Tag: Loss

Valentine’s Day: Love After Loss

For most of my life, I never gave much value or importance to Valentine’s Day, despite being a big ole softy for love. It certainly provided some beautiful feelings and memories along the way, found in special kept cards, but there was always apart of me that felt the commercialism of it all. And then came the first Valentine’s Day after my partner’s death. Arriving almost six months since he had vanished from my life. Winter taking an unprecedented toll that year. Days tied together by aching, inescapable loneliness – often only interrupted by the welcomed distractions of social media. I honestly don’t think I ever anticipated how challenging that first Valentine’s Day would be.

Love love love all around. In the aisles of Walgreens. In the crafted windows of neighborhood homes. In the seemingly endless Facebook posts. I’m so keenly aware of it all and it’s completely overwhelming – shining a light on everything I don’t have. And it SUCKS.

I avoid. I try to escape. If you’ve ever quit smoking – take the first 12 hours of day one – and then imagine that each hour feels like 24 hours. With no sleep to break them up. Towards the end of that day, I was almost literally crawling out of my skin.

Who am I? Whose life I am leading? How did I get here? How do I get OUT of here?

And I open my computer and google ‘free gay dating sites’. Yup. It’s 2015, I’m 41 years old and I’ve never even seen a dating site, except in commercials. But what the hell. I come across a site called ‘OK Cupid’. Haha oh irony. Ok great – it’s free and appears to be relatively innocent compared to some others that show up at the top of the search. It’s 10pm on Valentine’s Day, my first alone in 20 years and I’m filling out my first online dating profile. I’m terrified – is it too soon? What will people think? But also – if I don’t do something different, change things up – I’ll drown.

Long story, short – it wasn’t the last dating site I got on – and I never found ‘the one’ through those ventures. It was often messy. I was naive. Again. I did meet a number of really nice, genuine guys though. And one of those guys just happened to introduce me to the guy with whom I’m celebrating my first Valentine’s Day as an officially married man, four years later.

So this Valentine’s Day…

Whether you’re alone, in love or somewhere in between…

Shake things up. Do something different. Surprise someone. Surprise yourself. Take a chance. Doesn’t have to be romantic. But try to open your heart. Share it. Step out of your comfort zone. No new adventures ever start there. It’s your love story. Go write it.

Laughter – Ever After

Once upon a time, long before nieces and nephews, before big love – then loss – then big love again, before Facebook, a 20-something song and dance guy made his way from New York to LA. And as it goes, almost immediately landed himself a leading role in a film! Due to shoot on location in Bucharest, Romania for 4 weeks! I mean – duh – Broadway straight to super stardom. Happens ALL. THE. TIME. I probably don’t even need to TELL you. I mean – most people know. Well. Most people that knew Bernie anyway. 🙂

If you knew Bern, then I’m guessing there is at LEAST ONE embarrassing thing about your life that he ceremoniously put on a giant altar, under the brightest spot light, making sure that the rest of the people in your life, old or new, NEVER – EVER – forgot. He could almost, quite literally, make you want to pull your hair out (or his) with his persistence in reminding you of said experience. But from time to time – almost graciously – enough time would pass (months, YEARS), and you’d think – omg I think he finally forgot. Praise jesus. Close that safe, lock it up and destroy the key. I’m finally…

NOPE! Nope nope nope!

Here the two of us were, hosting a cast party – like maybe 30-40 people in the house (his house, our house, my house, our house), and he’s noooooowhere to be found. I actually start asking guests if they know where he is. Finally, someone says they think he went down into the basement awhile ago. Huh. Ok. Our unheated, unfinished dump zone lol. So I open the door, wind down the steps and rising into my line of sight is an ever growing sea of VHS tapes. Like – they’re EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of them scattered all over the floor. And then, there with his back to me, is Bern – rifling through yet another box of tapes.

“Bern! What the hell?! Haha! What the – hahaha – what the hell are you doing drunkey!?” And he turns and looks at me – and starts laughing – hard – and then I’m laughing – now even harder cause – well – such an infectious laugh – always was – I swear it was one of his superpowers – but anyway – I still have no idea what the hell is happening – and he has this look like his dastardly mission has now been compromised – and through his laughter, says “Damnit! I was looking for ‘Witchouse’!”

(wha?! oh please god no holy lord on a stick)

“Well, hon. It’s actually on DVD.”

And it erupts again. Oh the laughter. I think we owned all of a dozen DVDs at the time (maybe 10 years ago or so?). And this particular gem – my one and only STARRING ROLE – a stunningly beautiful art film – of the B-Horror type – was in the cabinet under the TV up in the room with all of our party guests.

The poor 25 year old movie star had no idea what he would be in for 10 years later lol. Witchouse. Let it be repeatedly noted by Bern that it was “NOT – Witch – House. Wait – is it Wherehouse? Whosehouse is it?? THEIR HOUSE??? NOPE!!! One ‘H’ People!!! WITCHOUSE! And it’s rumored that it was once seen in a Blockbuster!!!”

