Chasm

In one of my therapy sessions my counselor told me that as the shock and devastation of Mark’s death subsided and time moved forward, that something different would takes its place. I longed for something different than the constant pain, and while I am receptive to everything about the subject, there are other times when my mind can only take in so much information before it waves the white flag and says, “If you could not tell me one more thing until I figure out how to get myself up off the floor that’d be great.” But things post death come fast and furious and with the constant reminder that you are in charge of nothing.

There was never a day in early grief that was not terrifying, but it kept Mark front and center right next to me all the time. I constantly tried to think like him, often asking myself, “What would Mark do if he was here?” I was the designated pinch hitter for him at events at the med center, showing up for everything I was invited to and then sobbing in the parking garage afterwards. I stayed in touch with his graduate students to encourage them to keep plowing towards the finish line of their PhD. I took them out to lunch at Christmas and gave them gift cards like he did every holiday season. I tried to figure out investments that wouldn’t be too risky because Mark was never risky with our money. I talked to his old and dear friends when they, too, struggled with his loss and we would be on the phone for hours. I listened to the kids when they were making career decisions and tried to balance my thoughts with what Mark would advise. I never stopped trying to fill his shoes, to prove that though an incredibly poor replacement for him, I could be a decent stand-in because I knew him better than anyone. All the while that he remained first and foremost, I drifted further and further from myself. Without even consciously deciding, my mission after Mark’s death was to make sure his life came before my own.

The girl he loved never lacked self-esteem, she liked what she liked and never cared what anybody thought, she was fun and upbeat and could tell a great story over a cup of coffee, dinner, or glass of wine, she enthusiastically loved all things girl and shared her finds with everyone, she was a creative gypsy that moved from one thing to the next with ease, the one who caught the eye of that roofer and never looked back because he told her every day she kept getting better with age, the one who left for work each morning like her pockets were stuffed with sunshine.

A few weeks ago I got an email about picking out a new spot for a memorial bench outside the building Mark worked at the med center. I had gone this summer and met with the landscapers who were putting in a new garden where the bench would be included. The bench is from donations from friends, family, and colleagues, and so the biochemistry department has deferred to me as to where it should go. I looked at the drawings and picked a spot beside the pond, had a long talk afterwards with Mark’s closest friend at work, and before I left looked back at Mark’s office window and felt my stoic walls caving in. Six weeks later the pond was axed, they needed me to pick out a new spot for the bench, and a date was agreed upon to meet with the landscapers again. Two hours before I was supposed to be there I emailed and said I couldn’t do it. I could not stand outside that building again, I could not even think about the absurdity of a memorial bench let alone decide where it was supposed to go and they could figure it out without my input.

That’s when I knew the early grief was subsiding, when I no longer considered what Mark’s thoughts might be before my own. I understood that the chasm had arrived, widening the space between then and now, between the life I cherished with him beside me and the life I now had. It is a different kind of pain, less terrifying but deep and in places that I thought had scabbed over. I understood how loss makes time abruptly stop for some people, how I’d never fault anyone for never being able to move forward, how choosing to stay in the the storybook tale (whether real or imagined) was so much easier than the alternative of filling the space of a blank future.

***

Once upon a time a handsome boy and a lovely girl fell head over heels for each other. They lived a charmed life for decades until another block got added to the Jenga tower that the handsome boy had been building in his mind since he was a boy. It was already precarious and leaning, but then it tilted the tiniest bit and all came crashing down, and he believed he should gather up the pieces and leave before the sun rose so the shattered remains wouldn’t hurt his wife and kids and so many others. She had no idea that he had been spending years building that tower, so when he suddenly left the only thing she was certain of was that her heart was broken. It would take her a very long time to realize that with every breathe she took after that her badly damaged heart was being mended, stapled, glued, taped, and put back together again. It would never be what it once was but it beat steadily which meant it still worked. In order for it to keep working there was one condition.

The lovely girl had to agree to stop being a stand-in for anyone’s life but her own.