Jon died almost two years ago, on February 19, 2021. That, apparently, is a fact. I get it. I can look at a calendar and count up the months. I can see that there are twenty-three of them.
My brain can do that. I can’t.
I have lived these twenty-three months. But for me the reality, the essential truth, is that my time without Jon has been months, n0t years. Was it last fall that Jon passed out of his life and mine? Or last summer? It can’t be two years ago. It just can’t.
It’s Just the Time Warp of Grief
Not to worry. I am not delusional. I am aware that twenty-three months have indeed gone by since I last saw Jon, since I wrapped my arms around him at the foot of our driveway as the ambulance lights circled over our heads. But it doesn’t feel like twenty-three months. I feels like a bare sliver of time.
I seem to be caught up in a time warp of grief.
I first noticed this uncanny state of mind last month as the new year approached and my thoughts turned to the passage of time. I had to face the fact that nearly two years had gone by since Jon’s death. It was a fact, an abstraction, not a felt reality.
Those two years aren’t there. What happened to them?
Time Speeds Up as We Get Older
Yes, time speeds up as we get older. Everyone I know seems to be experiencing that. Wasn’t it just last summer that Jesse the bricklayer laid the brick walkway to my backyard? (No, it was the summer before last.) And wasn’t it just last month that the gardener put in the campanulas and the aqueligias and the kangaroo paws into the ground? (No, it was way back in May.)
But that’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m trying to describe is something uncanny. Something confounding.
Picking Strawberries — That Feels Real
I remember the events of the past two years. They are real — the birthdays, the Christmases, picking strawberries with the grandchildren last summer — and I see them receding into the past. But Jon’s death — it’s still right with me, like it happened last week.
What gives?
Not long after Jon died an old friend, also newly widowed, told me she felt she was living two parallel lives: the path of grief, which is always with her, if only unconsciously, and the path of life — of seeing friends, embarking on new adventures, of laughing and feeling joy.
I’ve been busily leading the path of life — taking my granddaughter to the plant nursery, addressing Christmas cards, making new friends. That part of my life has charged forward, and I have been intentional about it, recognizing that I have to create a new life for myself now that Jon is gone.
But the other track, the track of grief has barely moved.
Suzy, my grief counselor friend, keeps reminding me that Jon died suddenly and unexpectedly when we thought we had many good years together ahead of us.
The Shock of a Sudden Loss
Survivors of a sudden loss like mine, she says, often spend many months in shock. Shock allows us to hold the reality of the death and its finality at bay for a time. Little by little the truth worms its way to the surface until it is — agonizingly — accepted.
I didn’t cry much the first year after Jon died. As long as I could keep myself distracted, I could go for days without crying. Lately, though, I’ve been crying every day, several times a day.
I cry at the drop of a hat — especially if it’s one of Jon’s old Giants caps. The scent of his toothpaste makes me cry. His brandy snifter full of matchbooks from his smoking, single-guy days makes me cry. The worn spot on his office chair makes me cry.
Maybe that’s where those two years went: I’ve been holding my breath, willing Jon to come back from wherever he is. If I could just not think about Jon being dead, then maybe he wasn’t.
And now, two years in, I’m beginning to think maybe he is. Which is why I cry a lot.
Hi dear Barbara, Now that I know that Friday is your writing day, I look forward to your share. I think I was in shock for 6 years after Jesse died – likely different as he was only 9. The other day I drove up Fruitvale towards Rocky’s Market, I came to the corner where the day before Jesse died, I got a flat tire there. Always with me is the thought of what if I’d had the flat on the day Jesse died – and the flat delayed me from picking him up, and he was killed. That is still right here with me. If that was the story, I would not be here. I have many of these vignettes. People always asked me – do you get over the grief? No, I get more and more used to carrying the grief with me. The two paths merged. There is no line in between the paths. I live them together. I am a bereaved mother. Love you, eb
I love you too, Ellen. That’s all I can think of to do.
Beautifully said Barbara. I remember Joan Didion talking about this in her book, The Year of Magical Thinking. I hadn’t made the connection until reading this. The idea of two simultaneous paths of grief seems totally true as well. Recent studies on grief work support this idea as healthy coping. You’re doing this your way, and your way is perfect for you!
I read Didion’s book several years ago, and it made a lot of sense. But now I’m wondering, did the magical thinking end after just one year? I kinda think not.