Grief Sucks

Last night, I burst into tears in the locker room of the health club where I teach line dancing. I haven't done that in a long time, and it surprised me, but I couldn't control it.

We're coming up on the third anniversary of Robert's death August 2, and the dance class was a huge part of our love story. We met in my class and we fell in love there. The loss happened there, too -- he announced his cancer diagnosis to the class, kept dancing even as he got weaker, until he finally couldn't do it any more.

"Dance with Joan, and you're dancing with me," he wrote in a letter to the class when he needed to tell them he wouldn't be back.

The first year after Robert died, I cried after dance class on a regular basis. I also cried in private, in public, in my car. I cried in the park, at the DMV, at Trader Joe's, in the doctor's office, walking along the street.

I couldn't help it. It was like my heart caved in and squeezed out huge, unstoppable waves of sobs. I wailed, too, but at least I could hold back the screams until I was in a private place (though my neighbors came running once).

Do I miss Robert still, almost three years after his death? Only when I breathe. Only when I open or close my eyes.

Oh, I function very well. I write, I teach my dance classes, I travel talking about senior sex -- my favorite subject!  How lucky I am to get to spend my day doing what I love!

I laugh a lot and I make others laugh. I learn, I teach, and what I do helps other people. I do find joy in my life. It's a good life, I know that. I'm even kinda sorta dipping my toes into dating, as you know from my (very infrequent!) posts about dating, such as this one.

But I'm not done with grief, perhaps I never will be. Those of you who have lost a loved one know the grief journey isn't predictable. You can be doing just fine, and then, boom, you burst out crying in the locker room.

The emotional stab wounds close up, then rip open again. I know this is "normal" because grief isn't linear, it's cyclical. Thank goodness, each year it gets easier to cope. As my uncle, psychotherapist Larry LeShan who lost his wife of 58 years, says, "The knife still keeps stabbing, but not as deep or as often."

I didn't want to call this post "Grief Sucks." I don't like the term, and personally, I think sucking is a delightful pasttime and shouldn't be associated with a negative experience. But hey, this post wrote itself and insisted on that title. Sometimes that happens.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Sharing Body Heat

"Sharing Body Heat" started as a blog post, then changed and developed into a longer personal essay about love and loss that I submitted to the Modern Love column of the New York Times. Modern Love rejected it.

Then I discovered Modern Love Rejects, a new website with a fabulous idea -- they would publish the best of the essays that Modern Love rejected! "Sharing Body Heat" appears on their website today -- read it in its entirety by clicking here.



Sharing Body Heat

by Joan Price

I crawled into Robert’s bed and wrapped my body around his. If I could only get close enough to make the last hour, the last months, disappear. If I could magically erase the despair, the finality of our separation.

I hugged Robert tightly, my own need to be close to him one more time overriding his lack of responsiveness. I wailed his name and listened to his silence, remembering his murmurs, his words of love. I nuzzled my face into his neck as I had many times before, but there was no warmth, no “I love you, sweetheart,” no kiss on the top of my head, no strong arms pulling me into him.

I covered his thigh with mine, snaking my arm under his pajama top so that I could stroke the chest hair I had first touched seven years before. I willed him to respond.

But he didn’t.

I willed him to come back to life.

But he didn’t.

 "Do you need some time alone with your husband before the mortuary takes his body away?" the hospice nurse asked me gently. I nodded, shut the bedroom door, turned off the light, and crawled into bed with Robert’s dead body....

Read the rest of this essay by clicking here.

"Promise me you'll keep doing your work..."

 "Promise me you'll keep doing your work," Robert said, taking both my hands in his and pressing them to his heart, looking deeply into my eyes.

It was three years ago -- end of March 2008 -- and we had learned that his body was succumbing to multiple myeloma. There were treatments we could and would try, but this conversation marked the countdown to the end, as I think back on it.

He would have one more month of health -- fatigued, but able to live the way he loved -- going to his art studio to paint, dancing joyfully, and loving me as if his life depended on it (and maybe it did). Then, as treatments failed, his back fractured in multiple places. The extreme pain led him into another world -- a world where love was not enough to heal or even ease the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. 

A world of preparing to die.

 "Promise me you'll keep doing your work..."

