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Strength?

Betrayal. Language conspires against us as we strive to understand one another.

I met a new friend going through a similar grief journey of losing a spouse and struggling with a single-parenthood that had not been imagined. The word “strength” kept emerging. What does it mean?

I delivered a strong performance in soccer yesterday because I abstained from running and nursed an injury for three weeks. I was there when my son wanted to talk about his mother late at night because I had taken time earlier to rest. I bend so I won’t break.

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A Tale of Two Much Ados

Shakespeare has been a series of bookmarks in my life since a dismal introduction in high school. Not only did I survive that lifeless effort, but through books like A Thousand Acres and movies like Ran, I discovered that these stories need to be told and retold.

Just after Westen was born, Mary and I took him to DelShakes‘ production of Twelfth Night. Almost nine years later, I took him to Resident Ensemble Players’ rendition. This time he didn’t sleep through it, had a little brother, and didn’t have a mom. Nine years and a lifetime.

Shakespeare understood humanity in a way that transcends 400 years of social upheaval and put it on stage in a way that no one could today. I need that kind constancy, we all do.

In its last week on stage, I experienced DelShakes’ Much Ado About Nothing twice. It is hard to imagine two moments during the same run being more drastically different.

Wednesday’s performance would have been rained out if not for The Resurrection Center‘s generosity in offering their altar as a stage. I volunteered for the event and got the opportunity to watch the performance from the pews. Sitting there alone, I thanked God that this was a comedy. I tried to focus on the brilliance of these actors working on an unfamiliar stage, creating something beautiful on the virtual fly. That ghost of no one would not leave my side. I couldn’t field any questions, couldn’t whisper “I LOVE that line,” couldn’t laugh and squeeze a knowing hand. The better the moment on stage, the more intense the pain. The raucously joyful end scene held little comfort. I composed myself and kept as busy as possible during intermission and exeunt. Then, exposed to another part of me that is gone, I was broken in half. When Mary met me I frequently attended concerts, movies, theaters, bars, and wherevers on my own. Now? The soloist is gone and the partner is gone. It’s not heartbreak, it’s personality break. I had hoped it was below 50%, but I’m not certain. Fear and emptiness took hold of me for days.

Four mornings later I awoke with little energy, but just enough quiet determination to go see that damn play again. Maybe it was Poe’s heartbeat, maybe my stubbornness,  or maybe it was that I wouldn’t let my pain rob my sons of an experience they deserved to have. Whatever it was, I set to take them out for a night of Shakespeare.

The weather was perfect and the boys ran off to find friends before the show. I leaned back in my low-profile backpack chair to peruse the program and found an antidote to my apprehension over doing this to myself again. A “From the Director” letter that seemed to be aimed right at me. Bi Jean Ngo easily read Much Ado as a play about healing. I needed Miss Ngo to spell it out for me. These characters put barriers in the way of love; Claudio a soldier, Benedict and Beatrice self-declared permanently single, even Hero allows herself to be ‘dead.’ They all end up escaping their pain to permit love.

I don’t know what my path will be through grief. In a way, I’m less sure than ever of how it will happen. I am confident that it will happen. With a little Shakespeare, a lot of these smiles, and a focus on healing, I’m going to build something new.

God bless,
Jason

 

 

 

From the Director of Delaware Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Bi Jean Ngo:

A year ago, I experienced exquisite heartbreak. It was the kind of all encompassing, devastating heartbreak that pitches a person into weeks of sobbing into a pillow and into compulsively spending whole paychecks on tubs of ice cream. It was painful, particularly because I’m lactose intolerant.

I didn’t think I could recover, and when I really thought about, I was terrified of mending my heart, because it might get crushed again. I just wanted to construct an impenetrable armor underneath which I could protect my ego and my fragile heart. I was in battle mode, refusing to expose my vulnerabilities.

In that moment, Delaware Shakespeare offered me an artistic challenge and opportunity.

David Stradley asked me if I would direct this summer’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. At first, I was scared that I was in a rather dark place to think about directing a romantic comedy. I re-read the play, and through the lens of my heartbreak, I could see so clearly how the world of Much Ado is about healing that heartbreak. Beatrice and Benedick are two worldly, intelligent people who use their searing wit to wall themselves off from love. From the beginning of the play, we sense a history of unresolved pain between them. Their friends and family help bring Beatrice and Benedick towards a realization of love for each other, and we get to experience their sublime joy when they allow themselves that love.

There is further healing of another sort. When the play opens, the community of Messina and Leonato’s family welcomes home a band of soldiers led by Don Pedro. The soldiers have fought in the wars and come home to a beautiful land filled with vibrant, gorgeous, generous people. We experience the reintroduction of the war veterans into their community through celebration and affection. Claudio falls in love for the first time when he sees Hero. Benedick and Beatrice reconnect. Don Pedro sheds the command of an army and takes command of playing matchmaker, declaring himself as a Love God.