And that was the beginning of the rest of my tortured life lol. If he had anything to do with it – every person within reach was going to know I did this horror of of horror movie. He played it as often as he could. And he thought it was HI-LARIOUS. And you know – if it was like the 216th time and I wasn’t really in the mood – DIDN’T MATTER!! And he’d LAAAAUGH – and it was the kind of laugh few people were impervious to – certainly not me – and if I’ve gotten any better at laughing at myself over the years – well, I definitely have Bern to thank for that. And it’s no small gift. I think a lot of people could say the same thing. Like I said earlier – this was not unique to our relationship. He lead with humor and laughter naturally. It was a far reaching gift.  It lifted so many – at the most obvious times – but also, at the most sensitive times.  He could handle humor so deftly.  Be it torturing me, charades with friends, playing a comic lead, clowning with the countless children whose lives he touched, marrying someone as the officiant of a wedding (which he did twice) – or telling the most appropriately subtle joke in someones time of need. Lifting someone up. Making them smile, when smiles were hard to come by.

And then the laughter ended.

I remember sitting out at our table on the back deck during the days after – almost constantly surrounded by family and friends, for which I am ever grateful. Story after story. And every one about the joy and laughter and friendship that he CREATED. And there was laughter in just the remembering. I may have even laughed along in moments – I honestly don’t recall. It was like I was there, but I wasn’t there. Wherever I was, laughter was suddenly like a foreign language I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Like it had been erased from my emotional consciousness. Labotomy-style.

I realize that there are many life experiences that can leave any of us in that same, lonely and sorrowful place. This was mine. And we’ve all heard that laughter is the best medicine. So what do you do when you’ve been restricted access to this healing gift?

Well – I think there’s probably at least a dozen topics to write about there – all of which deserve digging into. Being able to share yourself, your journey, your grief. Letting yourself cry, sob. Counseling. Connecting with nature. Connecting with animals. With children. Taking steps towards better health. Trying to live in the moment. Trying to embrace that the only thing we can control is how we respond to things. Learning to live with the you that has survived – even when you don’t see yourself as a survivor – and eventually, learning to love that person. Learning to love the loss itself. For it is apart of who you are now.

About six weeks before Bern died, he turned 50 years old. I threw him a big ass party at an Irish Chicago bar – old school beautiful – about 100 friends/family were there to celebrate. You honestly could not hear your own thoughts over the laughter and joy-filled conversation – let alone whatever was playing on the TV screens that filled the perimeter. SO. MUCH. LOVE. in that room. For him. For all the joy his life had provided in his 50 years. And though very hard to fully embrace for him – he was more comfortable giving than receiving – it moved him profoundly. Couldn’t stop thanking for days. Anyway – at the big bash – it was finally time to toast the BD boy – so I jumped up on a bench along one of the walls and had to scream at the top of my lungs to quiet the love fest. I thanked everyone profusely for coming and then said, but I know Bernie has something he’d like to say to you all, jumped down and gestured for him to get up there. And OH did he give me THE LOOK! Well, well, well – I think I actually caught HIM off guard! I just grinned back. So he begrudgingly gets up on the bench, tears welling in his eyes from the all the love that was rushing at him from every direction – then raises his hand like he’s holding an imaginary remote control and shouts – “CUE WITCHOUSE!!!”

The room EXPLODES with laughter.

(oh my christ for all that is are you freaking kidding me)

Just remembering it makes me smile. Truly. Makes me feel special and remember just how much he loved me. Terrorizing my life with that movie was one of the ways he showed it lol. It brought laughter to a lot of people – and I knew that was part of the unspoken commitment that lived in our relationship. I was swept up into it. I became his best audience. And I cherished being that to him. But laughter in someone’s memory just isn’t the same as present laughter. It’s wrought with texture and complexity of emotion – not representative of the purity of laughter – at least the way I think of it – crave it. I’m not sure if I’ll ever laugh exactly the way I did with him. (Certainly, puns will never be as freaking hilarious for seemingly no reason whatsover lol.) But I’m not sure that I’m even ABLE to laugh the same way anymore. And I’m not sure that I want to. Anymore. That laugh lives with him forever. And I’m starting to see the precious beauty in that.

It takes time – like everything – but it also takes effort – to find laughter again. To allow joy into your life. I salute all of you who are currently on that quest. I’m there with you. For there is no finish line. But I’m here to affirm that it’s possible, attainable. It won’t be the same. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be just as beautiful – as infectious – as satiating.

Once upon a time, a 40-something year old man, after years of exhausting ‘new, new, new’, found himself embracing someone so fully and completely. Loving him. Holding his face. Eyes locked with tears falling. Unable to hold back that little gasp of air rushing out. And then another. And another. Faster and faster. The laughter flowing freely between them now – almost unstoppable. Not side-splitting, buckle over laughter. But the laughter that comes from the undeniable feeling that they might just be the luckiest people in the world. That they survived to find it again. To find each other. And it rushes over, around and through them like no laughter has ever done before.

And so continues the story of laughter – ever after.