Author: Kathie

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Long one today. Sorry.

An odd thing I’ve noticed since Michael’s death – people keep wanting to tell me what to read. Or actually, they tell me what NOT to read. I’ve been told about books that people are reading and loving, only to hear this caveat: “Oh, but wait a while before you read it. It has grief in it…you will find it triggering.” Even students have been checking with me before they hand in pages: “Is it okay if I hand this in? Someone dies in it.”

The main thought around all this, and it’s a nice thought, a loving thought, a protective thought, is that I might be “triggered” if I read it. But here’s the thing. I believe, and I have always believed, that knowledge is power. And knowledge is help. And so rather than avoid reading about grief, or avoiding movies about grief, or telling my students to not hand anything in to me that has even a whisper of grief in it, I open my arms and my eyes and I embrace all of it. This is how I learn. By avoiding the topic, by ducking away because it might “trigger” me into feeling what I’m already feeling, is just not helpful. I do not hide or avoid. I learn.

I have learned, through trial and error, though, that I prefer fiction for this. Every now and then, when someone actually suggests that I do read something on the subject, it’s an almost sure bet that I’ll be told to read Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking. I do have the book, but I’ve only read a few pages before I put it down. It may be, first of all, that I hate the title. I don’t want to think magically. I want to be clear-headed. I want to face reality head on. Magical thinking just won’t do that for me. But also, with this book and other memoirs, I’ve found that it seems like they’re myopic – every page, every scene, is about grief. What I wanted to know, and still do, is how you move through your day to day life while dealing with this.

Novels do this for me. They show the main characters getting out of bed in the morning, even if they don’t want to. The characters follow the clock, going to work, interacting, having meals, taking care of the dog, reading the newspaper, doing chores, and I watch them carefully. How do they do that? Then I do that too. Memoir seems to give me a close-up view, while novels give me a general whole-life view.

It’s the whole-life that I want. I don’t want to waste time and energy on what-ifs.

I did find one memoir that I loved, primarily because I laughed through a lot of it, which was intentional. That’s Debbie Weiss’ Available As Is. I liked this one so much, I actually reached out to Debbie and told her so. She’s been a wonderful resource ever since.

But lately, I’ve had a whole string of novels that just hit me where it hurts, but also hit me exactly where I needed to be hit. Other than The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez, I chose the books at random, not knowing they were necessarily about grief. I did walk into the movie, The Friend, knowing only it was what Michael and I called Writer Movies, and knowing it was about a woman whose friend bequeathed her a Great Dane. I was so moved by the movie, I came home and ordered the book and ripped through it as soon as it arrived.

I can’t even include one quote from this novel that helped, because the whole book helped, and I can’t reprint the whole book! However, it also made me want to run out and adopt a Great Dane. Probably not a good thing.

When I finished that novel and set it aside, I picked up Catherine Newman’s novel, We All Want Impossible Things. I picked her up because I read Newman’s new and glorious novel, Sandwich, and so I bought her earlier novel without even reading what it was about. So suddenly, I found myself immersed again in the world of hospice and an impending death. And I read, “Everywhere, behind closed doors, people are dying, and people are grieving them. It’s the most basic fact about human life – tied with birth, I guess – but it’s so startling too. Everyone dies, and yet it’s unendurable. There is so much love inside of us. How do we become worthy of it? And then, where does it go? A worldwide crescendo of grief, sustained day after day, and only one tiny note of it is mine.”

I was, and am, part of that crescendo. And what was most amazing was that hospice, the tail end of the story, was the most comforting. Everyone knew what we were there for. It was all out in the open, and not whispered.

From there, I went to Matt Haig’s new novel, The Life Impossible. And yes, I noticed the synchronicity of the two titles: We all want impossible things, The life impossible. And there, I read, “And the sadness leaked out. It was there on my face and in my eyes. Grief was a flood that ran through you and caused others to stand aside. Or at least wind up the conversation.”

In hospice, though, no one stood aside. And everyone talked. There was no talk of “triggering” because I was nowhere close to a trigger. I was deep inside the barrel of the gun.

But then I read the book, which wasn’t even about grief, but that brought it all into one sentence for me. It was from Ann Patchett, and the novel is Tom Lake. I was reading before sleep, and it was about 2:00 in the morning, and I read, “I understood what was happening, but not that it was happening to me.”

Sometimes, you read something that resonates so deeply, you have to close the book for a bit, close your eyes along with it, and just think about it. Roll the words around. Maybe even say them aloud. For me, this hit me so profoundly, I did close my eyes and the book, repeated the words aloud, several times, and the mantra put me fast asleep, in the deepest sleep I’ve had for months.

It was like suddenly, everything made sense. I didn’t understand that it was happening to me during Michael’s hospitalization and rehab, because I absolutely had to remain focused on Michael. On trying to get him through. For the short time he was home, I was hyperaware of every sound, every movement, or every lack thereof. And afterwards, the focus has been on getting things taken care of, how to incorporate everything he did into everything I do, what a simple day was supposed to look like.

But suddenly, as I fell asleep that night, repeating those words, I thought, Something happened to me. Repeating this sentence, it was like the windows blowing open and letting in a fresh and cooling breeze. I am dealing with what happened to Michael. And I am dealing with what happened to me.

The actual diagnosis of this is “traumatic grief”. And PTSD.

And I have no idea, after saying all this, what it is I’m trying to say here. Except that somehow, this recognition made me feel so much better. I feel clearer about what I’m going through, and what to expect. And mostly, I know that it’s survivable.

Right now, I’m reading Fredrik Backman’s new novel, My Friends. There’s that synchronicity of titles again. The friend, my friends. And I read this: “Ted’s chest hurts, like crying without oxygen, because grief does so many strange things to people, and one of those things is that we forget how to breathe. As if the body’s first instinct is to grieve itself to death.”

First instinct. But then there’s the second…Survival. I will survive this. I already have.

And that is my Moment this week.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

Reading is living.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Spring was slow in coming this year. Well, actually, it was slow, but it was also erratic. Here one day, gone the next, came back the next week. One day in the eighties, the next day in the forties. Hot enough for some folks to put on the a/c – but there would be a frost advisory overnight. Many of us were buying outdoor plants, but not planting them. We kept them in their little plastic containers and carried them out during the warm days, brought them in during the cold nights, and wondered if we would ever, ever, ever this year be able to sit on the deck and read, sit on the deck for a meal, sit on the deck at night and look up and count the stars…all without seeing our breath.

But this week – oh, this week. My doors and windows are open, night and day. The plants are outside and they look as relieved as I feel. Lots of rain, though – I haven’t had a meal outdoors yet because there hasn’t been enough time in between soakers for the cushions on my deck furniture to dry. But I have stood on the deck and breathed in the air and felt the warmth circulate throughout my entire self.

