On My Own

by Diane Rehm

  Early on in my broadcasting days I realized that the way I learn is in a one-on-one environment, when I feel comfortable and in control not only of myself but of my surroundings. I love guiding the conversation. I’m good at listening, and I listen very carefully—that’s part of the learning process for me. I didn’t go to college, but I’ve used my time in the studio to learn about the world. Science, literature, politics, medicine, the environment—I’ve gleaned it all in my own learning laboratory, sitting before a microphone with the ability and courage to ask whatever I wanted to ask, and to probe more deeply whenever my questions were not responded to clearly and forthrightly. I’ll miss that daily learning opportunity! But I will replace it.

  Certainly there are classes I could attend, but I know of myself that I’m bored by lectures. I can’t stand one-way communication. One of the things that have made me love my work so much is that it’s always been a real conversation.

  Some of us approach the thought of retirement with joy and relief. I know John did. Having worked as an attorney for forty years, he had grown weary of the minute-by-minute record keeping and the focus on the monetary elements of each encounter. He wanted to be free from the daily obligations connected to clients and their issues. He wanted to be in charge of his own daily existence.

  Susan Stamberg said how much happier and more relaxed her husband was after he retired from his government work, and how his relationship with both her and their son improved after retirement. Roger Mudd has reminded me that, once retirement comes, the invitations, the phone calls, the attention from the outside world ceases. One moves to a different kind of existence.

  I think of those whose work has been physically strenuous, whose muscles have ached at the end of every day, or those who’ve had to endure jobs that sucked the life out of them, just to put bread on the table. Their retirement must feel like a blessing from heaven when it finally comes, delivering them from the hardships and even pain of what work has been for them.

  I’ve been one of the lucky ones. I know I will step away from my daily occupation with reluctance, but my body is still strong, not weakened by years of hard labor. I know that the experiences and relationships I’ve grown used to will change, and that I will no longer have the recognition I’ve enjoyed over these many years, the compliments, the displays of deference and special courtesies. I’ve tried to make light of the specialness, telling myself it’s really not important to me. Yet deep down, I know I’ve grown to enjoy it.

  There will be the loss of my daily interaction with the most prominent and knowledgeable people from around the country and around the world, the excitement of sitting down with them. Most important will be a loss of immediate connectedness to the world. My professional life has been perfect for me, as though the gods knew I was a sponge, ready to soak up everything everyone had to tell me, and then gave me the freedom to pick and choose among all the opinions and suggestions I’d heard. It’s been a career I would never have dreamed for myself, and yet I’ve had it all this time.

  When I began working at age sixteen as a file clerk at the old Hecht Company here in Washington, I knew that I wanted to earn not only a salary but also praise—for being the fastest, most accurate file clerk my boss had ever seen. And I was. I wanted to stand out. I was there every Wednesday afternoon after school, and all day each Saturday. My supervisor was always delighted to see me, especially if there were filing tasks that no one else had been able to accomplish. There were days when she would ask me to come in for extra hours, which I was proud of and happy to do because it was the only way I could earn spending money—for clothes, for basketball games, to go out with my friends.

  When I went to work as a secretary after graduation from high school, I know I did my job well. Each of my supervisors told me so. I enjoyed their praise and was rewarded with promotions to better-paying positions. I’ve always wanted and needed praise, perhaps to make up for what I felt I didn’t receive as a child. Then again, very few of us ever receive “enough” praise.

  So where will that satisfaction come from, if not from a job well done? The answer is I will learn to feed it to myself, knowing that very little of the recognition I’ve had will continue to come from the outside world.

  Of course I will miss my public platform enormously, but I also know I’ll find new ways to enjoy life and new things to achieve.

  Determination is one of my strongest characteristics. It has led me to persevere, to convince others to believe in me and what I can accomplish. Even at my age, I know there is another chapter ahead, one that will allow me to work in ways that will not only satisfy me but will also be of help to others. Whether it will be by speaking out on causes in which I believe, such as aid in dying, or appearing in Trish Vradenburg’s play about Alzheimer’s disease, or helping somehow with the Parkinson’s disease effort, I believe I will find ways to do whatever I need to do to feed my soul, to keep me going, to stay involved with the world, to find a new place in it for myself. John would expect that of me, and I expect it of myself. And ultimately, I am certain, it will help me to discover who I am, now that I am on my own.

  June 23, 2015

  Anniversaries have always been important to me. I can feel them coming weeks before they occur. Thinking back, I believe these sensitivities began after my mother died on New Year’s Day, 1956. My father also died on a holiday, November 11, then called Armistice Day, now Veterans Day. As I’ve written, from that time on, as those dates approached, I would find my neck tightening, my headaches appearing more frequently, the spasms in my back coming on with greater regularity. Added to those dates were the Christmas holidays, always anxiety-producing, reminding me of the loneliness I had experienced as a child, when I never received whatever it was I had been longing for.

  I mark these anniversaries each year, remembering both the sadness and relief I experienced with my parents’ deaths, knowing that, for the first time in my life, I was free to make my own decisions without fear of wounding either of them. Somewhere deep inside, I realized I had become an orphan, yet old enough and strong enough to carry on.

  In the Syrian Orthodox Church, in which I and my children were baptized, the ritual of a service marking the end of a forty-day mourning period was both useful and, in some ways, distressing, forcing me to go back, to re-experience my parents’ deaths, to mourn again with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, all of whom felt deeply the deaths of Eugenie and Wadie Aed, just eleven months apart. I can remember one of my aunts screaming bitterly as we were leaving the cemetery after my father’s burial next to my mother, “Take him, Eugenie, he’s yours now.”

