Grief, Golf, and Reinvention

My story is about an inevitable journey down a perilous road I had never seriously thought about traveling. I wanted to enjoy the peaceful retirement I had earned, in a place I wanted to be, doing the things I wanted to do, and sharing this comfortable life with my lover, friend, partner and wife of 45 years. But it was not to be. Ellen died suddenly two years after we had retired to Albuquerque, New Mexico. My road was diverted, re-routed through unexplored country with no maps or GPS.

I found myself driving through a crazy landscape that was familiar yet different. I was who I was and had always been, but I was not the same man as I had been before she died. Actually I was not quite sure who I was. She was so much a part of my life that the me sometimes got lost in the we.

Suddenly my journey was detoured through the land of grief, a place where we the living must go after a person we love dies. Grief is a cloudy powerful place that can distort reality, warp our perceptions, and put us through difficult and uncomfortable changes. It can concurrently present opportunities for wisdom, growth, freedom and peace. Most of us pass through and move on, bruised but somehow stronger. Some choose to stay there, afraid of what might be further on down the road. Some choose to ignore it as best they can.

As I traveled through grief I learned a lot. One thing that stood out was that many men deal with death, loss, and grief by not dealing with it. They block their emotions and ignore their feelings. They plow ahead. They do what they have always done. I believe most American guys have trouble with feelings. We’re programmed that way. I heard someone say that scientists have named it the John Wayne gene. Men are supposed to be tough guys; the solid rock, the foundation, the man. When death comes to our wives, we’re supposed to be strong, just like we are when we walk off a torn ligament or shake off a broken finger. Most of us guys believe that real men don’t show the pain. And you know what? That is total bull. A lot of guys might not show it but they sure as hell feel it. They don’t want to appear weak or vulnerable. The truth is, when it comes to grief, the more vulnerable you are, the more you can feel, the more you feel the greater the opportunity for openness, the more open you are the more there is to learn. The more you learn the sooner you can move on, stronger than ever.

As I traveled through grief, I grew to believe that what I felt, experienced, and learned might help other men. I might also help a woman understand that men might carry more feelings than they show. The result is this book about grief and reinvention, the long journey from shattered pieces through renewal to strength. This is a book about acceptance; about the long process of understanding that death is final and we are left by our mortal selves to carry on as best we can for as long as we can. This is a book about how to get on with life while filling it with respect, honor, and dedication to the people we have loved and lost. This is a book about how blue life feels when we grieve and how mixed up it feels as we struggle to define a new normal. It is love story. It is a story of loss. It is a book about how I traveled an amazing journey with a little help from my friends, the love of my family, a beginner’s mind and the normality and peace I found in the wonderful game of golf.

My mother, my father and my wife all died within less than two calendar years. My parents were old and their deaths were an anticipated inevitability. My wife was different. Her death was startling, shocking and life changing. The total effect of the dying of the three greatest influences on my life was a force that could have paralyzed me, but instead made me stronger.

Many of you have been, are now experiencing, or soon will be going through the life altering changes that will happen when the people you love most die. Whatever you expect it will be different. However you might think it will feel, it won’t be like that. But the impact will come. It has to. It is as inevitable as death itself. Our grief is all about navigating through that mysterious time when mortal life stops and we are left alone. The final chapter of the story of our love and times has abruptly been finished and the book is permanently closed. However prepared we think we are, we are probably more ready for our own death than that of someone we love. That was true for me.

If I can do only one thing with my story, it will be to help you to survive the opening avalanche of emotions at the beginning, and be sure that you know the only choice we have is living. I believe it is important to make yourself start to accept the reality of death as quickly as possible. Only then can you use the moment as a time of remembrance, understanding, and motivation. I had heard of the five phases of grief but I didn’t know how they felt or how long they lasted. I had heard that everybody grieves differently, but I didn’t know anything about grieving at all. All I know is what I’ve seen in movies or on TV-people out of control, emotional wrecks, crying, shouting and generally using death to make a hash out of the rest of their time on earth. Even after the terrible shock of her sudden death, I knew what I didn’t want; I certainly did not want to become a clichéd character like that.

I did not know what I wanted because I had never known death before. It had come close with more distant relations and even a couple of contemporary friends. Each time I would go to memorials on their behalf I would offer the proper condolences, behave respectfully, feel what I could, and go back to my peaceful life without giving death too much more thought. Even with my parents, death was expected. They were old and feeble. It was their time. I felt more relief than grief. I also hid the guilt I was feeling because it didn’t appear that I was mourning enough. I didn’t know whether other people would understand the inner comfort I had from my core beliefs that life was good while it lasted but death is the inevitable end of mortal living. After that, who knows?

Then, just like that, my wife died; my life changed forever. It was only then that I finally understood the impact of life and death. I contrasted the miraculous image of my children being born with the burned-in cold visage of my wife’s dead body, lying stretched across the great room, with tubes in her mouth. One showed all the possibilities of life while the other was the total finality of death. I had a simple choice between them, because in that incredibly focused time of emotional upheaval, I could see only two ways I could go. I could choose to get lost in grieving for the loss of that huge part of me that had suddenly gone away, or I could choose life, a new life that is right for me but still has an honored place where Ellen and my folks still live, young, vital and at their best. I was filled with their wonderful memories and tattooed by their indelible influences but I had to invent new ways for me to keep on keeping on. I chose life. I have no regrets; in fact I am proud to be in good shape, mentally and physically. Every day was a new challenge for me to keep moving on with my new and different life while keeping my loved ones in a permanent and important place in my heart and mind. I had to create a balance between living in the moment for myself and honoring the love I had for a huge chunk of my life. I want to share what I felt, thought about and did during my journey through the land of grief. I want to share the changes I went through and some of the remarkable experiences I had as I muddled through the best I could. Perhaps you won’t feel as weird, alone and isolated as I sometimes felt.