Making Piece

by Beth M. Howard

  Wanting to make things right again and demanding immediate results was ingrained in my nature. When I was eight years old, I went to horse camp, the Bortell’s Bar-Rockin-B Ranch in Iowa, where my sister and I spent one full week learning to groom, saddle and ride horses. I was very excited. One of the first things our horse instructor told us was there would be an award given to anyone who fell off their horse and got back on to ride again. It was called the “Spurs Award.” That sounded nice—I nodded my head approvingly—but I wasn’t going to fall off my horse.

  Of course, by the second day, I did fall off. I don’t remember how or why I ended up on the ground—those horses must have been the world’s tamest animals seeing as they were employed at a kids’ camp—but what I do remember is that I wanted to win the Spurs Award. By God, I was going to get back on and ride again. From the moment I realized I was on the ground and no longer in the saddle, I brushed myself off and went running after my horse, chasing it around the arena, so I could get back on—immediately. I was determined. I was going to win that award.

  I chased old Brownie until he came to a stop and, grabbing the stirrup, climbed back on, breathless and proud. At the end of the week, at the closing ceremonies for camp, when all the awards were granted—for archery, for team spirit, for cleanest cabin—I was called up to receive my award, a paper certificate with my name on it: the Spurs Award. When the horse instructor handed it to me, he commented, “When we said get back on your horse and ride again, we meant sometime before the week is over, not ten seconds after you fall off.”

  I wasn’t that eight-year-old girl anymore. I was forty-seven and wishing I was dead, wishing I had died instead of Marcus. And yet, somewhere in between the dark cumulus clouds of grief, I still had the will to live, the determination to get back on my horse. If I was going to be forced to grieve, then I was going to face it head-on. I was going to be the best student in grief school. I was going to get straight A’s. I was going to apply my usual tenacity and grit—and impatience—the way I did when I graduated early from both high school and college, and conquer my grief. I was going to run after the horse like Lance Fucking Armstrong and win the “Spurs Award for Grieving Widows.”

  The day of my first grief support group meeting coincided with a rare phone conversation with my mother, who had been placed on my growing roster of People to Avoid While Grieving. One thing I learned very quickly after Marcus died was the outrageous comments people are capable of making when someone you love dies. It was as if certain friends, family members and acquaintances were suffering not from the grief or shock of Marcus’s death, but from verbal diarrhea. From day one, various people’s mouths ran awry with inappropriate and hurtful comments—words which came out like loose stool over which they had no control. They couldn’t manage to simply say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Which is all anyone should say. Period.

  But, no. They said things like: “You were going to get a divorce anyway, so I don’t know why you’re so broken up.” “The timing of his death was good; if it had been in October, it would have interfered with our party.” “I don’t believe in an afterlife; when he’s dead, he’s dead.” And, oh, here’s another good one: “I lost my mother last year and, believe me, it only gets harder.”

  Those were only a few of the gems worthy of a David Letterman Top Ten list. The less outrageous but equally insensitive comments included: “It was his time.” I heard that one a lot. And “He’s in a better place now.” Really? You don’t think he’d rather be riding his new LaPierre road bike through the Italian countryside? How do you know what place he’s in and if it’s better? No. Not helpful.

  My mom had contributed her share of questionable commentary, and it would take me many months to turn my anger toward her into compassion, which is why I was keeping my conversations with her to a minimum. It had been only one month since Marcus’s death, and I was not only angry with my crew of commentators and their unsolicited opinions, but also with myself. My own harsh words ran in my head like a heavy-metal song stuck in repeat mode. I couldn’t find a quiet corner anywhere. The outside comments were bad enough, but the noisiest ones were inside my own mind.

  Just a few hours before my inaugural grief support group, I called my mom to check in. I was greeted with the same innocent question that anyone would ask in any given phone call. She simply asked, “How are you?” I know, I know. It’s a benign question, a conversation starter not meant to be taken literally. But I was not able to answer with the standard throwaway line, “I’m fine.” I couldn’t lie. Grief was like that. Grief was like truth serum that magnified each and every speck of life’s minutiae. Every little thing felt so important, so urgent, so serious. If Marcus had died so suddenly, then I could, too. Anyone could. Not only that death could happen, but that I wanted it to come; I wished for it. My desire to keep living was diminishing with each passing day. Life became so fragile. I was fragile. I was definitely not fine.

  So instead of giving the standard answer, I said, “That’s just not the right question to ask.” Okay, so I could have been nicer. I could have—should have—just lied. I didn’t need to take my pain out on my own mother. I didn’t need to drag her down with me into my Grief Pit. She was quick to lash back and her response stung me like a scorpion bite. “Well, I just don’t know what to say to you anymore!” she snapped.

  Another thing about grief is that it gives you permission to take care of yourself in a way you never knew how to before. My animal instincts kicked in and I recoiled into the safety of my shell. I was a grieving widow who needed to take care of herself. So with the sting still smarting, I did what any self-respecting, self-protecting widow would do: I hung up on her.