I am not an outside woman in the sense of hiking, biking, tennis, kayaking, or, God forbid, camping. My idea of camping is a hotel without room service. But I am an outside woman when it comes to relaxing on the deck with my face upraised to the sun. And then there’s my choice of car. During the warm(er) months, I drive an open-air automobile – a Chrysler 200 convertible.

This is my third Chrysler convertible. I’ve gone from the LeBaron – who I absolutely loved, and even featured in my novel, Hope Always Rises, to the Sebring, to, now, the 200. They were all named. They were, respectively, LeB (pronounced Luh-BEE), SeB (pronounce Suh-Bee) and Semi.

Why Semi? Because when I bought Semi, I also owned a Chrysler 300C Hemi, with an outrageous hemi engine. Hemi was named, well, Hemi, because there was just no other name for him. The engine was everything. When I brought the new used convertible home, and pondered what to name him, Michael said, “Well, Hemi is a 300. This is a 200. So he’s a semi-Hemi.” And Semi became Semi. I no longer have Hemi. I have a Chrysler 300S, without the hemi engine. His name is Barry, because his color is officially “berry”, but also because he would sound like Barry White if he could speak. And in my head, he does.

Semi, however, croons.

But Semi is also my deck on wheels. When I first pull out of my garage in the car, there is always a moment where I just put my face up to the sun and soak it in. When I get where I’m going and I throw him into park, I soak my face again.

And when I am in that car…I can do anything.

There were a few days here and there this supposed spring where it was warm enough to bring Semi out. I have heated seats, so I will drive him when it’s 55 degrees and up, with the seat roaring and the heater blasting. But this last week, I’ve been in him every day. Soaking in the sun every day. Deep-breathing the air every day, even the days we were under an Air Quality Advisory due to the smoke from the Canadian fires blowing our way. I’m asthmatic. And I didn’t care.

But then…it was a warm evening. Still hovering in the 70s. Sun still out at almost 8:00. I was supposed to be reading manuscripts for the next day.

But I wasn’t.

I was in that car. Music up. Heading toward…Dairy Queen and a medium caramel Moo-latte. Sheer and utter decadence.

I wasn’t the only one who had the same idea. As I approached DQ, I saw the line of cars stretched through the parking lot and out onto the street. I got in line. It would be a wait.

And like an asthmatic breathing deep during an Air Quality Advisory, I didn’t care.

I rested my head back and sang with the music, even though the top was off and the windows were down. Others sang with me. I raised my face to the sun. I did so much more than soak.

I sank. I reveled. Spring was gone.

Summer was here.

Nothing else mattered.

Well, until I headed back home, still singing, still sunning, but now with a medium caramel Moo-latte in my grip.

Heaven.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Until recently, I never kept very many plants in my home. Partly, it was because I have cats, who see every potted plant as a potential salad bar. Finding creative ways to have plants enhance your home, while at the same time, keeping them out of reach of chewing cats is not easy.

But I also didn’t have plants in the home because my mom didn’t just have a green thumb. She had an entire green body, that I think went down to the cellular level. There were plants inside, there were plants outside, there were plants everywhere. The plants that grew outside, she brought in for the winter. The plants that grew inside, she brought out for the summer. And whenever she and my father went on vacation, she counted on me to take care of them all, which was a request that brought terror to my heart. Some plants got faucet water, some got distilled water, and still others got spring water, from a pipe she and my father found on the side of the road one year. It was a faucet to a fresh spring just underground. The distilled water and the spring water was kept in milk jugs down the basement, on separate sides so they could be told apart.

I never could.

I will admit, as it took a really long time to search the house for all the plants, and then to water the outside plants, they all got faucet water with me. I dumped out an appropriate amount of water from the plastic jugs so it looked like I used it.

I also was required to fill their many bird feeders. I’m terrified of birds, and so I would just stand in the garage door and fling bird seed in the general direction of the feeders. Right before my parents came home, my ex-husband would come and fill the feeders for me.

But plants. In the spring of 2020, in the near-beginning of the pandemic, I ventured out to the grocery store. I was fully masked, I clutched my list, and I planned to get in and out as fast as I could. But as I walked into the store, I also walked straight into a display of hibiscus trees. They were in full bloom, orange and pink flowers everywhere, pointing to the sky like satellite dishes. I stood stock still and admired. It was like walking into a literal interpretation of spring. But that wasn’t what I was there for, and so I smiled at the hibiscus forest and started to move on by.

But a hibiscus branch hooked my sleeve. And suddenly, I was there for a hibiscus tree.

Ms. Hib and I spent that whole first lonely Covid summer together, on my third floor deck. I often had my meals out there, and she and I would talk. She was a great listener.

I didn’t know much about hibiscus though, and in the spring of 2021, Ms. Hib lost all of her leaves and died. Shortly after, so did an amazing student of mine. Her name was Carla. I met her when my daughter Katie went to college and Carla was just down the hall in the dorm. Carla had cystic fibrosis, and the day I met her, she was packing up to go home, because college was just too much for her health to handle. She and I talked for quite a while though, and I told her she needed to write a book.

In 2018, after a double-lung transplant, that exactly what Carla did, while entering into coaching with me. And in 2021, Carla died.

Grieving, I went into Menards, where Michael was working at the time. I was only supposed to pick him up. But when I walked inside, I walked straight into a display of hibiscus. Carla and I, the both of us trapped inside during Covid because of compromised immune systems, Carla from CF and me from breast cancer, had raved over Ms. Hib and her glorious blossoms. Now, I looked at beautiful blooms again. When I walked past the forest to find Michael, another branch grabbed me.

I was there to pick up more than Michael. I named that hibiscus Carla.

Carla stayed with me through April of 2024. Her last bloom opened on the day of the full eclipse of the sun. And she was with me through Michael’s accident and his time in the hospital and rehab. There were some very dark nights when that hibiscus was the only one I talked to. She was there when Michael came home. But she was gone before he went into the hospital for the final time.

After she died, and after Michael died, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up something – I don’t remember what. Sitting by themselves on the pavement were two small hibiscus bushes, on clearance. Nobody had chosen them. We were now into summer, and they hadn’t found a home.

So they came home with me. They were named Righty and Lefty, depending on where they sat. At the time, I simply had no creativity, no energy, not much of anything left in me.

Righty didn’t make it through the winter. But Lefty did, and is with me still. He’s been joined by Joe, a gift from a friend who was a botanist. He brought me a cutting in the spring, and Joe was growing by leaps and bounds. He was named after the Jolly Green Giant doll I owned as a child, and who I called Joe because his name couldn’t be Jolly Green Giant. Now, my startlingly tall green hibiscus became Joe.

But then came last weekend. I went to the grocery store. I had some things I needed to pick up.

I do the grocery shopping now. I do the cooking, or at least, what passes for cooking. These used to be Michael’s jobs.