Our profound sexual connection had powered our relationship for our seven, soul-soaring years together. Neither of us had ever had a relationship as sexually exuberant or as emotionally satisfying! Professionally, our spicy hot afternoon delights propelled me to switch writing topics from health and fitness to senior sex. Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty celebrated our love affair. We married in 2006, the year the book came out.


We already knew that our love wasn't "forever" the way young people think of it. Besides being seniors, we had the challenge of Robert's diagnosis -- at that point -- of leukemia and lymphoma. Our wedding celebrated not only our love, but that six months of chemotherapy had sent Robert's cancer into remission. We were told we might have ten or more good years of health, a magical gift.

But we didn't have ten years -- we had two.

 "Promise me you'll keep doing your work..."

March 2011: Two countdowns shift in my mind. In August, I'll face the 3-year anniversary of Robert's death. (When does it get easier?) But before that, in June, I'll welcome a new book into the world -- Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex -- the book I started working on with Robert. In fact, you'll see that he wrote part of the chapter, "Unlearning Our Upbringing: Men's Stories."

I think at our age, those of us who dare to live and love fully have this balancing act between the sweet surprises and rewards of living our dreams out loud and the inevitable losses. Robert gave me the right advice: "Promise me you'll keep doing your work." It sustains me and brings me great joy -- as does sharing it with you!

Valentine's Day 2011

I always loved Valentine's Day with Robert. We bought each other gifts, professed our love for each other emphatically and often poetically. We spent the afternoon making love, glorying in the magic of  the powerful passion we felt for each other. We would love each other for hours -- a candle lighted even in the bright light of afternoon, the bedroom door closed though we were alone in the house. I can still feel the touch of his skin, the sweet pressure of his lips. I hear the love words he muttered.

Dancing was always a part of our self-expression and love expression. One of "our songs" was Anne Murray's "Could I Have This Dance?"

Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life?
Would you be my partner
Every night?
When we're together,
It feels so right.
Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life?

Every Valentine's Day and birthday -- and sometimes New Year's Eve, too! -- he danced for me:  a special dance he had created just to please and entice me. He practiced for days in private, choosing the music,  the choreography, and the costume that he would shed slowly and sensuously as part of his dance.

This is my third Valentine's Day without Robert, and the first one I've been able to remember his special dances without crying. What beautiful gifts he gave me throughout our seven years together.  What beautiful gifts he gives me still, as I remember him.


For all of you who have a special loved one on this Valentine's Day, glory in what you share. Never take for granted that "the rest of my life" means anything more than "this moment right now."

For all of us who are alone on this Valentine's Day, let's glory in the love we know how to give, and let's give it to ourselves and the people in our lives today. Let's do something special that nurtures us, delights us, even romances us. Let's make someone else feel special. Let's celebrate our capacity to feel joy.

I'll be celebrating with our annual "Line Dance Lovefest" in  my class tonight, where we enjoy two hours of line dances with "love" in the title (including one or two that I choreographed). Some of the dancers in my class are partnered, many are single, some have lost loved ones. But we come together energized by the exhilaration of dance and the camaraderie we've shared over the years.

Put Your Head on My Shoulder

12/14/10 update: I wrote the memory below last March 7, first in my personal journal, then as a blog post.

Later on, working on the last chapter of Naked at Our Age, I realized it also needed to be the ending of my book.

Today, I was finishing proofreading the designed pages that Seal Press sent me and simultaneously struggling to figure out how to make today -- which would have been his 74th birthday -- special.

As soon as I read this memory at the end of the book, I decided to share it with you again:

Put Your Head on My Shoulder

One day I was rushing about, I don’t remember for what, maybe preparing for a trip. I was stressed, crashing about, full of nervous energy. Robert caught me in mid-flight, taking my hand. “I’m so busy,” I protested.

“Just for a minute,” he said quietly, leading me into the living room.

He switched on the CD player, and Michael Bublé began to sing, “Put Your Head on My Shoulder.” Robert enveloped me in his arms and began to dance me around the floor. My body melted into his strong embrace and his graceful rhythm. I started to cry, feeling his closeness and knowing that nothing was more important than holding this man I loved in my arms. I continued to sob, and he didn’t need to ask why. He just cradled my head into his shoulder and kept us dancing.

I don’t remember what I was rushing to that day, but I do remember every moment in Robert’s arms, the feel of his chest against my face and his body leading mine until our rhythms melted into one being. Yes, just like making love.

