Category Archives: grief

dealing with it, feeling it, knowing it, understanding it, reeling over it, embracing it

Dear Odette – by: Chris

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Ode to Odette,

Remember that joker who kept offering up his verses to you at that dive bar in Santa Cruz? Remember that same night when we tried to sleep at the boardwalk and kept getting shooed away by that homeless bully? Remember when you made me swear to you that our story would never end? We took an oath that night and you blessed our union with a bottle of Pabst and rings made out Fudge Stripe cookies. How can you do this to the elves Odette? You ask how I can forgive you and all I can say is that I will always forgive you. The night we first met, you thought I was flirting with Meliah; that I settled for “second best”. But, it was always you, Odette. Meliah laughed at me staring at you and told me that I will spend my life getting over you. I told her I was going to marry you. I miss her too….

I know why you hurt me. I know that you are angry at me for not being supportive enough; for not being able to take away the pain. I am angry at myself too. For months, I would try to think of ways to make you smile again. But, there were bills to pay, and dishes to do, and Zoe to think of. Do you think of that Odette? Who do you think cleaned the house, and played with our daughter, and cooked dinner every damn night for months and months while you were alone with your grief? I never left, Odette. I would freak out just going to work, or the store, or anywhere because I never knew what I would come home to. I prayed that you would still be alive and I hoped that you would be dressed. I even dared to dream that you might, just might, be dancing in the living room again.

You screwed the teenager down the street. And now you are leaving. I guess our story has come to an end. But, it doesn’t have to. We can just start a new chapter. You always talked about moving to San Francisco. Let’s do it. A big city might just be the change we need. Please Odette, will you run away with me, instead of from me?

Soon it will be morning. I will be out taking Zoe to school as you are reading this letter and chewing slowly on the chocolate croissant I will have waited in line to buy you.I can already see your long graceful hand reaching up to play with a loose strand of your soft blonde hair, your left foot tapping anxiously waiting for you to grab your glasses that I will have left on the nightstand next to your favorite cup of tea. Will any of this matter?  If I buy you croissants and tea and leave your glasses where you can find them, will you love me again?

Odette, you need to decide if you are going to stay or go. I am not going to stop you from leaving me. But, I will stop you from taking my daughter. If you go to Brooklyn, Zoe stays here, with me. I’ve given you everything you have ever wanted since the moment I first met you and handed you my favorite guitar pick with my number hastily scratched on the side. I am giving you absolution from your guilt. I am giving you the chance to start fresh, for three of us to start over. I love you Odette, but I am not going to give you permission to remove my daughter from the State.

I will meet you at the football stadium at eleven.

Always,

Chris

“I’m Going To Brooklyn”

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When I got home from my jog, Chris was back from band practice and making dinner.
“Your mom is bringing Zoe home in half an hour” he said.
I sat on a dining room chair and watched him in the kitchen. I couldn’t let this go on any longer.

“Chris, I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” he said,
“I can’t act like everything is ok.”
“You never do”, he said, stirring something in a pan.

“Chris, I said, my heart pounding, “I cheated on you”.
He turned the stove off, put the pan down and walked over to the bar and leaned on it, looking at me.
Then he came around to the table and sat down on the chair next to me.
He looked really shaky and he was crinkling up his forehead. He put his hands on the table and turned his wedding ring round and round. “Odette, I know that,” he said.
“You know, how do you know?”
“Odette, you are completely easy to read and the worst liar ever. I always know what is going on with you and I always have. Of course I know you cheated on me.”
“Then why aren’t you mad?” I was astonished.
“Of course I’m mad. I just haven’t figured out what to do about it yet.”
“What do you think you are going to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Probably forgive you.”

I tried to think of any book or movie or person I had ever read or met who forgave cheating and couldn’t think of any, not one. Maybe he didn’t realize I slept with Jake. “This cheating wasn’t just a kiss” I said, almost spitefully.

“I don’t need details, Odette. I’m sure what I have imagined is probably much worse.”

I kind of doubted that but left it there. “I need to go away for a while,” I gasped.
“Where are you going?” he said, holding out his arms and shaking his head.
“I think I am going to go and stay with Astrid in Brooklyn.”
“You can’t stay for too long. Zoe will miss you too much,” he said.
“I want to bring Zoe”.
His face started to turn red. I could tell he was trying very hard not to get angry.
“OK,” he said, “Maybe you need a little bit of time to get back to normal. I can handle that. How long though?”
“Maybe a couple of months”, I said.
He looked around the house. “It will be very quiet here”, he said.

“Chris”, I said, gathering all my courage, or perhaps stupidity, “I think we should be separated when I go.”
“Separated? What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think that you should be free to do what you want and the same for me.”

