Can One Have a Family Without Drama?

There’s no other time of year that reminds you just how single and childless you are than the Holidays. Everybody else spends the Holidays with their partner, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and/or in-laws. Single people like myself spend the Holidays with families too, just not our own families. Oh, we might be related to the people seated next to us at dinner, but we enter these family gatherings as a guest, and then we leave. Sometimes we leave feeling sad and pining for a family of our own. Other times, we leave feeling relieved and confident that we’re the lucky ones.

Lately, I’ve been debating which of these scenarios is more appropriate – having a family of my own, or being alone. I have mixed feelings about both.

Despite having a traumatic childhood, my idea of “family” has always been a positive one. My father was a volatile man, but also loving (in his own way), brilliant and extremely witty. My mother was calmer, a good listener, a pillar of emotional strength, creatively inspiring, and also funny. I would often tell her that I not only loved her, but I also liked her, which always made her smile. Likewise, if my siblings and I weren’t related and met as strangers, I’m sure we would still be friends. That’s a good feeling.

It was also a good feeling to have a partner, to love, to be loved, to be in love. It was a beautiful experience to be supported, to laugh with someone (to be able to make them laugh), to care for each other, to be able to confide, to share the wonders of life and discover new things together, to feel like we weren’t alone in this world, to know that we had each other’s back.

Not that being in a relationship was all roses and butterflies. In fact, it had its fair amount of drama, even before my late husband got sick.

Several months into our relationship, when we’d started letting our guards down a little more, I remember Kaz saying that he considered his Home a sanctuary and that all the world’s drama should stay outside (his diplomatic way of telling me to not bring my bad moods inside). I understood this on an intellectual level, and it sounded great, but it didn’t seem very practical.

Having grown up with all kinds of drama inside the home, I thought that was normal. Not necessarily extreme rage, violent outbursts, police being called, and people locking themselves in the bedroom for days, but the open expression of unhappiness and taking one’s bad moods out on others. I actually thought that’s what “home” meant – the freedom to shake off the shackles of societal pressures and behave any way you want. What a relief to come home and just be unhappy without pretending!

Suffice it to say, I don’t think like that anymore.

Growing up, being a caregiver, watching someone slowly die, dealing with multiple losses and years of grief, as well as years of living and writing alone, has all shifted my attitude. I don’t just want drama left outside my home, I want it as far away from me as possible.

It’s strange – all the aforementioned experiences have made me less prone to worry and less sensitive to insult, but far more sensitive to my immediate surroundings. Someone can break something in my house, and I won’t get upset. But if they raise their voice for any reason, I cringe.

I don’t like emotional outbursts, I don’t like complaining, I don’t like it when someone is moody, I don’t like loud noises, I don’t like negative tones of voice, I don’t like rudeness, I don’t like it when someone talks too much, and I really don’t like it when someone interrupts my work (which feels like an invasion of privacy).

I like peace and quiet. I like rooms with doors (that I can shut). I like being alone and not having to talk to anyone. I like having my own space. I need my space. I like being free. I like not having to deal with anything other than myself, my dog, my house, my work. (I’ve written about some of these themes before: protecting my head space, living the solitary life, and being alone vs. being lonely).

All of which brings me back to the central question: can one have a family without any drama? If not, is it better for someone like me to be alone? Or is some happy medium possible? Maybe separate offices, separate bedrooms, separate houses?

This reminds me of the painters/partners Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera who lived and worked in two houses that were joined by an elevated bridge. There’s actually a term for this kind of relationship now – it’s called Living Apart Together (LAT). And apparently, it’s growing more popular.

I know couples who live in the same house and have studios/offices on separate floors or away from the house altogether. I know couples who live in different cities. And, of course, there are couples who live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, work in the same office, and are perfectly fine despite being joined at the hip (I don’t get it).

I know families who are having all kinds of problems with their children: obesity, lack of appetite, anxiety, depression, personality disorders, drug problems, and more. And more than one couple that’s heading for divorce (the Pandemic has definitely not helped).

Maybe the answer is to find someone who doesn’t create or bring a lot of drama, and is wonderful enough to endure whatever drama arises. The right person will be someone who helps make it easier, not contributes to making it worse. Because, honestly, I don’t think life is possible without any drama.

Being alone might minimize it, but it’s certainly not a shield. As we all know, anything can happen at anytime. And living apart might help, but not necessarily (and might not always be possible).