I would do anything to dance in his arms again. I narrate this special moment to remind you to stop, take time with your lover if you’re fortunate enough to have him or her with you, and never take for granted that there will always be time later on. Now is all we have. Treasure each other.

Love Dances In: Dec. 10, 2000

December 10, 2000 -- ten years ago exactly -- turned out to change my life in every way: my emotions, my personal growth, my sexuality, my view of aging, even my career. That was the evening that Robert's life journey landed him in my line dance class. He had recently moved to Santa Rosa and was looking for a place to dance.

Here's how I tell it in Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty (the book that never would have been written without that eventful evening):

Love Dances In

The day that Robert walked into my line dance class, my hormones thought they were twenty years old again. His smile, fit body, and grace of movement caught my eye immediately.

Then, when he started to dance, his years of tap, modern dance, and ballet training were revealed in every movement, and I was lost at sea. His nimble feet, muscled thighs, and sensually mobile hips commanded my attention. I wanted to touch the inviting curl of chest hair that peeked through the open top buttons of his shirt. I met his dazzling blue eyes and pretended to breathe. For the rest of the evening, I kept losing my place in the dance I was teaching because I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Robert kept coming to class and danced into my heart. I tried to engage him in conversation after class occasionally, and he responded almost warily, answering me but not giving me any signals that my attentions were welcomed or reciprocated. I wondered:  Is he gay? Attached? Or simply not interested in me?

I started inviting him for walks after class, which he accepted. We talked, but never very personally. I told him about the Internet health book I was writing, and he told me about his art and the English gardens of his travels. There was no touching, no eyes locking, no double entendres, no intimate details revealed.

We choreographed a line dance together, which felt extraordinarily intimate to me. We were using our bodies to communicate and showing each other movements, which was very sexy. But the harder I tried to push to the next stage, the faster he retreated.

Then what? I am tempted to tell our whole story here, but I'd rather you enjoyed it yourself in Better Than I Ever Expected.

Now, ten years and a lifetime later, Robert has been gone for two years and four months, his life ended by cancer. He is still strongly present -- my house filled with his paintings, my mind filled with memories, my heart filled with love. I am struggling to move forward, starting to date again, opening myself to what life holds for me. I am forever grateful that Robert chose December 11, 2000, to wander into my dance class and that he found something there that kept him coming back.

A Birthday Without Robert

11/8/2010: Two days from my 67th birthday, and I miss Robert terribly. He always made such a fuss over me on my birthday, cooking me a special meal (vegan mushroom stroganoff and vegan chocolate mousse, for example), writing loving messages in carefully chosen cards, and either buying or painting something special for me.

He painted a wooden cigar box to create a beautiful jewelry box to hold the earrings he delighted in gifting me. He decorated little boxes for me. He was moved by a story I wrote and painted a folder to hold it. He even decorated a cane when I was injured and couldn't walk unassisted.

Whenever he painted something utilitarian for me, he always included a heart, sometimes easy to find, like the box above, sometimes needing a concentrated hunt because he hid the heart in the design. He would watch me search for it, sometimes shaking his head because I was blindly missing it.  

The most wonderful gift was this Kimono painting he created for me for Christmas 2002. The hanging parts are painted on muslin; the "sleeves" are on canvas. He became well known for these kimono paintings and was able to sell as many as he could paint.

 

Then, having learned he had cancer and didn't know how much time he would have to work, he decided he would do no more kimonos, no more "pretty paintings," in fact.

 

Instead, he delved into his soul and his drive to develop as an artist and painted some of his best work. See it here:  

 

I know I'm moving forward after two years and three months wihout Robert -- new experiences, new friends, new accomplishments, even dipping my toes into dating. I can't bring him back, so I must live my life without him.

 

But anyone who has grieved knows that special days like birthdays and holidays pack such a punch that our gut recoils, our heart fills with holes, and the healing seeps out. Grief isn't linear, it's cyclical. Each time, as my uncle Larry Leshan tells me (he lost Eda LeShan, his wife of 58 years), "Although the knife is as sharp, it doesn't cut as deep or as often."

 

"To my wife on her birthday," Robert's final birthday card to me said. "Every day with you is more special than the last. All my love to you, today and always. Robert 2007."

 

“I’m Going to Make You Coffee….”

