Hallam Died

In the early 90's I took a seminar in Victorian Literature.  It was a small class, only 11 of us, taught by an amazing instructor.  Who *really* loved the Victorian era, and wanted us to learn, well, everything.

It was exhausting.  The class met once a week.  We were supposed to have read that week's novel (have you ever read an 1800's novel?  Really really long,  Really really involved.  Lots of sturm und drang and angst.  Every single adjective they could think of. ).  In addition, we had to research some aspect of Victorian life and write an essay on it.  Of which we made copies for everyone and were expected to have read the other 10 essays from a previous week.  And do at least one long class presentation each.

As the term wore on, we all began to look like Victorian waifs--hollow cheeks and shadowed eyes.  Came the class where the reading assignment had been Tennyson's "In Memorian" which is a poem of grief over the death of his friend Hallam.  A very long poem.  A poem that goes on for 90 pages.  Most people will recognize one line:  "'Tis better to have loved and lost; than never loved at all."  That's one line.  There are a couple of thousand more.

Dr. Fenstermaker opened the class.  "All right.  "In Memorian."  Who would like to start?

Crickets.

Finally someone spoke up.  "Hallam  died."

Dr. F:  "Would anyone like to expand on that?"

Another student, who had been resting her forehead on the table, lifted it: "Tennyson mourned."

Dr. F:  "Perhaps a bit more?"

Another voice:  "A lot."

Dr. F:  "Come on--let's get going."

We all looked at each other. The consensus was that we had about summed it up.  Tennyson had lost a friend, he grieved, and the rest was commentary.  A *lot* of commentary.


I've decided that grief is like any other major life event--endlessly fascinating to the one who has experienced it, and to everyone else--not so much.

I was at a party once, and ran into a woman I had known a decade or so earlier.  We had both been secretaries in different departments but sometimes borrowed each other's professors.  My point is that we had never been particularly close but we knew each other.  So of course, "Hey, --how have you been?"  Well, turned out that her husband had died several years earlier, and after 45 minutes of hearing about it I was feeling like one of those animals that chew off their own leg  to escape a trap.  Not that I wasn't sympathetic; it just wasn't what I had come to the party for.

I'm trying not to do that.  People ask how I'm doing; I say I'm hanging in there.  And then talk about something else.

How am I doing?  I didn't know that someone could hurt this much and for this long and still function, that's how.  And I know I've got a lot more to go.

So in the privacy of my own home, with only the cats to annoy, I can wallow.  Tennyson is bit lofty, but I've been indulging in Andrew Lloyd Weber.  "Til I Hear You Sing" is a lovely song and in my head I alter the words "hear you sing" to "hear your voice".  (If you want to be able to hum along, the song is   Til I Hear You Sing (on youtube--search it if the link doesn't work).   (BTW, the singer, Ramin Karimloo, has a helluva voice)

                              "The day starts, the day ends; time crawls by
                                Night steals in, pacing the floor
                              The moments creep, but I can't bear to sleep"

Still pertains.  For two months I slept on the couch.  I'm back in the bedroom, but I have to pile stuff (like laundry baskets) on his side of the bed.  I rarely get to sleep before 1:00 a.m.  To sleep, you have to let your guard down, so I have to wait until I'm totally crashing.

                                 "Weeks pass, and months pass, seasons fly
                                     Still you don't walk through the door"

There are many time I hear the cats in the next room, and I somehow think that's the sound of him coming in the house. Or I was working in my cottage the other day, and somehow expected him to drop by for a visit after working in his barn or the garden.

                                      "And sometimes, at night time, I dream that you are there
                                          But wake holding nothing but the empty air"

Yeow!  Need I say more?

                                             "Years come and years go; time runs dry
                                              Still I ache down to the core
                                             My broken soul can't be alive and whole."

No.  I wrote about that in April, when I discussed the Venn diagram of overlapping lives.  There's a big chunk of me missing.  And that's permanent.

                                                   "I turn and it fades away
                                                      and you're not here"

Still not here.  I keep thinking he'll show up somehow.  Maybe when all this COVID weirdness is finally over and things crawl back to some kind of normal.

                                                "Let hopes pass, let dreams pass
                                                  Let them die
                                                 Without you, what are they for?"

That might be the subject of a future post.

                                            "I'll never feel
                                              No more than halfway real"

I spent the last 48 years with Bob becoming the person that I was.  Now somehow I'm becoming someone else.  Just no sure who.  I still often say "we" and, to use modern parlance, I still identify as being married.

So that's the wallowing.  I've earned it, and I'll wallow (and cry) all I want, as long as I'm not pinning someone else in a corner while I do it.  And the fact that Tennyson or Lloyd Weber or Shakespeare can express this for me shows that my sense of loss is universal.  I may feel terribly alone--and trust me, I do -- but this is a path many others have trod before.

And even now what one of my professors called "the dry AED wit" rears its head.  The link to the song above is just the lyrics.  While you're on youtube, you can also find a video of it--complete with puffy shirt, tears in eyes, and the lost love wafting about.  Even I can't wallow quite that much. It's just a wee bit too over the top.  And even though Karimloo has a gorgeous voice, he also has a cute little baby face that's just a little bit at odds with the whole gestalt.
     

Strange Maskings and a Small African Drum

Living out here in the swamp, it's easy to think that I'm the only one whose life has been irrevocably changed.  That "out there" people are going about their normal, everyday lives.

