Grief is Love E-Book

Mary Deal

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

After losing her long-term partner, through poetry and essay, author Mary Deal shares the turmoil and oftentimes bewildering depths of her grief.

This memoir exposes the spectrum of emotions with which those suffering loss will become familiar or already experience. The author holds back nothing of her odyssey of despair. Her experiences and much she has learned to help herself provide other survivors a chance to see that they are not alone. Though everyone’s grief is different, all grief is surprisingly similar in its basis. Hope is found in familiarity with another’s grief and no one should endure the bereavement process alone.

Following the author’s progression through relentless sorrow, and finally redemption, lets others know there is validation for their emotional suffering. An easing of the pain occurs as the memory of loss takes its place among all other memories of the life shared with departed loved ones. This memoir offers helpful advice for survivors who endure their grief, until the puzzle of life meshes back together again in a new pattern.

Leseprobe

GRIEF IS LOVE

MARY DEAL

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

1. Beginnings

2. Back to the Present

3. Fleeting Moments

4. Wise Words from My Counselor

5. Hope in Untruths

6. Partners Always

7. Beyond My Control

8. At That Very Moment

9. When the Real Heartache Began

10. Playful Names

11. The Hauntings

12. A Long-Time Friend

13. Mementos Forever

14. A Reason for Crying

15. An Understanding Neighbor

16. Stop Recycling the Pain

17. Sage Advice

18. Finding Answers

19. Opening Old Wounds

20. Motivations

21. Embedded Images

22. Death of a Friend

23. Forgive Others

24. Did I Hear You?

25. A Friend’s Thoughts

26. Getting Beyond the Regrets

27. What is Wallowing?

28. In Your Own Time

29. The Moment of Death

30. A Neighbor Who Cares

31. Dwelling on Memories

32. When Does It End?

33. A Journal Entry

34. The Nesting Urge

35. An Overall View

36. With the Passage of Time

37. Still Learning

38. How Change Takes Place

39. A Major Epiphany

40. Helping Family Cope

41. What I Believe

42. Adjusting

43. Some Last Words

Ronald Jerome Holte: Obituary

Acknowledgments

To My Readers

You might also like

About My Publisher

About the Author

Books by Mary Deal

Copyright (C) 2022 Mary Deal

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Tyler Colins

Cover art by CoverMint

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

In memory of

Ronald Jerome Holte

for sharing the best years of our lives

and for memories I will never let fade.

FOREWORD

I remember hearing the delivery truck backing up with its accompanying repetitive ding, alarming others that a vehicle was in reverse. How dare it make a delivery at this time! My mother had just died, and although my world had immediately stopped, the rest of the world continued! How dare it! No moment of silence, no pause; nurses were coming in and out the room. I even heard unrelated laughter outside the room.

Nothing stops us in our tracks quicker than the death of a loved one. And nothing seems to wish to keep us there as unaddressed Grief.

Embracing the pain of our loss can merely be perceived as a pragmatic exercise to remove us from the acute emotional pain we are experiencing, but it is much more than a mere utilitarian exercise. Sitting with our pain sheds light on our love, on what is important and essential in life, and, in short, brings to us a new perspective of our pain and of our emotional suffering.

I met Mary as Ron was dying. I was her Chaplain. We sat outside at a table and Mary shared with me her and Ron’s story. There is power in the Narrative that we have constructed throughout our lives. Our Story is about who we are, what we have done, where we have been, and what hopes we have, or had.

Mary shared with me her and Ron’s story—the things they had done, the places they had been, and the various places they had lived while in Hawaii. Mary’s story was imbued with meaning, joy, fulfilment, and now it had become shadowed by pain.

I encouraged Mary to speak her love to Ron, but also to begin writing letters to Ron. Mary is an author, an artist, and deeply spiritual. She had no difficulty picking up the pen and to start processing her pain. To the letters were added meaningful poems reflective of her love for Ron, as well as of her pain in his death.

Mary’s poems evolved along with her pain. Dark ones began to be mixed with elements of light and joy upon recalling previous times in which things were different.

