Endings...

I will no longer post on this blog. Endings are new beginnings. I have a completed a first draft of my nonfiction book: Dubious Grief, and feel it is time to stop blogging on this site. I have a page for my dubious grief writing on my other blog. You can follow me at: http://jeanblanchardwrites.blogspot.com.

Lost moments...

The holidays are fast approaching and sadness fills my heart. This is the third holiday season since Glen died. I still feel the emptiness that comes with loss, but don't feel compelled to fill the hole in my heart with busy - doing, doing, doing. I received a card from Glen's friend Larry and tears filled my eyes as I realized I'd not told him Glen had died. So I will write a note and send it off this week. Larry has retied and moved to upstate New York. Although I am glad Larry and his wife have retired together, it pricked my heart because this was lost to me when Glen died - no growing old together for us. Retirement is not the same without someone to share it with.

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Mom Dream...

I am off to see my 91 year-old mother on Monday. I haven't seen her in six months and know her dementia has gotten worse as well as her physical health. I am going home to say good-bye, not for Mom but for myself. Last night I had a dream about Mom. She and I were sitting somewhere together. I was looking at her face - which was years younger than she is now. And she had on bright red lipstick. She wanted me to give her a kiss. I told her I wouldn't kiss her until she wiped off her lipstick. I've thought about the dream all day trying to make sense of it. I don't know for sure, but I think I wanted her to wipe off her lipstick because it represented a mask, as if she were hiding her age, her frailty, her closeness to death. And I wanted to kiss my real Mom good-bye.

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Memories...

Lots of memories flood over me. Listening to “Alice’s Restaurant” three times over the holiday - always makes me cry as I remember all the wonderful times shared with Glen over the years. I guess the third time through an “event” without Glen has distanced me emotionally and then wham! The wave crashes down but I ride the wave back with new understanding. Time moves, but memories linger...

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Saying Goodbye...

Mom turns ninety-one in a few days. I haven’t seen her since my visit in June. Back then I worried because I didn’t feel sad; I didn’t really feel anything. Uncomfortably numb. Deep denial she was dying. Or perhaps denial of my impending grief. I struggled throughout the following months to understand why I didn’t feel sad that she would soon die. Reports of her declining health didn’t awaken my grief. I said, “She’s old, she’s going to die, she’s had a good life...” Last year when Mom turned ninety the family gathered to celebrate with her. This year Mom’s birthday celebration will coincide with Thanksgiving. Mom says, “I just want to live until my birthday...” At last sadness engulfs me, tears fill my eyes, I feel the pain of loss. I will go to visit Mom in a few weeks, not to celebrate her birthday, but for a chance to say goodbye, and to grieve.

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More waves...

This morning I was overcome with an intense wave of sadness. I think it was triggered earlier this week when I heard what Steve Job's final words were "OH Wow, oh wow, oh wow" just before he died. I've been trying to remember what Glen's last words to me were, but I can't find them in my memories. I remember when our friends and their 3-year old were leaving the house the weekend before Glen died. He said, "Goodbye baby" in response to the 3-year old's goodbye to him. I can't remember him speaking again. So now I grieve for a lost goodbye...

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Boxes of Glen's books

This week I've gone through four boxes of Glen's books. I found a paperback sci-fi I'd read a very long time ago - The Disappearance - by Philip Wylie. Originally written in the early 1950's and republished in the 1970's (when I probably read it) the book explores what happens on Earth where the men disappear from women's world and women disappear from men's world. As I reread the book my grief is sparked - because in my world now, there is no Glen. I have four more boxes of books to go through. Maybe I'll find other familiar titles and reread them too.

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