Tag: Mary

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Hard Questions

Thank God we had a winning soccer match tonight.

Otherwise, I may not have been able to field challenging questions from my ten-year-old. He opened with mumbling and I was an impatient prick until he fell to tears and said, “I’m afraid of what happens when people die.” This wasn’t just about his mom, I could see it in his eyes, he was contemplating everyone’s death on an empathetic level that would be overwhelming to anyone. I remember contemplating pain in a similar way when I was his age, it was so frightening that I closed off my empathetic self for decades.

So I was faced with the light task of not ruining my son’s compassionate path to adulthood. I held him and we talked easily about Heaven, the inevitability of death, and the power we have to choose how to face it. He’s a smart kid, he’s worked out much of this, but needed to cry through it a little. We turned to the subject of Mary and how he thought he didn’t properly say goodbye. The last thing he really remembers about her was watching the first half of the Super Bowl in the hospital. With the Eagles winning, it was a nicely exaggerated happy moment.

I asked him to remember all the times Mom said, “I love you,” and how many times he said the same to her. I told him, “Mom taught me about always doing this because we never know when we won’t have another chance.”

We talked about how he and his brother bravely came to the hospital and faced the news that Mom probably wouldn’t survive. It took them all day to be ready to see her and they stood shoulder to shoulder to tell her goodnight.

I told him that it was the first step towards Mary’s peace with dying. She’d find peace with many other friends and family over the next 36 hours.

There were more questions about the details of my comings and goings and what happened at the hospital while they were at home. We both got our tears out.

I thank God again for the wisdom these circumstances has afforded me and my sons. We’re not letting this break us, but allowing it to make us stronger.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Dreaming Alone

I was telling myself a story. The same story I’ve been telling myself most nights for more than thirty years. It’s a bed time story I needed to tell to get to sleep. It gets away from me and dramatizes my inner- and intra-personal struggles as I sink into sleep. I’m usually late to see the signs, but I’m getting better at receiving the wisdom.

It’s pretty weird right now. I’ve been pulled into another world by the tentacles of an inter-dimensional leviathan, a monster made of reckless psychic energy. I was possessed with power enough to slay an enemy and almost destroy my friends. The creature carried them off, leaving me in a landscape lit in a sickly reddish-pink glow, as if cast by a fluorescent Budweiser sign. I was alone with one eye wounded, a double-headed axe chained to my arm, and nothing but horizon before me.

Weeks later and little has changed. One night, buildings appeared only to topple on faceless victims. My vision has improved and I’ve transformed the prosthetic weapon into my own wings and claws. But nothing else will appear, not the leviathan, not my friends, nor any new enemies. I’m looking for a fight and all I get is loneliness, or at least aloneness.

Maybe that’s it. When I met Mary I could contentedly sit at a bar and read and write on my own. That’s how she found me on our first evening together. I wasn’t sure she’d show for our meeting, so I found a little light to read and drink by. She was late, but I’m not sure I noticed.

Now I’m here at a pub we frequented, drinking water, writing a blog post, and waiting on no one.

All is right in my world.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Back to the Labyrinth

I think about Mary every day. It’s hard to wake up in a king size bed she bought and not look across the emptiness of it. It’s hard to collapse into that bed before sundown and remember how much easier it was to simply get dinner on the table with her help. It is hard to look at my sons and wonder why they had to lose a mother who loved them completely.

As I push ourselves to new places and heightened experiences, I get these moments in the ashes. The phoenix cycle: mental, physical, and spiritual destruction followed by a bursting forth of power. It gets easier to recognize, but more painful to experience. I wonder if it will ever stop. I wonder if I want it to stop.

The primary course of the hero’s journey is within. To enact that process through ritual in the physical world helps make sense of it. I’ve walked the Labyrinth at Delaware Art Museum dozens of times. I’ve received knowledge and comfort each time. I need those on this Summer Solstice. I’ll have my boys as well as friends of theirs who have lost their father. I’ll have a dear friend on my mind who lost her husband a year ago. I’ll have so much weight when I step to the entrance of the Labyrinth today. I’ll shed it on the path in, I’ll strip myself down to what is good and right and beautiful in Creation. I’ll sit at the center and thank God for His love and this treacherous road that has let me love myself more.

I may be there for a while today.

I’m always lighter on the way out. Maybe I’ll be on my toes. Maybe I’ll skip with my younger son. Maybe I’ll get a devilish smile and dream up some glorious quest to launch. Maybe I’m already on my way there.

