Memories and Worries.
Mar. 7th, 2005 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupI've put what follows behind a cut because its more of me trying to deal with Deniz' passing, and the wounds are probably too fresh for some. Its also long and rambling, if not altogether incoherent in places, but I find these thoughts very hard to articulate well.
Lately, I've been feeling a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty. I think its probably a normal reaction to having one's life disrupted by the death of a close friend. Suddenly many things that one has taken for granted are now thrown back into question. If one pillar of your life can fall, why not others? So, my reaction is probably very normal. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with.
I find myself in the dilemma of wanting the passing of time to ease my pain, and fearing that it will. Sometime, within a few days after Deniz' death, I remembered a quote. I think its the start of a short story that I read long ago, but I'm not sure. Its been bothering me ever since. The quote was:
So, I do not want to keep the wound open, but I fear for its closing as well. In some strange way, my sorrow is a self-inflicted wound. Men are taught to be stoic. Less so now than when I was a kid and remember hearing "Big Boys don't cry", but even today men are often expected to not show emotion, but to soldier on, regardless of their pain. When Linda told me of the terrible news on that Saturday morning, her face such a rictus of sorrow that I did not doubt for a moment that this was not just a sick joke, I could feel my mental doors shutting, to shield me from my feelings and to let me endure in the face of tragedy. I stopped them. My internal thought, were it put into words, would have been "No! She was your friend, dammit! You are NOT going to hide. She deserves to have her loss FELT!" And so, I let myself feel her loss. I left those doors open, and such a flood of sorrow and grief came in, that I could not have closed them again had I tried. So, the pain I felt was unusual for me, in that I let myself feel it, and that made it very difficult to handle. I almost came apart many times. If not for the presense of my dearest friends, it would have been too much to bear.
Still, as bad as the pain was, with time it will pass, and her memory will fade. I don't have a good memory for faces, for voices, for postures. Without constant repetition, they fade. There are many friends I knew in high school that I never see any more. Their faces are only blurs in my memory; their voices are faded murmurs. My very best friend in the whole world when I was in High School was Norman Lange. I haven't thought of him in over 20 years, and although I can sort of remember his voice, and parts of his face, the rest is gone. All I remember is his name and that he was a preachers kid, and he moved away. The rest has faded away, as if it never was.
But, if Norman could fade away, and Deniz could be taken from me, then there are other things that I could lose as well. Linda had to take a trip a few days after Deniz' death. It was terrible timing and we were both in a state of shock when she left. When I came home from work, the day she departed, I found that she had left me a hand-written will on the coffee table, in case something happened and she didn't come back. I understand why she did it, and had she asked I would have said it was the right thing to do, but it struck me with a terrible pain. The loss of Deniz seemed too heavy a burden to carry. The loss of Linda would be far, far worse. I didn't even want to think it might be a possibility.
And though Linda's loss would be the worst I can imagine, I have many friends that I would sorely miss, and that I am afraid will somehow pass from my life. I have worried that the death of her roommate will sour Nancy on Montreal so that she will leave us here without her wit and charm and sarcastic humor. I fear that Susana will get her job in London, move overseas, make her fortune and gain new friends and, as much as one might try, somehow the visits will become further and further apart and eventually cease. I fear that, despite my best efforts, Sandy will continue to withdraw into her world of work and study and have less and less time for the folks that miss her.
Somehow Stephen is the only one I don't fear will leave; not because I wouldn't miss him -- he is my best friend -- but because he has left before, and he came back. He moved away to Chicago, and then to Germany and although I wanted to go and visit him, I never managed it. Still, he tried to visit me when he could, and we made the most of what time we had together. Upon his return, we quickly fell back into old ways and renewed our bonds of friendship. He is the only person who has ever left my immediate local for an extended period without leaving my circle of friends. It gives me hope that if it can happen once, maybe it can happen again, and that maybe not all partings have to be permanent.
Lately, I've been feeling a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty. I think its probably a normal reaction to having one's life disrupted by the death of a close friend. Suddenly many things that one has taken for granted are now thrown back into question. If one pillar of your life can fall, why not others? So, my reaction is probably very normal. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with.
