by Diane Rehm
Instead, I want to reach for the phone. I want to tell John how I’m feeling, and how much I miss him. Only he can truly understand. As he lay there in his own bed at Brighton Gardens, hardly moving, still breathing but no longer speaking, his essence remained. Even as he lay there dying, I knew I could tell him what I was feeling and that he would express support and love.
Some months before John died, I climbed into his narrow bed with him, put my arm around him, and read to him. At first, he’d asked for Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. After several days of half-hour readings, he said he’d prefer short poems, and so I brought him a book of haiku, which he loved. We held hands in his bed as I read to him, and kissed each other with great tenderness. I shall cherish those moments forever, because somehow, with the two of us in his narrow hospital bed, with aides walking in to give medication or offer a menu, smiling as they saw us, we were closer in spirit than perhaps we’d ever been. And now I sleep in a queen-size bed, pillows in the center, alone.
I Think I’m Okay
Today is Saturday, a day I look forward to all week because I can sleep later than 5:00 a.m. But this morning I frantically woke myself at 7:45, having experienced one of the most horrific dreams I’ve ever had in my life.
In the dream, John and I are at the farm with David and Jennie. We go for a walk, all together, crossing beautiful fields, looking at Queen Anne’s lace, yellow cornflowers, and cattails. As we cross a hill we come upon three Native Americans, dressed in full Indian garb, with feathered headdresses and bows and arrows strapped across their backs.
In my dream, I’ve never before come face-to-face with a Native American, especially not there in the farm hills, but since they are there, I assume they’re friendly.
In the next moments of my dream, I realize how wrong I am. I see that John has been murdered, along with Jennie. They are both lying facedown, wrapped in multicolored blankets, with arrows coming through the blankets extending from their backs.
I say to David, “RUN!” He and I run as fast as we can. But David, apparently trying to cover my retreat, runs behind me even though he can run much faster than I. Then I hear the heart-wrenching sounds of his being caught and slaughtered.
I keep running as fast as I can, knowing that I will certainly be the next to die. The Indian is running fast behind me, reaching for me, telling me I must drink something he’s carrying. I know it’s lye or something else equally deadly, because I remember—in my dream—having seen a home break-in where the murderers pour lye down the throats of their victims.
I keep running, running, running, until finally I enter a cave. And then I see an opening in the ground, almost large enough for me to crawl into, but I realize there is brown roiling water at the bottom of the opening. I stand there, knowing if I don’t go into the opening, I’ll be caught and will die by the most unbearably painful poison.
I force myself to wake. I am shaking. At first I’m totally baffled by what seems such a bizarre dream. Why? But as I lie there, trying hard to recall every detail before it drifts away, the details become less important than the overall feeling I’m left with: fear. The fear of being left alone. There is no one to protect me. I am alone, by myself, with total responsibility for myself. John is gone, and my dream reminds me to acknowledge how his no longer being on this earth makes me feel. I say I’m okay, to everyone who asks. And outwardly, I am. But there is clearly that part of me, deep down, going all the way back to childhood, that remains afraid of being left alone.
Sunsets
John always said it’s after the sunset that the magnificence appears, the colors glow, the light changes.
I watched the sun go down tonight shortly after 8:00 p.m. I watched the golden globe as it dropped behind the distant line of trees that form the horizon from my fourteenth-story window. I watched it until it disappeared, the last tiny shimmer vanishing. And then came the glow. The pinks, the grays, the mauves, the streaks, the whiffs of clouds. All so delicate and so beautiful. Maybe John was seeing ahead, to a time when he would no longer be with me, when he agreed to buy this beautiful apartment.
Today I cried all the way to work in the car, talking to him as I went, wondering whether he was with his mother and father, whom he adored; whether he saw them whole or in spirit; and whether he had met my mother and father, who were both gone long before I even met John. I always felt that once they got to know him they would have loved him. He would have been a stranger to them, so bright, seemingly so confident, so articulate, when in reality he suffered so many of the same doubts about himself that I did about myself.
This morning, Lisa Dunn, one of my producers, asked me in a quiet moment, “Are you okay?” Well, not really. I’m so sad. And then I told another producer, Susan Casey, how hard it is not to have someone to share the day-to-day occurrences with, just the simple “Well, I feel sad today.” And John would say, “What’s it all about?” And then he would help me sort through my sadness.
Sometimes, when something good had happened in my life, he would say something to the effect of “You know, whenever you’ve had some wonderful honor or compliment, something in you tells you that you don’t deserve it. Is that what’s going on now?” I can hear his voice. I can feel him next to me, asking that very question. And I think he was right back then, and he’s right now.
The Long Glide
My life alone began long before John died. When he moved to Brighton Gardens, in November 2012, he had hoped that he would someday return to our condominium, but I knew this was not realistic.
Walking back into this apartment for the first time, knowing he was not here and likely would not be here again, filled me with extreme apprehension, as well as—and I have to acknowledge it—a sense of relief. Relief because I knew that someone else would now have the responsibility of caring for him, of watching out for him, holding him upright, serving his food, answering his every need, nor would I have to worry each time I walked out of the apartment heading for the office that he might fall or leave the gas stove on while I was gone.