Anyway, it’s worth thinking about. I hope to one day find the right situation, the right balance between togetherness and apartness, union and individuality, freedom and commitment. It would be sweet to host our own holiday gatherings, invite family to join us, and then to be left alone again. Alone but together.

The Museum, House and Studio of Diego Rivera and Friday Kahlo (photo source: Pawel Toczynski)

On Invisibility

In my last post, I mentioned feeling invisible sometimes. How and why does this happen?

To start with, I am the youngest of three in my nuclear family (five, including the siblings I didn’t grow up with). Apart from my mother and I, everyone else was a Leo: strong, bossy personalities. Being the youngest meant that I often wasn’t old enough to engage in the many serious conversations my family had concerning my mother’s precarious health, my father’s emotional abuse, my parents’ failing marriage, and so on. As a result, I grew up the kid in the room listening to the adults – a quiet observer.

Growing older, I would add my two cents when I could, but by this time a dynamic had been established that was difficult to undo. I would always be the youngest, least experienced, least knowledgeable. It’s not that my opinions or demands weren’t respected, they just didn’t carry the same weight.

On top of that, my father’s emotional abuse drummed into my young, developing mind that I should just sit there and not talk back. After all, what can a child say to a raging adult man? Not much. The few times I did try to speak up, I was shot down so forcefully to make me quake with fear. Thus developed the habit of accepting and even internalizing bad behavior.

Later in life, I would also (except for a brief period) be the unmarried, predominantly single, and childless member of my family. I don’t care what anyone says, but people who are unmarried and childless are not taken as seriously as people who are married and have children. Full stop.

It’s not surprising then that I get along with strong personality people, and that strong personality people get along with me. The problem is that, inevitably, these personality types act as if their lives, issues, and dilemmas are more important than mine, as if I’m there to simply listen, as if I’m not actually there.

I can’t tell you how many times people have gotten into my car, or entered my house, or showed up at some agreed upon meeting and just started talking about themselves, as if picking up a conversation that we were (not) just having. If they ask me how I’m doing, it’s only perfunctory, not a genuine inquiry into my well being. Because as soon as I answer, the conversation turns back to the other person.

When I do bring up my own issues it tends to feel like an imposition, and I rush through it, aware that the other person only has a finite amount of attention to spend on subjects that don’t revolve around them.

Then there are people who feel as if they can behave in any way around me – I guess they feel that comfortable. But they’re wholly unaware of how uncomfortable I am with their behavior, and of little to anything outside of themselves.

I don’t blame anyone for these situations. If anything, I blame myself.

The fact is around certain people, I revert to being a passive person who tries to avoid conflict at all costs. This doesn’t mean that I never talk about myself, or behave loudly, or make bold statements. But when faced with a stronger personality, I retreat.

When someone is loud, I am quiet. When someone continually talks about themselves, I listen. Sometimes I play a silent game where I wait to see how long it takes the other person to notice that I haven’t said one word. Believe it or not, some people just keep on talking.

I tell myself, it’s not worth saying anything because that’s just who they are, and they’re never going to change. When I have tried to set boundaries, or point out bad behavior, people usually become defensive, or they’ll say they hear me and then forget the next time we’re together. So, there’s no point in bringing it up.

Except years of not saying anything, not standing up for myself, not telling people to shut up and listen for a change, has caused a well of emotions to build up. I’m at the point now of avoiding certain people because I just can’t take it anymore, I won’t take it anymore, and I don’t have the energy to confront them.

Instead, I choose the company of people who do see me, who do listen, who do notice things and pay attention, who reciprocate, who are aware enough to have genuine conversations.

By the way, the flip side of all of this is that the ability to be silent, retreat into the background, and just listen and observe, can be a very useful skill – especially if you’re a writer. When people just go on and on, I take mental notes. I notice more than they ever will, more than I’d like to, frankly.

This is what makes me a good writer. And a good director.

And, I hope, a good friend.

This is also what I meant by using my “writing voice” more often.

I don’t know why, but I can write things that are difficult to say out loud. Writing helps me organize my thoughts and fortifies my soul. So, I will keep going.

PlHave you ever felt, or do you ever feel invisible?

Darkness, My Old Friend

Darkness. We meet again.

