Tea

A month after Dan died, I set off for Cape Cod with our two basenjis, keeping our reservation for a week in Provincetown. The night before I left, I dashed into Shop Rite for supplies. Food prices at the Cape had always made me swoon, and I didn’t want to spend my time there grocery shopping in any case. Pushing my cart through the coffee/tea aisle, I noticed a sampler box of tea. I reached out, picked one up, read the label. 

Dan had preferred loose tea, had, indeed, bought us a new glass teapot less than a year before, during our last trip to the Cape, over Christmas break. He was very fond of this teapot, with its inner column for tea leaves, visible through the glass, as he was fond of all kitchen gadgets. I was finding loose tea for one a nuisance and needlessly messy (just like the rest of cooking). 

I mulled the selection offered by this tea sampler, packaged in the name of a faux-British tea company, just a step above Salada.  Dan would probably consider it poisonous. (So might you.) But half of the teas in it were unfamiliar to me, and by buying this box I could try something new, without a huge commitment of time or money, while I vacationed in a familiar place. I tossed the box into the cart. 

And I did try the teas, a different one every night that I was at home in Provincetown. I wasn’t home every night—I discovered that I could walk everywhere, including the movie theater, so I saw whatever it was showing. I sat through Sweet Home Alabama, learning about another culture. Similarly, I looked forward to The Fast Runner, highly recommended by a movie-loving friend, which proved unsuitable for this recently bereaved dog lover, unable to spend three hours watching freezing Inuits being cruel to their dogs. I made myself give it an hour before I went home, brewed a cup of tea in the one-person pot I had brought with me, and sat on the couch with my dogs. 

One day a young man on a bicycle stopped to admire the dogs as we walked on Commercial Street, and he gave me a ticket to his improv show that night, so I went. It wasn’t particularly original or funny, but it was live, and he had created it, and I was glad to be there. 

And one of the new teas was a real discovery—a slightly sweeter black tea with a silly name that I liked a lot and still drink today. 

Months later I began to attribute to that box of tea—little packets of glossy paper in bright, varied colors, holding new flavors—the start of my restart. Another woman and I were perusing the two-dozen boxes of high-end teas at Random Harvest, the seasonal grocery story. Can’t have too many teas, she mused. No, I said, it’s like socks, and she laughed. 

The world shifts. You start to right yourself. You notice something new, reach out, try it. Freed from my total focus on illness, I began to look outward again, to discoveries near and far, tiny and huge. 

10 Scary Things: #6

Back to 10 Scary Things I Have Done Since My Husband Died. We're on Number 6.

6. Invited people over for dinner. 

Dan and I used to hold small dinner parties. Once, we got 12 people around our table, using the piano bench and yard chairs, but more sanely we were six, including us. This minor social event required a minimum of 12 focused hours of preparation, never mind previous evenings of perusing cookbooks and trying things out. The Day Of required a plan and execution worthy of NASA, a system we became so familiar with we barely discussed it. 

In the morning, Dan did the creative shopping while I made sure the pantry was stocked. We regrouped for a quick lunch, then he started cooking and I began cleaning. By the time the first car pulled into the driveway we might be exhausted, but we were (pretty much) Ready, down to the basenjis brushed and fed.

If you don’t cook, and for two-dozen years you’ve lived with a man who is a superb avocational cook, not only do your minimal kitchen skills atrophy, more important, solo entertaining becomes terrifying. My heart was in the right place: I wanted to invite friends to my home, sit them down, give them some food, talk with them about interesting, intelligent matters. But I came up against a wall every time, of actually doing it by myself. 

And then, a solution! The secret, I discovered, was to host a potluck dinner, and when I panicked at the last minute, to get the ham from a caterer. For a summer lunch on the screened porch, I bought an array of delicious salads from Random Harvest. Today Random Harvest is gone, but I’ve adapted. There are farmers markets galore, and the caterer expanded his offerings. 

I still barely cook—all the mess, fuss, cleanup, for something you eat, by yourself, in five minutes. I’d rather read, or play the piano. I do have friends over for dinner—I love setting the table—but I have yet to cook a meal for them. I look upon this as a relatively harmless eccentricity. 

I love to get friends together, and set the table.

Context

A few more thoughts on context:

What do you think of your god now? a friend asked me, the summer that Dan was ill. This god, he implied, who had attacked the brain of a smart, witty, person, who had rendered motionless a man who had skittered up and down the pyramids at Chichen Itza while I watched from the ground. 

Put on the defensive, I was too weary, too wary, to talk about God’s plan or to point out that even garden-variety Episcopalianism says of course you are grieved by the illness of your loved one, of course you miss him or her profoundly when they die. But faith, and a spiritual practice and history, also allow you to see your little life in a larger context . . . part of a continuum. 