The apprehension was far greater than the relief, however. Now my responsibility had broadened, extended to caring from afar for another human being, as well as taking care of all my own needs, professional, personal, and financial.
Yet I think for me the greatest apprehension was, How do I live alone? How do I start navigating the world from a changed perspective, that of living without a spouse? Living without someone to say “Good morning” to, someone who would ask me, “How are you, and how did you sleep last night?” Such tiny words, gestures, taken for granted between husband and wife, and now, in one single day, gone.
Of course I could talk with John on the phone every day, share with him what was happening in my work or in the world around us. And at first he was reading the New York Times each morning, trying to keep up with the news. We purchased a large television set for his room, so he could watch news or entertainment programs, but little by little, his interest in what was happening in the world left him.
Returning home each evening, either directly from work or from Brighton Gardens, I immediately turned on my radio or the television. The sounds of the human voice are so incredibly important to me. It’s hard for me to be in a completely silent atmosphere.
I feel alone.
I wish my children and grandchildren were nearby. Their presence on a regular basis would no doubt have made the transition from John in the apartment to John at Brighton Gardens easier to endure. As it was, David tried to make it down from Gettysburg at least once a month, sometimes more frequently, always to visit John and then have an early dinner with me before returning home.
Jennie and her husband, Russell, both incredibly busy physicians and the parents of two young children, had very little time during that year to be with us, although the entire family was able to come to Washington for Easter Sunday 2014. Along with a few close friends, we prepared an Easter brunch to take to Brighton Gardens. That day allowed Benjamin and Sarah to
see their grandfather for what would be the last time.
Our children have very full lives, and I can’t expect to fit into their schedules, nor would I really want to. Of course I would love it if they were nearby and our nearness became the natural way of things, with an occasional drop-in visit, but that is not likely to be. I admire their independence, their stability, and their ability to take charge of their own lives, and certainly don’t expect them to take on the responsibility of keeping me happy.
All this became clearer and clearer to me from November 2012 to the day John died. I knew I was on my own. But I still had the benefit of having John with me, even though he wasn’t physically present. I think of those spouses whose husbands or wives have died completely unexpectedly, rather than after long illnesses. How do they manage? How do they adjust?
Looking back, I find myself wondering how different grieving may be when one loses a loved one suddenly, with no preparation, no signal of illness, no worry of impending loss. Is it more difficult to wake up after just weeks rather than months or years and realize you’ve lost the partner with whom you’ve shared a lifetime? Are there regrets at not having had time to say what you might have wanted to say? Is there greater sadness that lingers longer?
Joan Didion writes vividly about the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in her book The Year of Magical Thinking. He suffered “a sudden massive coronary event” on December 30, 2003. While she was preparing dinner, he sat in his favorite chair, drinking a Scotch and talking. She writes, “John was talking, then he wasn’t.” Shortly after the emergency medics got him to the hospital, a social worker broke the news to her that her husband had died. At the time, she writes, she remembers thinking, “I needed to discuss this with John. There was nothing I did not discuss with John.”
She recounts in poignant detail the sense of near madness she experienced during that first year after his death, exploring, as she puts it, “the power of grief to derange the mind.” She came onto my program to talk about the book, and a more frail and fragile creature I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered. Sudden death of one so close is devastating, as she so powerfully shared with my audience.
My dear friends Roger and E. J. Mudd had been married for fifty-four years. He had long before retired from his estimable career in radio and television with CBS, NBC, and PBS. The four of us had traveled together to Italy, where Roger navigated the winding roads and E.J., with her wonderful knowledge of the language, had no hesitation approaching residents to ask directions, and with her warm and genuine manner elicited recommendations of restaurants that they themselves enjoyed. E.J. was strong and healthy, with only the minor maladies that accompany the aging process. There was always a beautiful glow in her face.
Early one morning several years ago, E.J. awoke and called out to Roger, “I think I’m having a heart attack.” Within minutes, an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital. As she was about to be transported, the very last words she spoke to Roger were “I don’t want to do this.” To this day, Roger is not sure whether she meant she didn’t want to go to the hospital or she didn’t want to die.
She was immediately put into intensive care with a breathing tube blocking her ability to speak. When she tried to communicate by pencil and paper, E.J., the spectacular writer of essays and poetry, could no longer make her writing decipherable. Ever the optimist, Roger had no sense that she was facing death, and was thinking about acquiring a walker for her when she was ready to leave the hospital. Every night he wrote bulletins to family and friends, filling us all in on E.J.’s condition. Only after she’d been in intensive care for more than a week did he begin to realize that she might not live. He recalled a poem she’d written in which she’d said that, even when death relieves pain, it’s sad to die and leave one’s place in this beautiful world.
She died nearly three weeks later, with her husband and four children by her side.
The shock of E.J.’s death is still with Roger, after more than three years. He’s getting used to the lack of her physical presence but has remained—alone—in the big old farmhouse they shared for many years. Staying in the house has made it easier, he says, because her presence is all around him. He describes their marriage as a “knockout” because they had such respect for each other.