Then there are the moments of conflict filled with gossip and slander that rip apart these romantic binds. We see what happens when men take sides against an innocent woman based on assumptions.There is heartbreak.There are tests of loyalty. And then there is healing, the kind that comes with acknowledgment of misunderstanding and with the generosity of forgiveness.

A couple of members of our cast (Krista Apple & J Hernandez) and I spent some weeks exploring Much Ado through conversations with some of our most vulnerable populations in Wilmington. Our new friends lived through incredible heartbreaks and adversities, and still opened their hearts and minds to us, sharing their thoughts candidly. We were inspired by their incredible strength. We gained insight and clarity about the world of Much Ado which helped shape our work during this production. It’s a thin line between love and hate and love and heartbreak. Choosing to love another human being takes courage, humility, and acceptance.

In the play, we witness a community that celebrates love and connection. And right now, we’re living in a time when there’s a lot of fear about connecting to the unfamiliar and a lot of people who act upon false assumptions. I hope that Much Ado brings all of you joy and romance and encourages everyone here to speak and act from a place of love.

-Bi Jean Ngo

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Artful Campers

Letter writing, museums, and camping have something in common. They take time. This summer, we took time to enjoy many moments away from the seemingly immediate demands of modern life. We got away from devices and noise and experienced the subtleties of life we so often fail to perceive.

We took time.

Delaware Art Museum is inviting families to take time together in the Copeland Sculpture Garden for twilight art making, moonlit sculpture tours, and bedtime stories during their very first campout on August 18th! Tent camping will happen in the Garden and limited space will be available inside for sleeping bags.

The Labyrinth at dusk, the sunset light falling on Crying Giant, the colored lights of the Museum at dark…this promises to be a special evening.

It will be extra special for me and my sons as the Museum has dedicated a magnolia tree to my late wife, Mary Kathryn Zerbey. It has yet to have a plaque, or made official with a ceremony, but it is a touching gesture to have a permanent place for Mary at the Museum she introduced us to seven years ago.

I had left my job as a proofreader and editor to care for our sons. Mary knew me to be restless and sent me to the Museum. After a stroller tour and a Glory of Stories, we were hooked. Not just to Delaware Art Museum, but all museums. We’ve delighted in countless hours in collections of varied stripes. They’ve become a focal point of our educational lifestyle. Places where knowledge isn’t just discovered, but applied, challenged, connected, explored, and brought into full color and dimension.

An opportunity to spend 13 (or more) hours in a corner of our world that has brought us so much value? Oh yeah, we’ll be there August 18th.

God bless,
Jason

 

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Temple

On Independence Day we took an uncharacteristic turn as full-on “tourons” in Washington, D.C. Mary introduced me to this term and we never used it as strongly as the Urban Dictionary describes. For us, it was just that unimaginative sightseeing and photo taking one does on holiday from time to time.

I plotted our walking route from the Metro station to the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and finally a spot along the Potomac River to view the fireworks. I hardly expected my seven- and nine-year-old sons to make the journey with heat, crowds, and detours in our way.

Our saving grace came early in the day at Renwick Gallery, across from the White House. We love museums and an escape from the sun was already in order.

We found much more than an escape. No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man is an exhibit that recreates the other-worldly California desert spectacle. Within this world there was the Temple. A place of remembrance and introspection about those things that have been lost. It is simply composed of cut and sanded plywood, but the intricacies are unending.

Visitors are encouraged to take a 4″ by 4″ block of wood and write about something or someone they have lost. This could have been one of those “ambushes” you learn about as you grieve, but it wasn’t. I invited my sons to participate and was surprised at their reactions. Westen, the older and more vocal about his mom, declined and chose to quietly walk the space. Isaac has been much more reserved about losing his mom, but wanted me to transcribe something for him.

As he mentally created his message, a phrase came to me: We will gain more than we have lost. I can’t take credit for it. It was purely divine and seems all but impossible. When God asks you to do the impossible it’s because He knows it can be done. I hope my faith is strong enough to keep believing that.

For Isaac’s part, his message was all sweetness and love and compassion. It was also arms-outstretched broad for so few words. It speaks for itself.

God bless,
Jason

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The Wrong System Restore Date

During Mary’s final days, I was inspired to take my sons on a real adventure. Mary took every opportunity to spend time with her family. Not one vacation hour was ever held over year to year. She was present as often as possible and we are (literally) eternally grateful for the time we all had together. She would amass her paid time off and start rigging the calendar in January to prepare for her favorite two weeks of the year, and by December we would have her all to ourselves to close out each year. But we never took time for a proper road trip adventure.

