4. Connections

4 min read

Written Friday, February 21, 2020 / Day 193 / Morning

Looking back at our lives growing up as children - now through the eyes of an adult - it is amazing what we did not know about what we were living through. How could we? Our family, our environment was just what it was.

No one was busy assigning labels to just about everything in existence to make us aware of what was happening around us - as seems to be the case today. Our lives back then were just what we were living.

Sure there were the issues of the day - but in the larger view - we did not know a lot of the background that was taking place.

Growing up as an only-child teenager in the 1960’s - I was a “latchkey” child - a term created in the early 1940’s assigned to children who returned to an empty home each day after school because their parents were working.

Those children wore a key around their neck.

In my day we did not even lock our homes as amazing as that may sound - so there was not even a key involved.

I remember a period of time when I would be home and one of the things I did was to bake cakes. These were the simple box mixes of the day - add a few eggs, water or milk and bake it according to the label.

But not just wanting to bake the cake - I wanted the cake to mean something. I had an almanac that had daily listings for occasions each day stood for. On the day I would bake the cake - I would look up the day - find out what occasion it represented and dedicate the cake to that day.

These were off the wall occasions, “National Hat Day”, or “Outer Slabovian Independence Day” - pick a strange commemoration and I was all over it making my cake.

Decorating it with frosting (of course) and writing some of the event on the cake. My audience were my parents who would enjoy the cake of the day and the paradoxical event to which it was dedicated.

Looking back it strikes me that I could not just bake a cake - the cake had to have a purpose - a meaning.

Growing up we did not have a lot of “things”. I had a good amount of toys of the day but nothing like today where parents have to make sure there is an entire room of the home dedicated to “toys”. No - in those days we had what we had.

I do not believe my need to make connections to things had manifested itself as of yet. Although those cakes were certainly an indicator of that attitude.

Now, surveying the museum that I am currently the curator of - immersed in the remnants of the life I shared - I am constantly struggling with the meaning that all the artifacts around me communicate.

As I have written before - this struggle has been a constant. Whether it is purely grief that is responsible or my proclivity to attach meaning to everything - the ongoing dialog I have with these “things” is unrelenting.

And tiring.

Not only do many of them invoke what made them significant - either how we acquired the item, what it represented or the moment in time in which the artifact started its life of meaning - they represent my wife in endless ways.

The paradox of the immense meaning of the item clashing with the fact the person I shared this rich meaning with is no longer present - is one of the constant burdens of this state of grief.

I ask myself, “How do I go on in this conflict?” - because it is a conflict. The emotions at work here are powerful.

There is this deeply emotional component as well as this harsh “you’ll get over it” echo that fights with my stability quite regularly. It is perhaps one of the coming revelations that is ahead at some point. That element of “newness” which will emerge at some future time ahead.

How does the meaning, the connection with my past life that is reaching out to me through my environment ever lessen?

To the unemotionally, clinically, knowledge-based observers - they would tell you, “Oh, in time he will see that his life will go on and these issues will fade into the background of his life.”

Well I do not buy that. Perhaps this is a bit of denial? Or maybe quite a lot of denial.

My observation from the beginning is that whatever my life is to become has to be new. I know this because any attempt to do anything I have done in the past - is just not possible. There is a level of pain involved that cannot be expressed in our limited human language.

Because of that reality then - I am quite immobilized at the moment. I mentioned to someone the other day that I am “between lives” right now. I have no life other than obligations of the day and any vision of what is coming is totally unknowable.

In this transitory place then - the reality of each day is quite distasteful. I am living in a place where the world I long to have but is gone is connected to me at every level imaginable. The references to that life all around me.

Calling to me - reminding me of what has been lost.

My continual prayer is that this grief - this struggle - will be transformed into strength. A foundation rather than a shell of what was. A powerful force to strengthen me with everything that was good and true about what was.

Something to build upon rather than something to keep me immobilized.

All it will take is that coming moment.

That new thing.

The element that will transform the power of the extraordinary relationship I was blessed to experience into that extraordinary “new” element.

That new connection.