As I approached the grocery store, I saw some hibiscus on display outside. They stood all together. I started to walk toward their forest, but then I saw her.

There was one hibiscus tree, all by herself, separate from the others, standing on a pallet. She wasn’t in the sun. She was in the shade. And she was alone. She wasn’t blooming, but from what I could tell from the few buds, she might have red flowers.

I stood by her for a bit. I told myself I was there to pick up food for a cookout with my kids for Memorial Day. A hibiscus wasn’t on my list. I already had two hibiscus at home – Lefty and Joe.

But this hibiscus stood all by herself. She wasn’t blooming, like the others. And I knew exactly how she felt.

I brought home the food for the cookout. But I also brought home the hibiscus tree. Her name is now Ruby.

It was still too chilly to bring her outside. So she stood in my office, in front of my plant stand, where, over the years, I’ve added a few more plants. There are plants on my second floor too. And in the classroom, plants line the windows. During the summer, the plants I keep inside go outside. During the winter, the plants I keep outside come inside.

But they all get faucet water.

The day after I bought Ruby, I slept in late as it was a Sunday. When I got up, I staggered into my office to turn on my computer.

Overnight, Ruby erupted. Red blooms everywhere. And other buds about to burst.

She made me feel like I was about to burst.

Now, all three hibiscus, Lefty, Joe, and Ruby, are on my third floor deck, with quite a few other flowers and plants. But Ruby has stolen the show. She continues to explode.

She’s not alone anymore. Neither am I.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

THIS BLOG IS VERY LATE TODAY. AND IT’S ALSO BRUTALLY HONEST. BUT HERE WE GO.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I’ve been having a very hard week. It’s like when you feel that something in your body is out of whack – your knee is out of joint, or your back feels crooked, or you have a hovering headache that just won’t go away. Some people refer to it as walking around with a dark cloud over your head. I’ve been feeling that dark cloud, but it’s not just over my head. I’m walking through it.

It really started on Saturday morning. I was getting ready to head downstairs to teach one of my Once-A-Month Write-A-Book Workshop groups. Before I walked down, I booted my computer and got the usual windows open. Email – AOL and Yahoo. Instagram chat, where my family’s chat is set. And Facebook.

Now normally, I get a notification somewhere in the late afternoon, telling me that I have Facebook Memories available, and listing a few names. “You have Facebook Memories with Christopher, Andy, Katie, Olivia…” for example, all my kids. And then I can choose to click on it and see what the memories are. But for some reason, that morning, Facebook Memories was already there, and not only already there, but wide open on my screen.

With a photograph of Michael.

His very last photograph. Last Saturday was the date a year ago that Michael made it up to the third floor, used his walker to cross my office and go outside onto our deck. He sat in the sun for the first time since January, when he stepped off the curb in downtown Milwaukee and was hit by a passenger van. And for the first and only time, he said to me, “I’m going to make it.”

That was a Friday. The day after that, I walked downstairs to teach the same exact group I was about to see. When I came upstairs after teaching that group last year, Michael was vomiting blood. I took him to the ER, and everything went downhill from there, until he died on June 19^th.

It was exactly a year later. That day, last year, was filled with so much joy and hope. And on this day, I was alone and he was gone.

I ended up being ten minutes late to my workshop, as I tried very hard to pull myself together, regain my composure. I walked into that classroom, saw those same exact faces, and lost it.

I was completely and totally blindsided. Completely. And I’ve remained that way all week, feeling like I’m not quite walking a straight line.

And so then I really struggled with what I was going to write about today. It’s why I’m two hours late with this blog. Ten minutes late on Saturday. Two hours late now.

This afternoon, I was talking to someone about this, and I suddenly found myself talking about the Oregon coast, that I’ll be running to in a few weeks, and the story of the sand dollar. If you haven’t heard it, this is the story.

In 2015, I was not in very good shape when I went to Oregon. I was feeling like my life had no purpose, that I was always a failure. My novel, Rise From The River, which took me 20 years to gather up the courage to write, was published. But vastly more attention was being paid to the 50 Shades Of Gray series. The messages of the 50 Shades books and mine could not be further apart.

When I got to Oregon, I ran straight out to the ocean and shrieked at it. Some people look up to the sky to yell at God. I yell at the ocean, and I don’t know that I’m yelling at God. I just know that I can yell at the ocean. And I said, “What do you want from me? I have done everything I can, everything I’m supposed to do. I have devoted my life to my own writing and to writers. And yet look what is valued.” I ranted. Nothing happened. And then I remembered someone telling me that if you want an answer, from God, the Universe, the ocean, whomever, you ask for something specific. So I said, “If I am on the right path, then let me find a whole sand dollar. A WHOLE sand dollar. Not a piece or a fragment.”

And I left it at that.

One evening, my daughter, who was with me that trip, and I were walking the ocean in a fog. The fog on the Pacific is magical…it glitters. It’s like walking through a glitter storm. As we walked, I could see two people coming toward us, an older man and woman. No matter which way I moved, the man kept walking directly toward me. When we arrived in the same space, he was directly in my face. But I found I wasn’t scared.

He didn’t say hello, he didn’t say, “Nice night.” He said, “Have you found a whole sand dollar?”

I still get goosebumps talking about this. I stammered, “No…no…I’ve been looking for one, but –”

“Choose one,” he said, and reached into his pocket and pulled out three. Three whole sand dollars.

I picked one, and my daughter took one. And then we walked away. I’ve never seen the man again.

I brought the sand dollar home, painted a small canvas as a background, glued the sand dollar to it, and hung it on the wall behind my desk.

I have always considered that moment a miracle.

And it didn’t stop there. Two years later, I couldn’t go to Oregon because I had breast cancer. The next year, I arrived there, ran out to the ocean, and shrieked, “You didn’t tell me my path included cancer!” And then I asked, “If I’m going to be all right, then let ME find the sand dollar this time.”

On my last day there, I went out to say goodbye to the ocean. I hadn’t found a sand dollar. As I stood there, I felt a bump against my toe. I looked down…and there was a whole sand dollar.

The person I was talking to this afternoon went to Oregon and stood by the ocean while I was in treatment for breast cancer. He thought of me, felt a bump…and found a whole sand dollar which he brought to me.

Last year, I went to Oregon after Michael died. I walked out to greet the ocean, but I didn’t rant and I didn’t rave. I just said, “I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t ask for anything. But partway through the trip, I was taking my evening walk. I happened to glance down at my feet, and right in front of me, was the teeniest tiniest whole sand dollar. No bigger than my fingernail. If I hadn’t looked down right then, I would have missed it.

But I did look down.

But this afternoon, talking to this person, I heard myself say, “I thought that the sand dollar was a miracle. But never ever ever would I have thought that my path included my husband stepping off a curb to come home and instead getting hit by a passenger van.” And then I said, “I think it was all a fluke. There’s no path. Nothing is set. Nothing can be expected. I just don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know what to do.”