Grief never really ends. It just becomes different. Processing the pain of our loss through embracing it, writing about it, sitting with it, and asking questions of it, helps to change our perspective of our suffering and pain. Mary recognized that things never get better after the loss of a loved one, but they will and do become different, and that writing about her pain and embracing such pain was essential in bringing about that difference—a difference that allows us new perspectives . . . and even new opportunities.

I have read the poems in this book. Mary usually shared them with me upon their completion. Before you are the very poems that helped Mary gain insight to her love for Ron, as well as to help her gain insight into living.

“Tim” ~ M.Div.

Chaplain

Bereavement Counselor

Scottsdale, Arizona

INTRODUCTION

One thing is certain: Grief Is Love. When we mourn our dearly departed, we long to hold them again, kiss and hug and continue with life, but we cannot. We’re left with no outlet for the love we feel for them, except to hold that very love in our hearts. Facing that they are gone, being unable to express that emotion to them, causes grief. Grief is love.

This book is both a tribute to Ronald Jerome Holte, my partner of thirty-one years, and it’s a memoir meant to offer aid and encouragement to survivors who endure their own period of grief.

I must warn you that some of the writings included here are sad and heart-wrenching while others may simply be emotionally raw. I am baring my heart. If I can’t do that, then what is there with which you who suffer and seek support might find rapport and validation for your own grief and nearly unnatural experiences? As I am learning, grief is not something anyone should have to do alone. The creation of this book comes from a place of pain. Most books I’ve read dealing with grief and bereavement are written, perhaps a year or more after the author has developed a better grip on their own anguish. Yet, the writing seemed sterile and formal, at least to me. I write this book from inside my pain, while it is ongoing and, at times, maddening.

One thing I ask is that you not feel sorrow for me. While I am normally quiet, meditative, positive, even passive-aggressive, I am never the narcissist. I write this book to give insight into the moments of acute anguish and desolation to which you may relate from your own place of distress and find validation for your heartache. Almost everyone in their lifetime will face a period such as this. Some will move through it well. Others, like myself, will have great difficulty enduring it. I bare my soul that others will find validation for their immeasurable sorrows.

If you are squeamish about emotional instability, the process of dying, the torment of grief and suffering, and medical procedures, maybe you shouldn’t read this book. I lay my emotions bare to let you know that what you may be experiencing from losing a loved one is not much different than my heartache. All the upheaval that you’re enduring through your loss is okay, anyway you choose to express it.

As a book on immediate grief, I write a lot of my emotions and moods through poetry, which you will find here. I’ve written poetry in the past but am mostly a book-length story writer. With Ron’s passing, a new door has opened and my feelings pour out in verse. The poems aren’t presented in any chronological order following occurrences and changes that I’m going through. They are written whenever emotions and feelings overwhelm me or when my mind dwells on something painful and expresses what I’m feeling through words. They are like snapshots of turmoil welling up at unexpected moments.

I hope I have written the kind of poetry that you can feel. All poems and essays are my own except where the author is noted. I’ve filled in some blanks of Ron’s and my life together, only for continuity. What’s important here is to assure you, the reader, that any grief you’re experiencing, however devastating, is normal, and that you are not alone. I am going through it too.

Also included in this book are messages that I’ve shared from some friends of Ron’s and mine, in their own words, who’ve also lost loved ones. My son, Dean Alan Deal (himself a magnificent writer), lost his father. You’ll find some of his responses included. Ron’s and my friends come from different countries and cultures. You may read varying opinions and outlooks about death, grief, and bereavement, and maybe varying religious practices. Some believe in an afterlife; others do not.

I have gleaned a lot of information for this book from listening to how friends have dealt with their grief processes and wish to pass their solutions along to others. My counselor, too, is a veritable fountain of knowledge and encouragement.

My hope is that you find something among these pages which helps you understand that your grief is completely normal, as you may come to understand from the widely varying experiences of a few others. Despite the anguish, we will all adjust according to what our life situations require for us to live with the memories of those we have loved and lost. Be open-minded and find the validation that you deserve.

PLEASE NOTE: It is my intention to donate a portion of the net proceeds from the first year of sales of this book to the American Cancer Society – Renal Research. Get your friends to buy a copy. All this information can help anyone live through the bereavement period—whether for yourself, or to help family or friends.