I find myself in the dilemma of wanting the passing of time to ease my pain, and fearing that it will. Sometime, within a few days after Deniz' death, I remembered a quote. I think its the start of a short story that I read long ago, but I'm not sure. Its been bothering me ever since. The quote was:
He realized with a start that it had been over a year since he had last thought of her.That quote haunts me because it is inevitable. Time and events will come and make an impression on me and slowly, Deniz will slip from my thoughts. I still think about her constantly, but far less than during the first week after her death. Now she only comes to mind a few times a day. I can see that one day I will realize that a long time has passed since I last thought of her; maybe a month; maybe a year; maybe a decade. And yet, what are the alternatives? Can I imagine myself raising a glass to her memory 40 years from now, when I'm 80, and I have lived as many years since her loss, as I have currently lived since I was born? Not without having deliberately kept the wound open, preventing myself from healing the sorrow. What kind of way is that to remember such a loving friend? She would have hated the very idea. (Or so I think. Its so easy to imagine what she would have thought of things. So hard to know for sure.)
So, I do not want to keep the wound open, but I fear for its closing as well. In some strange way, my sorrow is a self-inflicted wound. Men are taught to be stoic. Less so now than when I was a kid and remember hearing "Big Boys don't cry", but even today men are often expected to not show emotion, but to soldier on, regardless of their pain. When Linda told me of the terrible news on that Saturday morning, her face such a rictus of sorrow that I did not doubt for a moment that this was not just a sick joke, I could feel my mental doors shutting, to shield me from my feelings and to let me endure in the face of tragedy. I stopped them. My internal thought, were it put into words, would have been "No! She was your friend, dammit! You are NOT going to hide. She deserves to have her loss FELT!" And so, I let myself feel her loss. I left those doors open, and such a flood of sorrow and grief came in, that I could not have closed them again had I tried. So, the pain I felt was unusual for me, in that I let myself feel it, and that made it very difficult to handle. I almost came apart many times. If not for the presense of my dearest friends, it would have been too much to bear.
Still, as bad as the pain was, with time it will pass, and her memory will fade. I don't have a good memory for faces, for voices, for postures. Without constant repetition, they fade. There are many friends I knew in high school that I never see any more. Their faces are only blurs in my memory; their voices are faded murmurs. My very best friend in the whole world when I was in High School was Norman Lange. I haven't thought of him in over 20 years, and although I can sort of remember his voice, and parts of his face, the rest is gone. All I remember is his name and that he was a preachers kid, and he moved away. The rest has faded away, as if it never was.
But, if Norman could fade away, and Deniz could be taken from me, then there are other things that I could lose as well. Linda had to take a trip a few days after Deniz' death. It was terrible timing and we were both in a state of shock when she left. When I came home from work, the day she departed, I found that she had left me a hand-written will on the coffee table, in case something happened and she didn't come back. I understand why she did it, and had she asked I would have said it was the right thing to do, but it struck me with a terrible pain. The loss of Deniz seemed too heavy a burden to carry. The loss of Linda would be far, far worse. I didn't even want to think it might be a possibility.
And though Linda's loss would be the worst I can imagine, I have many friends that I would sorely miss, and that I am afraid will somehow pass from my life. I have worried that the death of her roommate will sour Nancy on Montreal so that she will leave us here without her wit and charm and sarcastic humor. I fear that Susana will get her job in London, move overseas, make her fortune and gain new friends and, as much as one might try, somehow the visits will become further and further apart and eventually cease. I fear that, despite my best efforts, Sandy will continue to withdraw into her world of work and study and have less and less time for the folks that miss her.
Somehow Stephen is the only one I don't fear will leave; not because I wouldn't miss him -- he is my best friend -- but because he has left before, and he came back. He moved away to Chicago, and then to Germany and although I wanted to go and visit him, I never managed it. Still, he tried to visit me when he could, and we made the most of what time we had together. Upon his return, we quickly fell back into old ways and renewed our bonds of friendship. He is the only person who has ever left my immediate local for an extended period without leaving my circle of friends. It gives me hope that if it can happen once, maybe it can happen again, and that maybe not all partings have to be permanent.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-09 05:51 pm (UTC)It gives me hope that if it can happen once, maybe it can happen again, and that maybe not all partings have to be permanent.
Unfortunately, some partings are more permanent than others. Distance is an obstacle that can be overcome, so long as both parties work on it. Time is much harder - friendship is built upon shared experiences, and with time, you can and do both grow. The biggest obstacle has no way around it - other than with time, if your belief is such, that you will once again see the departed person. I, sadly, do not believe that I will ever again see those who have gone before me.
Again, my sincere condolences - we shared many the same responses to such news, but have each chosen to react to it differently.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 12:31 am (UTC)What I was trying to say is that just because some partings are permanent, not all of them need to be. I fear I may have been too clingy with some of my friends lately, as I haven't wanted to let them out of my sight...