I don’t know what to do. I’ve said that to myself and out loud for months now. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do.

As I drove home today, I had to come to a stop at a stoplight. In front of me was a Waukesha city bus. Blazed across the back of the bus, right in my face, just like that old man was in my face, were the words, “YOU ARE LOVED.” I blinked, and saw it was an ad for the LGBTQ+ community, a community I support, but I’m not a part of. I instantly thought, That message isn’t for me.

I went to pick up my jacket, accidentally left behind at the chiropractor’s yesterday. I went through the Starbucks drive-thru. I stopped by a mailbox and mailed a letter. And then, at a whole other intersection, in a different part of town, I stopped behind a bus.

“YOU ARE LOVED.”

I shook my head.

As I approached home, I was passed by two other buses. This time, on the side, I saw the Craig Husar ad, for Husar Diamonds. I immediately said, “Hi, Craig.”

An earlier This Week’s Moment talked about how I decided to have my wedding ring and Michael’s melted down and made into a new ring, for me to wear. I’d seen the Husar ads for years, and always said, “Hi, Craig,” because wherever I was, so was he. On the day I decided to do this with the rings, and wondered where I should go, a bus passed me. “Hi, Craig,” I said. And then I went to Husar’s.

Craig was there that day, and I met him, and his daughter. She designed my ring. Craig sat next to me, introduced himself, and shared his condolences. He told me I’d come to the right place, and there was no one better to create this ring than his daughter. As we talked, he said, “You know, there’s a real warmth and energy here. I think your husband is in full agreement with what you’re doing.”

And now, on this day when I was feeling particularly lost, and when I’d twice run into a sign that said I was loved, which I immediately discounted, I was then reminded, twice again, of the kindness of absolute strangers who have reached out to help me during this awful, awful time.

I am still walking crooked. I still don’t know what to do. But I know I am loved.

Hi, Craig.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

My life ever since January 17^th, 2024, the day Michael was struck and then run over by a passenger van, has been a Roller Coaster. Yes, with capital letters. It should also be bolded and in the largest font a laptop can produce. It’s been nothing short of chaotic. There was his accident, the time in the hospital (6 weeks), the time in rehab (3 weeks), the time at home with a revolving door of home healthcare workers (just over a month), his last time in the hospital (a month), his time in hospice (5 days, barely), and then this long, long haul after his death (almost a year). Mixed in with all that was the death of my two cats, Edgar Allen Paw (14 years old) and Muse (20 years old). There was my trying to keep up with my own schedule, plus everything that Michael used to do around here.

There have been decisions to make. Decisions, decisions, and more decisions. And now nobody to be a sounding board. Michael couldn’t make a decision to save his soul, that weight has always been on me, but he was a great listener.

Then last week, the book-banning story hit. I wasn’t expecting the hoo-ha that came with it, For a little bit there, I felt like I was trying to swim upstream against a rapids of stampeding plesiosaurs (look them up). I wear a ring on what used to be my wedding ring finger. The ring is called Swimming Against The Current, and it shows many little silver fish swimming in a circle around my finger, but there is one little gold fish trying to swim the other direction.

I about twisted that ring into a groove down to the bone last week. I was that little gold fish.

Which is why, yesterday, when I suddenly had a quiet day, filled with nothing but simple pleasure, I posted on Facebook, “I don’t say this often. But I had the nicest day,” followed by a smiley face emoji. As almost 100 people “liked” the post, I’d say it’s been pretty obvious that I’ve been under some stress.

My day was simple. It was my one day off a week. I do a different day each week, so that I can keep my full schedule of clients and classes, and everyone on each day of the week knows that every five weeks, they’re going to have a day off. So I slept in, until 12:30. I had breakfast in my recliner with a good book, not in front of my computer. I went in to see my chiropractor, who got a crunch out of my neck that made me instantly three inches taller. Then I went for a pedicure and a warm stone massage.

I’ve only started pedicures since Michael died. I have fibromyalgia, which makes me very stiff and often in pain, and so contorting myself into taking care of my own toenails has become impossible. Michael used to take care of it for me.

One of the things he’s no longer around to do.

I mostly wear sneakers and boots, so I didn’t used to color my toenails. But now, as long as I’m at the spa, I do. It gives me pleasure to look down and see a bright color winking up at me.

The massage…oh, the massage. I started doing warm stone massages after I was diagnosed with fibro, at the suggestion of my rheumatologist. I am a great lover of heat, and I soon fell in love with the heated bed, the heated stones, the heated towels, and the warm, warm hands of the massage therapist. The therapists (there have been a few over the years) learned quickly that even in the high heat of summer, they need to have the bed cranked up to its highest temperature.

The warm stone massage also, for some reason, unleashes my mind. I often get the best story ideas when I’m under so much heat. My favorite massage story was when, in the middle of a massage, I suddenly heard the opening line to my novel, Learning To Tell (A Life)Time. It’s the sequel to my first novel, The Home For Wayward Clocks, and despite requests, I’d said, often and in public, that I would not be writing a sequel. Another book was published after Clocks, and I was working on a different new novel, when, facedown on the massage bed, I heard, “I never expected to cry when my mother died.” I knew, without a doubt, that this was Cooley, a main character in Clocks. “Shit!” I exclaimed, and my therapist’s hands flew off of me.

“I’m sorry!” she said. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “I have to go home and write a book.” By the time I left the spa that day, I knew the book was set sixteen years after Clocks, that James, the other main character, was no longer with us, that Ione, a secondary character, was in “the garden of dementia” (because Cooley was told that Ione didn’t have Alzheimer’s, but “garden variety dementia”), and the book was going to be about Cooley trying to learn about her mother, who she’d been estranged from for all the sixteen years between books.

The cost of the massage was more than worth it that day.

The massages fell away from my life after Michael’s accident. I simply didn’t have time, and while it sounds odd to say, I didn’t have the energy. Everything was about Michael. It had to be. I don’t regret it. I wish I’d had more time to devote to him.

But now I was back. I had a day off. I had time.

As I lay with closed eyes on the massage table, turned up high, and as I felt the warm stones, the warm towels, and the warm, warm hands of the therapist, I realized something else I’d been missing since Michael died.

Touch.

When Michael was alive, I couldn’t walk past him without his hooking me with an arm and pulling me in for a hug. When we sat side by side on our reclining loveseat, his hand always found its way to my arm. In the car, as I drove, always drove, because Michael was phobic about driving, his hand was on my thigh. Whenever we walked together anywhere, his hand would clasp mine. At night, as I fell asleep, he was an extra blanket, his arm and leg thrown over me, tucking me tightly to him. And there were a myriad of other touches during the day. For twenty-five years.

I’ve been told that people often cry on the massage table. Something is released. That never happened to me before, but it surely did yesterday.