If you ask me if I still miss Robert, two years after his death, I answer, “Only when I breathe in or out.”

I still start each morning recapturing a memory. Today it was the way he opened his ocean-blue eyes in the morning and smiled, his face melting with love. “Let’s snuggle,” he would say. Then one of us would decide, “I’ll snuggle you,” and we would shift to our sides, the snuggler wrapped around the back of the snuglee.

I loved when Robert snuggled me, enveloping me, so close that we couldn’t tell where he ended and I began, if indeed there was a distinction. I would take his hand in both of mine, push my nose into his palm, and inhale deeply. His palm smelled of sleep, a warm, enticing smell that was totally Robert. I can still smell his hand, still taste his skin as I kissed him everywhere my mouth would reach.

Other mornings he woke ready to meet the day, his garden or art studio beckoning, no time for snuggling. He announced, “I’m going to make you coffee,” and I always responded, “I love it when you make me coffee.” He padded out to the kitchen to grind beans, boil water, and arrange the filter cone over a metal coffee pot that had journeyed with him for decades.

In a while he brought me coffee in bed with the newspaper and arranged both lovingly on a tray. Before bringing me my coffee, he told me once, he held the cup to his cheek to make sure it was just the right temperature.

He liked me to stay in bed while he had some quiet, private time in the morning to contemplate his latest painting or tend his garden, so he gave me a cowbell that he had decorated with a heart made of Japanese paper. I was to ring it when I desired a coffee refill.

The “make you coffee” ritual started early in our seven-year love affair, and persisted wherever we were, home or hotel, and whatever else was happening in our lives. Towards the end, when his body started succumbing to cancer, he told me, “As long as I can make you coffee in the morning, I know I’ll be all right.”

Then one morning, he tried to get up, and he couldn’t. He stumbled, his legs trembling, his back stabbing with pain, his brain unable to emerge from sleep. He sat back on the bed. “I can’t do it,” he told me, and we both cried, as I’m crying now, remembering the day that everything changed.

…Now I make my own coffee in his special coffee pot and carry it to the living room where I’m surrounded by Robert’s paintings. I write memories in my journal—snippets of sweet conversation, playful games we invented, afternoons that turned into evening as we made love as if life depended on it. Maybe it did.

Even though I write for a living, using a computer and all the tech tools available to me, I write my memory journal in longhand. Somehow writing longhand comes from the heart more than the brain, and I rediscover memories I had forgotten.

My hand lingers over the page, and I picture Robert’s hand –the artist’s hand making love to the canvas, the gardener’s hand making love to the dirt, the dancer’s hand making love to the music, and my lover’s hand--making love to me.

During Robert’s last ten days, I held and kissed his limp hand. I told him of my love, narrated memories from our seven years together, sometimes not knowing if he was asleep or unconscious or moving from this world to the next. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” I would say, and sometimes he would. Over the last week his squeeze became weak, then just a twitch, and then… nothing. I continued to hold his hand and talk to him, not knowing if he could hear me.

I still talk to him, and sometimes his words come to me in response. “Are you really answering me, or am I making this up?” I asked him. He replied, “It doesn’t matter.”

What does matter, at this point in my life, is that I’m taking with me the best of what Robert and I shared. That’s what he’d want for me, and what I want for myself. I find joy in my writing, in dance, in close friends, in physical and mental exercise, in learning, and yes, in my memories of Robert.

I hold my coffee cup to my cheek. It’s just the right temperature.

Our First Kiss, August 2, 2001

Robert and I shared our first kiss nine years ago today, under the full moon after our line dance class. It wasn't a sudden kiss -- I had pursued this sexy, dancing man for nine months. We had danced, talked, strolled, even choreographed together -- but, though always kind, he kept his distance. He admitted later that he was a little afraid of me, saw me sometimes as Spider Woman (!) because I was so assertive.

If you've read Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, you know that I finally propositioned him by email. He turned me down, explaining gently that he didn't make these decisions quickly or rush into sex. (Nine months: Quickly? Rush?)

Later that night he emailed me again. He had changed his mind!

"It’s been a while for these old body parts," he wrote. "Maybe it's time."

We made a date to take a walk after the next dance class and discuss what to do next. We strolled under the full moon, not touching, and then stopped at a park bench.

