In 2002, Jim's wife, Cecily - an avid health advocate and non-smoker - was diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer mere weeks after they discovered their daughter was autistic. She died in 2004. Writing helped Jim cope during this time and he sent out regular emails to a mailing list of friends and family detailing Cecily's and his fight against her illness. He later compiled many of these emails into a book that became "Life's That Way."
I've been putting off reading the book because of my ability to empathize with the position of caregiver and significant other to a cancer patient. A few weeks ago I finally picked up the Kindle version on Amazon, but I still find that I need to read it in small doses. It's a very intimate, personal struggle and forces me to absorb it in pieces I can handle.
Near the beginning of the book, Jim has a quote from the memoirs of Edward Teller, a theoretical physicist who was involved with the Manhattan Project and fathered the hydrogen bomb. It's a quote that I initially found somewhat at odds with what I knew about Teller, but on reflection and a little deeper study, both sums up the man and where I am in my life now.
After Randy died, I continued on autopilot. I had been a caregiver for so long that I didn't know what else to do. I took two weeks off from work as "funeral leave" but I didn't spend them mourning. Instead, I went home and immediately sorted his belongings into keep, donate, and toss. I kept very little.
I had everyone fooled into believing that I was coping perfectly - even myself. I truly believed that between the counseling, the medication, and my own self-awareness, I was right on track. I mapped out my recovery with the precision of a master draftsman. I researched the five stages of grief and planned out how long I could afford to spend on each one. I knew I could make it through this; I was doing everything right.
Everything except actually grieving.
I'm not sure how long it took me to realize that something was wrong. The detachment I felt the first two weeks continued on through the following months. I sometimes teared up thinking of Randy, but those one or two tears were a luxury. I knew it wasn't normal, yet I had read so much about the individual processing of loss that I figured this was just how I was going to deal with everything.
Looking back, I realize I should have known better. When I get a cold or the flu, I don't tend to stay sick for very long. Instead, I get violently ill for a very short period of time. It's like my body is aware that we have such a limited time here, it's best to get any inevitable unpleasantness out of the way as quickly as possible.
It wasn't until six months after his death that the pain finally hit me. My world came to a screeching halt. I stopped eating. I stopped sleeping. I'm not entirely sure how I continued to make it to work, to be honest. For about two weeks I mourned with everything in me. A very close friend asked me to set up an appointment with my counselor (whom I had previously seen but no longer needed regular visits with) but I refused. I told her that this sorrow had been there all along, waiting until I was ready, and there was nothing to do but batten down the hatches and ride out the storm.
I survived but coming out the other side of this process I felt my world had shifted. I could no longer stay in the same place doing the same job and living in the same house, because I was no longer the same person. A core part of me had changed. I realized it was time to move on. In doing so, I threw the metaphorical dart at the map (the details of that decision were actually a little more scientific) and decided to sell everything I own and move to the West Coast to pursue my first love of the arts.
I am terrified. This is everything I know and I'm putting it behind me for an uncertain future in music and acting. It's the first time in my life that I've made a conscious decision to go where I want to go, rather than letting circumstances pull me along. I'm struggling not to get overwhelmed by the details of selling the house and finding a new job and let them talk me into staying in my comfort zone. I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt my own sanity at times, but there is a fire in my gut that says this is right, and I'm going to follow it wherever it takes me.
“When you get to the end of all the light you know, and it’s time to
step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two
things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand
on, or you will be taught how to fly.” - Edward Teller