I call you “my old friend,” but you most definitely are not my friend. Nor are you my enemy. You are a familiar presence, a being of some sort, thrust upon me against my will in times of tragedy. At least, that’s what you seem to me now. We’ve met each other so many times that I feel connected to you in some weird way. Unlike a real friend, I am never happy to see you, and I dislike you very much. But at this point in my life, there is perhaps no one with whom I have been more intimate than you.

If you add up all of our time together, it’s longer than my longest relationship. And in those intense periods, you’ve consumed my mind, body, heart and soul. You’ve been in my blood and in my bed. You’ve seen me at my very weakest and most agonized state, heard my cries and confessions, my hopes, fears, prayers, and dreams. You know my habits, my self doubts, my anger. You know my heart, and how much I love the people we share in common.

I won’t say you took them from me. That is not your role. Your role is to fill the space that the person I loved once occupied… with darkness. You are the abyss, the cold watery depth, the hole in my chest, in all of our chests, for you descend on everyone who loved the person.

I will say that, even though we’ve met before, this time (every time) feels different. More personal. A little too close to home.

I cannot yet address too directly the still-unfathomable fact that my dear beautiful brother died six weeks ago. Or the manner in which he died – a horrible freak accident caused by a drunk driver.

On an intellectual level, I understand that the driver caused the accident to happen. On a non-intellectual, emotional, subconscious level I do not understand how the accident was allowed to happen by the unseen force(s) of the universe. Random acts of tragedy have always stumped me in this way. It’s terribly challenging to not ask Why, even more so to not point fingers at the sky.

Losing my brother was an energy shift. You, dear Darkness, are the aftermath. The messenger, the ambassador sent to inhabit our hearts and minds until we heal enough to no longer justify your presence.

What a sad existence for you, to be the vessel and bearer of so much sorrow, powerless to prevent the collective pain, eternally unwanted and unloved, watching people suffer from the loss of a love that you’ll never experience. To be nothing more than a void, into which our screams and cries and beating of chests disappear like sound waves in space, dead on arrival, no one to hear them.

The only positive thing I can say about you is that I tend to learn something new every time we meet. Reluctantly, of course. I prefer to learn these lessons some other way.

I can’t say “welcome back,” but simply hello. I have a few more grey hairs since last we met. I’ve put on a few pounds. But I’m stronger and more aware of myself than before. Also, more positive. I know that eventually the painful squeezing of my heart, the confusion and fogginess will subside. I know that the bits of my heart that were torn away will heal in time until they are rough internal scars. I know that new memories will create a distance from old memories, thereby dulling the pain of remembering my brother in a visceral way like I do now. I know that his wife and children will survive their broken hearts and thrive with his strength forever in their bodies and souls.

For now, though, all of us who loved him are going through it. For me, it’s the quiet moments that are the most difficult. It’s taken me six weeks to be able to sit at my computer without sobbing. It took about five weeks to be able to write in my journal that my brother died. Today, it’s still very hard for me to look at recent pictures of him.

But you know all of this, don’t you? Yes, you know it all.

Though I dislike you very much, I can’t say that I hate you because you are born from love. The more love, the deeper you penetrate, and the longer you stay.

And so, here we are, together again… for what will surely be a long period of coexistence. I wonder what you will teach me this time.

 

The Peace Baby (day 3/30)

A little over nine months before I entered the world, my father returned to Israel from the States, where he had been looking for work, and immediately flew into a rage about something related to my mother’s friendship with another man. My mother was a social woman and had many male friends, as well as female friends. In Israel that was normal. Despite my mother’s reassurances, my father was beside himself. He threw a fit, and then stayed locked in their bedroom for several days, not interacting with the rest of the family, not even coming out to eat (my mother brought him his meals).

According to my siblings, one morning my father reappeared as if nothing had happened, and everything was fine again. “A few weeks later, she told us she was pregnant,” they would later tell me. “You were the peace baby.”

That year, 1970, Yom Kippur was on October 10. I was born on October 11, 1970. Because everyone had theoretically atoned for their sins the day before, my mother always told me I was born on the “cleanest day of the year.”

She was pregnant with me all through that hot summer, working in the stationary store that she had inherited from her parents, the reason why she and my father had moved to Israel in the first place. My father was traveling back and forth to the States that summer trying to find a job because the store wasn’t bringing in enough income. So, my mother was often alone while working pregnant in stifling, non-air conditioned heat, dealing with notoriously rude and demanding Israeli shoppers, and then coming home to deal with my siblings, who turned 10 and 6 that summer.