It took me three months after Mary’s passing to pull out of the driveway in a borrowed 19-foot RoadTrek 190 with little idea of how long we would be gone or how far we would go. After nearly seven weeks and 3,000 miles of visiting with friends and family, wandering, and exploring, we rolled back into that driveway and we had gone far.

But I messed up.

In the three months between Mary’s death and the trip I had started to develop our new life. Laundry, dishes, meals, bedtime, church, play, rest, blogging, personal business sorting, soccer, jiu-jitsu, Facebook engagement…everything was different in small and large ways. I was watching the changes, analyzing them, and through trial-and-error and important prioritizing, I was internalizing and owning those changes.

I thought the road trip would be an extension of that process. A way to prove to myself that the Zerbey Three could love each other, adventure, and still get the basic practicals done. It felt that way for six weeks and three days. Then I got sick with a nasty stomach bug and was blessed to be staying with Mary’s parents. I know I’m not going to do this alone, but I was almost incapable of providing for my sons and lying in bed thinking about what was next. Going home. It was one of those changes I hadn’t faced. Mary wasn’t there to build the ready-for-the-car pile in the hall. Mary wasn’t there to negotiate our departure time. Mary wasn’t there to wrangle with her mom about how much food we’d take with us. All of a sudden, she was gone again. Driving home, I had that empty passenger seat and no one to figure out what “had to” come in the house tonight and what could wait. I lost all the rhythms I composed in those first three months. I didn’t have enough food in the fridge and the washing machine wouldn’t accept any quarters.

I’ve got to look at this reset as an opportunity to do things better. I made a ton of mistakes in those first months. I hadn’t elaborated a perfect system that’s now lost. I had a survival system that would not last and now needs a full rebuild. So, I’ve got my first pot of coffee and blog post going. I think that’s something.

God bless,
Jason

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Word Up

Mary and I started out slow. We had each been hurt, but refused to be damaged. It was the MySpace-to-Facebook-pre-social-media-insanity era and we didn’t communicate online much. Before our first date, an analog miscommunication led me to believe she wasn’t interested and I thought, “Oh well, another flirt bites the dust.” We didn’t have these tools to express every anxiety and emotional whim as they arose.

I didn’t see our initial attraction turning into something greater. A good, healthy summer fling with a pretty, kind girl who hardly got me into any trouble. A win, but alas, no more than that.

I invited her to an outdoor wedding for what I thought was our last date. A five-hour round trip in my noisy ’95 Eagle Talon on the hottest day of August, 2004, with a lot of people neither of us knew. I figured that would be it. At best it would be a tiring affair and a low key end to a low key romance.

We sat with my mother and grandmother and had a better time than, I daresay, anyone there. I don’t know how we did it, dabbing (read: mopping) sweat and laughing like mad hatters through the day.

We got to southern Delaware late, stretched out under the stars, watched meteors fly overhead, and at 25 I asked this 33-year-old to be my girlfriend. We weren’t in love, but we could see it coming.

Our relationship didn’t heat up, but it swelled and matured like time lapse photography. Ahead of the game, as usual, Mary felt and expressed her love first in early December. I didn’t come around until her birthday three days before Christmas. So I loved this gal and had bought her a DVD player. Forget the fact that she received one for her birthday, this was not going to cut it.

I wrote her a letter. I just found it and had all but forgotten that first Christmas gift.

It wasn’t a revelation or poetry, but no object could have come close to showing how I felt about Mary. I could have terrified her (and myself) and told her how I wanted to be with her forever, but I reserved myself to writing how this was something wholly different than I had ever experienced.

We were never apart long enough to exchange letters, but left notes for one another; expressed our heaviest grievances on paper before discussing; and constantly shared emails about new events to attend, my latest unschool win or loss, and her work day. I’ve even found emails from me that Mary printed to keep.

I’m blessed to have all those words. As that life with Mary gets more distant, the notes and emails and that most important letter are still here.

We have a lot of pictures, but the words interpret them, show us what they meant at the time, especially when our memory deceives us.

Blogging this journey through grief and into a new life has been vital, but there is so much more to share. I’ve been inspired to return to letter writing and send permanent pieces of myself into the world. Revive relationships, tell stories, and grow the joy I’ve always had in creating written works.

I feel a lot less alone when I’m scratching out a letter, I feel like I’m connecting to someone now, in the future when they receive it, and maybe again in a later future. It’s bigger than a moment. It’s taking a moment and recording it, translating it, and stretching it out over time and space.

God bless,
Jason

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Not Strong

I yell at my sons. I bully them and unleash my temper and can’t hardly explain why afterward. I can’t blame this on grieving as it has long been a weakness. I’ve tried to will it away. I thought I was strong enough to simply send it to the cornfield.