Outside In

In the years before you

I felt like a loner

always on the outside looking in

I’ve never been a joiner

maybe that’s why

but outside was a lonely place

Then we met

Suddenly I was a part of something

a part of you and me

no longer on the outside

but wrapped securely in your arms

building shelter from within

a place I’d never known

till you smiled sweetly

and wrapped your love around me.

1

BEGINNINGS

In the economic downturn of the late 1980s, I was self-employed as a business consultant, yet, due to the slow-down, my contracts were not being renewed. Companies were also laying off employees. I happened to be speaking to a friend, telling her that I had saved money for another trip to Kauai.

Sadly, I then needed to rely on my savings till finding other work. The friend suggested I meet an acquaintance of hers who also loved Kauai. I agreed; it would be like a breath of fresh air, being able to share with someone about that island paradise. Doing so would take my mind off my uncertain soon-to-be unemployed predicament.

Later, after speaking with him, she told me his name was Ron Holte and that he approved of her giving me his phone number. He lived in Sacramento. I lived in San Francisco, 100 miles away via a two-hour drive.

I waited a few days building up my nerve. On April 1, 1990, a Sunday, I called him, and we chatted with and about each other. Something clicked right then on the phone. It was a sense of pure friendship.

On Friday, April 6th, we met! I drove to his office in Sacramento. I was surprised how tall he was, 6’2” and about 210 pounds, with a little bit of stomach. He had a full head of the most beautiful, whitest hair I’ve ever seen. His warm brown eyes told me what kind of soul he had. That was what mattered. I learned he was 56. I was 49 at the time. After lunch, we walked around the Sacramento Capitol grounds, visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, where I located the inscribed names of two former high school friends.

Ron and I spoke on the phone every day. He called me. He was interested! We spoke about Kauai a lot. I did not wish to jump into this friendship too fast. He spoke about his work as a business Financial Consultant, managing accounting, taxes, and investments. I spoke about my self-employment predicament. He suggested I come again to Sacramento. He was sure if I would relocate, he could help me find work. On weekends, he performed accounting and payroll work for five different charities in the area. He knew people who knew people and had contacts through his regular work.

On April 21st, Saturday, I drove to Sacramento. He would spend the day showing me around and helping me get acquainted with the large metropolitan area. When he opened his front door, he held Mandy, his tiny Yorkshire Terrier, lovingly under his arm. Seeing him with Mandy lightened my heart. It was a fun day and our conversations always included Kauai. It was amazing how much we both knew about that island. I learned he would visit the island once or twice a year in spring and fall to play golf, get away from his extremely busy work life, and relax.

As the days and weeks passed, my work contracts ended one by one. I continued to watch the newspapers and visit an employment agency for job openings in the Sacramento area. I drove up there for at least three interviews, traveling the two hours up and the two hours back in the same day. Ron didn’t like that. My twelve-year-old 280Z had over 120K miles on it; he felt it wasn’t as safe as I thought it to be.

We continued to see each other at least once a week. He didn’t wish to put Mandy in a kennel so he could drive to San Francisco. He always put her into a kennel, however, when he flew to Kauai, and felt bad when she was returned to him one-to-two pounds lighter and weak. She was only ever four-to-five pounds. Due to his charity work, he couldn’t get away on weekends.

Over time, we had become very close as friendships go. Ron provided a Shell gas card to pay for my trips. If my car should break down, he would pay all expenses. He paid to have my car checked for security. Early on, I stayed in a nice motel, at my expense. I insisted, but my savings were diminishing very quickly and, as if he knew, Ron offered to let me stay in his house. I could take the second bedroom.

We had grown fond of each other. I wasn’t looking for a physical relationship and he respected that. In my heart, I knew Ron. I felt his soul and his need for understanding, and for someone to allow him to be the person he was, big heart, pensive, introverted and all. We grew tight like magnets drew, and proved that love was much more than sex.

One day, he stunned me with a question: would I like to go to Kauai with him in June. “I have a timeshare,” he said. “You can have the bedroom. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

I was shocked, couldn’t say much except, “I couldn’t afford such a trip.”