Crying would not normally be considered a moment of happiness, but for me, the more I release this grief like no other, let it out into the world and not just roiling around inside of me, the more I recover. And return to myself, but minus a very important part.

I returned home, every muscle loose and relaxed, and my mind there too. It was in the eighties here yesterday, but I drove home in the convertible with the heated seat on.

I don’t say this often. But I had the nicest day.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Hooboy. My Monday this week was what we all claim Monday to be…hard. Stressful. An entire week in one day. And yes, I’m leading with that, to point out a moment of happiness.

I’ve written often in this blog, from its inception as Today’s Moment through its transition to This Week’s Moment, about the high school I graduated from. I went to three different high schools in my typical four-year stretch, and I credit Waukesha North High School with saving my life. For the first time ever, I felt I was in a place where I not only belonged, but I was welcomed.

I was already writing, had already been published (by the Catholic Herald Citizen, no less!), and knew that this was what I wanted for my life. When I arrived at Waukesha North, it was a veritable feast of classes for someone like me – I took creative writing, journalism, and literature classes called Growing Up In Literature And Reality, Mystery And The Macabre, and Science Fiction and Fantasy. I served in the club that put together the literary magazine – a literary magazine! – and at times, wrote for the school paper. I received amazing encouragement from the faculty, in particular, my creative writing teacher, who I am still friends with today. He told me that I had a gift, but it was my responsibility to use that gift. And so I have.

As I grew as a writer, and even before my books started coming out, I presented at Waukesha North often, in their English classes (sadly, no longer as varied and plentiful). When the books arrived, they were in the school library. I was on several class reading lists, and every semester, I was contacted by students who were reading my books for assignments. I was giving back to the school who gave so whole-heartedly to me.

And by the way – I wrote a story for that literary magazine, whose storyline leaked out to parents, who then complained that it shouldn’t be published. It was my first experience with censorship. The administration of the school backed me up, and the story appeared.

In 2020, I was nominated for and received a place on the school’s Wall of Stars – a collection of alumna that had succeeded in their fields and gave back to the community. I was beyond honored, and despite Covid, I attended the awards ceremony. The trophy sits on a shelf in my office, always within my sight. My name is on a plaque in the school’s atrium.

And in 2023, my books disappeared from the school library.

I’d heard, through a media source, that the school district performed a “sweep” – removing “questionable” books. I didn’t think my books would be included – there was no reason for them to be, and I was on the Wall of Stars. But when I called and spoke with librarians who knew me, it was confirmed that my books were included. One librarian, who didn’t know me, told someone else who called that my books were removed because of low circulation. I knew this not to be true, as I was still, up until that year, being interviewed by students fulfilling assignments.

There wasn’t really anything I could do. Research and digging revealed that the books that were removed in the sweep were donated to an organization that ships books overseas to other countries.

At least they weren’t burned.

So I moved on.

Near the end of 2024, I was asked by someone who was organizing the 50^th Anniversary Celebration of my high school if I would speak at the event about what the school means to me. It was also suggested that I give a gift to the school. I agreed and thought, since I was being asked to participate, maybe things smoothed out and my books were being welcomed back. So I spoke. And I donated a copy of each of my 15 books.

Two days later, I was informed that my books had to go in front of the administration for approval. But, the principal told me, he would have me back in for photos with the books in the library as soon as they were returned with that approval.

Four months later (about two weeks ago), I was informed that the books were not being accepted. According to a deputy superintendent, they liked to have books in their library that had high school age protagonists.

Eleven of my fifteen books have high school age characters in them. One book in particular, Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku, is about not only a high school student, but now a graduate of Waukesha North High School…my daughter.

Then I was told that they like to have books in their library that fit within their core curriculum.

I told them I was ON their core curriculum with some of these books, from 2012 to 2023.

I offered a compromise – don’t put them in the library, but put them on display, in a showcase, behind glass. I was told they “don’t make a practice” of putting books on display.

So I picked up my books and brought them home. At least they weren’t shipped overseas this time.

But when I posted about this on Facebook, everything exploded. I’m followed by a lot of media sources, and before I knew it, I was interviewed by a local television station and two local newspapers. The next day, I was told I was being talked about on a local conservative radio talk show. I had a client, so I couldn’t listen, but I did tune in when the recording of it went up on the website. I listened to the introduction, laughed, and stopped listening.

Oh, man. It’s been crazy.

So where is the Moment in all this?

The Moment is in the tidal wave of support I’ve received. On social media and in personal communication, writers and readers from around the world have been sending me their outrage over what happened, and their support and encouragement for me. My website, right here, has been visited by almost 2000 people in three days. Bookstores have been calling me, asking if I have copies of my books I can bring in, because they are selling out.

You know that feeling I said I had when I first walked into my high school at the tender age of sixteen? That feeling of not only belonging, but being welcomed?

I’m there again.

But I do want to be clear on this – I do not hold my individual high school responsible at all. My love and appreciation for Waukesha North continues. What they did for me in those three semesters I was there not only changed my life, but it formed it. The school not only helped me figure out a life path, but it encouraged it and helped me develop a belief that was so strong, I walked into improbable careers. One as a writer. One as a small business owner.  I will always be appreciative of Waukesha North High School. I moved back here so that my four children could attend. And despite this, I believe it’s a fine school, that is doing its best despite the shackles placed on it by the administration.

I requested that my name be removed from the Wall of Stars, and that has been granted. It didn’t seem right, to have me there, my name listed as someone to look up to, but then not to have my books in the library.

But I have my trophy, that was given to me by a school, and its administration, that believed in me. I have my experience there.

That can’t be taken away or rejected.

That’ll do.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

The following are links to the tv interview, and the articles in the newspapers.

Channel 6 in Milwaukee:

https://www.fox6now.com/video/1636138?fbclid=IwY2xjawKJ7i1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFOM3NZRk0ya0ZTSm1FQW5IAR5AxpRpBdUrXWNMHsI68bWH_d2lZz5U93ENWnAcK6bVS2gceE790HHL3vQuZQ_aem_iinYdg9SkWTzCbpUabaM_w

 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2025/05/06/waukesha-author-asks-for-name-removal-from-alumni-wall/83460572007/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKJ7lRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFOM3NZRk0ya0ZTSm1FQW5IAR7ASlnHVXqyI83XtbyDtTQpVbh8twPVDBfu-zXA6cKcMe3J6OJ4kmDugBuAcg_aem_y8apts_-tzTnDlt4iVyplw

 

Waukesha Freeman:

https://www.gmtoday.com/the_freeman/news/waukesha-north-alumna-asks-for-removal-of-her-star-on-wall-of-stars/article_9e6e95c7-2014-5f0e-9140-ae8c2f063f00.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawKJ7ndleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE0NFpJZzIyWEVGVVNVT3ppAR6j15wNm4NQ6qOqi3RR8GJMEinzDUgj-Mxf0LgrxP6NPuGNHEaRTx-31aA5Bw_aem_J_rlGMu4M5RwbAVYBXRONA

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

For about 20 years now, I’ve been an unnatural redhead. From the common descriptions you read of redheads, they were everything I wanted to be. Confident. Assertive. Strong. Some would say stubborn. Others would say bullheaded.