4. Connections

Written Friday, February 21, 2020 / Day 193 / Morning

Looking back at our lives growing up as children - now through the eyes of an adult - it is amazing what we did not know about what we were living through. How could we? Our family, our environment was just what it was.

No one was busy assigning labels to just about everything in existence to make us aware of what was happening around us - as seems to be the case today. Our lives back then were just what we were living.

Sure there were the issues of the day - but in the larger view - we did not know a lot of the background that was taking place.

Growing up as an only-child teenager in the 1960’s - I was a “latchkey” child - a term created in the early 1940’s assigned to children who returned to an empty home each day after school because their parents were working.

Those children wore a key around their neck.

In my day we did not even lock our homes as amazing as that may sound - so there was not even a key involved.

I remember a period of time when I would be home and one of the things I did was to bake cakes. These were the simple box mixes of the day - add a few eggs, water or milk and bake it according to the label.

But not just wanting to bake the cake - I wanted the cake to mean something. I had an almanac that had daily listings for occasions each day stood for. On the day I would bake the cake - I would look up the day - find out what occasion it represented and dedicate the cake to that day.

These were off the wall occasions, “National Hat Day”, or “Outer Slabovian Independence Day” - pick a strange commemoration and I was all over it making my cake.

Decorating it with frosting (of course) and writing some of the event on the cake. My audience were my parents who would enjoy the cake of the day and the paradoxical event to which it was dedicated.

Looking back it strikes me that I could not just bake a cake - the cake had to have a purpose - a meaning.

Growing up we did not have a lot of “things”. I had a good amount of toys of the day but nothing like today where parents have to make sure there is an entire room of the home dedicated to “toys”. No - in those days we had what we had.

I do not believe my need to make connections to things had manifested itself as of yet. Although those cakes were certainly an indicator of that attitude.

Now, surveying the museum that I am currently the curator of - immersed in the remnants of the life I shared - I am constantly struggling with the meaning that all the artifacts around me communicate.

As I have written before - this struggle has been a constant. Whether it is purely grief that is responsible or my proclivity to attach meaning to everything - the ongoing dialog I have with these “things” is unrelenting.

And tiring.

Not only do many of them invoke what made them significant - either how we acquired the item, what it represented or the moment in time in which the artifact started its life of meaning - they represent my wife in endless ways.

The paradox of the immense meaning of the item clashing with the fact the person I shared this rich meaning with is no longer present - is one of the constant burdens of this state of grief.

I ask myself, “How do I go on in this conflict?” - because it is a conflict. The emotions at work here are powerful.

There is this deeply emotional component as well as this harsh “you’ll get over it” echo that fights with my stability quite regularly. It is perhaps one of the coming revelations that is ahead at some point. That element of “newness” which will emerge at some future time ahead.

How does the meaning, the connection with my past life that is reaching out to me through my environment ever lessen?

To the unemotionally, clinically, knowledge-based observers - they would tell you, “Oh, in time he will see that his life will go on and these issues will fade into the background of his life.”

Well I do not buy that. Perhaps this is a bit of denial? Or maybe quite a lot of denial.

My observation from the beginning is that whatever my life is to become has to be new. I know this because any attempt to do anything I have done in the past - is just not possible. There is a level of pain involved that cannot be expressed in our limited human language.

Because of that reality then - I am quite immobilized at the moment. I mentioned to someone the other day that I am “between lives” right now. I have no life other than obligations of the day and any vision of what is coming is totally unknowable.

In this transitory place then - the reality of each day is quite distasteful. I am living in a place where the world I long to have but is gone is connected to me at every level imaginable. The references to that life all around me.

Calling to me - reminding me of what has been lost.

My continual prayer is that this grief - this struggle - will be transformed into strength. A foundation rather than a shell of what was. A powerful force to strengthen me with everything that was good and true about what was.

Something to build upon rather than something to keep me immobilized.

All it will take is that coming moment.

That new thing.

The element that will transform the power of the extraordinary relationship I was blessed to experience into that extraordinary “new” element.

That new connection.

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