While Dan was in hospice at the hospital I was told that a counselor would meet with me there at a certain time. Let’s call her Irene. She was at least my age, with a cap of salt-and-pepper hair and a no-nonsense attitude. 

She sat down with me and began our conversation by saying, “You’re probably wondering why this happened to you.”

Dan was just hours from death, but I, at least, didn’t know that then. All I knew was that after four months of being plucky, of dealing politely with people who were clueless about us, I was losing patience. I didn’t snap at Irene, but it was close. 

“No,” I said, “I’m not wondering that. Dan and I have lost four friends to cancer in the last five years. Three of them were in their forties and one was in his mid-fifties, just a year older than we were.” 

Cemetery, Zen Mountain Monastery

I didn’t describe the two couples we knew, both of whom had lost a young child—still in the single digits—under tragic circumstances. I didn’t explain to Irene, that was when I learned that being middle class didn’t keep you safe. 

Nor did I mention to her a friend who lost his only son and his only brother in a small-plane accident. Or discuss with her my high school years, when two boys I knew died, at different times. No drugs, no alcohol, just tragic accidents. My first funerals. I can still see their mothers: one could keep her chin up; the other had to be helped from the church.

I didn’t want Irene to think I was obsessed with death, but all of these are part of my backstory. 

“I feel many things,” I told Irene, “but I don’t feel singled out.” 

Cape Cod Words II

Thinking more about the words I came upon—was given—in Provincetown . . . this is not to say that I didn’t find comfort in my religion, Episcopalianism. I did. So far there have been three ohs in the widow process: the Provincetown bench was the second; the first was when Dan was ill but still alive. 

I had hauled myself in to the 8 a.m. service at my church one Sunday. We had a guest celebrant, who preached from the floor, without notes. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but his theme was “God’s plan.” God had a plan, he said, we just didn’t know what it was. 

Oh, I thought. 

Is that what this is about. 

Lake Taghkanic, frozen, danceable

It had been my plan to grow old with Dan. He was smart and witty and interested in everything. He could be, shall we say, difficult, but in my forties I had realized that he was worth it, that one day, when perhaps mobility was limited, smart and witty would be what I wanted. 

But that wasn’t God’s plan, I realized that Sunday in church. God had another plan for me. It might be better, it might be worse. I would find out. 

In the grief and fear that made up my life that summer, this idea offered a glimmer of hope. It was, in its own strange way, exciting. Once, I had thought I could predict the outlines of my life. Now I couldn’t. At the very least, I might not spend the rest of my life frightened and grief-stricken. Things might, possibly, get better. Life began again to stand open to me.

Cape Cod Words

Dan, Long Beach, Truro, Mass.

They have only gone out ahead of us

And do not want to come home again.

We will find them on those heights

Up there in the sunshine!

It is a beautiful day on those heights.

The summer that Dan was ill, we had been scheduled to take our vacation on Cape Cod the last week in July, as usual. We had found a promising new rental in Provincetown the previous winter, and we booked it on New Year’s Day. To say that Dan loved the Cape doesn’t really describe it; as soon as Christmas drew near, he would say, isn’t it time to reserve a place on the Cape? 

While Dan was in the hospital that summer, I succeeded in one thing: I change our Cape reservation to the last week in September. Dan’s chemotherapy would be over and he might be well enough to go. 

I’ll drive us out, I told him. You’ll see land’s end again. 

He didn’t look as if he believed me. The brain cancer had left him speechless, with little movement, but we understood each other. On my side, I didn’t know how I’d get him out there, but if I could, I would.

Dan died on August 26. About a month later, the two basenjis and I headed out for Provincetown. I’d missed a lot of work, but it hadn’t been vacation. I need one more week, I told my office, and I did. 

After a summer spent in the car, I now walked everywhere. I took the dogs to the beach: the waves frightened Lulu, but Cooper’s nose and feet found the sand and water familiar, so we made her come with us. 

I did things that Dan would have considered too hokey. I went on a whale watch, which was really fun, and I took a literary walking tour of Provincetown. 

The walking tour ended near the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House. In  front of the building was a bench with a plaque: 

They have only gone out ahead of us

And do not want to come home again.

We will find them on those heights

Up there in the sunshine!

It is a beautiful day on those heights.

Oh, I thought. 

Is that what happened. 

I was incredibly—yes, unbelievably—comforted. The idea that Dan was just a little ways beyond us and was having such a wonderful time that he didn’t want to come home made me happy for the first time in months. The thought that we would find each other one day on those heights was tremendously reassuring. 

A woman was sitting on the bench right next to the plaque. “Excuse me,” I said, rustling in my purse for notebook and pen, “I’m just going to copy down that quote.”

”It’s a free country,” she said. 