In September, my father came home. A few weeks later, my mother went into the hospital on the advice of her doctors. My father told me she was in the hospital when her water broke and the contractions started. That’s when her best friend Talma, who was a nurse in the same hospital, called my father at the store. He finished the work day, and then went to the hospital, arriving after my actual birth. Like with my older sister and brother, my mother had given birth without my father present.

When I asked my father to describe the day I was born, he said, “It was an ordinary day.” “An ordinary day?” I laughed. “That’s how you describe the day your youngest daughter was born?”

But that’s how he saw it… just another work day, that happened to end with a new baby. Things were different back then, I guess.

The first thing he did was check on my mother, who was resting but still awake. There had been no complications. Once he confirmed that she was fine, he went to see me, and my mother’s friend Talma went with him. The maternity ward nurses brought me to the looking glass, all swaddled up like newborns are. Talma congratulated him on having another daughter. They had decided to call me Niva, which my mother told me means “a beautiful expression” in Hebrew. If I had been a boy, they would have called me Niv (now my nickname).

As the story goes, a day or two later, when my father came back to the maternity ward to pick up and take me home, this time with my brother and sister in tow, the nurses once again met him at the window with a swaddled baby girl. My father peered down and shook his head, “That’s the wrong baby.” At first the nurses protested, but my father insisted. After a few minutes, the nurses conferred amongst themselves. Then they put that baby girl back, lifted up another baby, and brought me to the window. My father nodded.

My siblings watched this exchange with wonder. From then on, they loved to tease me about possibly being the wrong baby and actually belonging to another family (clearly not the case, as I look exactly like them, but you know how siblings can be).

Later in life, I would delight in asking my mother what kind of baby I was. “You were an easy baby, always smiling. You only cried when you needed something, and as soon as you got it, you would stop. You were always happy.” My brother and sister, who helped take care of me, confirmed this.

I also asked my mother what it was like to give birth, something I always found it impossible to imagine her doing. By the time I was a child, she was already frail. Some of my earliest memories are of her in a hospital. As my siblings and I grew up, we seemed to tower over her. How could we possibly have come out of this woman? How could she have carried all three of us and gone through childbirth three times?

She shrugged. There was nothing to it, she said.

I always found that hard to believe, but maybe she was one of those lucky women who have easy births. She did have wide hips… hips of life one might even say.

Some Enchanted Evening (day 2/30)

All of us, at one point or another, have asked our parents how they met. This story is based on what my mother told me…

July, 1958. My mother was a 22 year old student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, sitting in the back seat of her American cousins’ Buick on the way to her first summer job. Her first job ever. She had grown up in a wealthy family with cooks and maids, and had a history of medical issues, so she had never worked a day in her life. Now, she was to be the art counselor at Bellefair, a summer camp for emotionally disturbed children.

The cousins hadn’t anticipated how far Bellefair was from the city. When they pulled up to the entrance of the grounds it was already sunset and the gate was closed. There was no phone to call anyone, so all they could do was wait. After a while, the cousins got antsy. They couldn’t wait all night.

“Just go,” she reassured them. “Someone will come for me. I’ll be fine.” The husband didn’t want to leave her standing alone in the darkness, but his wife reassured him. “She’ll be fine. It’s the country,” she pointed around to the empty fields.

As they drove away, the Buick’s tires crunching on the gravel, my mother sat on one of her suitcases and looked up at the sky. It looked different than the sky in the city, which always had a haze to it. This sky was a deep almost-black navy blue highlighted with millions of stars. She lit a cigarette and studied the constellations. She was nervous about what lay ahead, but also excited. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she had a feeling something was going to happen to her this summer.

At the same time, in the soft light of the camp’s office, the camp director was reviewing the list of expected arrivals for the day. Everyone had arrived except the art counselor. “Take the jeep and check the gate,” he told one of the male counselors, throwing him the keys. With any luck, she’d be there.

My father lit a cigarette before hopping into the jeep, and then drove through the bucolic grounds towards the gate. There in the distance stood a shadowy female figure, whispers of smoke rising from her cigarette. When he made the last turn, the jeep’s headlights shined on the woman for a few seconds before throwing her into complete darkness again. She had jet black hair in a close-cropped pixie style, full, naturally red lips (she wore no make-up), and, though he couldn’t see them yet, he would soon discover that the had large ocean-blue eyes.

