The right to grieve. The right to grief. The withholding of grief and the disruption of healing. Who has the right to grieve and how much is the right amount to let the disconnected and disenfranchised - the disavowed - the disrupted - to grieve? There is so much to say about this and the harms that we cause each other trying to measure and counter-measure one's right or access to grief. Who has earned the right to grieve more? We parcel out the right to grief like we do any other inheritance - selfishly - in our framing of each other and not necessarily through that of the person who has died.
Today is the fifth anniversary of my husband's death. I laid awake this morning - 2am, 3am, 4am, and I relived that night five years ago. I never talk about it. I have told no one any of this. The first step in healing - speak the truth. Here is my truth.
We were with Mike in the hospital for three days before he died. His family had not told us he was dying until it was immenent. He had been diagnosed as terminal a week to two weeks before his brother called me. The call was cold, dictorial, "you must come now he is going to die. Call the kids". He only called for his brother, my husband, and our children. I was a vehicle to get everyone to the deathbed. I called the kids. Sepsis. Cirociss of the liver. Mike drank himself to death. The slowest of suicides. His kidney's were failing. It is a terrible way to die. The death certificate tells of a biological, physiological death. Our family, his family, attribute Mike's death to a broken heart... to a wife who abandoned her husband and let him die.
My best friends came with me to the hospital to see Mike that first time. I cannot remember if my then 13 year old, 8th grade, daughter was with me or if I brought her over later that day. My husband's girlfriend left when I came in. She didn't need to. I didn't even know who she was. She ended up in the obituary. I did not. I am grateful he didn't spend his last days without love, or at least companionship. Mike needed more love than anyone I ever met. I hope she loved him, as he was. I couldn't. I had to leave or die myself. But that is my reality. That is my truth. I accept that other people's truth is different - dissonance is human.
Mike and I were not living together when he died. We had been together 19 years when he died. We had been married 15. I asked him to leave our home almost a year to the day that he died. I don't think there is anyone except maybe my genetic children, who don't fault me for his death. If I had stayed, he would have lived longer. That point is inarguable. I would have died sooner. That is a tragic and unspoken truth. December 31, 2013 was the last time my husband, in a drunken rage, put his hands on me. He died December 31, 2014. There was a lot of loss and dying in that year. The greatest of which was my giving up on our marriage in order to save my and my youngest child's lives. My older children's greatest resentment is that I didn't leave sooner. That their lives were somehow less important than hers. They have asked, many times over the last five years, why didn't I have the same concern for them? They are right. I prioritized my marriage over their welfare for a very long time.
Until death do us part.
In grief, everyone gets to sit in their own narratives. Those narratives almost never implicate the self. Addiction and death from addiction are almost always someone else's fault. I went through a period when I blamed my husband's family, the doctors, his business partners, his addiction. Today, I sit at my kitchen counter sobbing, blaming only myself, and it feels - right. Today I am dancing with the truth.
The truth is, I never grieved. I felt like I wasn't supposed to grieve - I wasn't allowed to. It would be hypocritical or fake. I was too guilty to let myself feel. They were too angry to permit my sadness. I was allowed only implication - conviction. My sentence was four years of feeling nothing at all. Four years of falling forward... of not only surviving but excelling ... of never letting it show - of not falling apart.
When the call came in at 2 or 3am, I was laying in bed next to the man I was dating. This man and I met in July 2014, Mike and I were still married, we had been separated since January 1st. It didn't mean I didn't love Mike. I was very angry about my life that had slid off the mountain. I was terribly resentful that Mike couldn't or wouldn't stop drinking. He had been warned in March that if he didn't stop drinking he would die. My daughter and I were in the hospital room when the doctor came in. The doctor was very unkind to me, in front of our child, because he thought that Mike lived with me and was drinking with me. Mike lived with his mother and brother's family. I now have the language to say that they handled his disease differently than I did. I chased him, yelled at him, infantilized him, counted his bottles, confronted him, kept alcohol out of the house... they drank with him. I now accept that they were performing a similar level of coping and managing something that wasn't ours to manage. But I was so very angry. Mike needed a liver and had to be alcohol free for six months to even be considered. I told the doctor the truth that day about Mike's drinking and my then sense that his mother and brother were letting him drink. Mike called me after my daughter and I left the hospital and, on speaker phone, screamed at both of us about telling the doctor about the drinking and that they wanted him to go to inpatient rehab and that he wasn't "fucking" going.
That is the day I knew that Mike was dead. There was such a lack of hope in his anger. He had been sober before, for ten years, and was so very brave then. He was fearless at getting his life back. We got married. We had a baby. We were healing our older children. He was a supportive, amazing and caring partner and father. He took care of us. And then he didn't. And all I can think, today, five years after his death is - if only I had loved him more. If only my love had been enough. Before he was hospitalized, missing the first time his daughter danced en pointe in the nutcracker - which is one of her deepest un-healable wounds, Mike went to Vegas with his brother and girlfriend instead of a facility that might have saved his life. I don't think my daughter will ever forgive him. I understand it actually, that final moment when you give in - when you are done.