Chris started to breathe heavy again and he stood up, fighting tears.
“So you want to go and fuck half of New York for a couple of months and have me be OK with that too?”
“If you are going to start yelling at me, I’m done with this conversation.”
“I just told you that I can forgive you for cheating on me and instead of showering me with gratitude you say you want to leave me and go to New York?” He paced back and forth, “I don’t think it is going to be for a couple of months, Odette. I think it is going to be forever!” he shouted with tears streaming down his face.
“What about our family?” He suddenly composed himself and put both hands on the back of a chair to rest. I just watched him, relieved and alarmed to see some emotion in him.

He sat down again and he looked at me. “What about our little family? What about Zoe? Do you really want her life to be like this? Don’t you want her to have two loving parents who stay together? She needs that more than ever now.”

He tapped his finger on the table, and then looked at me as if he had just figured out something very important. “Listen, it has been a really rough year for you. This stuff happens a lot when you loose someone. It throws everything off.

Grief screws you up, Odette, and I wasn’t supportive enough. This is partly my fault, which is why I have just let you do whatever you needed to do to find some sort of balance; even if that meant loosing you to the douche bag down the street for a few weeks.

Odette, we can get through this. We have been best friends for ten years. Remember when you were pregnant with Zoe and we went to all the appointments together and it was so amazing that we had a little baby growing in your belly. Remember? That is important…that is marriage, that is everything.”

“Yeah” I said. He was right.
“Can we try, Odette? Try and get back to how we were?”

I was quiet. What was happening here? Things were turning around somehow. “I think so I said,” and felt Brooklyn slipping through my fingers.
“Lets just try, just a little harder.” Chris was looking at me so intensely. I’d never seen him so full of emotion. I couldn’t bare it.
“Ok, Chris, I’ll try harder,” I said, not sure exactly what I was agreeing to.

All I Ever Wanted Was Odette – By Chris

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Odette is screwing the kid down the street, Zoe has autism and I am getting gray-fuckin hairs. I do not actually know for sure that she is screwing him, but I know she wants to. We had not made love for months and then, one night, she suddenly leads me to the bedroom. I could tell right away that it wasn’t me she wanted. It wasn’t me she was thinking about when she closed her eyes. I didn’t care though. All I cared about was that Odette was finally letting me touch her, hold her, kiss her….”

Now, we are working together to help Zoe and things are supposedly “better”. Odette even held my hand the other day for no reason. Just like, she grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze as we were walking through the gluten free aisle at Whole Foods. So, why don’t I feel happy? Why do I still feel like I am walking on eggshells around her?

Odette apparently thinks that all those months when she just lied in her bed and cried and couldn’t get up and couldn’t care about Zoe, about me, that I just “took it like a champ”. If I didn’t have the guys in the band, at the music shop, I would have probably run off somewhere. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have taken Zoe and gone to my parents and let Odette just wallow. There is that girl at Starbucks….”

My band got back together. I am still not sure if it is a good idea. We are older now, tired. Does anyone really care what some 30 year old guys have to say? Do we even have anything to say? Alex said we have to get a “new look”. I wish I could just bang the drums and forget. Maybe James should be the singer; he always liked the attention more than I did. All I ever liked was Odette.

I am supposed to go to some autism parenting support group with Odette. Why does it feel like I am always supporting the women in my life? What are they going to do when I go on tour?

Everything I Had Imagined…Almost

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It has been easier to stay away from Jake now that Chris is being nice again. But this morning when Chris was at the music shop and Zoe was at camp, Jake just came and sat on the sidewalk in front of my house with his dog, Milo. I went out there and sat next to him. He was quiet then he took my hand and I pulled it away but smiled at him. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the ground. Milo sat there with his tounge hanging out, panting in the summer heat. I thought about what I wrote yesterday and said to him,

“I have a new theory of heaven.”

“What’s that?” he said, still looking at the ground.

“Well, it has to do with combining science and spirituality.”

“That already has a name; Scientology.”

“No, not Scientology.” I said and pushed him so that he had to catch himself from falling over.

“What? I wouldn’t hold that against you.”

“Anyway,” I said. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“It has to do with the String Theory and alternate universes.”

“Have you been watching Phineus and Ferb movies?” He pointed at me.

“I don’t know what that is. But I’ve been watching Nova.”

“OK, so, go on.”

“You keep interrupting me.”

“I’ll be quiet I promise. You were saying something about your scientific heaven.” He grinned and pet Milo’s head.

“My idea is that heaven is actually an alternate universe where we understand time in a way that we don’t have the intellectual ability to understand it now. So when we die and move on, this new universe gives us the new ability to understand what we could never comprehend before, allowing us to now experience time as the past, present and future. Because of this, we get to be with our loved ones from the past, the present and the future.”