God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason

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Solo Dadding at Mountain Jam

This one was intimidating. Assumptions had crept in as I planned and envisioned our spring and summer adventures. I expected to have more support, a co-parent, to teamwork on grand excursions. I thought things might be getting easier. After 16 months of having my parental assumptions repeatedly blown up one would think that I should be used to this; or better yet, that I would give up on assumptions and the future. But I can be a slow learner.

Cap the dissolving of expectations with waves of grief and a busy unschool schedule, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of four nights of festival camping. Especially since this music festival, Mountain Jam in Bethel, New York, would feature bands that had significant ties to memories of my late wife, Mary.

Screw all that. I have slept in tents since I was an infant, attended day-long festivals since I was a preteen, survived the riots of Woodstock ’99, logged thousands of hours alone on the road with my sons, and honed my situational intuitions over those many hours. I set my back straight and climbed into our Dodge Caravan with confidence.

The road smoothed and eased before us. The trip was shorter than expected. Somewhat miraculously, an online friend spotted us as we drove by her camp site and hollered. The rain came down and the van got stuck in the mud, but, with help, we got the tent up and had ourselves set for the first night of music before sundown. We continued to find the right people at the right times. Friendly staff and volunteers, helpful young people, generous vendors, fun and engaging performers, and very special families made for easy going days and nights.

Above all, I was reminded of how good my sons are at this. They made friends, charmed adults, and carved their own unique experience out of the weekend’s offerings. For my own part, I simplified personal obligations and expectations, enjoyed as much music as I could consume, and let myself have a whole lot of fun. We stayed up late, danced and played recklessly, and took care of business when circumstances called for it.

I came away from the weekend with my shoulders back and my head high. Our story seems impossible, I saw that in many faces as I told it to new friends, but there is an immense power in mastering an impossible task. Or just in taking it on and failing, as I have many times.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Reluctant Widower

I rejected “widower” almost as quickly as I came one. I met a woman (how many of my stories go like this?) who lost her husband four months after Mary died. We lunched and smiled and said “F you” to all the things that were supposed to bring us down. We weren’t widow and widower; those terms were for old folks in empty houses. We were badasses on missions from God.

I’ve learned that I must integrate the two to become a Baddass Widower. Losing Mary fundamentally changed our family. It shook me down to a place of necessities. What do my sons need? Then, a more important question: What do I need? It took me twelve months to figure out that I need to love and trust myself.

I can’t know, but I believe Mary also deprived herself of self-love. We loved each other, our marriage, our children, and the life we had built together. I lost much of that when I lost Mary, I was left with gaping holes that I thought were filled with love. In this lacking of self-love we were also missing out on a love for God. The Divine Spark is a connection with God and all of Creation. It’s individual and universal. To love the universal, one must love the individual.

My struggle lies with loving my ugliest pieces as I try to understand, master, and integrate them. It’s like my favorite poems, the ones that find beauty in stinking roadkill or redemption at the bottom of a forgotten and filthy toy bin. I have to take strength from the bully, extract medicine from the wounds, and spend a moment to polish my armor with pride before going into battle.

“Widower” is one of those ugly things. From Merriam-Webster: “a man who has lost his spouse or partner by death and usually has not remarried.” I didn’t want to define myself through someone else’s death, but that isn’t a choice I get to make. The fact is that I’m twice the man I was before death began burning down every assumption of what my life would look like. I cry more, apologize more, and love those around me a lot more. I’m physically, mentally, and spiritually more robust and balanced than ever. I’ve overcome over two decades of alcohol abuse. I’ve started to treat myself as someone in my care, whom I want to succeed.

I don’t see how I’d be here if I hadn’t become a widower. That’s part of me and I now accept it.

God bless,
Jason

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This Is Why

Sometimes I ask myself why God took my wife to join him after her 47 years on Earth.

I find answers every day. Today it’s this image. A camper van with three seats. My sons and I will once again fill these seats and embark on an adventure into new territories. 

There isn’t room for anyone else on our path right now. I know, if only for today, that’s why we’re a family of three.

God bless,

Jason

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To My Goddess Nieces

I have five nieces. At least two of them have found me spontaneously crying this year. All of them have been present for me and my children during a most challenging and miraculous time.

When I met Mary she was already an aunt to these wonderful little girls. She was Aunt Mary.

Mary and these girls fueled a fire in me that had burned since I was ten years old, a desire to be a dad.

I wrestled and played silly games with the youngest and argued politics with the teenagers.

After my sons, they’ve become the closest connection I have with Mary in the world. Their memories and tributes to their aunt share much of what I remember and always bring new energy to fading images. Their youthfulness honors Mary’s and mirrors the attitude I have towards my journey.