Wrongo. I hid it away and let it grow. I killed the Tooth Fairy, scared my sons, and screamed in front of my young nephews. In an effort to not share my shame, I became monstrously shameful.

Our hosts, my sister and her husband, neither kicked me out nor gave me a beating. She found a GriefShare meeting and informed me I was getting dropped off while she took the boys to the Knoxville Zoo. Griefshare has been an invaluable tool for my healing and my sister found this meeting without knowing my history with them. It seemed like the perfect release for the pain my actions had caused.

But I didn’t do it right. I got talking about Mary, home education, and my sons, but not my weakness. I left feeling increasingly anxious and panicked. I took to emailing a dear friend and tried to make my confessions. For the second time that day a strong woman had the answer I needed.

I never intended to lie about “doing fine,” but as my strength has waned, I’ve neglected my self-awareness and been overly concerned with not hurting and worrying those I love. My friend reminded me that I need to trust these people. That if you’re reading this, we can help one another.

I like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to be fun places. When they get dark, people seem to feed it rather than bring light to it. And I’m not snapping a lot of well-framed pictures while I’m stomping around like a toddler. So I’m here to officially record my discredit. I have to fix this and I’ve failed on my own. I’m going to trust you and God more from now on. When Reverend Peyton sang “Since I Laid My Burden Down,” I forgot the part where the Lord picks up the burden.

If you’re hurting because of a hidden shame, please find someone to confide in. With hope, he or she will help you find others to trust. Some weaknesses might be too much to overcome on your own.

God bless,
Jason
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#3Zs Road Trip Day One

Excited and up early to get too many things finalized to leave home!

I put Matt McWilliams and Tom Woods in my ear and start the coffee maker, in the dark. I’m totally inspired by this home educating, libertarian dad who is supporting his family. Okay, he’s not flying solo, but this makes me think I’ve got a chance to make this insane life work for me and my sons. I’m listening very closely as the coffee urn reaches its maximum capacity, and the brewer keeps doing its work regardless.

So it seems life won’t be perfect.

Not a problem. I’ve had too many people inspire me and too many reasons to forge a meaningful life.

God bless,
Jason

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Zerbey Three Adventure Day X-1

Fear and trepidation. I’ve become too familiar with these feelings in the last few weeks. It’s time for some exposure therapy. I’m throwing my sons in a Roadtrek 190 and we’re going to tackle the unknown.

Mary and I each went camping our whole lives and our first born spent a weekend in an old tent before he was seven months old. Just before she passed, we were debating the first new purchase of a tent in decades. A big, lovely suite of outdoor living with hinged door and screened-in mud room (my dirt-in-bed-phobic favorite). It was still there in her digital shopping cart as I started to pick up the pieces from her death. In those first days of the Zerbey Three I knew we needed something more than just right now. We needed a goal and an adventure, something with just the three of us.

Now we’re here. New tent purchased and tested and recreational vehicle borrowed. The RV only has three seats and it’s hard to conceive of this journey happening had Mary not left us. Last night, my elder son asked, “Why did Mom die?” I know he was thinking of those three seats. I told him that we need to pray and ask God for guidance, for patience, and for a way to see the purpose in our lives. That I’m not smart enough to solve this puzzle without help. That we’ve got to work to give it meaning.

I feel closer to God outside. All the green of spring is life anew. Regenerating is more painful than I had hoped, but I see a lot of growth to be had in the weeks ahead.

God bless,
Jason

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The “In-Laws” Problem

I’ve got the best problems. My favorite ones are all mine, I don’t have to share them with my boys and they involve an adoptive family that has embraced me for as long as I can recall.

Sure I remember some hesitance from Mary’s more protective family members when we first started dating; but I’m protective of those I care for too, so any perceived distance formed into bonds of trust. It wasn’t long before I had a great big pile of “in-laws.”

A horrid term. Beyond the socially negative connotations, I was already leaning libertarian and these folks meant a whole lot more to me than our legal connection. They accepted me as family, I accepted them, and blood ties were born with our boys. The legal binds are cut with Mary’s passing, but that has no relevance to our lives.

It does have relevance to terminology. Language is important to me as I try to navigate and define life. It has always been a central focus when I’m facilitating education or explaining a concept to my children. English language is inadequate in many ways (“home school” topping my list), but it doesn’t appear to have anything better than, “my late wife’s parents” or “Mary’s brother-in-law.” How about, “my late wife’s brother-in-law,” yeah, that just dances off the tongue.

I’ve found some articles on the subject (here and here), but it doesn’t seem to be a hot topic. Nor one with a resolution.

I’ve been too traditional to invent a lexicon to describe our world, but our existence has become exceedingly non-traditional and I may have to revisit that position.

God bless,
Jason