I sighed, sat down next to her, and wrote. The notebook page, its ink fading, still hangs on my bulletin board. 

I sent 80 Christmas cards that year and, seeking to comfort us all, I wrote that verse by hand on every one of them. One recipient said that she and her husband had discussed my obvious nuttiness. Everyone else seemed to understand.

You may say, the dead are dead. Dan’s remains were cremated and his ashes rest in a ceramic urn in the cemetery at the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York. That’s it. There is no more. 

And I will say, as those words probably comforted the families of hundreds of missing seamen, so they comfort me. 

Dan and Cooper, Long Beach

10 Scary Things: #7

7. Flew across the country by myself. 

Treehugger sighted, Olympic National Forest

I did feel like a child. I bought stuff—a new suitcase, a spiffy black duffel type with recessed wheels at one end, and a rain jacket that would double as a windbreaker. I asked my friends in Bremerton to pleeze meet me at the Seattle airport. 

Barcelona

My solo exploration skills had atrophied—years had passed since I planned an itinerary alone, kept track of the tickets, got myself to the airport on time—but they were retrievable. Now I know how to take the bus from SeaTac to Bremerton. My suitcase and I have been to Italy, Spain, China, Russia, and Japan, where I don’t know anyone. Normal travels, but they're mine; I have a list, and I’ve seen much of what I wanted to see. The rain jacket got shabby with wear and I bought another one. 

Only on the China trip did I think that maybe, finally, I had chomped off more than I could chew. My initial flight was cancelled and my suitcase, got on the next flight, without me. I had no one to sit with in the airport and say, what the hell do we do now. I probably made some bad decisions. Dan probably would have come up with something, would have got us to China on schedule. But flying made Dan anxious; we traveled light, with only carry-on bags, and China was not on his agenda. I arrived there alone, a day late and a bag short. I wormed my way to the head of the line of a dozen people whose suitcases were missing. I described my suitcase, which looked like everyone else’s, to a mildly multilingual person. Despite or because of our efforts, the suitcase showed up, intact, a day later.

White Sands National Monument

These days, I’m taking walking tours of Hudson and exploring local trails on my snowshoes. New views, new ventures! And I may pack my bag and head west this spring. 

Car Rides

An e-mail from L: We took a drive today, she writes of herself and her husband, who is ill. That’s all, she writes, we don’t even stop for lunch anymore. 

And my first thought is, I would be so happy to take Dan for a drive. 

Dan has been dead for years. I still think about him maybe three times a day, in part because of this blog. That’s down from 100 in the weeks after his death, or 50 in the months after. 

I’m happy in my life, with my friends, our activities, my volunteer work. I’ve traveled much of the world, one country at a time. My job was OK, and now that I’m retired, life is even better, and my bills are still paid. 

But I would give all that up in an instant to be able to take the ailing Dan for a drive. The peace of it, the privacy of the car, just the two of us with the windows rolled down, the air fragrant with heat or mown grass, the hint of autumn or a coming shower. We could drive along the Hudson River and look across it to the Catskill Mountains. We could admire pumpkins line up for sale in October or the low sky over Lake Taghkanic in December.  

Imagining this, I’m recalling a drive when he was ill. We met a friend for dinner in Rhinebeck. Dan refused to use his walker and did something mildly demented at dinner, but we all got through it and then we hugged our friend good-bye and headed back home. The next four months were hell, and then it was over. But for forty minutes that evening, sweet May air filled the car, and the sunset clouds ahead of us were blushed with rose. 

I didn’t have to worry about his falling; he didn’t have to struggle to be something that he no longer was. For an hour we were safe, together. 

10 Scary Things: #8

8. Paid for help. 

The scary thing here is pushing past the specter of scarcity (what if I don’t have enough?) natural for a widow or for a man who grew up poor. Dan would never have paid to get the gutters cleaned or the weather stripping replaced in the garage. That’s why it still needed to be done. Dan was perfectly capable of doing it, but other, more interesting facets of life continually intervened: reading (two newspapers a day, two magazines a week, and at least two books on his bedside table); running (four miles a day); movies, music, walking the dogs in the woods.

I am incapable of almost any home repair, and reluctant to commit the hours, outside my full-time job, to learn any. Community activism, local and global, is more important to me. Evenings, Dan might be reading; I might be out at a meeting.

As a result, when he died, the only way to lock the two sliding glass doors was with sawed-off broom handles. Every pane of glass in or near the house needed washing. We’d been unable to come to terms about the kitchen renovation. Outdoors the dog was rusty and the second compost pile was locked behind snow fence and contained our only pitchfork, beyond my reach. My chore list grew daily while I worked, cared for the dogs, and strapped on snowshoes in order to feed the birds that freezing, snowy winter.