As the jeep approached, she couldn’t see the driver because his brown skin blended with the darkness. All she could make out was his white uniform until he pulled up and hopped down. His skin was the color of honey. “I’m Harold,” he said, extending his hand. “Varda,” she said, shaking it. Their eyes met in the darkness, then he turned to pick up her two suitcases and a box, which, he noted, contained only records by black musicians like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday.

He drove slower back to headquarters so that the suitcases wouldn’t fall out, and so he could talk to her for a few extra moments. She was from Israel. Her name meant “rose” in Hebrew. She was an artist, 22 years old, in her second year at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He was 29 years old, born and raised in Cleveland, and had served in the Army.

“Are you a doctor now?” she asked him.

He laughed. “No, why would you think that?”

“Because you’re wearing all white,” she answered. He shook his head, still smiling. “I’m a counselor, just like you. But I live with the kids. We all wear white uniforms.”

She nodded. He was so handsome, she couldn’t think straight. His shaved head, skin tone and body type reminded her of the actor Yul Brenner. Her left thigh was only three inches from his right thigh, her torso even closer than that, and she felt heat on the left side of her body. She felt the urge to place a hand on his right arm, outstretched towards the steering wheel. Instead she gripped the jeep’s frame just above her head as they bounced along towards the office.

In the next few days, they would see each other again, first by chance on their respective ways to work, in the cafeteria, at counselor meetings. Then they began taking walks together, sitting next to each other at meal times and during meetings. The first time they kissed, they found it difficult to stop. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

He had dated more beautiful women than her before, but none as intelligent, exotic and kind. He could talk to her about history, art and traveling. She made him laugh. But what really captured him was her innocence and lack of prejudice. The more time they spent together, the more people began to stare, and then to frown. Progressive as Bellefair was, it still didn’t approve of a black male counselor consorting with a white female counselor. Varda didn’t seem to notice the growing tension around them. Or if she did notice, she didn’t care. She was oblivious to social mores. She related to him as a man, not as a black man, though he sensed that his blackness was part of the attraction.

She possessed a rebellious, independent spirit similar to his. Her history of bad health – rheumatic fever at three years old, cancer at 15, surgeries and a permanently scarred neck which she would always cover with a scarf or turtleneck, thin sleeveless ones in the summer – her being Jewish and an artist, all lead to her identifying as an outsider.

He was an outsider too – an educated, intellectual, world-traveled black man in a white world that refused to see him as anything other than “just another Negro.”

By October, they had married. It all happened so fast that they didn’t think it through, or maybe they did. They would always be outsiders.

An Invitation to Other Writers

As some of you may recall, I published an essay on Modern Loss a couple of months ago called “Forever ‘The Girls’.” I am thrilled to announce that I’ve just become a contributing editor to the site. This is an incredible opportunity, for which I am both grateful and humbled. I’m also very excited to work with other writers.

I would like to invite you to get in touch with me if you’re interested in having your work published on Modern Loss.

Below is a little more info:

In case you’re not familiar with Modern Loss, we launched last November as an online magazine about grief and loss that is geared toward Gen X and Gen Y. Currently, we publish — in addition to more service-oriented resource pieces — short personal essays that are narrowly focused around one aspect of loss. One writer imagines watching the Kardashians with her late mother; another explains what it’s like to mourn her philandering husband; another still visits his dead dad on Google Street View. We’ve been featured in the NYT, Slate, and elsewhere, and held our first live event, with HBO, in June. (You can also check out our About Us page.)

If you’d like to pitch me an idea for an essay on loss, please email me at nivadorellsmith@gmail.com. Essays can be about any kind of loss – spouse, parent, child, sibling, friend, co-worker, pet – and almost any aspect. Essays are generally 800 words but can be a little shorter or a little longer. Unfortunately, there is no pay (yet), but it will allow you to connect with more people and drive more traffic to your blog.

I take it as a fortuitous sign from the Universe that today WordPress posted this about writing through grief, including several grief-related blogs. I plan to reach out to them — and hope to hear from you too.

– Niva

 

A Mother’s Will to Live

Yesterday (March 18) was my mother’s birthday. She would have been 78 years old. She died at age 56. My mother had been seriously ill at different points in my childhood, so I had contemplated her death many times, beginning at 5 years old when she needed her first open heart surgery. Not that I understood what “death” meant at that age, but I was aware of the possibility that she might not come home.

