Personal Journal

Six Month Entry

On December 16th some time, early in the wee hours of the start of the day, I wrote down what I’m going to paste into this. It’s a moment I cannot explain. That moment happened six months ago, and this is the first big hallmark of my life, and of the world’s “life” after my Jean went back to God. I’ll write more about it later, but first the quote:
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Deterioration continues - less moments of semi-alertness. None of alertness. Breathing showing signs of breakdown. Temperature fluctiations more frequent.

I had an episode of my own today that I can't really explain. After Walter and Patty left me alone some, I was cleaning up Jean and talking to her, telling her as I do that it's okay to move on. I told her of my plan to get a kayak after this is over, and that I'm going to name it after her (Jean's Unsinkable Hope, for how she lived when she was given this diagnosis), and I started crying.
But what was more strange, and I don't know how to truly describe, is that every ounce of strength in my body left me, and I became weak and wobbly. I had a hot flash and a cold sweat, and I was incredibly hungry and noticeably nauseous at the same time. I had to drink 24 ounces of liquid immediately, and I had to eat something right away. And still I was shaking and wobbly for another hour, I could barely move my legs to get up and down the stairs.
Earlier tonight I went out to get myself some food to have here for the wee hours of the morning, when I tend to get hungry and have nothing. And while I was out, I drove over to a friend's house from work - Joyce, a woman almost 60 who I'm somehow connected with in a way I don't really understand (except that she lost her husband in a freak car accident 10 years ago).
I told Joyce, and she said that it sounds like my talking about the future disturbed the mindset that I live in day to day. I saw too much into the future, and something of reality snapped in and tore me up that way.
Maybe. Maybe I'm guilty for thinking of a future at all. Maybe seeing less and less of the best friend who I know is in there somewhere already setting up shop in the afterlife has started to make me realize that soon I'm going to be alone. I know that I like solitude. But I think I'm starting to realize that this solitude that is coming isn't something I'm choosing; it's being forced upon me, and it's going to be unlike a solitude that I choose.

My best friend is dying. My neighbor called me today to tell me that she and her family are going to Nebraska to be with family and will be gone for 2 weeks or so. My friend Cindy and her sister are also going to Wisconsin. And so the people who I would turn to are going to be gone, and I'm frightened and depressed.

The nurse said that she estimates Jean to have about a week left. And I'm starting to feel the sadness that up until now, I hadn't conceptualized. Truly - I hadn't conceptualized it... And it's starting to touch me - it's frightening - it already knows ways past my first line of rational defenses. It's going to tear at me, and I don't know how I'm going to resist, or if I cannot resist, rationalize, or if I can't rationalize, to at least endure until it passes.

And I think that's what started to happen today. The first wave of its onset seeped past, and it stunned me.
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Earlier that day, or the day before, the hospice counselor told me what to expect from Jean as her spirit started to come to grips with its next steps – leaving the world and returning to the afterlife. The counselor said that I would likely see Jean point off into the air, and maybe she would talk about seeing people who were already passed on. She told me that one of the last things that a human being in process of dying does is wait. They wait to know that the people they leave behind will be okay. So she advised me to tell Jean that I would be okay, and that though I would be sad, the sadness would change to joys of what we shared, and I would move forward with a life. She didn’t need to stay here for me.

So that’s what I was doing when I told Jean about the kayaking.

I will never forget when I saw Jean point into the air. Jean was basically blind. But I remember her pointing up into empty space above and in front of her bed, with a look of wonderment on her beautiful face. I knew, I simply knew that she was seeing someone greet her and tell her it was time to come home. What I didn’t know at the time was that she would move on, pass on, within the next 30 hours. I don’t know that I ever wrote this down anywhere, but after she pointed, she wrapped her arm around whatever or whomever that was in a deep hug. She held them close to her chest, and she was comforted.

I personally believe that either (or both) she saw her grandmother Kallita, whom she had loved as a child and spent many hours doting after as a little girl, or she saw her beloved cat Lincoln, who mysteriously died about 3 weeks before Jean did. One or both of them came to greet her and to tell her of the exciting and beautiful existence that awaited her once she was ready to let go.

I know that there was only one thing that Jean was holding on for: me.
Jean’s very last words in her journal were about me, and keeping me from worrying about her…

So when I sat down with her alone in the room that night, and I told her about kayaking, this is what I think happened:

I think Jean saw into my future, because at that point, all those things were opening to her. And she saw that my future would start to blossom again. And she saw what I would be doing six months to the day after she died (more to come, but kayaking). And so when I told her that I would kayak as a way to remember Jean’s unsinkable hope, she came to accept and understand that it was okay for her to let go.

And I believe that that terribly strange and disconcerting feeling that I had that night right after I said that to her was the result of Jean relenting her attachments to this world, and letting go of the pains here, because she knew that everything she had wanted to touch would be alright once she returned to god. She let go of her desire to control anything ever again. That feeling I felt was the feeling of her spirit returning to its full power, unencumbered by her body ever again.


So tomorrow I am taking the day off of work.
I have signed up for a day-long private kayaking lesson, with Maya, one of my first instructors, who is a woman Jean would have adored for her independence, strength, courage, and utter fearlessness. She’s the kind of woman who should wear the shirt Jean had “Well behaved women rarely make history.”

And I will be celebrating my Jean, and keeping my promise (not sure if I’ll sink, but probably not). I might even get my roll tomorrow, and if I do, I’ve no doubt that Jean’s gentle hand will get me over that last spot that always gives me trouble.

I still adore my Jean. She is still my baby-love. I don’t understand why she had to go home so soon, but I know it wasn’t about her life, it is about mine, and what I’m supposed to inherit from the entire experience. I’m still positive. I’m still trying to move forward. I’m still loyal to god and to Jean and to the things that make my life meaningful.

I am a tremendously blessed man to have shared her love. I feel it every day.