As spring approached, I knew I had to Do Something. In desperation I consulted the classified ads in the local newspaper and there I found: “Got a list of chores you never get to? Give it to me!”

I took a breath and picked up the phone.

I have no advice on how not to be murdered or bilked by your handyman. Someone was watching out for me: in return for taking a chance on a total stranger, I found a handyman who showed up on time. He worked quickly and quietly; he knew everything and could do anything. A retired NYC cop, he loved dogs and could have been a voice coach for NYPD Blue. In short, he was a miracle—one that expected to be paid that day, and not with a credit card.

As time went on, our projects grew more complicated, more disruptive, but worth the pain. 

I urged J. on friends. Sometimes I could see it in their eyes: the resistance to spending the money. Others took the chance and were rewarded with this sort of Johnny Appleseed of handymen, who worked alone, sowing improvement and repair in his path.

In my home, a new budget line led to visible progress. The house became safe and comfortable. It began to look cared for, even happy. Indoors, all the art that we had meant for years to get onto the walls was hung, straight. The remaining pack had started to pull itself together.

10 Scary Things: #9

9. Asked for help. 

I would rather that people offer help, instead of my putting myself out there and risking the discomfort, on both sides, of refusal, but when I needed help, I learned to take the chance. 

Not only does the widow no longer have the mate to chop up the remains of a rotted tree, 

but also there is the family to care for. I could bring Lulu to my dog-friendly office, but such service was beyond Cooper, cocooned as he was in limited vision and brain function. Daily Cooper duty proved too much to ask, so instead I asked five friends each to choose one weekday. They came to the house midday, let Cooper into the yard, talked to him for a few minutes, and gave him a biscuit. 

From my end, at least, it worked splendidly—OK, a neighbor, incomprehensibly, forgot Cooper one day, but he survived. And I think another friend wondered why I was keeping the dog alive, but never mind. 

Because it extended our family. Before Christmas, Cooper and I sat together on the couch with a catalogue and ordered tulip plants for all his helpers. 

And at Valentine’s Day, when I was feeling particularly bereft, Cooper and I had five Valentines to send. 

He might as well have died

Dan might as well have died. 

Twice I’ve said that, out loud, and both times it had to do with food. M., in response, looked mildly horrified, as if I’d gone around the bend. 

I had thought she’d understand about Random Harvest, the produce market he loved. I liked Random Harvest too, but for Dan there was nothing else like the tomatoes and peaches they sold, the salads they made and the muffins they baked. We discovered tubes of tomato paste there, and blue cornmeal chips. He loved the people who worked there, he loved sitting on the porch with the dogs. 

The shop was seasonal, from May through Thanksgiving weekend, a gray clapboard building with an open porch and a small greenhouse; we were among the first who greeted Chris, Paul, and Theresa in the spring and we planned our lives around the Friday-after-Thanksgiving closing sale. We could do a week’s worth of shopping there on Saturday and Dan would find a reason to go back on Sunday. Let’s take the dogs for a ride, he’d say—Theresa loved the dogs—or, we’d pull in for local peaches or blueberry muffins on the way to Ore Pit Pond for a swim, and then we’d decide to stop by again on the way home. 

Summer dogs

But things always change, don’t they. The person you expect to outlive you dies. The most successful produce market for miles around is sold. A new family buys it, and in their first summer they keep things exactly the same. The next year they start tinkering, and as I’m pulling out of the parking lot one afternoon, I notice the huge metal box, hulking under the hanging plants—an ice machine.  

The words pop out, unbidden: Dan might as well have died.

He would have been furious. Ice machines speak of gas stations, 12-packs, Twinkies. Random Harvest was being dumbed down, was trying to be all things to all people. I can remember Theresa cheerfully telling a customer, “There’s a convenience store in either direction, where you can buy ice, mixers, anything else you need.” She welcomed her customer’s question; she was happy to refer him to another local business. His need would be taken care of; she didn’t have to do everything. 

And then one year, Random Harvest simply never reopened. I set off for swimming, looking forward to peach and a scone for the grass beach—I mean, I could taste this, the mix of sweet and savory—and later, on the way home, ice cream and a dinner salad. The loss was a complete surprise, the proverbial, metaphorical blow: the empty greenhouse, the little wooden Closed sign on the porch steps. No random harvest for you. 

A combination of the bad economy, and some unknown fatal flaw in management? After moving farther away, I shopped there less myself . . . but Dan, Dan would have stayed loyal till the end, would have felt such a deep sense of loss . . . of youth and tomatoes and friendship and sun, of flats of seedlings and dogs on the porch. Yes, the strawberry season passes in the blink of an eye, but do we have to be hit on the head with a reminder? 

It’s a thought wild in its logic, crazy in its rectitude, so I’ll put it like this: if they both had to die, it’s good he went first.