He simply continued. “You can have the car too. Just drop me at the golf course and you can go visit your friends. The only thing I’d like is for us to have dinner together, be in each other’s company in the evenings.”

He had a lot of Air Miles to use for himself and didn’t mind paying for my fare. We flew to Kauai for one glorious week. We hiked the Kalalau Trail and saw much of the island together, taking each other to places either hadn’t been to or known of. He slept on the couch the first night. I could tell he did not rest and, so, we slept together in the big king bed for the rest of the time.

A memory I have is that when we hiked the Kalalau Trail on Kauai’s North Shore, he told me to slow down. I was rushing to see a view over the cliff to photograph. In the middle of a muddy, sloggy section of the trail, I slipped and almost went over the one-thousand-foot cliff. The only thing that saved me was that I grabbed at a tree root and hung on. Ron’s expression, one that I’ve come to know so well, was a non-believing silly half-smile that reminded of his warning though he didn’t say a word.

On July 4th, he again asked me to move in with him. I had not found work; my savings were nearly depleted. He kept reassuring me we would be fine in this relationship we’d begun. He said if I later wanted to return to San Francisco, he would set me up securely so I could safely resume my life in the Bay Area.

In the early morning of July 27th, Friday, I followed the moving van to Sacramento and a new life. Ron came home at noon, bringing lunch. By the time he returned home that evening, my few possessions were in place. Dishes, clothes, curios, assembled as if I had already lived there for some time. Even my business files were in the third bedroom, which he allowed me to set up as my office.

I began working for Ron immediately, helping him with the charities. When I saw the amount of work he did, it made my head spin. I took over managing his personal office while he traveled. One evening, I told him I would pass on a salary and make do with the household allowance he was providing. He was thankful, because he wouldn’t have to lay off the cleaning lady (he didn’t want me cleaning our home when I was doing so much working beside him).

We worked closely and drew closer and closer emotionally. Life went on like that for five years. In addition to working with him, I had time to fulfill my dream of a writing career—and was into writing my second book and receiving royalties.

His mother, with whom he was extremely close, passed away in 1992. Ron was truly weakened. At her gravesite, as they lowered her coffin into the ground and with Ron standing behind me, I felt a rush of emotion from him wash over me the likes I’d never felt before. Once her coffin was in place, he stepped away to a nearby tree. He couldn’t bear to see them drop the lid onto her vault. It represented the finality of her amazing life. Of course, I went with him and found him shaking. I was glad to be at his side to see him through his profound grief. All I could do was support him emotionally while he dealt quietly, inwardly, with his loss.

During the next three years, we traveled, visiting various Hawaiian islands. Getting completely away from our hectic work schedule provided him time to reflect on, and share with me, the loss of his mom. When Ron retired in 1995, we began to carry out plans to move to our island paradise of Kauai.

Wrinkles of Expression

We met during mid-life

You, mature and handsome

Me luckily retaining

some looks from youth

We aged gracefully together

as our faces matured

eyes wizened

reflecting souls

Now that you’re gone

losing youth long forgotten

I miss your weathered face

rugged and durable

full of wrinkles of expression

eyes mirroring the soul

of one grown wise with age

It’s your elderly features

I’ll remember the most

because we grew old together

I can only hope

my wrinkled features

eyes reflecting my soul

show as much expression

of love and compassion

as yours.

2

BACK TO THE PRESENT

Ron suffered renal cancer in 2007, losing his right kidney, and again in 2008, losing his left adrenal gland. The doctor told him this type of cancer always returns after ten years—it will show up in the brain, lungs, bones, or all of them at once. I couldn’t help wondering: it’s good to be informed, but could the prognosis be programming him for future illness?

On November 14, 2020, after seeing his energy waning the past two years, and him complaining of an occasional headache, Ron collapsed. I took him to Emergency, where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Further tests revealed spots on his lungs and a tumor in his remaining adrenal gland. So started the four-month arduous fight to bring him back to health.

The radiation and immunology treatments were working! The first series of treatments had shrunk the tumors incredibly well. Continued treatments showed evidence that the tumors would be reduced to scar tissue and maintained so they would no longer grow.