IN TELLIG EN C E O N T HE MOVE
How Words Can Heal I N V I T A T I O N O N LY
Wri t t en by D r. J ea n Ro bey, MD
The clearer vision of the new year, and the role of love lost, rose like the sun over the dewy drops.
I
watched her follow the assistant down the hall into an exam room. I am positive the glow from her purple and blue hair came around the corner first and awoke me from my filing and signing to look up and see her pass my office door. Her presence was heavier than usual and I was curious why in particular. I entered the room and complimented the vibrant colors of her otherwise snow white hair. She told me how her husband loved her audacity and punk hair so to honor him and send a message up “should he ever look down onto the Earth” she made sure to be “something he couldn’t miss” and dyed it outrageous colors. “How are you?” I asked as I opened the electronic medical record to begin my documentation. The standard question, meant to invite unapologetic disclosures, rustled the wet leaves. “Well, I hated to sell the house. I really hated the move. I think I cursed Andrew every time I needed to lift a box. I have family all around now and I like my new house but I hated leaving the old one. It’s been a long time since I have moved into a new house and well, I did it all without Andrew,” she shared. The old house in the higher altitudes of Prescott had been a respite away from the city for decades for the couple. Once her husband Andrew fell 2 2 | J A N UA RY/ F E B RUARY 2020
ill and muddled through the throws of cancer and the corruptions of a hunger never felt and a dwindling reserve only to die one December morning, she weathered “one more winter”. Then last January she remodeled the kitchen with a modern marbled concrete with gold threading and redid the counters to give them nearly Vegas snazz. She put the house reluctantly on the market and sold it all too fast in a week’s time. She was not really ready for the rapid sell and wanted to break the contract. Andrew tapped her shoulder one day and whispered in her ear that she needed to head into the bigger, safer city, so she packed the last box cursing his absence as she lifted the box herself and drove away. Grief met her at the driveway of the new house, the first night there, the first weekend there, the first box opened to unpack, the first thing that broke that left her to fix it herself and on and on. Grief met her New Year’s Eve. “Here we are Andrew,” she toasted. “I think the strangest thing about grieving,” I pondered, “is there seems to be no end to it. Grief comes in a new reiteration and package and we find ourselves grieving yet another “first” and another “new” thing without that person in our lives.” She nodded her head so full of acute thoughts of quiet nights in a home Andrew has never been in.
“You know,” I offered, “I have studied grieving. I have studied it and seen it come around and around to seemingly no end. I have studied memory. I have seen the mind and soul choose what to recall and why. Do you know my father must have driven me to school a thousand times and though I know that, I remember clearly only twice? I am sure you don’t ever think of a boy from grade school when you go to do new things. Yet,” I challenged, “the memory of your late husband and his absence returns to you over and over again.” She shifted her posture in the chair, intrigued by the notion that grief could be more than just a burden, and that repeated presence collectively over a lifetime could sear the mind poignantly far beyond things we too often forget and care nothing of. “I think, “ I continued, “grief becomes an invitation to realize you were so very touched by a person that you cannot move into first, last, new or otherwise situations without conjuring their company. I think it is an invitation to be in awe of love.” The clearer vision of the new year and the role of love lost rose like the sun over the dewy drops. The light glistened in the air and all felt crisp and airy. The heaviness left her chest and she energized the strands of hair on her head like a beckon up to Andrew. “I never thought I would be grateful to be sad at times. I wish he was here, and not just to move boxes,” she grinned. “I always think of him and at times I think of him non stop, feeling so sad I am missing out on US.” She navigated the land minds of sad pitfalls and concluded, “That I have anyone to wish was here to share life’s moments is certainly a wonderful thing to have.” Dearest Punky Martha, By invitation only, might you share a moment, even if in grief, with my love for you? Love, Andrew 1