  I found my way to the third floor of Good Samaritan Hospital with ten minutes to spare before the start of my first session in the grief support group. I had been to individual therapy off and on over the years, and I had hauled Marcus to a few sessions of marriage counseling, but I had never been to group therapy. I liked the idea of sharing my deepest, most intimate issues in a group setting about as much as I liked being a widow. But I was desperate for help. And it was free. I took a seat in the circle of chairs and waited for the two-hour session to begin. I was still upset by the aborted phone call with my mother. Hell, I was still upset about everything, about Marcus’s death ripping my life so irreversibly apart that I was now sitting with an assortment of strangers listening to their stories about death and dying.

  One by one, going around the circle, they each took a heartfelt turn explaining how they were coping, how they were still trying to find meaning in life two years after their spouse was gone. What? Two years? I could still be sitting here two years from now, trying to get my life back together? I would rather be dead. Why couldn’t I have been the one to die? A man in his thirties, whose wife died a year earlier of a degenerative disease, finished speaking and then it was my turn.

  “Hello, my name is Beth Howard. I just moved back to Portland after my husband, Marcus…” I didn’t get very far before the tears bubbled out like boiled-over pie filling. In a matter of seconds, I was choking on my own spit, globs of snot running down from my nose and into my mouth. I eeked out bits of my history. “And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough,” I continued between heaving sobs, “I hung up on my mother today.”

  I was gasping for air, crying so hard, I could barely get the words out. I finally stopped talking and when I ventured a look around at a few of the faces in the circle, I was met with a round of solemn but compassionate nods. This was a knowing group who had all been there, done that, but they were all much farther along in the grieving process than me. No one else had lost it during their introduction like I had. They had all delivered their stories with composure and a detectable—an enviable—trace of detachment. I was a newbie. I was raw. Too raw. I didn’t belong in this group. I didn’t—couldn’t even if I wanted to—speak again after that. Eventually, as the spotlight got turned to someone else, I was able to scale back my sobs
to the normal faucet flow of tears and sat quietly for the remainder of the evening’s discussion. When the session came to a close, Susan, the group facilitator, asked to see me. She led me to the far corner of the room, away from the others.

  Susan was a roundish, middle-aged blonde with a quiet voice and gentle, calming energy. She was comfort in a burgundy-colored pant suit. She was a slice of warm apple pie. This grief counselor, this angel sent from heaven, looked me in the eyes—what little she could see of my eyes through my swollen eyelids—and said, “I’m worried about you. Are you going to be okay tonight? Do you have someone you can be with? Are you okay to drive home?” Oh, boy. Some angel. I was in trouble. I wanted to be the star pupil, ace the test, be cured of my sadness and depression in one, maybe two, easy sessions. The joke was on me. I wasn’t going to win the Spurs Award. I was going to be committed to the psych ward.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. I couldn’t tell my mom I was fine, but I was in no position to give any other answer to Susan. I wasn’t fine, and didn’t know if, or when, I’d ever be fine, but Susan didn’t know me well enough to know tonight’s breakdown was normal for me—or the “new normal,” as the grief books put it.

  I wanted to throw those stupid, fucking grief books against the wall when they talked of this “new normal.” I wanted my “old normal” back. I wanted Marcus to be alive. I wanted to turn back the clock and be a better wife, to not get mad at Marcus for working so much, to complain less and love more, to have never asked for that divorce. I didn’t want to feel this way, to live in distress, walking through life in a daze, overly sensitive to some things, completely numb to others, to spend my days with a death wish. I was cognizant enough to know my “new normal” wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t something I could continue to live with. But after a month I had gotten somewhat accustomed to it. I was getting familiar with touching the void, plunging into the black hole of sadness. I knew what it felt like to flounder in the ocean of despair, to be pummeled by tidal waves of grief and held under in their suffocating darkness.

  I wasn’t afraid. I was just…well, okay, I might have been borderline suicidal. I certainly thought about it, but I wasn’t going to kill myself. Not tonight anyway. My friends Alison and Thomas had dinner waiting for me and all I wanted was to get out of this hospital meeting room and back to the warmth of their home, eat a filet of grilled salmon served with pesto made from their garden, and drink a glass or three of wine while listening to Alison’s infectious laugh.

  I convinced Susan to let me leave, unescorted, but she wouldn’t release me until I agreed to see her for private grief counseling. “Let’s start with twice a week,” she said. Private biweekly sessions with this cup of comfort? Yes. A thousand times, yes. It was clear that relief wouldn’t come instantly. Like any college degree, it would require hard work. And time. Grief was like deep-dish pie whose filling takes longer to cook; it cannot be rushed. But with Susan—dear, sweet, life-saving Susan—relief felt a little closer at hand.

  Even though my desire to be alive, along with my energy level, was at an all-time low, I still had my dogs, Jack and Daisy, and they needed to be walked and fed. I appreciated how Jack could be oblivious to my mood at times, and demand a game of stick throwing. “Keep calm and carry on,” he seemed to be reminding me, like the British wartime slogan.