Sometimes he remembers things he meant to tell her, and the hardest part is missing those moments of intimacy, when they would confide in no one but each other.
Roger says he’s not sure he wants the sadness to get easier, because he fears that would mean that the memory of their wonderful life together would begin to fade. He has described moments of grief so intense that all he can do is lie on E.J.’s bed and weep for an hour or so. But psychologically, he says, he does not truly realize—or accept—that she’s gone. When he’s sitting on their front porch, looking out after dinner on the beautiful sloping green landscape, as they did together for so many years, his eyes fill with tears.
Eleanor Clift and her late husband, Tom Brazaitis, went through a seemingly endless period of suffering. In 1999 Tom had had one cancerous kidney removed and was told that, since the cancer was contained, he would enjoy a complete recovery. However, that was not to be. A year later, the kidney cancer had metastasized to his lung. Tom took complete charge of his disease, researching it thoroughly before undergoing a series of debilitating chemo and radiation treatments, all of which left him unbearably weak and with horrible bouts of chills, nausea, and pain. He wrote of his experience in columns for his newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
When he was no longer able to manage stairs, his bed was moved to the living room on the first floor, where he had access to both bathroom and kitchen. Over a span of months, this once strong and vital man deteriorated, with Eleanor helping with his care and feeding even as she continued her work with Newsweek and the weekly television program The McLaughlin Group. Since John was working at the time as a hospice volunteer, Tom asked him to visit, which John did on a weekly basis, sometimes reading to Tom, other times quietly sitting with him.
When Tom finally died, in 2005, it was a blessed relief. But did the preparation Eleanor had experienced by watching Tom decline physically and emotionally help to ease the loss? Or was her sense of loss and mourning the same as Roger Mudd’s? Or Joan Didion’s? How does one compare experiences of grief?
When I spoke with Eleanor, she described the huge hole Tom’s death left in her life. But, she said, “I ran away from grief as fast and hard as I could.” She jogged, she worked, she accepted invitations. Attending a support group for other grieving people made her feel worse. People would say to her, “You’re so strong!” And her response was “How else can I be? I just keep on going.” Eleanor confessed that continuing with her routine during Tom’s illness had given her a sense of control in the midst of watching her married life fall apart.
Is there a difference in the extent of the blow to the body and psyche of the survivor if there has been time to adjust to the loss beforehand? A dear friend, Jeff Stann, wrote to me recently. His wife, Patsy, died in 2011, having been diagnosed with lung cancer four years earlier. He wrote that some months after that diagnosis, he realized he had already entered the “grieving process.” He found himself sitting at a stoplight sobbing, something he said happened throughout the years of her illness and still recurs occasionally at times when he’s alone. Recently, he said, he went to the drugstore to buy some bandages. “Standing in the aisle looking at the two-by-two- and four-by-four-gauge sponges and the other paraphernalia of wound healing, I could feel the memories coming back of buying all the same products for Patsy three, four, five years ago. A sad moment, and I was happy the aisle was free of other patrons.”
Jeff is a hiker, and he says the Appalachian Trail has been central to his grieving. “I’ve always regarded the outdoors as a kind of cathedral space in which to imagine and address the divine. And when you are walking alone for hours and days on end, your mind can approach and surround a subject wit
hout interruption.”
I think back to my mother’s dying. I was just fifteen, and was visiting our family doctor because of an ear infection. I’d been worried about my mother, who’d been in and out of the hospital for the past several months, but no one would tell me what was happening. So I asked the doctor, directly, “How is my mother?” And he answered, equally directly—and to my mind, brutally—“Your mother has no more than a year to eighteen months to live.” No reasons given, just the reality of one doctor’s diagnosis.
My mother actually lived for four more years, dying when I was nineteen, with a diagnosis that still makes no sense to me. We were told it was cirrhosis of the liver—this for a woman who, at most, had two shot glasses of whiskey each year: one at Christmas and one on New Year’s Eve, sharing a toast with my father. If it was, indeed, cirrhosis, perhaps it was the result of a blood transfusion she’d had many years earlier after her gallbladder was removed, or of some other undiagnosed infection.
The exact cause of her death is perhaps of no matter all these years later, except for the fact that, with today’s medical advances, she might have had a liver transplant, given that she was so young when she died, just forty-nine. I think now of her long suffering, how in the last weeks of her life in the hospital she begged for no more treatments, no more draining of the fluids that left her stomach so distended, no more invasions of her body.
On the last full night of her life, New Year’s Eve 1955, I went to see her, but she was barely awake. When the knock on the door of my apartment came the next day, I rushed to the hospital, but—as I’ve already written—as with John, I got there a few minutes too late. First as a fifteen-year-old, then as a nineteen-year-old, I knew death was coming to my mother. Did knowing throughout the four years between the two dates help to ease the pain of loss when it finally came? Did the awareness make it easier for me to accept and move on? The answers to those questions are resounding noes.