Grief

 

Time passes.  It gets better.  But every now and then I can still feel grief sneak up behind me and grab me by the neck and shake me a little bit.  I’m always surprised.

There are five very distinct steps in processing grief (some say 7….who needs that?).  I’ve done the five steps, heck, I’ve even done the seven steps of grief.  Denial, done it; anger, oh yeah, felt it; bargaining, me and God, we talked a lot; depression, yeah, got the t-shirt, it’s real; and finally, acceptance, which is sort of a moving target.

What nobody ever bothered to tell me is you occasionally have do-overs with the whole grief thing.  Hey moron, start at step one and do it again.  I feel myself going through all the steps when the grief monster manages to grab me and attempts to swallow me whole.

For me as the chief cook and caregiver, for my kids, Erin and Matt, we started the whole grieving process on April 4, 2005, after Marty’s first stroke.  We lost so much of Marty after the first stroke and even more eight months later after the 2^nd stroke. 

The brain damage from the strokes robbed us of who Marty had been, the strokes killed off too much of her.  Of course, we mourned, of course we walked the steps of grief.

Long term caring gives you a lot of time to work through the loss and grief, it also gives you a lot of time to grieve, to feel the grief, to see the brokenness of your cared for every day.  You get an up close real look at denial and anger and depression almost daily.  The cycle of mourning became a daily struggle, and she was still with us.

When Marty had her first stroke, a cerebral aneurysm, I lived in a state of denial for a long time.  Really, the denial kind of kept me from going crazy.  I would have cratered had I known what really lay in store for us. 

I did the anger thing on a regular basis, sometimes anger at others, often anger at myself for not doing enough.  I bargained and I know I went through bouts of depressions where everything felt so dark and sad and bitter it was hard to rejoice in the sunshine that occasionally graced us. 

When I finally got to the acceptance part, where I realized where we were and how our life must continue in our new normal, life got better.  Those other feelings were there, grief over the loss of what was, but eventually I came to understand this was our life and we needed to live it the best way we could.

The sadness, the feelings of loss become a part of your essence.  They become a part of you, but never your whole, just a part of whole that makes you unique.  As time goes on, as you work your way through the important parts of grieving, it doesn’t go away, it settles in to be a critical part of who you are and your journey. 

Hopefully, that permanent part of grief that becomes part of your DNA is not a feeling that defines you or rules your brain.  In my journey, it hasn’t gone away, it is simply diminished, it is part of my background like my deep west Texas accent.

I still think of Marty every day, some days that makes me sad, some days that makes me smile, most days I smile, but the loss, the loss that started all the way back in 2005 is still there, and on the whole, I can live with that.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison is not out of Gunnison

When we went to bed the night after our trip to Arches it was about 75 degrees.  When we got out to load the truck the next morning, it was about 40 degrees and it was snowing in Colorado Springs.  The weather had changed and we were like a couple of young colts excited by the change.

Naw, not really, more like a couple of war horses stiff from the cold.

This was a long drive, a seven-hour driving day and we planned on breaking this up by going through the Black Canyons of the Gunnison just outside of Montrose Colorado.  Skip had been there a couple of times and I had seen his pictures and they were amazing.  Sometimes even good photographs don’t do the real thing justice.  Just like pictures of me, I’m too large and spectacular to be captured by a picture. 

And, just like me,  Black Canyon cannot be captured, it must be experienced.

It had lightly snowed just outside of Montrose as we drove to the canyon.  The fields were white with little tufts of grass peeking out.  The snow wasn’t going to stay because of the bright sun, but right now the light flakes clung to the pines and junipers as we went up a winding road to the top of the canyon.

The Black Canyon was formed by the running Gunnison River.  It boasts the highest vertical cliff in Colorado, 2700 feet from tip to toe.  The sides of the cliffs are rough, rocky and have a dark tint.  You go to some of the outlooks and look over the rail and you see the river, you hear the river, you see what the river has made over eons.  