I had the bullheaded part down pat. The others, I strived for.

As a child, my hair was stuck in the middle of a battle between my parents. My father loved long hair, and he wanted my hair long. My mother, who noticeably wore her hair short, wanted my hair short. During the cold weather months, my hair was allowed to grow, as my father made the argument that this would keep my neck and ears warm. My mother also couldn’t drive by choice, and didn’t drive until I was well into high school. During the warmer months, she could walk me to a local hair shop, sometimes a salon, sometimes a barber shop, and have my hair cut into what she called a pixie…really, really short. We would go during the day, when my father was at work.

I cried the whole day, because I knew what this meant, other than the fact my hair was going to be short again. I was going to have to go through days where my father would only refer to me as “son” and “little boy.”

I don’t know why, but when I entered middle school, my mother gave up the battle. Maybe this was because the popular style was long hair, parted down the middle, which was exactly how I wore it. By the time I hit senior year, my hair went down to the backs of my knees.

And I decided I hated it. It took forever to dry. It tangled easily. And maybe, just maybe, I decided I didn’t want to be like everyone else.

A few days before graduation, I brushed my long hair for the last time. Then I went to a salon and had three feet of hair cut off. It was the era of “feathering”, and the woman who cut my hair feathered me all over the place, while trying to teach me how to do it myself.

It was then I discovered how much only seeing out of one eye at a time affected my close depth perception. I could not tell when the curling iron was getting close to my forehead. Several scalding, tearful events later, I gave up and just wore my newly short hair straight down. By the end of college, I’d discovered the perm, and grew my hair out to shoulder-length again.

But as much as I admired redheads, I didn’t color my hair. I was a brunette. My hair matched my eyes. I was okay with that.

Until 2005. Lots of changes then. I was on my second marriage. I had four kids, three from my first marriage, and one from my second. I’d been to grad school, the first in my immediate family to earn an advanced degree. I was becoming known as a writer, particularly in the short story. I was teaching, and had just opened a creative writing studio, a business I was told would be impossible.

I was growing in confidence. Assertiveness. Strength. And I was putting my bullheadedness to good use. Just like a redhead.

I had a hairstylist by then named John. I was back to wearing my hair short, and whenever I went in for a haircut, before he’d let me go, he’d take gel and style my hair in punk, little spikes all over my head. I would laugh, go home, wash my hair, and smooth it back down.

Until I didn’t. I told John not only to punk it, but to make it red. We studied these little bits of colored hair stapled to a placard, and we both chose the same shade.

Oh, terrified.

But I will never forget picking up almost six-year old Olivia from summer school that day. The kids were playing on the playground when I walked across it. The teachers’ jaws dropped. Then they circled around me in what took me a while to recognize as a circle of admiration. Then Olivia ran up to me.

“Mama, is that you????” she shrieked. And she proclaimed me beautiful.

Thus began 20 years of punky red hair. It became a part of my “brand”. One time, when I was walking back to the condo in the middle of a snowstorm, after I parked my car in the parking garage across the street, a car skidded to a stop beside me. A woman opened the driver’s side door and stepped out.

“Excuse me,” she yelled through the wind. “Where do you get your hair done? I love it!”

I laughed. “Foxies,” I said, “on Wisconsin Avenue. Ask for John.”

“I’m going there right now!” She got back in her car and slid and skidded away.

John told me later she indeed went there right now. He gave her the punk style, but her red was a little bit different. “Because yours is you,” he said.

John died several years later. I now see Michelle, who has been keeping me red and short and spiky.

But lately, maybe because Michael died, maybe because I am now alone, just Kathie, not KathieandMichael, I’ve found myself wondering if I’m still me under my hair. Partly, it came from asking Michelle if my hair had gone gray at all, one day when I was there for my usual cut and color. “Well, I can’t tell now,” she said.

Can’t tell now. Who I am, under the color.

The thing is, I think I am who I am, confident, assertive, strong – also imaginative, creative, talented, and a few other things – because it’s just me. I’d be me if I was bald. Which may be why I’ve considered lately having my head shaved into a teeny tiny buzz cut. Though I haven’t. Yet.

But I did go in to see Michelle and told her to hold the color. Still keep it short, and I’m still gelling it. But no red.

And there was my hair, for the most part. Some of the red remains on the tips at the top. It’ll be gone with the next cut. But I’m a brunette again. My hair matches my eyes. My eyes, which used to always be studying the floor, but now look straight ahead at whatever’s there.

There is gray, at the temples and some on the sides. But I’ve found I don’t mind that. That’s a part of who I am too. I’m going to be sixty-five soon. I just signed up for Medicare.

I don’t know if anyone will be stopping a car for me soon, in the middle of a snowstorm, shouting exclamations of loving my hair. I’m pretty sure my daughter still thinks of me as beautiful, and she knows exactly who I am.

So do I. And I’m good with that.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

One of the things that I love the most about the little house I retreat to on the Oregon coast – and that caused me to choose this place for the first time back in 2006 – is that there is dedicated space for writing, and dedicated space for doing artwork. Many of my books have had a draft pounded out in the writing nook, on an old beat-up table that butts right up to the window overlooking the ocean, which is only a few feet away. Upstairs, there is a loft, with a larger window facing the same direction. It’s perfect for artwork. The owners of the little house have another beat-up table, left in storage when I’m not there, so the table is just for me. While the view is lovely, I often paint at night, with the windows wide open, letting in the sound of the ocean.

During the day, when I’m writing, I look up to watch the passing whales or birds, and to watch the light change on the water. At night, when I’m painting, I look up at the blinking lights of a passing fishing boat, or to listen to the waves or the ecstatic sound of children with flashlights playing in the sand or basking in the light of a bonfire.

It’s just so idyllic. But especially, it’s idyllic because it’s like a home for two separate places in my brain. One that expresses itself in words; one that expresses itself in imagery and color.

I’ve craved that in my own home, which is a live-where-you-work condo. Here, my brain gets compartmentalized into my writing space on the third floor, and my teaching space on the first floor. But when I’ve wanted to work on art, I’ve either had to haul stuff down to the classroom and hope I don’t mess up the conference table, or haul stuff into the kitchen and hope I don’t mess up the island.

Since Michael died, I’ve sort of thrown myself into a massive purge and reorganization of floors two and three of the condo – where I live. About the only room that hasn’t been affected is my writing space, because that space has always been fully me – I never shared it with anyone, other than the feline and canine interlopers. I think one way I’ve been working myself through Michael’s death is by making the condo more fully mine – Michael’s presence is still here, but not as obviously as before. Interests that we shared remain. Interests that were purely his have been carefully given away to others who share those interests and will love those objects as much as he loved them.

