria Tar Pits that caught those unfortunate dinosaurs. Their dying preserved for eternity.

It came as such a surprise, not because I was in sorrow but because it was without relief. I had somehow thought I understood the flow and pain of grief. A day of hope, a day of tears. Tears as I awoke, followed by tears at night with tears again at 3:00am, sunlight as the relief. But no. Constant, days on end despair.

This grief journey is tracking more true to coming to terms with our life under chemo. At first, almost 3 years ago I thought I understood the flow of chemo: the first day lost to treatment, 2 nights of sleeplessness due to the double punch of a Benadryl high and the noise of the chemo pump, our constant companion, 2 days of your endless sleep, then a week of health and energy—appearing to be routine.  Like the good engineer's daughter and good engineer's wife I was, I tracked it all in a small notebook given to me by Sarah. Tattered and torn, eventually after a year, I stopped tracking. As soon as one schedule seemed to become normality, it would change, charting not progress but your decline. Harder still the unexpected: hyperactive reactions lasting longer, compiling days of sleep, side effects compounding: mysterious rashes, unexpected fevers, loss of feeling in hands and feet, anaphylactic shock, intestinal blockage, stent surgery, kidney stones, tremors... Unpredictable chaos. Yet, always hoping for a cure. It is all too painful to consider now. My hope disappearing and eventually reappearing as hope that you would have a pain free, peaceful passing.

I thought I would be OK. I was unprepared for the engulfing, all-consuming darkness of now.

Within my Dark Night, I an coming to terms with yours. As I pour through videos and photos of you, I see how quickly you physically deteriorated from such a healthy, handsome man (a man single handedly building a deck) to a man beyond your years unable to walk. As our wise 4 year old granddaughter Satori said watching you sleep in the recliner during her last visit, "Grandpa seems much older than a Grandpa". We, her adults, were left speechless by her clear truth, until startled, I awoke and said "yes, Sweetie, you are right." 

So quickly it happened, and so intent was I on your cure, your comfort, your joy, our time, that I failed to see your reality being recorded deep in your bones, your sinews, your lungs. I only saw your love, your spirit. Now, on this side of your goneness, I recognize that your internal transformation reversely mirrored your external decline—you quietly coming to terms with your death. As you said in your last conversations, "I'm not afraid of dying, we all do it." But to get there, I now know you processed more than I. You were always such a powerful life force. To motivate us for a frosty ski day or a questionable bike ride, you dancing words always were "Let's go, let's go, I'm sad and blue 'cause I can't do the bugaloo!" Even in the end, you prayed for us, bargaining to give away everything to the unknown so that I would not feel the pain you knew I would.

I'm just catching up to you, much like I did on any ski run or bike trip with you—you always waiting for me at the turns with a kiss. I'm just beginning my dark night of examining everything, exorcising the demons. How God? Why God? Yes God. Why am I left in this painful liminal space? Is that you? What happens to a love promised and consecrated forever? And who will I be on the far side of this? Will you be there at that last turn welcoming me?

Dark night 01. Still looking for those answers, the path through the pain.

Jim, I love you forever +70 and around again.