I remember telling the man I was dating that Mike had died. I have no idea what his response was. I don't remember. I am very thankful that I do not remember. I left my daughter sleeping, because I knew it was her last slumber as a child - a child with a father. I got dressed. It was bitter cold. I went to the hospital. I don't remember much. Mike's brother was there. I had to sign the death paperwork - I was still his wife. I think I saw Mike. I think I had to see him. But I don't remember. I just barely can remember seeing his brother's face, a man known for avoiding emotions at all cost, in tears. I think I was crying. But I don't remember. I only have the body memory. And, it is painful - my sternum struggling to contain a heart that no longer wanted to beat but was beating way too hard. I went home. I don't remember much about anything that happened after that. I think my daughter and I watched the ball drop that night. But I don't remember. Mike and I, our family, used to love New Year's Eve.
The funeral home... as next of kin I had to go. The funeral home staff were kind. It was clear they had dealt with errant slut wives before. They kept the tension to a minimum. I cannot remember whether the kids were there. I remember Mike's mother's deep hateful gaze. She had lost her son. It was my fault for being a bad wife. He had his last drink in her house. It doesn't matter. Everyone grieves in their own skin. They took me and his brother and maybe our eldest child - Mike's oldest genetic child - but I cannot remember if he was there and I so wish I could. I hope I hugged him. I wish I could see the faces. I lost faces for a very long time during that period in my life. I always do during times of deep trauma. I am just realizing today how traumatized I am. It is why I take so many pictures. You cannot take pictures of the dead. I wish I could have photographed all of it, every morbid second. Then, I would have full access and memory of this moment that has caused me insurmountable pain and sorrow. I would be able to hold it up. I would be able to see it. Things we can see are so much easier to overcome.
They let us touch him. Maybe both of the oldest kids were there. I wish I could remember. I remember someone saying they didn't want to touch him. I hung back. Because this was about supporting them. Because I had no right to grief. Because I had been such a terrible wife. But, when they left, I said good bye. I said I was so terribly sorry. I told him I loved him. I kissed his forehead. It was so very very cold. My world was cold. I will never forget how his skin felt on my skin. So so cold, yet still him. It was the last time I saw or touched my husband. And then they took him away forever.
There was no funeral. My eldest - my husband's genetic child - found out shortly thereafter about the man I was living with and cut me out of his life forever. I understand. I have no right to the life Mike and I created together. I was, I am, a terrible wife. I lost the right to grieve with them. And because of me, so did my daughter. I don't think my sons grieved either - my genetic children. We were a family. We grieved as severed islands of guilt, pain, shame, anger and unresolved loss. Mike was what made us a family. We were a good family - and then we weren't. If only I could have been a better wife. Could I have saved his life? Could I have saved my children's father. The maybes are the most painful.
And today, at 2am, 3am, 4am ... I relived my most painful day as an adult. It is a moment that colors everything in my life. I watch my broken children - genetic and not - take on their realities with a ferocity that I simply do not have. If I am being honest, which I tend not to be because this is not about me in real life, I struggle to get through each day. The last five years have been one slow, daily, battle for my life. And, while I am being sloppy with my truths, I will share that I resent Mike for tapping out and leaving me here. He got the easy part. That sounds shitty ... but it's true. Living is so much harder, but the least I can do for my children is fight to live. Mike lost his fight. That may or may not be my fault. And it hurts.
We talk about how people grieve, that it is different for everyone. I don't know that I have ever heard anyone talk about the right to grieve. I have way to many of these "grief restricted" grief disrupted moments in my life. I have never felt that I have the right to grieve: being adopted, my genetic parents, my genetic family, my traumatic childhood, my adoptive father's death, my genetic father's death... my marriage... my husband... my children... There is this way that other people gate keep grief in very determined ways. It becomes self-protective to not grieve rather than fight for your right to grief. I also appreciate that the first person I ever saw grieve was Michael. He had a heart that was unrestricted. It was his gift. He taught me how to love. He taught me how to laugh. He taught me to dance in the rain. And, it would seem, he has taught me how to grieve.
Life is complicated. I am more imperfect than most. But I was loved by an amazing human. He was also imperfect. He died a terrible, painful, death. I am so very glad that I was allowed the opportunity to say goodbye. The rest simply doesn't matter. And, if I can give anyone relief from their grief by blaming me, I am actually really okay with that. We all perform and experience grief in our own time and in our own way. It took me five years to cry for someone I truly loved. I am glad I have stopped trying to outrun this pain and this process. I have claimed my right to grieve. And I am grieving mightly.
We love you Michael. All of us. And you are so terribly missed. The kids and grandkids are doing great. You forged mighty humans. I will stay here and continue to hold them in ways you can no longer do. We feel you with us here with regularity and we are so thankful for your spirit and the salience of your other worldly presence. Please keep walking with us.
More soon...
Bird
*This truth was written in loving memory of Michael J**** P***** March 10, 1956 - December 31, 2014