There we shared our first kiss. And our second. Third. Twentieth.

We necked and petted like teenagers, the silver moonlight spotlighting our excitement. Then we made a plan to spend the following Saturday at his house and explore the next dimension of our relationship.

We didn’t know then that we would fall in love. But we did. I was 57 and he 64.

The memory of our first kisses remains strong in my mind, nine years later. So does the memory of our last kiss, two years ago today. As I wail with grief because Robert is gone, I embrace the precious joy of the seven years of great love that we shared. So many people never find that, and we did.

It is fitting that I finished writing Naked at Our Age the day before this significant anniversary, because Robert told me, shortly before he died, "Promise me you'll keep doing your work." I honor him by doing that.

(I think these photos were taken before Robert and I shared that first kiss -- they are the oldest photos of the two of us that I have. We had no idea how our lives were about to be transformed!)

His heart was beating under my hand

I had a beautiful dream about Robert, and as I approach the second anniversary of losing him, I keep rerunning the dream in my mind.

In the dream, I awoke to the sound of a song playing in my living room. I went down the steps, and there was Robert dancing! He was spinning so fast that he was almost a blur. He was dancing as he must have danced as a young man, before I knew him, when he was studying ballet and modern dance. I watched with love and amazement.

He slowed his spinning, then stopped and smiled at me, that tender smile that filled his eyes with softness. I put my hand on his chest, hot and moist from his exertion. Then the most wonderful part of the whole dream: I felt his heart beating under my hand!

So many times in our seven years together (exactly, from first kiss to last), I rested my hand on his beating heart. It was always the first place I touched when we came together. It was where my hand rested when we snuggled after making love. I loved his fuzzy chest hair--the touch and smell and heat of it--and I loved his beating heart.

I woke, still hearing the song in my mind that he was dancing to. It was "They Can't Take That Away From Me."

Fun is Sexy: Making Love Before Making Love

Fun is sexy. Create ways to incorporate fun into your relationship each day, and your laughter and silliness will relax you and reinforce your bond.

Robert and I had rituals, made-up words, silly secrets, and special games that warmed us with laughter, kept our intimacy strong, and made us feel like we were making love all day long. Silly things, sometimes – like “Panda.”

Robert and I used to exchange a tiny toy panda with paws that clutched tightly, permitting us to attach it to objects. I’d leave Panda attached to Robert's shoelace, on his toothbrush handle, under his pillow, peeking out of his bathrobe pocket, even on top of the coffeepot -- anywhere he’d find it unexpectedly and enjoy the surprise.

He’d do the same for me, leaving it in my key ring bracelet, on my sock, or clutching the edge of a vase of flowers he left in my bathroom. Every so often one of us would find a hiding place that was too good, and the other would go around the house calling, “Where’s Panda?” It was a cute game, so easy to do, and it nurtured the fun in our relationship.

Then when one of us would find Panda astride our favorite vibrator, or holding onto the lubricant nozzle, or on the pillow, little legs up, we’d understand the special invitation!

"You honor me when you do your work" -- Robert to Joan

As much as I enjoy and believe in my work, it's often hard to concentrate on writing my book with Robert gone. After more than a year and half, I still can't breathe in and out without missing him mightily. He is always in my thoughts and in my heart.

Almost right up to the end of his life, Robert actively supported my dream of this book. “You’ve got to keep doing your work,” he told me earnestly, knowing he would not live to read it. During the last weeks that we were able to walk in the park together, we discussed this book—what would be in it, how it would expand on topics brought up in Better Than I Ever Expected, what new topics it would need.

I would read him excerpts from emails and interviews that were coming in, and he would listen compassionately. Sometimes he would sit down in my study and start talking, and I would scramble to type what he said.

I hadn’t yet come up with a good title for the new book, and Robert left me little penciled notes with ideas on used envelopes and sales receipts (he never started a new piece of paper when an old one would do). We brainstormed together incessantly. It wasn't until a few months after he died that Naked at Our Age suddenly struck me as just the right title.

Although my beloved Robert died before this book could be written, it will be as much his as mine. “You honor me when you do your work,” I hear his voice telling me.

So, Robert, my angel, this book will be for you, in your honor, with memories of our great love.

