Writing While Grieving 33: Restless, Restless Me
Eighteen-year-old me on being alone.
After two ten-month stretches of being apart, my girlfriend and I were overjoyed that in just days we would be together “for good.” Here is what I wrote in my last couple of letters to her:
Just think, from now on we will spend every season together. Let’s never forget how much it hurt to be apart. I want to always appreciate being with you. I think I will, but if I ever slack off, remind me of these long, cold, lonely months. I don’t think I could ever forget. (May 2, 1976)
I used to enjoy being alone, and I still do, but now all I can think of is being with you. . . . Being alone always had something missing, and you showed me what it was. (May 3, 1976)
I live in that kid’s opposite world. That was the beginning of 48 years without separation. Now, I’m almost two years distant from our final separation. The end was unbearable. The memories of our “harsh realm” of April and May 2024 are brutal. Toward the end, my wife suffered from terminal agitation. She was restless, sometimes delirious, sometimes paranoid. She would pull at her IV and strain to remove her hospital gown. When she came home from the hospital, I found that I had to sleep in a chair beside her hospital bed to make sure she wouldn’t get up. Usually, it was 3 a.m. when things got tense. I would sit on her bed and explain to her over and over for hours, usually until about 8 a.m., that it was dangerous for her to leave the bed. She wasn’t strong enough. She was upset with me about this.
Once she screamed, “Help! Help!” She wanted someone to come rescue her.
From me.
Another time, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Something is happening, but you don’t know what it is.”
“You just quoted Dylan to me,” I said.
“I know,” she said.
I couldn't help but smile. She was still in there, somewhere.
I kissed her. “Thank you for that,” I said. “I know what’s happening, and I'm here. I’m with you.”
Our last “date” was a Dylan concert. Lines from his songs pop into my mind a lot these days, like when someone asks, “How are you?” I usually say I’m doing the best I can, but I’m thinking, “When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke?”
Yeah, something is happening all right. My therapist says my grief is normal. If this is normal, then what does it mean to do worse? Well, I’m not trying to off myself. There’s that. I get things done. I’m social. Okay, then. Those sound normal-like. She reminds me that my wife and I were a couple for fifty years, starting when I was sixteen, and it’s only been two years since she died, so it's normal under those circumstances to feel devastated and utterly lost.
When she said that, I thought, So I’ll be doing better, in what, like in 48 years?
As you can see, on the inside, I’m a difficult patient. On the outside, though, I’m a good do-bee, and I’m in good hands. But I’m not just devastated and lost, I’m restless. I’m afflicted with my own version of terminal agitation. To an outsider, if they saw the itinerary of my days, they’d think I’m being productive. I’m busy and do a lot of things most days, like writing here on Substack, but really, whatever I’m up to, it’s just me trying to rip out IVs and pull off hospital gowns. I’m fidgety, restless, agitated, impatient, and I curse a lot more than I used to.
Hey, whatever that is, get it the fuck off me! Get me the hell out of this bed!
So I turn my lonely eyes to lonely eighteen-year-old me. I’m alone, and, with every breath, I hate it. He did, too, but he also had an appreciation for being by himself that I’ve lost. I remember even in recent years enjoying alone time during the day so I could do what I wanted to do without distractions. But that was a few hours at a time. I don’t need that all the time. It’s like the Twilight Zone episode where the guy who loved to read found he was the only person left on earth and suddenly had all the books to himself!
Sweet.
Then his glasses broke.
Even though teenage me appreciated alone time, he sensed something was missing. That lucky kid found out what it was, and it changed his life. He found his paradise—or it found him. His Garden of Eden was the person he never tired of being with, but who left him enough space to become himself.
I’m on the other side of that paradise. From this perspective, I’m an outcast from Eden, restlessly wandering toward god knows where. I’ve tasted the apple. I know too much. I’m still in the harsh realm.
Young me was excited because he and his love would soon “spend every season together.” This is my second spring since 1976 without my love by my side. Early me worried he might forget how missing her felt. Later me wants to reassure him: Don’t worry, you never did.
Now, I worry the opposite, that I’ll forget what it felt like to be together. He’d probably tell me, Don’t worry, you never will.
I like that kid. His girlfriend was pretty great, too. I learn from him. He always rose to the moment. I’m having trouble in that department, but, to be fair, he had help. He was in excellent hands.