  The dogs forced me to do just that. I couldn’t let them down. I couldn’t let Marcus down. The dogs were Marcus’s dogs, too. He had a lot of time, love and commitment invested in these dogs. He had a lot invested in me. If I was the one who’d died and he was still alive, he wouldn’t bail on life. He wouldn’t wallow in self-pity. He wouldn’t spend time thinking about how he would end it all. He wouldn’t consider the death-wielding potential of a paring knife, my favorite pie-making tool. But I couldn’t help thinking: if I were dead, I could go find Marcus, apologize to him, make love to him, make everything right. It was an attractive theory, but I had no idea if the afterlife actually works that way. There was no guarantee I’d find him, no certainty of a happy ending.

  What if he didn’t want me chasing after him? What if he was happy with his independence in his new life? What if he had already hooked up with some new woman—some long-haired brunette in a white chiffon dress with a halo and wings? Then what would I do? I would have left a mess behind for other people to deal with. I would have left two dogs that depended on me, loved me, loved me in spite of my frightening and confusing behavior—my “new normal.”

  I had responsibilities, damn it. And taxes due. Besides, I was raised with a strong Midwest work ethic. No matter how down I was, I couldn’t shake the stern voices of my upbringing: “Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” “Don’t get down, get busy.” “If you don’t have the skills, go get the skills.” And, above all, “No whining.” Those were some of the whip-cracking nuggets of wisdom I was spoon-fed by my parents. I credit my ability to move forward to this hardwiring of tough love. I gave my bootstraps the best tug I could muster and got busy.

  This grieving business was like making pie for the first time. One needs some instruction in how to do it—consult a recipe, make a grocery list and go after the goal with gusto. To keep myself organized, I made a list. I could barely get out of bed in the mornings, let alone keep my thoughts straight, but a list gave me some framework, and reminded me that I still had some purpose. After first establishing my grief counseling schedule with Susan, I made an appointment for my thyroid treatment with Dr. Vanek. Check. Next, in between long sessions of sobbing that made going out in public or even talking on the phone problematic, I would look for a place to live.

  I was staying with our friends Alison and Thomas in their three-bedroom bungalow. The house was comfortable, welcoming, but it was also where Marcus had stayed during his vacation. His suitcase, filled with his travel clothes, bike gear, books and shaving kit, was still there. His deodorant and German brand of Zahnpasta (toothpaste) were still in the guest-bathroom medicine cabinet.

  Seeing his things exactly where he’d left them, knowing he was unaware that he would never touch them again, had initially intensified the sense of loss and, naturally, sent me spiraling into yet another bawling spree. But after the initial shock, I got used to seeing his stuff—I was having to get used to a lot of things—and over the days found some comfort in being surrounded by these pieces of him, particularly his clothes. I searched for anything that hadn’t been washed—the dirtier and mustier, the better. I slept with his red plaid bathrobe pulled close to me, pressing my nose into the fabric to capture any remaining scent of him. I breathed in, long, deep inhales. I couldn’t get enough of his smell, couldn’t get close enough to him.

  Apart from being the location of Marcus’s final visit, Alison and Thomas’s house was also where we had stayed during our four-day rendezvous in May. The upstairs bedroom was where we last slept together, wrapped around each other’s warm, naked bodies. It was the last place we made love, the last place we would ever make love. Being in this bedroom was good and bad. Good because in that room I believed I could be connected to him. I had become a recent and voracious fan of Ghost Whisperer, the soon-to-be-canceled CBS-TV series starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.

  Besides watching that show, I also went to the Portland library and checked out as many books as I could find about life on the “Other Side.” I was convinced that if Marcus hadn’t “crossed over” yet—or, “gone to the light,” as they said on TV—then he might still be staying in that guest room. He would come and find me, maybe even talk to me, tell me how he was, why he died, tell me if he was angry with me and let me know if he would ever forgive me. There were signs he was there. The books all said ghosts hijack electrical appliances to get energy so they can stick around. Static on my laptop monitor, my iPod shorting out (it had never done that before), and an unusually intermittent Internet connection proved it. If he was hovering around, though, I couldn’t see him. I stayed awake at night, refusing to take the sleeping pills friends insisted I use, so as
not to miss him if he appeared.

  But staying in this guest room was also bad in a way. My friends were incredibly generous and patient, but I couldn’t stay there forever, waiting for Marcus, or his ghost, to materialize. I had already logged two weeks at their place—on the heels of Marcus staying there for almost three weeks before his abrupt and untimely departure. Not to mention, I wasn’t exactly fun to be around. I’m sure my sobbing was audible throughout the house, my late-night cries echoing off the hardwood floors. I needed to be in my own space, surrounded by my own furniture, my own bedding, my candles, my dishes, my bath towels and especially my pictures—framed pictures of Marcus. So I moved to the next likeliest place he might turn up: our old house on the opposite side of town. It wasn’t exactly our old house. It was the guesthouse next door to that place, and it happened to be for rent.

  If Willamette Heights is Portland’s best neighborhood, then Aspen Avenue is its best street. Aspen Avenue is the last street at the top of a small mountain in Portland’s northwest corner, where industrial area meets city meets wilderness. The elevation provides awe-inspiring views of the snow-covered volcanoes Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens by day, and a panorama of city lights by night, a postcard-perfect scene accompanied by the sounds of the occasional blowing train horn or the clash of steel coming from the loading docks down below.