We went to several turn outs where you could walk 100 yards, 200 yards, 300 yard or longer to an overlook protected by a small fence.  It was cold, breezy, snow was on the ground around us and covered the small trees and brush that amazingly grew on the side of the rocky cliffs. 

 

It was a one of a kind moment and once again, we left just a small bit of Marty.

It was another four hours to Colorado Springs, so we had to cut our visit short.  We hit the highway knowing there was more snow and mountain passes to be passed.  We saw snow, antelope, wool heavy sheep and the huge Blue Mesa Lake; it was beautiful and went on for miles as we drove along its edge.

When we made it to Wilkerson Pass, the last mountain pass we drove through, there was snow covering the surrounding pasture.  It was overcast, snow barely falling and 18 degrees.   

I have to say I am not a good rider, I’m a bit of an anxious rider.  Marty taught the kids more driving than I ever did.  Stuff is too close on the right side when you’re not driving.  Skip was driving and I was biting my tongue and hanging on to the “Oh Shit” handle exercising my will power by not saying, slow down or watch that car.

We did get to Colorado Springs to the house of two of Skip’s longtime friends, Bobby and Becky and son Blake.  They live a warm, animal loving life in a place that is exceptionally beautiful.  You really can see Pike’s Peak from their backyard.  They swear it never gets old.  I believe them.

Marty and I honeymooned in Colorado Springs in January of 1976.

Delicate Arch -- It's massive and old and doesn't look that delicate

We got up the next morning to a La Quinta breakfast, it wasn’t bad, the biscuits were really good and I didn’t feel bad about eating a couple because Skip was going to make me walk up mountains today.  By the way, Skip wouldn’t recommend the biscuits and gravy.

There was a fairly long line of cars waiting to get into Arches National Park.  This was Tuesday in October and there was a line and crowds everywhere.  I'm retired and in mourning, these people should be working for a living.  Actually it was mostly retired folks like us.  Still, it's Tuesday.
 

After I got into the park I understood why all those people were waiting in line to drive in the park.  It’s absolutely amazing.  Towers of reddish brown rock spring out of the ground like they had been planted there, huge slabs of limestone grow hundreds of feet of out the earth, there are huge mounds of petrified sand that look like white rock and there are hiking trails and people walking everywhere.
 

We drove through much of the park to park and hike to Delicate Arch, one of the sights which attracts people from all over the world.  We heard Spanish, German, some eastern European languages, some eastern languages and we chatted with a guy from the south of England as we took a breather on our hike up to the arch.
 

This hike is just three miles round trip, but I swear it was all up hill, like both ways.  We hiked for about 30 minutes up winding rock trails and then up a long slab slick rock until we hit more sandy trails and then walked on rock again around a cliff on a rock trail no more than three feet wide.  As we winded around and turned one last corner 40 mile per hour winds hit right in the face and I made a heroic save of my really cool hiking hat.
 

The delicate arch is made of stone and is huge.  It was formed over eons not years and it stands about 100 feet high, an arch made of stone connected to a mountain.  It is the most famous natural stone arch on the planet, and it is spectacular to sit at its base, look around at the unforgiving terrain and appreciate what this remarkably diverse world can show you when you open your eyes.

We got back to the car, drank some hot Diet Coke and drove around looking at other sites.  We ended up hiking a short trail to the Window Arches where two of the stone arches were formed at the same time.  It was a perfect spot to surreptitiously drop some Marty ash.  It wasn’t that much, but little pieces of my bride are hanging out in the high desert permanently a part of a grand eco system.
 

We hit one more trail that allowed us to walk 125 steps down into the canyon.  For those of you keeping track, yes, you must climb those steps to get out of said canyon.  Not bad for an old fat man.
 

We got back to our motel that evening comfortably tired from the day in nature, the day in the sun, the day in the wind, the day communing with what is best on this earth.  It was another good day.
 

We got out in the town a little more, ate a small dinner and went back and downloaded the day with each other.  Having Skip with me allows me to experience all the things this trip was designed to experience.  He allows me to feel the feels and say the strange shit that hits me from time to time.
 

This is a good trip, we left for Colorado Springs by way of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison early the next morning.