Somehow though, miraculously it seemed, she did come home… over and over, after every operation. By the time I was 22, my mother had beat the odds so many times, to my young mind she seemed almost invincible, like a frail old tree that has managed to survive multiple natural disasters.

For this reason, despite her history of bad health, it was a shock when one day three weeks after my 22nd birthday, she collapsed in front of a neighbor’s house while walking the dog. Two hours later my brother broke the news, and I too collapsed (he caught me). It felt as if the entire world had been yanked out from under my feet.

My mother was the anchor and center of our family, the one person my siblings and I knew we could always turn to and rely on, a constant and unwavering source of unconditional love. She was an artist, music lover and world traveler.  She went back to college in her mid-40’s to finish the degree she had abandoned when my parents married. She finally learned how to drive after they split up twenty-five years later. In the year before she died, she and a high school girlfriend did a European road trip, visiting Switzerland, Italy and Germany. She also visited New Orleans for the first time, and returned saying she could move “in a heartbeat” to either New Orleans or Florence, Italy.

She spoke English, Hebrew and German fluently, the latter only with older relatives. It always surprised me to hear her laughing with her aunts, or saying something under her breath to her brother, in German. She once told me that she liked writing poetry in English more than Hebrew (her native tongue) because English had so many more words to choose from. She loved movies, literature and laughter. A few of her favorite authors were Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, James Baldwin and Somerset Maugham.

She was beautiful: rosy cheeks, jet-black hair (later, salt & pepper) and deep blue eyes framed by beautifully arched eyebrows. Her only regular beauty regiment was applying face cream and plucking her brows. She never wore a stitch of make-up, and she never died her hair. She was opinionated, but also fair-minded and wise. My older siblings and their friends would often seek her counsel. Me being the youngest and barely out of the rebellious teenage years, seeking her counsel (and listening to it) was still relatively new. We were just beginning to make the transition from the traditional mother/daughter hierarchy to adult(ish) friends when she died.

As cliche as it sounds, there was something special about my mother. She once found a shiny bauble on a Tel-Aviv sidewalk, only to find out that it was a diamond worth over a thousand dollars. The boyfriend of a friend, upon meeting my mother for the first time, gave her the crystal necklace he was wearing off his neck. His girlfriend urged her to accept. Strangers, children and animals were all drawn to her.

Hours before she collapsed, she had received, separately and completely by coincidence, wonderful news from both of my siblings, news that she had been waiting years to hear. My last conversation with her was a bit more tense (something I still regret), but we did speak about the college film I was directing, and I knew she was proud of me. My siblings and I have a theory that, with all the good news she heard that morning, she might have died of happiness.

We never asked for an autopsy because we felt like her body had been through enough, but her doctors had their theories. They also revealed their genuine surprise that she had lived as long as she did. These men of science credited her will to live as the reason. 

Physically frail but iron-willed, she left her mark on the world.

My mother and me

Loss: From Nightmare to Normal

Today a friend posted on Facebook a NYT article entitled No Husband, No Friends by Charlotte Brozek with the caption “Wow. This is scary.” In the article, Ms. Brozek, a widow of one year, explains that because she and her late husband had no single friends, and because her married friends now avoid her, she feels isolated, confused and understandably depressed.

My friends headed for the hills. In the last years of my husband’s life, we had come to rely on two or three couples for entertainment, but they disappeared after he died. Were they afraid to face their own mortality, or was it that the dynamics we presented as a duo were lost with me as a widow?

This statement made me recall what another friend recently said to me: “No offense, but you’re my worst nightmare.” She was referring to my being a widow, and I took no offense at all. In fact, I totally understood what she meant. I used to be my own nightmare too, in the same way parents who lose their children personify other parents’ worst nightmares.

In his memoir A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis describes the inevitability of death (i.e. separation) that we’re all aware of when we enter into romantic relationships, whether we’re conscious of it or not:

… this separation, I suppose, waits for all. I have been thinking of H. and myself as peculiarly unfortunate in being torn apart. But presumably all lovers are. She once said to me, ‘Even if we both died at exactly the same moment, as we lie here side by side, it would be just as much a separation as the one you’re so afraid of.’

We all know that one day our lives and our loved ones’ lives will end. Some say the words “till death do us part” when they marry, but really those words could be said upon the birth of a child or the beginning of any committed relationship where the understanding is “we will be together until one or the other of us dies.” Yet, when death actually happens, even if it’s expected, it is both shocking and agonizing to the ones left behind.