I went to a concert with niece Emily this weekend. She’s 25, the same age I was when I met Aunt Mary. We talked about music and all the bands Mary and I had introduced her to, about how she copied all the music from my laptop one day and I gave her a speech about “unearned knowledge.”

Just before we met up, I was ambushed by the thought that Mary should be here for this, that it was flat out wrong that she wasn’t driving to D.C. with us to see Beats Antique. I wept and it still feels a little wrong. Mary and I were most connected when we listened to, danced to, and discussed music. From Patsy Cline and Cécile McLorin Salvant to T.Rex and Rage Against the Machine, I never knew anyone with musical tastes as broad as mine until I met Mary. Although…the nieces are getting there.

I discovered Beats early in 2012 and quickly shared the music with the nieces. In 2013, Emily lost her stepfather, my dear brother-in-law, Rich. That same week I talked Mary into backing Beats Antique’s Kickstarter campaign for their A Thousand Faces – Act 1 album. It’s a musical reinterpretation of Joseph Campbell’s “A Hero’s Journey.” In widowhood and single-parenthood I have cast myself as the hero of my own story.

I have been blessed and tested by many powerful goddesses on my journey. Mary still serves as a guide through my nieces. Each of them shows me pieces of Mary’s light and brightens my darkest paths.


Have a God blessed day,
Jason

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A Special Tree in a Special Place

Delaware Art Museum was an integral part of my life with Mary. She introduced me to the Museum and I spent many hours there with my sons, with Mary, or all of us together. Since losing her I have often taken solace in the galleries, Labyrinth, Kids’ Corner, and Sculpture Garden. I’ve been there with my boys, with friends, and on my own.

The Museum has decided to dedicate one of their magnolias to Mary’s memory. This tree sits in the Copeland Sculpture Garden where we’ve danced to live music; watched movies; picnicked; played soccer, football, and Frisbee; enjoyed tacos, falafel, and tons of food truck fare; and strolled countless miles taking in sculptures new and familiar.

After a year of dramatic changes, we’re getting to remember Mary in a place that transcends the life that was and the life that is. Mary and I often walked the Labyrinth at the change of each season and there could be no more fitting time to dedicate her tree than on the day of the Vernal Equinox. In recent years, there has been snowfall in Delaware on the first day of spring. Mary always loved that. “Bring it on!” was her response to the winter weary.

I have welcomed many people into my life who didn’t know Mary. I’ve connected most deeply with people who have also experienced loss, but not exclusively. I’ve tried to share my memories of her here and in person. I look forward to introducing family and friends, old and new, to give them an opportunity to share more of what Mary has meant to us.

God bless,
Jason

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Assumptions

No Kidding, Willie Yao, 2018. Delaware Contemporary

Assumptions and expectations took a beating in 2018. When I suddenly lost my wife I had assumptions about how I would rebuild my life. I assumed I would find a new wife and that we would have a slightly inferior life to the idealized marriage I had with Mary.

After a few months, I gained confidence and moved those expectations a few notches toward the goal of having a stronger marriage than I had before. I found independence in my adventures with my sons and enough patience to wait for “the one.”

Ten months a widower, I met someone who asked for “intentions” in place of “expectations.” It seemed easy enough, I’d been intent on treating humans as individuals deserving of love. I’d been gifted boundless love and intended to share it.

In practice, I started to actively take note of my expectations and assumptions and substitute them with clear intentions. This became painful as I felt my future imposing itself on my present; or rather, my expectations were getting in the way of my intentions.

I’m working hard to curb expectation and live an intentional life. It has lead me into new ways of thinking and being. It has disrupted my thought process and made me happier than I would have imagined months ago, regardless of many pitfalls along the way.

Do you still want a new marriage?

I don’t know. I’ve got so much yet to discover about myself. I’ve got impossible things to accomplish. I’ve got a world of possibilities and the curiosity to pour myself into it. I’ve got a house full of boys who thoroughly enjoy being in a house full of boys. I’ve got a lot of love around me.

God bless,
Jason

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Take Your Children to See Shakespeare

Macbeth, Pericles, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and various Shakespeare readings: my sons have seen or participated in all of these plays, most of them before losing their mother.

Experiencing Shakespeare in person places a wide range of human emotion on display: joy, passion, betrayal, murder, love, humor, wonder, deception, innocence, ignorance, jealousy, and loss. I am convinced that this controlled introduction to intense emotion provided my children with the tools they needed to navigate the equally broad spectrum of feelings that we have experienced this year.

God bless,
Jason