My Unimaginable.

Four days after my husband committed suicide, I wrote out his eulogy through tears and very little sleep.  I have not looked at those words since I spoke them two years ago.  Late last night, I read those words again. I am leaving them here as my daughter and I honor the man we miss, and as I come closer to understanding his pain and sorrow.  I am anxious, weepy, angry, not angry, unsettled, grounded, still, and not able to sit still as the rain comes, as the memories pour in, as I make decisions to be in it and leave it behind. The it. Maybe I don’t want to write about this pain anymore.  Maybe living with this in the recesses and dark places is enough, and I need to write about other things:  About loving, about living, and living with the unimaginable-and by this I mean: living.

September 2014. I know our lives will never be the same-and on many levels of life, love and living-my daughter and I have been forced to shift. There are questions unanswered, ground that is shaking, hearts that are breaking, struggling to comprehend the depth of despair, the unseen love and the will to breathe a sustaining life force. There is unbearable sadness, “rocks in my stomach” as our daughter said the other day. There is a weight on my chest that heaves with the heaviness of our hearts.  This is going to take time.  This transition to move beyond and through will take enormous time.  As much as I have been so moved beyond words by the generosity of spirit, love, support and immense strength from each of you, I will be the first to tell you-that same generosity of spirit, love, support and immense strength will be appreciated and needed as the months and seasons unfold.  Your love and healing light is welcome here.

I loved my beloved Yuma with all that I am.  Not a day went by that I was never unaware of his love for me and our daughter.  Just the other day, I came home to find two 3ft stainless steel letters he came across in one of his travels- and those of you who know him well, know this means, it was either a yard sale, a steel yard, a junk yard, a job site or perhaps a treasure he uncovered. Literally. The letters were a giant X and O.  He had already managed to secure the X to the wall above our bed frame-the O was waiting for, as he said, “a longer screw.” Being loved by Yuma also meant for Valentine’s Day this past February I got a heart shaped red record-by Ryan Paris with his #1 hit: “Fall in Love” -the vocal version. Over the years there were cards made out of a scrap piece of metal, or an odd shaped piece of wood, reminders, and to do lists written on a piece of cardboard or sheet rock. He was an artist, a purist, a renaissance man, a cowboy, a creative genius.

Yuma made the ordinary come alive.  This could mean a drive that included the long way home or wherever the destination, a chunk of cherry wood brought into the house just for the smell, the vintage lining of a pool crafted into a light, or planting trees on the brink of dying, because he had hope. There are countless stories-and might I add countless objects that came into the driveway he discovered along the way- a boat, make that boats- a turquoise colored trailer-make that trailers, and numerous tractors.  I will forever remember the day in late September one year, I looked up from working at my desk to see him pulling in the driveway, driving a 1960 something red Ford tractor.  He was carrying a wrinkled brown bag underneath his arm.  As I ran out to approach him about the tractor, he simply said, with great joy, “I picked up some corn for dinner.” To this day, I am not sure if the tractor and the corn were purchased (or traded?) from the same place.

He collected friends from all walks of life.  He collected music, musicians, cowboy hats, boots and trinkets that may have only meant something to him-but he made them meaningful.  He collected chicks.  When our neighbor decided to invest in chickens, Yuma found a following. The chickens adored him and followed him around, clearing the grass beneath his feet. The chickens sat on his tractor, sat in the barn and from time to time would leave gifts of adoration. Eggs would appear in places like old cement mixers, patches of weeds, or a pile of clothing left in the barn. One chicken in particular-the one with the white spot just under her beak, would let Yuma pick her up and walk around with her. I am certain the other chickens were jealous, and the rooster was not all too happy either!

My husband inspired me to look at the ordinary in extraordinary ways. It was one of the many reasons I fell in love with him. As simple as he was-he found the complex too often.  He tried to keep it at bay-but the delicate complexities of life- the mysteries of his life took hold of my Yuma and his giant heart could not contain the pain. This did not mean he did not love enough-this would only mean that love was simply not enough.

I miss him with all that I am- as I know our precious Ava does. We will miss hearing the rumble of the gravel in the driveway telling us daddy was home. We will miss the unspoken ways he loved us-and the ways he saw the other side of life. We will miss the colors he used, the spices in his recipes, and the very way he was who he imperfectly was. In his way of caring for his soul, he saw another reality altogether that looked at the mystery of human suffering. He looked directly in the face of the illusion of a problem free life, and he was moving closer to the realization of the mystery we all carry as humans trying to be.

The Greeks tell the story of the MINOTAUR-a bull headed man who lived at the center of the labyrinth. He was a threatening beast and yet his name was Asterion, or star. “To be certain, it is a beast, that thing that stirs in the core of our being-but it is also the star of our innermost nature.  We must care for the suffering with extreme reverence, so that in our fear and anger with the beast, we do not overlook the star.” (Care of the Soul, by Thomas Moore)

September 2016.  In the two years since my unimaginable I hold close the ways my life has changed and is changing.  I hold dear the milestones that have happened without my beloved. Life moves on without, this I know. I take great strength from knowing I loved him deeply and with that love came a deep grief.

I know I can never can go back to who I was before Sept. 2, 2014. For a long time, I wondered why, why on that day my husband decided to take his life. It was a stunningly beautiful day by all accounts.  That day became one of the missing puzzle pieces I have tried to fit together and make sense of so I can go back, figure it out, and make it better.

There is no going back. I know this. I will never figure it out. I know this too.

I unearthed a seed of hope on the days that followed his death.  Hope for me and hope for my daughter. We forget the richness of hope.  My hope has been watered and nurtured with sweet sun from the numerous caretakers of my spirit and soul. I am grateful every day for the many ways so many have helped me tend to my garden so I could grow and stay in the loving. So I could be in the loving.  I have navigated battles too numerous to detail-from the very simple, to the complex and angry making, and I bear the warrior marks of getting through. But I also bear the mark of grace that allows me to linger longer, to add another layer of compassion, to breathe deeper, and to seize the moment and the nuggets of happy, however I want to define what each means to me. I have become a master of discernment.

And yet.

And yet.

We are fools to think it ever goes away, the unimaginable. Whatever it is we hold onto. I honor my husband daily, sometimes by grieving and missing him, but never with pity or guilt. I have talked about not only my pain, but his too. He had the courage to tell our daughter the truth about the things that scratched at his soul and sense of well-being. What other gift do you give your child when she cannot understand why?  He was honest about who he was as much as he could be, shaped by his own unimaginable and the ways he tried to find peace. On this day, two years later, I still don’t know if he found peace,as if anyone of us who remains in the living will ever know about those who choose to stop. It breaks my heart.

I do know, while here on this earth, he found love. Pure, unconditional love. Complex, conscious,passionate,complicated, in spite of, because of, long term, deep rooted love, and this is what I think of most.

“Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure , in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.”-Haruki Murakami