Sunday, November 10, 2024

 Sunday, November 10, 2024

 

   I walked into the library yesterday afternoon to get Elsa's harness and retractable leash; I was surprised when I saw the pile of solar panels Jim and Sherry had stacked. Damn! They didn't put them where I asked.  It hit me hard. I have no idea why I took it badly.

    I knew in my heart that this was Jim's doing. I had stood in the library, pointed to the carpet, and said to stack the panels there. Sherry made sure that Jim heard what I said. He has a hearing problem, and she knew he would never listen to her. He concluded it would be better to place the old panels on top of those sitting on the blanket instead of where I asked him to put them.    

 As I lay in bed this morning, I was devastated by the misplacement of the panels. The four new ones I wanted to sell first were buried under fourteen of questionable quality.  Why was my response so intense? It didn't make sense to me.  I tried to resolve it with meditation. I made some progress, but the best was getting up and moving.  That means the response was still embedded in me.  There's a time for denial and resolving an issue. His actions triggered something in me. perhaps it's dealing with people who see themselves as always right. I feel so helpless around people like that. Jim's wife seemed accepting of his disposition but was neither cowed by it nor contemptuous of him. They were in their late 60s or early 70s. Sherry wasn't an easily intimidated youngster. I would love to know how she resolved this for herself.  She seemed to accept her husband's contempt for her as a woman without feeling demeaned. 

   My friend Linda from England, the first wife of an old tutoring client and a regular reader of my updates, asked if I would benefit from seeing a grief counselor.   I had been writing a lot about grief.  

    I had tried to participate in a grief group. The leader and I were as incompatible as two humans can be.  Her idea of the appropriate response and mine were on the opposite ends of the pole. One of us had to leave. Since she was being paid in her capacity, it had to be me. The church had been advertising an eight-week upcoming grief recovery workshop.  I considered going until I saw the name of the leader. It was that woman from the hospice center. No way, Jose.

    Today, after Mass, the Knights of Columbus served a fundraising pancake breakfast, and the ministries advertised their missions with posterboard displays. The woman who was leading the grief recovery workshop was there—it wasn't the woman I knew from the hospice center. I want to try the workshop. Suzanne made it clear it wasn't a support group; this was an eight-week class with a program on how to deal with grief. It starts in January.  

  When I got home, I read the leaflet the woman handed out. This was how to deal with all sorts of grief, basically any form of disappointment.  My one consideration is that I don't think my problem is primarily with grief; it's loneliness. The loneliness is caused by not being number one in anyone's life. it was the complaint that Maggie Smith articulated. No matter how many friends and relatives you have in your life, without a partner, you are no one's number one. The partner needn't be a mate. It's a buddy, preferably one you live with and get along with. There is a sense of safety in that. You will never be without a seat when they play musical chairs. As long as you have a partner, there will always be a place for you at the table.  It's a primitive feeling.  It's not the loss of an individual person; it's the loss of position in life relative to the rest of the group.

    I also found Anita manning the Hula ministry board.  I embraced her and expressed appreciation again for all the Hula ministry did for me when Mike died.  Judy recommended that I do a Hula for Mike's funeral. He had always wanted me to join the ministry. He loved that I had a dance background.  Judy recommended  I ask to learn the Hula to You Raise Me Up.  Anita said great. They already had choreographed a dance to that song.  Participants of the ministry met with me on the north lanai in the afternoon and started teaching me the steps.  They met with me every day for a week on the north lanai to teach me the dance, and then one member, Judy Shifley, came to my home daily for the next week to practice.

Looking back on it, I can't imagine what I was thinking. Oh, I wasn't.  I was a 78-year-old with a severely arthritic hip who had never danced Hula before in her life, planning to learn a dance in two weeks to perform before close to four hundred people. The Hula group was meeting with me daily. I thought nothing of that. There's such a thing as baby-brain and such a thing as widow-brain.  Two and two don't even exist, no less add up to four.  I managed to pull it off without making a complete fool of myself. Only two people commented on my performance. A friend who had stopped by and given me some pointers said, "You weren't half bad." Given she was native and learned Hula as a child, I thought that was pretty high praise. A friend from the mainland was the second voice. He said, "You made  a mistake and weren't as good as the woman next to you." I don't know how he meant it, but there were great compliments. I made only one mistake!  The woman next to me had been studying Hula for ten years. That I could even be compared to her was amazing.

   Today, Anita said I had done a great job. The funeral was in February 2020, and the statute of limitations had run out on the need to keep one's opinion to oneself. 

     Damon called. The project he brought to DreamWorks is now in movie theaters and wowing audiences. He sent me an article on the author of the Wild Robot books. IT mentioned Damon as the one who picked up on the potential of this story.  The movie sounds like something I will enjoy. 

   Damon also told me they have tentative plans to come here in January. Because August, his son, couldn't come at the last minute in July, they have an extra ticket they have to use for a year. Great! I would love to see them.

    We also talked about their friends who recently lost their teenage son to suicide.  The mother found him hanging in his closet. They are struggling. I can't imagine their grief. How do you recover from something like that? They concluded it was spontaneous; he hadn't been planning it. His mom had noticed that he came home from school feeling sad, but being miserable is part of being a teenager.  They avoid friends they made through school and the parents of their son's peers. They plan activities to keep themselves busy.  Busy helps, particularly in the beginning. It doesn't fix the long-term problem.