What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

 

The subtitle of this blog site is "my second life". My second life began at 11 am on January 9, 2008. That was when I decided to turn off life support for you in a hospital room in Madison, WI.

For three days, the room had already smelled like decay -- ever since you were carted out of surgery where something had gone terribly wrong. It was supposed to have been a routine heart valve replacement procedure. Turned out it wasn't.

You died almost immediately on the operating table near dawn on January 7. There was a thunderstorm right after you went into surgery. This was strange for January in Wisconsin. It felt ominous.

For reasons only known to your doctors and other hospital staff, you were kept "alive" through technology in a private ICU room after you died. Sometimes in my dreams, I can hear the whoosh of the machine that was breathing for you. And even though I knew you were already gone, deciding to turn off life support was excruciatingly painful. It was so final.

Today would have been your sixty-third birthday. We always made a big deal out of birthdays and celebrated them for days. After all, there was much to celebrate. You were kind, smart, funny, generous, and adventuresome. You loved me unconditionally, warts and all. If I was queen of the universe, everyone would have the opportunity to be loved the way you loved me.

And I loved you back with a persistent intensity I had never felt before. This intensity lasted twenty-nine years, the length of time we were married.

A few months after you died, an acquaintance pointed out to me that not everyone gets to experience the kind of love I had in my marriage. "At least you got to do that," she said in a  voice tinged with envy. "Count your blessings." Although she meant no harm--I think-- her words only served to make me more painfully aware of what I had lost. In my bubble of being so completely loved, I had been blind to the fact that many people had marriages or relationships that were based upon money or safety or habit. All of these had little to do with love.

You told me often, "Connie, you have no idea what we have." You were right. We were innocents enjoying life together in the Garden. When you died, I was cast out of Eden.

My life since you left, has been wandering around in the wilderness without a map. True, it has been filled with accomplishments and travel. I didn't wrap myself up in widow's weeds and climb into the tomb with you, much as I wanted to. But believe me when I say that I can understand why Indian widows traditionally often joined their husbands in death. Life after the passing of someone I loved as passionately as I loved you has been an act of will.


By outward appearances, my "recovery" has been successful. Since January 9, 2008, I have traveled to many countries, lived and worked in Thailand and Hong Kong, (both of which were life long dreams), and earned a graduate degree from a medical school in the U.S. I've had adventures too numerous to mention--including performing in plays in Chiang Mai-- and made many new, albeit transient, friends.

But what do you do when the person who gave you the greatest joy is no longer around? What accomplishment compensates for when the person who knew and loved your deepest secret heart is missing in action?

I know that my more metaphysically inclined readers will say that you're still here with me. Or that we'll be reunited in the afterlife.

There was a dream I had shortly after you died. In it, I was wailing and "woke up" to see you standing next to my bed.

"Why are you crying?" you said.

"Because you're dead!"

"Are you sure?" you smiled. I was puzzled. And relieved. Maybe I was mistaken.

Then I woke up for real.

So, even if you are still with me in spirit, not having you here right now in the flesh is not even remotely satisfying.

One of my friends likes to tell me that "Life is meant to be enjoyed." I have no doubt that for some people this is true. But for those who grieve, enjoyment is elusive. And the expectation that I should be enjoying grief is burdensome.

Perhaps for me life is meant to be survived and questioned?

In any case, surviving and questioning are the things I find myself doing, as I wander along on this long strange trip since you and I went our separate ways seven and a half years ago.

Happy birthday, my love.

In memory: John L. Mudore, 5/16/52 to 1/9/08

Love After Love

My late husband's birthday was May 16, 1952. He died on January 9, 2008.

His death feels like it was decades ago. His death feels like it was yesterday.

Grieving John has been the most difficult thing I have ever done. This includes surviving abusive alcoholic parents and childhood poverty. John was one of the smartest, funniest, and kindest people I have ever known. We were lovers and best friends who travelled the world together.  No topic was ever off the table. We helped each other love and grow.

Our marriage lived 29 years.

Professionally, John was an award winning math teacher. (If you have seen Johnny Depp in The Tourist you sort of know what he looked like.) He was also an author who wrote books full of playful intelligence with titles like Counting On Your Fingers Is Not Immoral and Making Math Matter. His quest was to make math accessible to all students through hand-on activities that mattered to kids.

Although his death certificate says he died on January 9, that isn't actually true. January 9 was the day that I took him off life support, with the encouragement of his doctor. His medical records support that he actually died January 7 on the operating table during a heart valve replacement procedure. Generally, January 7-9 remains a blur and I retreat into a numb fog when that time comes around each year.

