October 12, 2013
The final house cleaning until I return takes place
today. After I retired, we decided
that it was a waste of money to pay someone to come in and clean the
house. So we chose Saturday as our
day and we divided the chores between us.
We also divided the house so that each week we did one level. The house was always very clean and
properly arranged more to the dedication of Françoise than any extraordinary
effort from me. Both together we
did the job. That in short is the
summary of our life together.
“Together we did the job.”
We were blessed with a life that was not fraught with overwhelming
difficulty, but we had our share – tough financial times, deaths of her
parents, deaths of my parents, death of my younger brother – but never
difficult times between us. We
were always on each other’s side.
We had no important arguments or fights during twenty years. Why? Because we faced every obstacle together and found a
solution together and made it work – together. Among the many reasons that I miss her is the void left
beside me when I need my partner to help me overcome difficulty –
together. She is there spiritually
in some way. I sometimes feel that
and other times see the result of her helping, but what is not there is the
sitting down to talk it out, figure out the solution, putting it into action
and then celebrating when we achieved our goal. That chair in the sitting room in which she always rested to
do her crosswords, read or play solitaire on her iPhone, drink her evening
aperitif and from which she posed her questions, rendered her answers and
measured the possibilities we reviewed – is empty. Now I speak to a photograph of her and rest next to the urn
holding her ashes. It is all I
have that is still tangible, but the feel of a metal urn on my lips is a weak
substitute for the warmth I shared with her for over twenty years.
It’s three days until I depart. My stomach is in knots and there is an enormous lump in my
throat. As I type, her photograph
on my computer screen gives the impression that she is reading these words as I
type them. The expression on her
face is one of amusement and challenge.
It’s as though she is asking:
“Isn’t that too much what you’re writing?” She could always make me smile and reduce many of my manic
concerns to laughter. What will I
do without her and why would I want to do it?
Last evening I was next door at our neighbors, Nancy and
Barney. We had a nice casual
dinner as we watched the first baseball game of the playoffs between my St.
Louis Cardinals and Barney’s Los Angeles (though in his mind Brooklyn) Dodgers. It was a very pleasant evening spent
with truly wonderful, loving people.
At some point during the evening, Nancy invited me to spend Thanksgiving
with them. I thanked her, but
inside me I felt the stab in my heart of facing that holiday without her. We were not holiday people, but we had
our own traditions. So many
Thanksgivings we drove down to our favorite place, Palm Desert, and took a
Thanksgiving dinner (void of turkey as neither of us cared for turkey)
alongside the Marriott swimming pool then drove home in peace. Last year we didn’t do that. Françoise was concerned that my growing
cataracts might make driving back at night difficult if not dangerous. So we dressed up and went to The Grove
for a movie and dinner. A photo of
that evening hangs here in my office and she is beautiful. We are about to enter a very difficult
time – November (Thanksgiving), December (Christmas), January (our wedding
anniversary), February (Valentine’s Day), March (her birthday). Surviving those five months will push
the limits. We shall see. We shall see.
October 13, 2013
Getting very close to departure. I’ve already packed my main suitcase and squeezed in what I
can. I’ve double checked documents
and think I have every thing. I’m
scared. I’ll say it straight
out. I’m scared. Pascale knows I’m scared. She sent me an email worried about
that. She’s afraid that if this
goes badly that I’ll never return to Paris again. She is my closest friend in France and has been for almost
30 years. We’ve been through a lot
together and she has always been there for me and I love her for it and hope
that I can be as strong for her.
But… I can’t tell her if I will ever return to France. I hope I will and I hope I never do again…
and that is where I am two days before I leave.
I know it’s totally stupid or superstitious or something but
it sickens me to leave Françoise behind in LA while I go to Paris even if all
I’m leaving are her ashes. They
have given me some solace. I speak
to them. I kiss the urn. I caress the urn. Psychotic? Maybe. But it’s
the way it is and now I must leave her behind.
I ask her: What do you think I should do with the
apartment? Keep it? Sell it? It is so full of our “things” which represent our life
together that I wouldn’t know how to handle to disposition of those
things. Do I toss them, sell them,
ignore them? Too many things to
think about when all I want to think about is her. I hate that I have to dedicate time to anything but her, but
that is the trap in which I exist now.
The only job I really want to accomplish is her bench at the zoo. Everything else is meaningless. And that is what grief brings to one –
the lack of meaning – there is no longer anything of meaning in life. It is a void. It is a black hole sucking all that was good in life into
its void. I have been through the
pain of divorce, but that is not grief.
That is mourning. It is
temporal and the person from whom one is divorced exists and you can miss them,
hate them, want to kill them – but they are there to be the object of your
emotions. With death – there is
nothing. If the love lost is
profound then life after is now and forever meaningless.
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