Living on the Ledge

If ever there’s a time when three singularly innocuous words can set you back, it’s when you have fought through profound loss to a place of healing and someone dismissively says, “It’s time to get over it.” The words don’t even have to be directed at you for them to derail months of emotional progress in your healing journey.

Watched your precious child die slowly and painfully from a ravaging disease you were helpless to fight?  That’s sad, but it’s been five years.  It’s time to get over it.  You desperately prayed and whispered to your spouse as his life ebbed away and you were helpless to stop it?  Oh, that had to be hard, but it’s been two years; get over it.  You began your day like any other but ended it by watching your parent die before your eyes? Gosh, that’s a tough one, but you’ve had almost 25 months to get over it; why haven’t you?

Death is the one and only true equalizer in life, the only sure bet. It comes in a million different forms, but it is just as certain and just as irrevocable for every one of us no matter what it looks like.  Watching it happen to someone you love and knowing you are powerless in the face of it changes you forever. When it happens suddenly, the shock and trauma add another hard-shell layer to the process of grieving and recovery.  It takes work – it often takes professional guidance – and it is arduous.  Get over it?  No such thing.  Decide you will live with it? That’s a far more accurate description.

A woman at the church where I grew up lost her adult son to a sudden heart attack.  Years passed before she was able to sit through a service without tears.  I heard another woman say, “For Heaven’s sake, what has it been? Three years? She’s just doing that for attention.” That was decades ago but I remember it clearly because it was a harsh judgement from someone who normally was so kind.  Years later, that same woman came close to losing her own child far too soon, and I often wondered if she recalled that remark from the past and wished she could take it back. 

Two years after the sudden death of my Chris, I think I’m doing pretty well.  Tears are the exception rather than the rule.  I can look at photos of us and smile to myself without fighting back the painful knot of emptiness and fear that such images once provoked.  I am arriving at a place where I can be excited about the work I do; I feel creative and motivated again; I can look forward to each day as I uncover more about who I am as just me.  Make no mistake, I would not choose this life for myself. The choice I have is to accept the circumstances and build within them.

Do I wish I had accomplished more in these two years? Of course I do.  In fact, I often berate myself for not having used all that stay-out-of-public time we all shared more productively.  I should have immaculate closets, freshly painted rooms, beautiful flower beds and a freezer full of meticulously labeled food ready to pop in the oven.  Reality check: “Should” is as elusive as a unicorn blowing glitter out its exhaust pipe.  “Should” is a dangerous place to set up housekeeping.  “Should” imposes unreachable goals. 

“Did” is a more realistic measure of growth:

I did get out of bed every single day the last two-plus years. 

I did go on adventures whether with friends or family or entirely by myself. 

I did make brand new friends.

I did make sound decisions about finances, home repairs, mental health and even automobiles.

I did take on a role in a play.

I did costume shows for my alma mater during a pandemic.

I did use my experience to minister to my precious sister in the early days of her own grief.

I did and I do counsel my adult children the best that I can, and I listen when they have wisdom for me (and they do).

And “Am” –

I AM going to re-engage face to face in my church rather than hide in the safety of livestream.

I AM setting goals and making plans.

I AM going to grasp exciting opportunities and risk new experiences (unless they involve spiders).

I AM going to love fiercely and laugh loudly.

I am finally over it, right?  Hah. Not by a long shot.  I’m learning to live around it and with it.  The people who are so integral to our lives . . . we don’t get over them when they leave before us.  We simply adapt to their absence because we choose to honor their lives by not letting our own slip through our fingers.  People tell me I am strong, but I have a confession: I am not.  I am willful. Determined. Maybe a little stubborn. Strength does not come from getting over loss. It does not come from stoically tamping down pain and putting on a brave face. Strength comes from leaning into the pain, feeling every blow it strikes, being honest about how much it hurts, then determining to live anyway.

Get over it?  No way.  Live through it? Just watch me. 

In my mind, I am time traveling to March 17, 1989. I was in my room the day before our wedding, packing the last of my things when I heard my husband-to-be clatter down the steps.  He moved pretty fast back then.  He wrapped me in one of his giant hugs then looked me in the eyes with the brightest of smiles.  He was happy.  So was I.  We talked over the agenda for the evening as I taped the boxes.  He kissed me goodbye and took off again to our apartment with the things I had packed. 

When I saw him at the rehearsal that evening, he was wearing one of the bow ties from his tux with his plaid shirt.  I loved it.  I loved him!  We were happy, hopeful and ready to be on our own. Together. 

Our rehearsal dinner was perfect.  The McLaurins throw a great party.  They had just finished remodeling their home in Green Hills, and while it was definitely haunted (yes, I say that with a straight face) it was an ideal entertaining space.  We spent the final hours of the evening on the big screened-in porch talking and laughing with our family and our wedding party.  It could not have been better. 

At 11:55 p.m., I kissed Chris goodnight from the passenger seat of my friend’s truck and rode off to spend my last night at home as Lisa Casteel.  I don’t remember if I actually slept.

Thirty two years later, on the eve of our anniversary, my spirit swirls like the foreboding, warm-cold breeze outside my house this rainy day.  The memories are close, like a thousand whispers.  One minute I’m serene in my reverie and the next I am almost sent to my knees by grief that leaves me breathless.