There’s more to do, yet, but lately, my focus turned to a back room. This room has gone through more transitions than any other room in the condo. It’s sorta useless, really – there isn’t a closet, there’s no storage, it’s just this room that sits at the end of the hallway and also is outside of Olivia’s bedroom. The most important aspect of it is there is a second floor deck that is accessed through a door in this room.

First, it was a bedroom for my oldest son who was in college when we moved in here. He came home every other weekend to work, and so I put in a futon with storage underneath, and a table with cubbies and a tv on top. It worked as his room until he graduated and moved out. Then it became a tv room for a while. Next, because Michael was teaching more and more for me, we changed it to Michael’s office – but with the rule that if he began to make it into a mess, it would stop being his office.

It became a mess. Despite decorating it to his specifications, including a lovely desk with a marble top, and plenty of shelves and cubbies for storage, it wasn’t long before he was working on his laptop while sitting on his recliner in the living room, because every available surface in the office was covered – mostly with stuff that it didn’t need to be covered by.

I took the space back during the pandemic, and it became a workout room. It still held Michael’s card catalog (in college, he worked in a library and he loved card catalogs, so I got one for him from an antique store) and an antique RCA Victor radio/record player console. Incongruously, I added a treadmill and free weights, and a television to watch while I was on the treadmill.

And now…here we are, in this new chapter.

Last week, the radio/record player console left, followed by the card catalog. The console was purchased by a woman for her son, who had just won a contest where his radio play was produced. He loved all things Old Time Radio – just like Michael. I have no doubt that console will be treasured. The card catalog went to a man who contacted me immediately when I listed it, saying he’d been looking for one for years to keep his card collection in. He sent a photo of where the card catalog would be, and reassured me it would be well-loved. I believe him.

Then I looked at the room, almost bare again, except for my treadmill, and I knew what I wanted. A lovely student showed me an easel a family member of hers was giving up. It was old and beat-up and wonderful. I said I wanted it. Since I received it, it’s sitting in my garage. But now…

With the help of my son, we moved the treadmill, so that its front is up against a wall. I no longer need the television, which rested on top of the card catalog. I can watch things on my phone. The treadmill folds, which was something I never took advantage of, but I did now, and floor space suddenly became open to me.

In the living room, in a place that was always awkward, was my antique phone table, which has an old-fashioned push-button phone resting on it that has been repainted into art. I found it at an antique mall, which is where the table came from too. It moved into this new space, and has become a place where I can sit and change my shoes. Then the easel came up and tucked into a corner, in front of the door leading to the HVAC unit that heats and cools my classroom downstairs. That door is rarely opened, but just in case, the easel is easily folded. Then I took a trip to St. Vinnie’s and found what they called a TV table. It’s perfect for holding my art supplies. I added a barstool to sit on while painting. And finally, I added a small colorful rug with so many colors that, if I spill paint, no one will ever know.

I had paintings on the walls already, but I went into my garage and pulled out more that I had in storage there and added them. Everything was carefully placed – the treadmill can fold down without disrupting anything.

And then the final for me. I love painting mannequins. That’s how I got started. Back in 2018, on the day before my birthday, Michael, Olivia and I went into Boston Store, as it was going out of business. Everything was for sale. I went into the women’s department and saw a plus-sized female mannequin. I’ve always wanted to paint a plus-sized female mannequin.

“I want this,” I said. And Michael and Olivia bought it for me for my birthday.

She’s sat since 2018, waiting for me. She was in my office, then the storeroom, then came into the classroom when I closed the storeroom down. Now, she’s sitting on that repurposed TV table, and she’s at the perfect height for me to start applying paint and brush. She will be my first project.

Given to me by Michael and Oliva.

I haven’t started yet, and I haven’t unfolded and used the treadmill yet, at least since the change. But I keep walking down the hall, looking at it, and sighing in absolute pleasure.

Like I do in Oregon.

It’s all there, waiting. And that part of my brain, so unexercised, is delighted.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Going to the movies was a favorite activity for Michael and me. Even when streaming services became popular, allowing you to see movies in the comfort of your own home with your own microwave-popped popcorn, we preferred the big screen, movie popcorn, and the reactions of others all around us. When the theaters added reclining seats, including armrests that lifted to make the seats into a love seat, so much the better. I’ve yet to experience heated seats, which I’ve heard are out there, but I look forward to it.

In particular, Michael and I loved what we called writer movies. These could be movies based on books by favorite writers, or movies where the main character was a writer. Often, after seeing the movie in the theater, we’d buy it on DVD (again, before streaming) so we could enjoy it and discuss it another time. Soon after Michael and I moved in together, he introduced me to a movie called Jake’s Women, starring Alan Alda, where he played a writer whose characters came to life and talked to him. A writer movie with Alan Alda…heaven!

Since Michael died, I’ve been to several movies, usually in the company of my son Andy and my daughter Olivia. But recently, a movie came out called The Friend. I saw the preview the first time I went to a movie alone, and when I saw that it was a writer movie, I knew I had to go. When the movie showed up in our theaters, it had a shockingly low number of showtimes, so I knew it wouldn’t be staying long. This last weekend, both my son and daughter were unable to come with me, so I went alone to my first writer movie without Michael.

I knew that the movie was about a writer whose best friend had died and left her his gigantic dog, a Great Dane. I didn’t know that the best friend was a writer too, and both of these writers were also teachers, which of course, parallels my life with Michael. The dog, Apollo, was up to his haunches in grief, along with the writer who was left behind.

At one point, the dead writer’s wife says, “How do you explain death to a dog? He sits by the door every day, waiting for Papa to come home.”

Our dog, Ursula, knew Michael as Daddy. Ten months after Michael’s death, Ursula comes downstairs every morning and sits in front of Michael’s recliner, facing it, staring at it. In the evening, she stands by our front windows, watching for Michael to come out of the bus station.

Ten months.

I went to a relatively late movie, 9:40. This theater allows you to choose your seats when you buy your tickets, and I bought mine before anyone else had. I chose my favorite seat. When I arrived at the theater, there were only two other people there, and they were in my same row. There was only one seat between us. When I sat down, they got up and moved to a new area. I wondered if they’d snuck in from another movie.

I think I was only about ten minutes into the movie when the tears started. I sat with the armrest down; there was no need to raise it. But Michael was so missing. The grieving dog, the grieving writer, the dead writer, ohmygod, I was suddenly immersed in it.

At some point, the other two people left. They were not in the theater when the movie ended. I never saw them go. At first, I couldn’t get up and leave. I just sat there, staring at the empty screen. One of the ushers came in and asked me if I was all right.

“No,” I said. “But it’s okay. I will be.”