But sometime I have to venture "out there" and it's a little weird.  I had my first appointment with my new doctor (my old one had the temerity to retire on me).  Online.  Me at home on my computer, her at the office (I suppose) on hers.  That was my physical exam (I guess I looked OK).   But I did have to go in because I needed shots (anti pneumonia and shingles ) and to get my blood work done.  So at least they don't just mail the needles to you and tell you to do it at home.

I went to the new clinic (The Center For Aging---ack!).  Sure is different.  My old one you'd go in and read magazines in the waiting room until they call you back.  Now you call them when you get there--and sit in the car until they say you can come in.  Then you pop on a mask and go in (where the first thing someone says is "did they tell you that you could come in?")  Got my shots, and then I was allowed to go into the lab (instead of back out to my car) where 2/3 of the chairs were roped off, everyone was masked . . . and no magazines.

So strange.

I've decided that I need a djembe (small African drum) because why not??  I'm starting to realize that it's going to be a long time before I can go take an exercise class, or sit on the porch at the Museum farm with my friend and spin, or anything of that ilk.  And I want to do more than sit around the house and mope.  I should learn something new.  Join a drumming circle.  Well--watch a drumming circle on youtube (I recently posted on FaceBook that I'm back to playing with imaginary friends)

So I contact the wife of a co-worker who is a belly dancer because I figure she might know some drummers who could advise me on a good beginner drum.  Lo and behold, she had a friend who wanted to sell hers.

In the "Before Times" this woman and I might have met at a coffee shop or equivalent and chatted for a bit.  But that was then, and this is now.  We arranged to meet in a parking lot.  We got out of our cars - both wearing masks - and violated the 6-foot distancing rule for a few seconds to exchange drum for cash, and then both back into our cars to drive off.

So now I can have one-woman drum circle.  Not exactly ideal, but it will have to do for now.

Building the Reef

If you build it, they will come.  This is definitely true for sea life; you can have a relatively bare space of ocean floor, but put something out there (say, sink an old car or a ship) and within months it will be teeming with barnacles, seaweed, fish and other creatures.

There is a company in Alabama (Walter Marine/Reefmaker) that makes cement and stone artificial reefs.  They are large (8 ft. high, 1500 pound) three sided pyramids.

And, if you like, you can buy one, personalize it, and turn it into a memorial.  And this is what I did for Bob.

Early morning on May 26, I got up and drove to Panama City, where our friend Kim lives.  God Bless her, she wanted to drive me to the Reefmaker for what is called "the pour."  I'm not sure what we were expecting, (after all, we were there to part with Bob's mortal remains)  but it was not to drive up to a chain link gate in a cement yard.  But why not?  And as we walked around, I felt good about the place.  A funeral home with a coffin and people in suits and dresses talking in hushed tones would have seemed out of place for Bob.  But this place would appeal to the inner 8-year-old.  Lots of big equipment and metal and rocks.  Bob was a maker (as am I).  And this was a place where things were being made.

Seahorses for an underwater museum

And where I would take part in the making of his memorial.  I had brought along Bob's ashes and other items to embed in the cement.  A doll to represent his famed "Island of the Dolls" scene on the haunted trail.  One of his scale models, and a first-place prize medal.  A packet of Panzit noodles, for his love of the Philippians.  An amulet from his sister.   A copy of the Shakespeare sonnet 116.  And the ashes of his cat, Fiona.

And here are the two of us (well, the three of us.  Fiona is in the box with him), on our last road trip together.

Yes, that's a wheel weight in the middle.  Bob always picked them up because the lead was good for casting bullets.  Got a little obsessive about it.  And Kim happened to have one in her car

The three large frames are laid out, the cement poured in, and then it's time.  First, Bob's ashes.

Then, personal items.

Finally, I read the sonnet ("let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments").  I had planned on reading it with grace and sorrow, but the truth is that I broke down completely and could barely choke the words out.

But then a lovely thing happened.  There were two more memorial reefs being poured that day, and a woman from one of them came over to talk to me, crying hard, because she could see how much I was hurting and wanted to give her condolences.

I wish I could thank her, and tell her how important that was.  Earlier this week I was listening to an NPR article on grieving during the pandemic.  It said that two things were needed:  Time to grieve alone and time to grieve in public.  To many in isolation with family, the alone time is hard to find.  But I've had that in abundance.  But the other, the public grief, I haven't.  The article said it was important to let people see your pain, to bear witness to your loss.  And mostly, the rare times I've been around other people (like at work) I haven't shown it.

I finally felt that I had given Bob his funeral.  And my hand, in a final farewell.

(with Kim's thumbprint for good measure.)

We were through by noon.  My mind, always clicking, thought we could be back at her house by three or so, and I could be back home a couple of hours later.  I reined myself in.  I needed time to decompress, to process.  I asked Kim if we could take the coast road home (shorter in distance but much longer in time).  The coastline is lovely here, and we found a place under a shelter to picnic (and make snarky comments about the people crowded far too closely on the beach).  I spent the night with her and was more prepared to go home the next day.

*******Nothing in my world is ever totally serious.  Two funny events that day.  One--when we were going to our reef molds, the family on the other side (not the woman who came to see me--this was the third group) was starting to put the ashes in the cement.  At first it was the father, but his wife started whanging at him "you're spilling him!  you're spilling him!" and grabbed the bag and distributed the ashes herself.  But when she was finished, she started shaking the bag to get the last bits out--and poor Kim happened to be slightly downwind and got enveloped in a gentle cloud of Dave and quite possible breathed some of him in.  (This is probably funnier for me than it was for Kim).

The other was a picture that Kim couldn't resist taking because she has a dirty mind.  The final pyramid will have a central support.  Glad you're happy to be here, Bob.