I mentioned to my grief therapist that the second trip through these special days of our year seems far more difficult than the first.  It was not what I expected, but she was not surprised.  It is common to approach the firsts with our fists clenched and our spirits armed to the teeth.    In the second year, the shock that protected us in our early days fades.  We let down our guard, and without that armor in place reality is piercing.

In all of it, I circle back to thankfulness.  Without the counterbalance of thankfulness, loss can steal the joy from precious memories. Without thankfulness, it’s too easy to dwell on what isn’t rather than acknowledge what is.   I don’t want to give up these warm, sweet places in my past  — these memories that are mine alone – no matter how much it hurts right now.  The girl who packed those boxes 32 years ago did so with joy in her heart, and that joy in that time cannot be taken away from me unless I allow it. 

So tomorrow, as hard as it will be, I will be thankful. Even as my inner voice screams about how unfair it all is, I will be thankful.  I will visit Coleman Cemetery. I’ll replace the winter flowers with springtime blooms, and if the rain has stopped I will wash the mud from the headstone.  I will pray for continued healing and acceptance.  Most important of all,  I will give thanks for precious memories and for a love that never failed.          

There’s nothing particularly special about me.  At least, that’s what I thought.  I was intelligent but not brilliant; passable but not pretty; nice but not noticeable.  That’s not a plea for validation; it’s simply the way my mind was wired throughout much of my younger life. It was exhausting.

Timidity is a shackle.  It’s ironic when you think about it, a weakness having the all-mighty power to confine you.  I graduated high school without a plan or even the faintest clue what I wanted to do.  In my mind, the only talent I had was for spinning a flag in a marching band, and precious few people make a career out of that.  With that mindset I did what a wallflower does: I followed my high school boyfriend.  I applied to Belmont University, and without realizing it, I kicked off the adventure of a lifetime: MY lifetime. 

Here’s how it happened.  Just two months into my first semester at Belmont, the high school boyfriend dumped me. I was devastated. Remember, we are talking about a wallflower here, so to my mind having been a little special to someone for a while had simply been a fluke. I am thrilled to say I was so wrong.

There was a guy.  In fact, in the days before he was an ex, the then-boyfriend had introduced me to him.  I could not remember his name.  I had never noticed him before, but suddenly, I was running into him everywhere.  He was casually perched on a stone wall outside the business school.  He was in the stairwell of the humanities building.  He was at a prime table in the campus grill. 

I thought those chance meetings around campus were coincidence. Wrong again.  He planned it all.  Through means that today could earn him community service he uncovered my class schedule and began planning “accidental” encounters. 

This was my Chris.  He challenged every impression I had of myself and my abilities. In his eyes, I was beautiful, intriguing and capable. I was worthy of being treasured and eventually of being loved. He dropped me into a family that was too much to take in all at once.  They all talked at the same time. Loudly. They drank a good bit of wine.  They had fun together.  They were always happy and always pursuing achievements. They scared me a bit, but thank goodness, they did not scare me away.

After the high school sweetheart, I vowed I would never give anyone that sort of power over me.  I consider it my first tentative step onto the ledge that now is my home. Going out with Chris was supposed to be a one-off.  I even went out with another guy after our first date. He was a perfectly nice guy, and we had a lovely picnic in Centennial Park, but I cannot remember his name now no matter how hard I try.  Chris gently pursued, and after our second date, we were us, and it was the greatest blessing of my life.

In Steel Magnolias, Shelby says, “I’d rather have a half hour of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”  That is what I had with my Chris.  Even in those times when he called me stubborn or I called him a diva, we remembered what made us fall in love in the first place. We were each other’s first call regardless of the news.  We held hands.  Our best times were any time we were in the same room. 

Chris and I had our half hour of wonderful.  In a way, he prepared me for this new life on my own. He made me determined enough to keep putting my feet on the floor when my heart is so broken I wish I did not have to wake.  He encouraged me, he challenged me, and he loved me unconditionally.  We were truly one, as God intended, and we had the blessed wisdom to recognize and appreciate it.  It has taken me 18 months to recognize that the reason I still forget what I’m doing, lose my way mid-sentence or go for too-long stretches unable focus on anything is because his death was a sudden and shocking tear.  I was half of a beautifully woven whole, and now my soul is tattered. I have faith that the symptoms will improve.  The wound will not heal, but I take courage in believing I will tidy up the edges.    

What does any of this have to do with ledges?  That’s easy: A ledge is a scary but exhilarating place to be.  Any self-respecting ledge will offer a spectacular view but will also offer an equally spectacular fall. To a recovering wallflower, any situation that draws attention, tests the limits of bravery or – God help us – could result in public embarrassment or failure is equivalent to stepping out on a ledge. The ledge I stand on now is the most precarious of any I have encountered. 

Launching a blog is a ledge moment in itself.  Will anyone be interested in my stories?  My recollections of the past? Observations of the present?  Perhaps not.  Then again, if just one reader is jolted out of complacency, motivated to try something new, moved to see grief in a deeper way or even just encouraged in spirit, it’s worth that tentative step.