Finding Love in Later Life

When Carol Denker interviewed me for her magnificent Autumn Romance, she started with this prelimary questionnaire. I came across it today and wanted to share it with you, as Valentine's Day approaches:


CD: What advice would you give to individuals over 50 who are looking for love?

JP: Participate in social activities that you love, and you’ll meet people with similar passions. In my case, I loved line dancing -- in fact, I taught line dancing.

Friends told me, “You’ll never meet a man line dancing!” It was true that 90+% of line dancers are women, but one evening a magnificent white-haired man came to my class. When he turned his ocean-blue eyes my way, I had to remember to breathe. When he started to dance, his movements revealed a lifetime of dance training

That was how I met Robert Rice, the love of my life, a man who happened to be looking for a new place to dance in December 2000.


CD: What have you learned about love from this relationship?

JP: I had no idea how deeply I could love and how precious later-life love could be. We seemed very different at first, and both of us were fiercely independent and – we thought! – unwilling to change at this stage of life to suit another person’s needs or expectations.

But I learned that the ways I needed to change to be bonded to Robert were exactly the ways I wanted to grow – and he learned the same.

We were so in love that our differences stopped mattering, and then all but disappeared, as we learned from each other and grew together in love.

When Robert was sick and on his journey to death, I learned how selflessly I was capable of loving. I learned to be less demanding and more giving. I learned to savor every moment, knowing we were on borrowed time. All that mattered was how precious he was and doing all I could to make his last months, weeks, days as comfortable, peaceful, and love-filled as I could.

Near the end, we learned to say “I love you” through squeezing each other’s hand. When I touched his chest softly and he murmured in response, we were making love.

Missing Robert

I'm trying to work on my book, but as my birthday approaches, I miss Robert so horribly that I had to write memories of him. Excerpts:

I cried with Robert when we were forced to accept his death. His mind stayed strong at first as his body weakened. While he still had the strength, he prepared with the care and organization that he always ran his life. He got his affairs in order and cleaned out his files and his painting studio. He gave away thousands of dollars worth of art supplies to an art program for developmentally disabled adults. He made gifts to family and friends. He labeled files that I would need.

Multiple myeloma sapped his life from him while he still breathed. His back, broken in six places, caused him brutal pain. One day he drew the pain to show me. His drawing was so raw, so anguished, so horrible in its detail, that I wail aloud picturing it. I am tempted to share it with you here, but I won’t, because you could never forget it.

It wasn’t until Robert entered hospice care that he was able to be at peace, out of pain, and a loving man again. I owe a great debt of gratitude to hospice, who figured out how to medicate him properly and counseled him with great respect and warmth. They also gave me the bereavement support and counseling that enabled me to preserve what was left of my sanity.

Robert’s last ten days were spent in bed, journeying in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he woke startlingly lucid and sweet, sharing memories and words of love. Often he was only semi-awake, seeming to have one foot in our world and one foot in another. His comments were occasionally hilariously funny – he saw our line dance class dancing with llamas on a stage in front of us, for example, or he plucked flying books from the air for his granddaughter Megan, an avid reader, to attach to her eyes -- though he didn’t know why we were laughing.

Sometimes he slept for days, and I thought I’d never hear his voice again.

One day I was crying in my study, listening to his breathing on the baby monitor that hospice recommended. “I wish I had my best friend, my darling Robert, to ask for help with this,” I sobbed.

Then it occurred to me: I still did. Perhaps the man in the bed was a shadow of the man he used to be, but he was still there. I went to the bedroom, where he lay, eyes closed, mouth slack. I took his limp hand and whispered, “Can you please help me for a minute?”

“Yes,” he said quietly, without opening his eyes.

“How will I go on without you?” I asked, resting my tear-streamed face on his chest as lightly as I could so I wouldn’t hurt him.

He stroked my hair slowly, a whisper of a touch, soft as a kiss. “You’ll be okay,” he told me. “Reach out to people.”

Now I do. I reach out to people I know, people I don’t know. I reach out to you.

Remembering Robert's last tomato plant, with love

Eating a sweet, tiny tomato, I flashed on the dear, spindly plant Robert grew for me Spring 2008. He knew how much I enjoyed sweet cherry tomatoes, but our yard didn't have enough sun, so he planted it in a large pot in the sunniest spot and moved the pot as the sun moved. We were enjoying a wonderful early spring together and anticipating summer.

