what remains.

4 months ago today i lost you. 4 months ago today i lost myself. i go through these motions of life but there is no life in them. And it wasn't your death itself that brought me here, it was the journey to your death that has done it.
i can't get it out of my mind; watching you slip away. i felt at the time that i was trying to grab on to you and you were falling through my fingers like sand. i remember holding you as we lay down in your bed at the facility, it was a week before you died. you slept for hours and i held you as we both were soaked in your urine what ever else comes out in the messy business of death. you were so peaceful i couldn't bare to move you. that is all i could do for you at that point, try to give you peace. and i succeeded many times before you died. in your lonely confused tortured mind all i could do was bring you a sense of peace.
will i ever love again like i did with you...? i doubt it. i will not willingly do this again to myself. how can i? what remains of me to even do that?
 

memory

Talking to himself walking across the bedroom.
"i can't do it, i just can't. No. No."
laying down on the floor next to the bed in the fetal position.
"No, No. I can't do it."
curious and concerned.
"do what Jim? what can't you do?"
mumbling, distressed, twitching on the floor. covering his face with his hands.
sternly, "what can't you do Jim?"
"i can't. i can't stab that boy and throw him in the swamp. i can't, i can't do it. i can't kill that boy."

i'm stunned, everything goes quiet. i can't think. then i hear them fighting over some toy in the other room, "that boy" and his sister. i run to the door and shut it.

a week later i hear this episode being told to a room full of 20 doctors. i hear nothing but gasps and i turn to jim. the look on his face....
right after this meeting he tries to throw himself in front of a bus. he is so big. i hold him back at the first attempt. i can't hold him as he gets ready for the next one.
i let him go. i turn away.

a police car has pulled right in front of him.

that look on his face... at the time i felt guilty for holding him back because of that look.
i find no meaning in this memory. i want to leave.

p.clarke memorial concert '05

i was looking thru Jim's virtual folder that he kept on our computer. I found 3 documents that were titled; friends, women, and financial advice for Gayle. I browsed through them. (it's too hard to read them just right now)
anyhow i found this in one of them:
                    I plan to play another concert, solo piano material, on April 22, 2005, and I hoped he would still be around to attend.  I will put an empty chair on the stage, to symbolize Phil sitting there, watching my playing.  Current plans for content:  Schubert  impromptu Beethovenís Waldstein Piano Sonata #21 (which Gayle likes a lot), Schubertës Wanderer Fantasy; end of first half; second half:  3 works of Chopin: 1st Ballade (G Minor), 2nd Scherzo, and 6th Polonaise (Heroic); and concluding with Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. Planned encores, if requested, will be Debussyís Clair de Lune (a favorite of Maria Avila), perhaps a Joplin Rag, perhaps Schumannís Traumerii (translation "dreaming", based on a Scottish lullaby).  Perhaps also a Gottshock work, for my new piano teacher Dr. Maria Goodman.  


Jim used to play recitals without the music in front of him so everything was memorized. That means that I would have to listen to these pieces almost every day for about 4 months. I used to hate it at times. Now i would do anything to hear them coming from our Steinway....  If i hear recordings of the Polonaise that is mentioned above or think of it i will start crying. I remember the last time jim played Clair de Lune, it was about 2 weeks before he forgot how to play. he played it for his friend mike. i was in the living room quietly sobbing. i knew that was the last time i would hear him play. and i swear i will never hear anything more beautiful in my life. anyhow, his writing goes on....


      Update May 2005; Dr. Goodman dumped me as her student; said she didnít have the time.
The concert went OK, though I got lost a couple of times in the Beethoven Sonata, the work I thought I had memorized well enough, so I didnít really practice it enough.  I used the music to play the Schubert Fantasy, so that went OK, even though having the music I still got lost a few times in that.   The 2nd half, 3 works of Chopin and the Gershwin Rhapsody went well.


I remember this recital, and he did use the music in the Schubert. i remember thinking that it was a little off. maybe it was an early sign of the dementia. the other mistakes were minor and he went right through them, only a handful of people at the recital would have recognized them. anyhow, reading all of the titles and his recap on the recital brought back some memories that i didn't want to forget.

Halloween

                                            Jim & Arwen 2009

I was so sure that this Halloween would be a day without crying, sadness, and pills. I had everything planned the house was decorated. The "holidays are hard" all the books said. "bullshit", i said. not me. i was gonna take this holiday for my own. Then out of the blue it happened.

Grief came trick-or-treating at my door this Halloween. He will undoubtedly be an uninvited guest at my Thanksgiving table and honor me by leaving me the biggest present under our Christmas tree this year.

right now i hate that you left me. i hate that we were decades apart in age. i hate that i have to go to another memorial service and hear how great you were. i hate that i have to wait another day to be with you again. i hate that i can never watch star wars again and not cry. i hate all those times i told you i had a headache. i hate that the tears won't stop. i hate how i collapse on the floor at night and can't get up. i hate that i have to go pick up your ashes soon. i hate that you died.

acknowledgement

This is the last printed card that will have all of our names together on it.