  One year later, on each anniversary, there is yet another service marking the day of death. Each of these is presumably to help us face the sense of loss and deprivation that death brings. And perhaps for all these years I have been in denial about the intense grief I experienced when these deaths actually occurred, feeling too much relief and not enough of the sadness and even anger that lay deep within me.

  I think too of the sea of black: black dresses, hats, shoes, suits, ties, armbands, all to remind not only those around us but even ourselves that we are in mourning, reminders of the reality of the death experience and of loss. In other cultures, the rituals may look and sound different, but the purpose is the same: to mourn. In Japan, for example, mourners wear white clothing rather than black. Some things change for the better: going to funerals now in these less Victorian-bound days, I witness a sea of color and style, I hear joyful music, rites of celebration rather than of mourning.

  Now I am facing, indeed steeling myself against, the realization that the first anniversary marking John’s death is here. And there are no prescribed ways to help me get through that day. There are no gatherings, no church services, no celebrations of his life.

  I am determined to go to work on June 23, determined to carry on with my life the way I ordinarily do, not to sit at home and brood. And I do exactly that, going through the course of my day in the
usual way. But as the week progresses, my spirits go downhill. Perhaps because I was guarding myself so much against the day itself that finally, after it is over, I let down my defenses and spiral into depression, not wanting to speak with anyone, not wanting to be with anyone. Two days after the anniversary, I want only to be at home, by myself, alone with Maxie. I tell my producers I will not be at work.

  My children call and e-mail me, as well as a few friends who remember the date. “How are you?” they ask. And always, my answer is, “I’m okay.” No better, no worse, just okay.

  Now I am truly a widow, having lived through an entire year without my spouse. It has been a year of holidays spent with friends instead of family, of celebrations, accomplishments, and too many funerals. It has been a year filled with moments when it was difficult to concentrate, when I deliberately tried to dismiss thoughts of sadness, struggling to allow myself to really know or understand what I was thinking and feeling. I went through the entire year distracted, to say the least.

  A few days prior to the anniversary, on the day other families celebrated Father’s Day, I went down to the storage area in our building to look for some specific documents. Though I never found what I was seeking, I did find file drawer after file drawer filled with history, with so many reminders of fifty-four years of marriage.

  I went through many of the documents John studied to qualify as a docent for the Freer and Sackler Galleries, as well as other papers related to his long and impressive legal career, and his extensive poetry manuscripts, many of which appeared in his book, Onward Journey. There were materials from his ten years at Wesley Theological Seminary, carefully indexed, neatly arranged in notebooks.

  As I went through box after box, I was thrilled to come across photos of John as a young man, smiling, healthy, and vigorous. In that moment, on Father’s Day, I was glad to be reminded of all that we had had together, and of the many years we had loved and supported each other.

  John is no longer physically here beside me, and his death has left a huge emptiness in my life. But I know I have grown during this past year. I’ve had to become increasingly self-reliant. Every day I’ve managed to deal with such minor problems as leaks throughout the living-room ceiling. Not long ago I made a major on-air blunder involving Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, for which I issued a public apology. And I watched in horror as the brutal massacre of innocent churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, unfolded. In the past, any or all of those experiences could have made me crumble. But I didn’t. I had to be strong, and I have been strong. And I hope that as I move forward, I will find ways to give strength to others.

  I listen to the radio a great deal when I’m here in the apartment alone. Listening to a recent TED Talk, I heard several people speak about how time seems to speed up as we grow older. One person spoke in particular about how the older we grow, the more we learn to savor each moment, living in each moment, and letting go of the less important details of life. I’m trying.

  My wedding ring remains on the third finger of my left hand. I will never take it off. When the time comes, I hope my son or my daughter keeps it, as a symbol of the love and respect John and I had for each other, a symbol of the strength with which I pray they will both carry on and will give to their own children.

  Of course, I realize that it’s too late in my life to begin again. But I know that in this last year I’ve become a more positive person, concentrating on so much in life that is good, rather than wasting time concentrating on petty issues or grievances. I can only hope that this is the message I convey to those around me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am so grateful to my editor, Bob Gottlieb, for his incredibly detailed attention to this book. He pushed and prodded me to think more deeply and carefully, and then read through the unfolding manuscript many times. I have nothing but love and admiration for his kindness and care.

  Also, of course, I am grateful to Sonny Mehta, the head of Alfred A. Knopf, and to the devoted and consummately effective Paul Bogaards, who has been one of my champions for many years.

  And at Knopf to Lydia Buechler, Ellen Feldman, Iris Weinstein, Lorraine Hyland, Audrey Silverman, and Jessica Purcell.

  To Roger Mudd, Susan Stamberg, and Eleanor Clift, for their unstinting generosity and wisdom.

  Anne Stonehill read one of the early versions of the book and helped me through some hard decisions with her gentle but firm approach.

  Throughout this long and difficult period, David and Mary Beth Busby have been by my side, loving and supporting both John and me.

  Trish and George Vradenburg have understood and helped me deal with the highs and lows, and have fed me with both food and love.

  And I shall always cherish the love and support of the producers of The Diane Rehm Show, most especially throughout these many years Sandra Pinkard.

  And finally, I am thankful for the understanding and support of my children, David and Jennifer, who wanted only a gentle passing for their father and a sense of peace for their mother.

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  * * *

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.