Summer is coming

Good teachers are exhausted the last few weeks of the school year. Athletes talk about leaving it all on the field. Teachers leave more than that in the classroom. For 10 months, every waking moment is about the students sitting in front of you for six hours a day. Your nights and weekends are not your own. They are burned up grading and commenting on student work–and on preparing the next day’s slate of lessons.

Of course, I may be entirely wrong.

Six years ago, Jane and I were coming to the end of what had been our most difficult year teaching. Jane was hit hard by the H1N1 flu in October and had developed pneumonia in the midst of that struggle. She missed nearly a month of work and had tried to find creative ways to get her students caught up–especially those in AP.

Lessons of a Winter’s Tale

In February, she started having swollen feet at the end of the day. Each night as she worked on grading papers and I reread the novels I was teaching, I would massage her feet to try to ease the swelling and the pain she was experiencing. Jane spent every day on her feet on a hard floor. Her feet had always hurt. The swelling just seemed a new addition to the aches.

Your nights and weekends are not your own.

But the swelling got worse and crept up her shins to her knees as the spring arrived. She was having trouble with the stairs in the building. Sometimes, she admitted later, she seemed to be talking to her students from a great distance. I tried to get her to see her doctor–but she worried about missing more time with the AP exam looming.

The death of spring

We went for a walk one afternoon. It was something we did after dinner as the weather warmed. We were coming up a slight incline and Jane suddenly said she needed to sit down. She eased herself onto the curb. We thought she simply hadn’t fully recovered from the illnesses that had fallen on her that fall. In a few minutes, she felt fine and we continued the walk.

…I would massage her feet…

But Jane’s heart was the problem. The NET cancer had begun eating away at the valves in her heart. The swelling in her legs was the result of fluid leaking from those valves and flowing into her lower extremities. Six months later, she would be dead.

Lessons no one saw

Sixty-six months ago–five-and-one-half years ago–today, our closest friends gathered in her hospital room with me to bear witness to her passing. I was strong that day. I read to her, recited poems, said our prayers for the dying and the dead. We talked about the woman she was and how she had led her life. And then she was gone.

…Jane’s heart was the problem.

I stayed strong through the calls to relatives and friends; stayed strong on the ride home and through the public events of the days that followed–the wake, the funeral, the repast, the small gathering afterward. Inside, I was as shattered as a human being can be. But no one saw that. I cried when I was alone, screamed when I was alone, mourned when I was alone.

Lessons in avoiding addiction

I went back to work two days after the funeral. Our students had lost their mother. I would not let them lose their father as well. But I was not right in the head. I’d read a paper three times before it made sense–and I ‘d know the problem was not the writer, but me. I remember almost nothing about the last six months of my teaching career. I’d like to say I was drunk–but I was stone-cold sober. Addiction runs in my family, and I knew if I started drinking I would never stop.

…I was as shattered as a human being can be.

Maybe I should have.

Lessons from my addiction

Instead, I went to war against NET cancer. I wrote pamphlets and did fundraisers. I talked to doctors and nurses and reporters and ordinary people. There were times I reminded myself of Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,” condemned to recite his sad tale over and over again to the ears of people who had other things to do with their lives than listen to me talk about the tragedy of mine.

…I was not right in the head.

I could do nothing for Jane. NET cancer had snuck up on her–snuck up on us both–and sucked the life out of her like an aphid on a leaf. I’d failed her–some would say I was meant to–but if I could find a way, it would not happen to anyone else. Awareness? I’d been in the awareness business for years. Fundraising? Not my long suit, but I’d learn. As one of my students said to another, “If I were NET cancer, I’d be afraid–I’d be very afraid.”

Nothing to fear

That confidence was grossly overrated. We’ve made progress against NET cancer, both in terms of science and in terms of awareness since Jane’s death. But I’ve had very little to do with either. I do what I can, but my friends are not rich and I don’t have anything that looks remotely like Bernie Sanders’ mailing list. Local newspapers give me space periodically, but I still have not figured out how to get the major media outlets to pay attention.

“If I were NET cancer, I’d be afraid–I’d be very afraid.”

My supposed strength is an illusion. Sixty-six months after Jane died, I am still deeply in mourning. It’s hard to make headway when part of every month vanishes in a miasma of guilt–I should have saved her–and mental and emotional paralysis. I crawl into bed too often wondering where the day went and how nothing on the to-do list got finished–or even started.

Fear itself

I’ve no idea where these sixty-six months have gone. Large chunks of the first three years simply don’t exist in my memory. I go back and read some of what I’ve written here and elsewhere to discover who I was pretending to be at the time. The only thing I know with certainty is that everything hurt like hell every day–and that I worked really hard to create the illusion that it didn’t.

My supposed strength is an illusion.

And I know I am still not quite right in the head. There are still boxes of Jane’s things I keep making excuses not to open or give away; boxes of mugs we bought together I’ll never use again but can’t bring myself to part with. I bought new furniture for the living room nearly a year ago. The old stuff is still in the basement, waiting for me to find someone who wants it.

Discovering lessons at home

And sometime in the last month or so, I’ve realized I spend an enormous amount of time in the living room–the one room I’ve redone nearly completely since Jane’s death. I still sleep in the bed we bought when we got married, surrounded by the rest of that bedroom set. Yes, I moved it into a different room and repainted the walls, but it is still as though Jane never died.

…I am still not quite right in the head.

And other than changing the orientation of the dining room table, the dining room is almost exactly as she left it. I eat in the kitchen, except when I have major company. I am not comfortable there otherwise. Meanwhile, as I’ve begun to revamp the landscaping in major ways, I find myself increasingly making excuses to sit outside, even when it is cooler than I’d like.

Lessons on moving forward

Two days ago, I did what I likely should have done shortly after Jane died: I ordered a new bedroom set and a new dining room table that reflects who I am rather than who we were. I spent most of the last two days going through the bedroom and the study, cleaning out closets and drawers and making decisions about what needs to stay and what needs to go–and marveling at some of the things I’d set aside as too emotional to part with four years ago. I mean, empty candy tins? Really?

I still sleep in the bed we bought…

Jane didn’t want me turning the house into a shrine of memories about her. I promised her I wouldn’t do that. The last few weeks, however, I’ve realized that is exactly what I’ve done in too many ways. I wonder now if while trying to be strong–sleeping in our bed, sitting in our chairs, working at our table–they are, after all, just objects–I wasn’t undermining my own healing. We become emotionally attached to things to begin with; when those things are attached psychologically to a person we have deep feelings about, that emotional attachment to those things grows even stronger.

Lessons ahead

Of course, I may be entirely wrong. I’m still in love with Jane. We built this house together–and no matter what changes I make to it, that will remain the case. My mind may be irreparably damaged and all of this no more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I mean, empty candy tins? Really?

But I’ve taken the plunge. For the next several weeks I’ll be flying through the air while I await the new furniture and continue the landscaping projects. The water may prove too cold, too hot or just right. It doesn’t matter. I’m committed.

And, in the meantime if you know anyone local who’d like a used bedroom, dining room table and chairs, or couch and love seat…