After Robert broke his back, I insisted that he let me move the tomato pot, which had become very heavy. He still "directed" where it should go.

Robert's plant bore fruit, a tomato or two at a time at first, then several. He would feed the delicious tomatoes to me by hand, lovingly -- until he became too sick and pained to go outside, and finally too sick and pained to care.

The plant outlived my beloved Robert, although it always struggled for life. I cried every time I tasted its tiny, exquisitely sweet fruit. I ate Robert's tomatoes until October, when the plant gave up, and I left the house we had shared.

I ate an amazing, tiny, tomato yesterday, sweet as sugar, and I cried.

71st birthday invitation: "Bring hiking clothes, sunblock, and sex assists"

Memories of Robert are always gliding through my mind. Sometimes they arrive without any apparent prompt, but usually something I see (a hummingbird, ripened blackberries), do (a dance I can see see him dancing so gracefully), or hear (a song with words that break my heart) triggers the memory.

Today I unearthed an invitation I wrote to Robert for a mystery 71st birthday outing -- the last birthday we would share. As I read it, I started to cry, but then burst into laughter when I read the end. Enjoy:

Dearest Robert,
We’re celebrating your 71st birthday at an unknown destination. Please clear your schedule from 12:30 pm Thursday until the next afternoon and pack the following:
• cool-weather, hiking-suitable clothes/shoes/jacket/hat
• restaurant semi-dressy/casual outfit
• swimsuit/ sunglasses/ sunblock/ outdoor slip-on shoes/sandals
• underwear, socks, moisture lotion for two days, one overnight
• sex assists: Wedge, Dr. Ruth, Liquid Silk, Buzzy, silk underwear

Your loving wife,
Joan

First anniversary of Robert's death

"Will you be able to say goodbye when it's time?" I asked Robert softly, holding his limp hand in both of mine.

I couldn't tell if he was thinking about his answer, or drifting in and out of consciousness, or even if he had heard me.

"No," he said finally, without opening his eyes.

It was a few days before Robert died last August 2, and we both knew he was close to the end. Hospice -- such wonderful people! -- kept him painfree as his bones deteriorated and his body processes shut down. He drifted between asleep (or unconscious) and half-awake, sometimes painting in the air with his fingers, sometimes thinking it was time to go to dance class or out to lunch (though he hadn't been out of bed or eaten for a week), occasionally jumping into clarity for a few precious moments.

As Robert's cancer progressed, I felt trapped in a nightmare that I couldn't escape or rescue my beloved Robert, who was slipping away from me day by day, hour by hour.

Now, though, I am grateful that I was able to share this profound transition with him. I learned a lot about death that I never knew, never imagined. I also learned how love wins somehow, even at the end. Robert was rarely conscious over the last few days, but when he was, he murmured love to me.

Thank you, readers, for sharing with me the exhilaration and sensuality of our great love affair and far-too-short marriage. It feels right to share this part with you, too.

(Photos by Robert's son, Mitch Rice. Thank you, Mitch.)

Valentine's Day without Robert

My first Valentine's Day since Robert died seemed to be going unexpectedly well -- a deep and stimulating phone conversation with a close friend, time alone reading and dancing in my exercise room, dinner out with a dear and delightful woman pal, excitement about feeling my life force emerging strongly.

Then I came home. Alone. Lit a candle. And started to cry.

I remembered Robert lighting a candle in the same candleholder I was using. I saw his dear hand lighting it, the hand that would touch me soon. I heard his soft voice, saw his smile. I wrote in my journal memories of seven years of Valentine's Days, especially the languid afternoons making love as daylight turned to evening and to night. Finally, even the candle would burn down, flicker, and go out as we held each other and continued to kiss in the dark.

Tears streaming, voice wailing, I put down my journal and picked up a book of poetry, American Primitive by Mary Oliver. A friend, Uta, had given it to me on Robert's birthday, 4-1/2 months after he died, with this inscription:

Dear Joanie,
She is one of Robert's favorite contemporary poets.
You are very special to me and when you read in this little book, Robert will be with you. He loves you very much.

I read the book as if for the first time, nature imagery delighting me, then phrases like "loss leans like a broken tree" spearing my heart.

I had to put down the book when I read this:

...Now you are dead too, and I, no longer young,
know what a kiss is worth.

(photos by Robert's son Mitch Rice)