Another friend once said to me that death (nothing from something), like birth (something from nothing), is incomprehensible. Intellectually, we know that it happens and what it means. But when faced with the reality (no matter how much we have “prepared” for it), our minds cannot fully understand how it’s possible that someone can be alive one moment and the next moment not alive, and never to return. The power of this total and complete finality is what shocks the system, and it’s that finality that we hate to think about.

C.S. Lewis describes the discomfort that his widower status produced in others:

At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.

Ms. Brozek uses the analogy of Noah’s ark, where only coupled animals were saved, to describe the inherant isolation a widow can feel:

I understand Noah’s plan — the world needed two to tango in the face of an annihilating flood. But he should have designated a section on the ark for us.

Two and a half years after Kaz’s death, I’m still experiencing the awkward encounters, less so the isolation. For one thing, I have a diverse pool of friends, including couples (unmarried, married, gay, straight, with/without children) and singles. I also have no qualms doing things alone, and time has helped to reestablish my equilibrium. Ms. Brozek also writes:

Someone once said that being a widow is like living in a country where nobody speaks your language. In my case, it’s only my friends, family and acquaintances who all now speak Urdu — it’s not the whole country. I discovered strangers possess more compassion than my own friends and family. 

One of the main reasons I cherish this blog so much is that I can discuss things here that I cannot comfortably discuss with most people. This has made me feel less isolated and continues to help me heal.

So, while loss is inevitable, time and expression can help us transition from nightmare to normal. It’s hard to remember when we’re in the thick of it, but life is cyclical… nothing from something, something from nothing… in finitum.

What’s In A Name?

It’s funny how we grow up with misconceptions. I always thought that women were, by and large, expected to change their surname once married. In fact, this tradition belongs mostly to English-language countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, India, the English-speaking provinces of Canada, and the United States. In countries like Belgium, Cambodia, China, France, Greece, Italy, Iran and most Arabic-speaking countries, women are not expected to take their husband’s last name. 

Of course, just because I grew up thinking this was the norm, doesn’t mean I planned on conforming if/when I ever married. I knew plenty of women who hadn’t changed their names for various reasons (as this article demonstrates), and had always planned to keep my own for life. It was more than just professional convenience and recognition. My birth name also held significant meaning.

When my father, African American, married my mother, foreign-born and Caucasian, in 1958, his last name was Washington, the ‘Blackest Name’ in America, according to the writer of this HuffPo article. Several years later, and to the chagrin of my father’s family, my non-conformist parents decided to ditch Washington for something new – something other than what Malcolm X referered to as a “slave name.” [Watch the first two minutes of this clip to hear him explain the concept:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SldZ-r5pHfA]

My mother took on the responsibility of inventing what would be the new family name. She did it by combining letters from her and my father’s existing full names. The 4th letter in her first name was D. There were three O’s in my father’s name, three R’s between my both of their names. The 1^st letter of her last name and 4th letter of his first name was E. Both her last name and his middle name contained the letter L. Thus our last name became D-O-R-E-L-L. And I, the youngest child, was the first to have that surname on my birth certificate.

[Little did my parents know the name “Dorrell” apparently dates back to an Anglo-Norman family that shows up in history around 1066 and seems to have been originally from Ariel, La Manche, Normandy. They even have their own family crest.]

When Kaz, also African American, proposed to me in April of 2010, I explained how (and why) my parents had invented my last name, and told him I wanted to keep it when we married. He then explained how important it was to him that I took his last name. “I’m old school that way,” he said. Kaz’s last name was Smith,  the most common North American surname in 1990, 2000 and 2010 according to Wikipedia. Along with Washington, Smith is also one of the surnames of the 74 Founding Fathers of the United States.

The entire year of his illness, we went back and forth about the issue. But by the time we married, on April 22, 2011, I could no longer deny him. When I told him I would change my name, his whole face lit up with a smile. For 11 days, we were “Mr and Mrs Smith.”

After he died, I changed my surname formally, first at the Social Security Agency, then the bank, the DMV, my employer, my healthcare provider, on Facebook. I changed it on every form of identification… except one. My passport. At first, it seemed unnecessary because I didn’t plan on traveling anywhere any time soon. Then someone told me a new bride (who takes her husband’s name) has a year within which to change her name on the passport.