“You mean like the people who died a long time ago and people you haven’t met yet are there?”

“Yes. And you know, with a traditional heaven, you leave everyone behind and join loved ones from the past there. But with this alternate universe, time theory, we get to also be with the people who we just left a second ago when we died. We get to be with everyone. Grief is obsolete. That is my idea of heaven.”

“That’s freaky. Are you all together in one room?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how that would work. In this universe now, we don’t have the ability to comprehend that.”

“That’ for sure” He laughed. “There are some people from my past that I don’t want to see. And what about Hitler, is he there? Cause I don’t want to see him.”

“I sighed. I don’t know.”

“I’m just kidding with you.”

“‘I know” I said.

“I had no idea you were such a nerd,” he said rubbing my arm. “Why are you making up new religeons in your spare time? Is there someone you are missing?”

“Pretty much.”

“Who’s that?”

Now our conversation was at that point that I had fantasized about since I met him. He would be the one who would listen to me about my grief, who wouldn’t be tired of it. He  never knew Meliah so I would’t feel bad telling him the gory details.

“My sister. She died in a car accident last year when she was 9 months pregnant.”

“Did the baby die?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anyone else in the car with her?”

“No. No one else was hurt. She was hit by a truck and the driver walked away unscathed”

We sat there, quiet for a few minutes. I wondered if I had just completely alienated him. I was no longer fun. I was suddenly loaded with baggage. I had been thinking of him as a way do deal with my grief and that grief would make me mysterious and deep. But perhaps it doesn’t work that way. People don’t want to embrace sadness into their lives. They want excitement and positive newness to discover. Perhaps now discovering me wasn’t so much fun.

“That sucks” he said.

I nodded.

He got up and Milo did too, his tale wagging.
“I’m gonna go,” he said.

I just looked up at him, feeling really stupid.
“OK” I said, my face burning.

He turned around and walked off down the street with Milo at his heels. I guess I deserved that, I thought. This whole thing was bound to blow up in my face at some point. But that conversation certainly didn’t go how I imagined it would. So much for finding someone to  help me through my grief. Maybe a year is too long, I thought. Maybe I needed to be getting over this and not be spreading misery everywhere.

I put my head in my knees there on the sidewalk and let some tears slip down my face. I thought about how a wormhole time machine would be good right now, and that I probably had two big red marks on my forehead from pressing it on my knees. A drop of salty water dripped on my flip-flop.

“Odette.”

I looked up and there was Jake again.”This time tomorrow?” he said.

I nodded.

He walked off again down the street and I smiled through my tears…big circle red marks on my head and all.

Momentary Bliss – by: Odette

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Monday Morning

Distraction rustles in a breeze that takes my eyes from her golden leaves.

Shattering and shivers under covers, dark like a  tent,

Under salty droplets and shimmering beads.

Papers rustle at my feet, a surprise and I brush them off the bed with my toes.

They float down as though time doesn’t affect them.

Freedom whispers in my ear that happiness is near,

And the papers settle to the ground as I pull a strand of my long, light hair from his prickly chin.

Odette

July 12, 2012

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Odette

July 11, 2012

So yesterday after my morning bike ride I was talking to Jake and I was feeling really good about being there with him. My anxiety had melted away and now instead of my heart feeling like it had a hand squeezing it…now it was pounding with happiness and I was so relieved to be feeling that again.

I said, “What is the deal with this hammock? You have been out there every day.”
He grinned. “It is great for studying.”
“What are you studying?”

He said, “Come see.”

I walked over to his hammock and he picked up the book, “Siddhartha” from the ground. He sat on the hammock and patted it. I sat down next to him. It was a little awkward and I had to secure my feet on the ground so I didn’t tip into him. “Oh yeah, I read that.” I said.

“You did? What did you think?”

“It was good.”

“Yeah I like it too.”

We sat there quietly. All this build up to see each other again and I didn’t know what to say to him.

“What do you study in school?” I said.

“Health and Nutrition.”

“Oh, OK. ” That explained a lot. We sat there nervously and when I looked up at him his eyes were shining and he was grinning. It made me want to laugh with excitement and embarrassment.

“I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you.” he said and he gathered up my hand in his. His hand was very warm and I pulled my hand away and stood up. I imagined Chris driving down the street for some random reason at that very moment.

“Come inside” he said earnestly.

I looked up at his door, at the beer bottle Christmas lights strung across it. I knew what would happen if I went in there and my heart started to pound. Why was is so much easier to let myself feel something for Jake than for Chris? Why did I feel like I would be doing something wrong to my sister by being with my husband….but it would be OK to  find pleasure in Jake?  Maybe it was because my sister’s husband no longer had her, so my husband should no longer have me.  Maybe it was because Jake barely seemed real. He seemed like a fairytale I was stumbling into, an escape. Maybe because if I found happiness in Jake I was actually, truly sabotaging my own happiness, that I didn’t’ deserve, because she was robbed of her chance of future happiness.

