I have often told people that I can write about any topic, at any time. Give me a subject and I will knock out 700 words worthy of publishing.
To a certain extent, that’s what I did for decades as a daily news writer and editor. It involved research, of course, or attending governmental meetings and taking copious notes, or digging through court records. But I was able to almost always write five days a week, for publication. I did it happily.
I had a lifelong friend, a singer-songwriter who, once back in high school, said he’d been unable to come up with a new song when he sat down at the piano for his regular writing session. Then he wrote a catchy tune with catchy lyrics. He did it by putting his frustrations to paper, writing down anything. He scribbled: “I can’t think of anything, I can’t write this song …” and went from there. Within a few minutes, a fully fleshed-out song had appeared.
Yet, I am challenged at the moment—suffering the proverbial ‘loss of words.’ Constant readers of Smoky Mountain Living may have noticed that I didn’t write the column on this page in the last edition. I’ve thought about trying to write today’s column several times, but this is my first attempt to put words to the page for this particular task. The deadline has come and gone. The design team is waiting on me to do what I usually do.
I can’t think of anything other than the fact that my wife has died. However, how does one write about that, just to fill space in a magazine? If I write about that, it seems perverse, right?
I can hear a critic out there, legitimately saying: “Can’t he come up with something other than grief and sadness?”
Well, grief and sadness are my companions. I am sure I am not the only one here in our little collective group who has previously, or is currently, dealing with a similar situation.
(I made it to this point on the page and I stopped. I finally got around to the topic and now I’ve been staring out the window for several minutes.)
You, like me, have probably heard about the stages of grief, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
The loss of my wife, Susan, is so recent—less than three months ago on the day I am writing this—that I know that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.
While I worked the past few years, our lives had been consumed with Susan’s health. First was her cancer diagnosis, with chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and a double mastectomy.
Then came her dementia.
She died at home in hospice care. She was a couple of weeks past her 61st birthday.
What I have seen in grief, beyond the initial depression and shock, has been that I am experiencing a form of confusion. My brain just locks up and I can’t find the right words. Earlier today I was asked for my telephone number and I responded confidently with the wrong number; with a number that wasn’t any phone number I knew. I had to stop and think, then I corrected myself.
Dr. Lisa M. Shulman, a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, says ”the stress from the death of a loved one jolts our personal identity, our view of how we fit into the world …
“Your heart starts racing, your blood pressure increases, your respiratory rate increases, you become sweaty, as the body marshals defenses for you to protect yourself, one way or another.”
Dr. Shulman lost her husband to cancer, and she has said that the first two years after his death were particularly difficult. She felt “disoriented, confused, in a fog—responses that are the brain’s attempts to dissociate itself from emotional pain.”
So that, dear reader, is where I am. Susan isn’t here to take joy in how all of her native mountain flowers erupted in the yard. I stare at them and hope she knows how beautiful they were.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for reading.
— Jonathan Austin