2.5 years later, I just applied to change the name on my passport. But apparently, I didn’t send the proper paperwork. If I don’t send it within 90 days, they will send me my old passport back. The good news is, as I recently learned, a woman who has taken her husband’s name actually does not need to change her passport. However, it is recommended that all your identification be consistent. So, now I must decide if I should go ahead and change my passport to be consistent with my other I.D., or leave it as is. 

To be honest, I have thought about one day going back to my original name. I have grown fond of my married name, which has obvious emotional significance too, but one of my fears is that, by keeping it, I might always feel like a widow to the man who gave it to me. On the other hand, if I change it, won’t this be severing the last remaining tangible thread between us?

It’s not something I have to decide right now. But the more time passes, the more I wonder what, if anything, should I do with my name… and when.

Did you change your name when you married?

Six Legs in the Bed

It should be no surprise to anyone that I sleep with my dog. I’ve blogged about giving up on crate training. I’ve posted a picture of her on the bed. Truth is, she’s been sleeping on my bed – and I’ve been receiving flack for it – practically since day one. My 84-year old father has been the most vocal about his displeasure, presumably on behalf of the entire family.

Him: “It’s just not right. Dogs should not sleep on beds, period.”

Me: “Why? Where is that written?”

Him: “It’s not written anywhere. It’s just common sense. Dogs are dirty and you don’t want that mess in your bed.”

Me: “But she doesn’t sleep in the bed. She sleeps on the bed.”

Him: “It’s not right, I’m telling you.”

Several months ago his tune changed slightly.

Him: “Well, it’s your bed. I guess you can do what you want with it.”

Me: “Thank you.”

Him: “But I still don’t think it’s right, and I don’t know what you’re going to do when you visit other people.”

Me: “Your concerns have been noted, and I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

Of course, my father has a point. No one wants this dog on their bed.

By now, however, she knows the routine. When we return home after playing down and dirty at the dog park or beach, she follows me to the bathroom and hops into the bathtub to receive a very thorough wash from head to toe without squirming or crying. I think baths make her feel better because afterwards she literally hops around the apartment like a gazelle on speed.

Like any little lady, she also always “bathes” herself – twice – at night and in the morning. There’s a reason why the three most common compliments she receives are: “beautiful… well-behaved… clean.”

Shedding is another matter. She does leave little white hairs everywhere, but most of the time she sleeps on top of a blue blanket that I wash every week.

Rare are moments like the other night when I returned from brushing my teeth to find this:

(For the record, she was still on top of the top sheet.)

Then there is the negotiation of space. I still sleep on the same side of the bed I did when Kaz was here. Ruby usually falls asleep at the bottom half of the bed, and uses my foot as a pillow. We shift in the middle of the night – me to my right side, she to a curled up ball behind my legs. We shift again in the morning – me to my left side, she completely stretched out (vertically) from one end of the bed to the other.

Sometimes she sleeps like this:

She continues sleeping while I shower, get dressed, prepare breakfast and put on my makeup. But when I enter the room with my usual “Good morning sunshine, time for breakfast,” I always find her lying on her stomach, bright-eyed, wagging her tail. I imagine she slowly wakes up to the sounds of me puttering about the apartment.

On the weekends, we both sleep in… until she gives me this look, which means it’s time to get up:

I know it’s unorthodox. I know it will complicate matters if/when I start dating again (she will adapt). I also know I’m not alone. The lady who ran her Vermont daycare slept with her husband and four other large dogs (five when Ruby lived there) in the bed. And the lady featured in this 2011 New York Times article sleeps with a pot-bellied pig, two kittens and three terriers.

From that NYT article:

Figures vary, but according to a recent study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 to 62 percent of the 165 million dogs and cats in this country sleep in bed with humans, with other surveys skewing higher.

Another study warns that… allowing pets to sleep in the bed can be dangerous and can spread zoonoses (pronounced zoh-AN-ee-sees), pathogens that go from animals to people… They cite instances of fleas from cats transmitting bubonic plague. Catch scratch fever is a danger, too, they say, as are various forms of meningitis, Pasturella pneumonia and other infections.

(Bubonic plague? Geez.)

All I know is having Ruby on the bed makes me feel super safe. More than anything, I find it comforting and bonding. I think she does too, as she sleeps beside me wherever I am in the apartment. As long as we’re both parasite-free, wound-free, allergy-free and disease-free, I can’t see the harm in waking up to this every day. Can you?