Musings on September…and Mortality

Folks, it’s no secret that I do not like September.

Why? Well, the main reason is that my husband Michael died during this month. So when the weather turns to fall (or at least the calendar does; in Wisconsin, we’re still in summertime mode for whatever reason), I start having trouble with all sorts of things.

You see, it’s hard to create when you’re fighting against grief. Because grieving takes energy. A surprising amount of it, actually…and even though I try hard to set that all aside, sometimes I just can’t.

Mind, I know my husband Michael would not want it to be this way. He was all about laughter, and joyfulness, and creativity…this isn’t the legacy he’d want, for me to feel terrible during the month of September.

Even so, I feel what I feel. Trying to change that doesn’t do any good.

So what do I do when grief gets to be too much? Usually, I read something amusing or divert myself with sports documentaries. (I’m quite partial to ESPN’s “30 for 30” series.)

Sometimes, though, I just have to experience the mourning. I don’t like doing this, but by accepting these awful feelings, I can better put them aside. (I learned this trick from Michael, who was a Zen Buddhist. He felt it made no sense to deny how you truly feel about anything. But if you accept the feelings, whatever they are, and then tell yourself, “I’ve heard them” or “I’ve felt them,” then it’s a little easier to set it aside. I’m not sure why this works, exactly, but it does.)

What’s frustrating is when I run into someone who says, “Barb, it’s been eleven years. Why in the Hell can’t you get past this?”

I know it’s been nearly eleven years. Yet some days, it feels like yesterday; on others, it feels like forever.

Michael was by far the most important person in my life, and I miss him every day. He saw me for what I was, loved every part of me (even the parts of myself I have a hard time loving), helped me create the Elfyverse, cheered me on while I wrote an earlier draft (or two) of CHANGING FACES…he was my biggest cheerleader, my biggest partisan, and my best friend, along with being the only man I’ve ever met who truly understood me.

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to “get over” his loss. Because it truly is an incalculable loss, and I am well aware that it is. And I refuse to deny this truth, because if I did, I’d be a much different — and far lesser — person.

Besides, I don’t think you ever “get past” someone you loved deeply. I think all you can do is go on; you don’t “move on,” exactly — you go on, with the memories you have and the experiences you’ve had, and you do your best to build on them.

I know Michael would want me to continue to fight it out with CHANGING FACES, and he’d probably say in the end, no one will be able to tell just where I’ve struggled, and why.

So even though September, in general, is a bad month, I’m going to continue to do my best.

Michael wouldn’t want it any other way.