I will be.

I explained to the usher that the movie hit me more than I thought it would, that my husband and I are/were writers, and that Michael passed away last June. He sat down next to me. Not in the seat Michel would have been in, I noticed, but to my left. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “What was your husband like?”

What a nice young man. We talked for a while, and when I left, walking out into the chilly almost-midnight air, my tears were gone. The young man waved at me, and he was whistling as he began to sweep.

But here’s the thing.

That movie was the best damn movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. Even if my situation wasn’t what it is, this movie would have entered my bloodstream and just left me fully involved and invested in what was going on on the screen. I felt for the writer. I felt for the dog. I felt for the dead writer.

And because of my situation, I then felt for Michael and for Ursula. And for me.

I will watch the movie again when it’s out on streaming. When I got home that night, I ordered the book, which is by Sigrid Nunez. It arrived on Monday, and I am now deep in it, and I am just as wowed by the book as I was by the movie. This is a movie that Michael and I would have talked about for days. But even without him here, I know what he would have said. I know what I would have said.

The conversation is happening anyway. Despite the empty seat.

Some people would wonder why I let myself be “triggered”. First off, I didn’t know fully what the movie was about. But if I had, I would have gone anyway – it was a writer movie. I also didn’t leave when I realized the storyline. I deliberately do not avoid “triggers”, because the more I learn, the more I experience, the more I am exposed to people who have experienced the same thing – and survived! – the more I see that I’m going to be okay too. The more I witness other people’s strength, the more I realize my own.

I’ll be okay, I said to that nice usher. And – spoiler alert – the writer and the dog in the movie end up okay too. I am following in their footsteps.

And I think I want to adopt a Great Dane.

(By the way – that usher? I feel like I am reminded over and over again about the goodness of the majority of people on this planet, even in the midst of all the chaos we’re witnessing. As long as there are people like that young usher, asking me if I’m okay, and then sitting down beside me to talk, the world is going to be fine.)

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Four words (well, technically, three words because one word was used twice) were presented to me this week which provided a huge moment of, if not happiness, then great relief. My feeling is that most people will see these words and wonder why they brought happiness or relief. They were:

Traumatic grief. Complex grief.

Why the relief? Because suddenly, what I’ve been feeling has been identified, defined…and I’m not the only one. Which means I’m not going crazy.

Having raised an autistic daughter, I’ve been exposed over and over again to the word “spectrum”. No matter what my daughter did or didn’t do, no matter if what she was doing or not doing was done or not done by tons of other children identified with autism, she was on the spectrum. Olivia is twenty-four now, and as I watched her grow, I also watched the word “spectrum” grow. It seemed to be applied to just about everything as the years went by.

And now…grief is also on a spectrum. I am on a spectrum.

From the time of Michael’s accident (January 17, 2024) to now, I have had so many wide-eyed realizations in the middle of feeling like maybe I finally had a handle on things. I don’t think I’ll ever forget sitting at my writing table in the little house on the Oregon coast last summer, watching out the window as a couple I’d just spoken to as I took my morning walk moved down the beach. They’d told me they were there, celebrating their thirtieth anniversary. Me, with my lack-of-filter mouth, blurted out that I would have been celebrating my twenty-fifth anniversary, but my husband just died, which, of course, put a pall on the conversation. They couldn’t get away fast enough.

Tucked back in the house, watching them walk away, I suddenly felt that the word “died” wasn’t right. And that’s when I got hit upside the head with the realization that my husband didn’t die. He was killed.

And from there, it was like all the kinds of death just unfolded themselves in a list behind my eyelids. Old age. Natural causes. Illness. An accident caused by the person who died. Murder.

And then Michael. Dead because he was killed by a negligent driver who not only struck him with his passenger van, but then ran over him with all four tires.

Killed.

Out loud in that little house, with only the ocean to talk to, I said, “No wonder I’m so angry.”

I am someone who is, unfortunately, a perfectionist, and who always wants to do things right. Since Michael’s death in June, I have struggled hard with trying to figure out what is the right way to grieve. From people around me, lovely people, I’ve heard all sorts of things. I’ve been told I’m strong, when I don’t feel strong. I’ve been told I’m amazing, when I feel anything but. I was asked how I could stand up in front of a huge crowd, celebrating my studio’s 20^th birthday, and read both a section from Michael’s forever unfinished novel and poetry that I’ve written about this experience without breaking down. Which made me wonder if I was expected to burst into tears. Or maybe I was supposed to stop and apologize and say I was unable to go on. I’ve also been told I seem removed, which made me further wonder just how I was supposed to appear.

And then, of course, a few weeks ago, I was told I was in “pity city”, a phrase which pretty much tipped me over the edge.

To the people closest to me, I’ve asked, “What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to be?”

And the answer is usually the same: “Just keep on being yourself.”

But when “pity city” hit, I felt like I was failing grief. How in the world do you fail grief? But I somehow was. At that point, I didn’t see myself as on a “spectrum”. I saw myself as alone. And abnormal.

I am definitely experiencing lighter days. Which is wonderful. But then I still had a day last week where I realized, as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning, that I was not going to be able to get out of bed. And, if I did get out of bed, I was going to be worthless. There would be no talking to me on that day. Luckily, it was a day off for me (and one thing I’ve noticed is that these bad days do seem to appear mostly on my days off…maybe because that’s when I can allow the bad days in?). However, I did have an event scheduled that day, where I was to be speaking before an audience. There was just no way. When I talked to my dog that morning, it was in a whisper. That was the most I could do. And so I canceled.

Which I never do.

Not only am I on the spectrum of grief, but I am on a spectrum of emotion. They change, minute by minute. And they are all, apparently, okay.

So this week, I spoke with someone who specializes in grief recovery, and not only that, she lost her partner years ago in a similar fashion to Michael. When she explained traumatic grief and complex grief to me, I recognized myself and what I’ve been feeling so clearly, I might as well have been looking in a mirror.

The definition of traumatic grief: Traumatic grief, also known as traumatic bereavement, occurs when a death or loss is experienced in a highly distressing or shocking way, leading to symptoms beyond typical grief. In addition to typical grief symptoms like sadness and longing, individuals with traumatic grief may experience intrusive thoughts and memories about the loss and the circumstances surrounding it; hypervigilance or heightened awareness of potential threats; difficulty processing the loss and accepting the reality of the death; emotional dysregulation, such as intense anger, anxiety, or detachment; and physical symptoms, like shakiness, nausea, or trouble breathing.

And this gave me my Moment how? Because it means I’m not going crazy. It means I can do things, like get up in front of a large audience and read Michael’s work, and then have a day where I can’t get out of bed. It means I can seem removed to one person, but then have my eyes fill with tears at an offhand comment by someone else.

It means I’m okay, even when I’m not. And it means I’m going to be okay too.

There is so much to learn.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.