To me, Jake’s house is like the different planet at the end of my street.  I knew yesterday it would be the wrong thing to do, to go inside, but it was my wrong choice to make.  As he stood up from the hammock and again took my hand in his and lead me towards his black front door, I found myself walking with him, not protesting at all, breathing happily and the happiness was so exhilarating, so missed, that there was absolutely no turning back from here.

Tomorrow is also Zoe’s autism evaluation but they won’t even talk to me about the results until next week.

Odette

July 9, 2012

It has been a crazy day. My mind is still spinning. I can’t believe this happened. What am I doing?

I’ll begin with yesterday. Yesterday night, Sunday night…Chris wanted to know when I was going to be normal again.

He said, “When are you going to stop thinking about yourself and think about someone else for once?”

“Like who?”

“Like me.”

I looked at him, my anger growing inside me. ”You? What have I done to you?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, which is the problem.”

His green eyes seemed to be tearing up. I was a little shocked.

“What do you want me to do?” I said.

“Be attracted to me again perhaps, that would be nice.”

“I can’t do that to her.” I said, looking at my feet.  ”I can’t be with you and live my life like nothing happened when she is dead. It isn’t fair. Every time I think I can go back to normal and be with you again, my stomach gets in knots and I can’t do it.”

I looked at his face. There was no sympathy there, just anger and disbelief. “It has been a year. This is not normal. I try to give you your space but it isn’t working. You probably should talk to someone.”

“Who should I talk to? You?”

“A counselor or something.”

“What are you saying, that I’m crazy?”

“It is just that a year is too long.”

All I wanted to do was leave. I looked at Zoe’s door for an escape route and picked up a child’s book off the coffee table.

I said, “I can’t change how I feel. I can’t help being sad sometimes. I’m sorry that it is such a huge inconvenience for you. I’m surprised that you even noticed.”

“What? What are you talking about? How could I not notice that you are sad? We live in the same house don’t we?”

I smiled and shook my head, then took the book into Zoe’s room. Thankfully she wasn’t asleep, which was no surprise since I can only get her to sleep by rubbing her feet and her back. So I read to her and tried to put the conversation out of my mind. I have perfected the art of blocking out unpleasant thoughts after Meliah’s accident…but our conversation sat there, heavy, confusing and my conclusion was…he is tired of my grief, tired of me not performing my “wifely duties”, and he thinks I’m crazy. Great.

———————————————————————-

So after I dropped Meliah off at summer camp this morning I came home and looked in the mirror and  I painted over the dark circles with cover up. I put on a little blush and pulled my lashes out longer with “extending” black mascara. The I put on red lipstick and wiped most of it off so that my lips looked a little flushed. I threw my hair up into a ponytail, put on my baby blue J. Crew tank top and little tan shorts, and I dragged my bicycle out of the shed, shooing off spiders.  The sun was shining in my eyes and there was a lovely breeze dancing through a few loose strands of my hair this morning at 8:20 am.

What happened after that bike ride is pretty crazy, but  I’ll have to write more tomorrow. I think I am going to tell you everything and not hold back.

Odette

July 5, 2012

I mostly just hung out with Zoe as the fireworks exploded all around our heads. She did well with the noise-cancelling headphones on and sat in my lap and played with my phone.

Since the show was on campus there were a lot of students there and I found myself scanning the place for Jake.  I thought I saw him a few times from the back, then the side. But it wasn’t him. I slurped on watermelon and munched on a cheese and tomato sandwich that I shared with Zoe and we simply sat quietly on the new red and white gingham cloth. Chris had a really good time talking with his friends. His bandmates were there and they were all attracting attention from some of the students who know some of their songs that made the charts 10 years ago when he was only a teenager. Chris loves that. We packed up the stroller quickly when it started drizzling and the fireworks abruptly stopped.

I suppose I enjoyed my quiet-loud time with Zoe. She even pointed at the fireworks. I think she was mimicking my pointing, but still, she pointed and I read that kids with Autism don’t point. I was a little melancholy, but lovin on my beautiful baby girl. Tomorrow will be a year since we lost Meliah. My heart just aches for her. Everything seems like it is in slow motion…like one of those dreams where you can’t run fast no matter how hard you try. I will just get through tomorrow by trying not to think about it.

Today I am not going to do much because I don’t feel like. it. Maybe I will take an Ativan to give my heartache a four-hour rest break. Chris will be working at the music shop all day. I’m supposed to write some “peppy” marketing stuff for a social media website.