It's his birthday that throbs with pain, probably because we made a big deal out of our birthdays and celebrated them for weeks. It's his birthday that shines a spotlight on the big hole left in my life because he is gone.

I have come to believe that good marriages--and especially long good marriages--are like rivers. There are fantastic "in flow" periods when the river surges with strength and power. There are also stretches of calmer, quieter water. And then there are the times when the river gets stuck behind a dam or other obstacle. A good marriage has a lot more flow than dammed up stretches. At least, this was true for John and me. We flowed. Mostly.

Unfortunately, in the months prior to John's death, we were stuck. Neither of us were consciously aware that he was dying. His arteries, unbeknownst to us or his doctor, despite regular and frequent medical maintenance, were rapidly turning into those of an eighty year old with advanced arterial sclerosis. What we did know is that he needed a replacement for a deteriorating congenitally defective aortic heart valve which had inexplicably and quickly gotten much more dysfunctional.

That fall, as John struggled more and more just to move, our marriage did, too. To make matters worse, his educational consulting business collapsed. John had literally put his heart (and soul) into the enterprise. He was devastated.

I wish I could say that my behavior during this time was exemplary. It was not. I was impatient, frustrated, angry and scared. At my insistence, we went out to dinner on what was to be our last New Year's Eve together. At the table, I suddenly had the urge to ask for his forgiveness for my failings as a partner. What I got was uncharacteristic and cool silence. Seven days later, John died.

For the first five months after he passed, I rattled around alone in our rural Wisconsin house, which now felt like a tomb, trying to figure out how to live a life designed for two. Expending major amounts of my limited energy, I tried to maintain a high needs house with a large yard, and a job for which I had long lost passion. Although supportive friends kept me afloat during the darkest and most turbulent grief, many of John's and my social circle had already drifted away.

A big theme of our married life had been stability and security, with travel adventures and lots of other play time tucked in--especially during summer. Now summer was approaching. But there was no John. I could feel myself dying of a broken heart.

It was around John's birthday in 2008 that I sat myself down and willed to live. But I did not want to live the old life designed for two. A new life was needed, one designed by me for me. As a school counselor, I had created a lot of successful interventions for students who were struggling emotionally. I insisted that I owed myself the benefit of my own expertise.

The intervention wasn't nearly as rational as the word implies. But it involved actions that revolved around the one thing I still wanted to do before leaving earth. This was to live and work abroad, a desire I had had since I was a little girl and from which I had detoured repeatedly.

To say I made a series of life changes is putting it mildly.  And doing so broke the "rule" psychologists suggest for the bereaved which is not to make major changes during the year following a loved one's death. All I can say is that I was viscerally aware that my time was limited.

The long and the short of it is that I now live and work in Hong Kong and have done so since October 2010. I also earned a long yearned for master of public health degree and revisited beloved Nepal.

I have begun to love the stranger who was myself. Derek Walton's poem, Love After Love, expresses it best:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Goodbye, Joe

I saw Joe Costanza in front of Mrs. Field’s Cookies in the train station near my work. It was only for a moment but it was long enough for him to look at me, nod, and smile. Then he disappeared into the crowd.

That was in February. Joe had died in January.

I wasn’t surprised to see him. He always had a sweet tooth.

Joe was a remarkable friend: generous, kind, and funny. A gentle man, he had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what to say to defuse tense situations or to take the pain out of sad ones.  He was an empathic listener who loved people. 


A Parkinson's diagnosis made him even more eager to meet as many people as he possibly could. His cross country bike trip in July, 2010, shortly after his diagnosis, raised money for Parkinson's research. It was a testament to his love of people, generosity, and great strength of will. 

This past October, Joe and his wife Linda visited Hong Kong where I now live. The speed, noise, and crowds of the city were a bit overwhelming for Joe. He enjoyed the quieter island of Lantau where my husband and I reside. One day, we all travelled further south on Lantau to the sleepy fishing village of Tai O to see rare pink dolphins. We hopped aboard a small fishing/tour boat and sped out to open water. And there the dolphins were, waiting for us. Joe was delighted and grinned ear to ear like a big kid. The dolphins smiled back. All was right with the world that day.

Thanks, Joe, for the chance to share so many good times. There was so much laughter!

If I could be at his celebration of life in Wisconsin where this is being read to others by Linda,  we would sing That’s Amore. It was a song Joe, who was a great tenor, loved.  I invite all of you who are reading this now to sing it for a great paisano, Joe Costanza.  "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore..."

Enjoy your cookies, Joe. You earned ‘em.