On November 25, 2010 my partner of nearly 25 years, who was suffering from atypical Parkinson’s disease fell and broke her hip. She died on July 18, 2011. During that time I kept an online journal on Caring Bridge, a free web site dedicated to helping people keep in touch with family and friends when someone is suffering from an illness or accident. I wrote the last entry on that site on November 25, 2011. This entry is a continuation of those reflections. (You can find them on the Caring Bridge website – site name: janiselliot.)
Last week marked the second anniversary of Janis’ death. I hesitate to say the second year was any easier than the first – but it was different. I see much more clearly how grief becomes a thread woven throughout my life. One day I find myself sharing something about Jan or about our time together with the joy that infused our relationship; the next day I am slammed with ever deepening sadness as I try to make sense of a life lost to dementia and the challenge to reshape my living to life without her.
I remember Jan once compared launching children from the family home to pulling ivy – you remove it from one place and it just roots somewhere else. So I’ve been pulling the ivy of lost promise – repainting walls, removing photographs, taking down the house number her dad made for us that said, ‘Welcome, Janis and Patti’. I’ve put new photos up, rearranged furniture, invited a wonderful new partner into my life, slowly making my home ours – but will I ever stop seeing the shadow of that rough wood welcome sign, I wonder?
I feel this cultural expectation that while it’s okay to grieve in my own time, after a while – like a year – it’s time to stop talking about it. Occasional memories are acceptable, as long as I’m ‘getting on with my life.’ It’s hard enough to catch up with the lives that didn’t stop like mine, so it’s a bit ironic that I’m being invited to stay the course of the slow slog.
It suddenly dawned on me that there is no catching up, because there isn’t really a ‘getting on…’ the life I’m supposed to get on with isn’t around anymore. Of course there are the same friends and family, bits of work and social commitments, but at the heart of the matter – that is in my heart – I’m not sure it’s ever possible to reclaim that which once was. Watching someone’s personality dismantle dismantles the watcher’s personality as well.
So here’s to year three – an invitation to come back into a transformed me; an opportunity to find new peace in the practice of being just where I am; learning new ways to say goodbye by practicing always saying hello to the glorious beauty of each moment. It sounds so simple because it can be if I can just let it – be.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been obsessed about a book. Ironically, it’s a book about obsession – about compulsive eating, something I’ve struggled with most of my adult life. Most people who have eating problems have read something by Geneen Roth – the women’s compulsive eating guru – but this is my first time.  I bought, Women Food and God because it was on sale and someone had suggested I read it.  That was some time ago. I’ve carried it with me on occasion, but never opened it till now.  I guess it’s time.

It was so refreshing to read something about food and spirituality that is so clearly written, articulating things that have been swimming around the edges of my awareness, but without form or syntax.  What Roth says is so common sense – “Compulsive eating is a way we distance ourselves from the way things are when they are not how we want them to be“ (p.37). They are not how we want them to be because we carry stories we’ve learned from the past as if they were true in the present. Compulsive eaters suffer from “anorexia of the soul” (p.37).  The basic challenge of compulsive eating is acceptance – willingness to discover the ways we are glued to the past and let them go – instead celebrating the beauty of who we are in the present.  Food, according to Roth, is a wonderful tool to bring ourselves into our true spiritual selves – it can link us to that which we find most sacred, our connection to the larger universe.

The last page of the book lists her “Eating Guidelines” (p. 211).

1.     Eat when you are hungry

2.     Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.

3.     East without distraction. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.

4.     Eat what your body wants.

5.     Eat until you are satisfied.

6.     Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others

7.     Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

So here I sit on July 5, having gorged myself beyond discomfort at a July 4^th barbecue, having just reread all my highlights from my first read-through.  I want to follow the sensations in my body, discover the old stories that keep me locked in an unnecessary struggle (according to Roth!), and wondering how long it will take me to let go of whatever my obsession is determined to have me avoid.  Can I really give up my lunch-time reading; or my writing-time snacking?  I found hope on page 74:  “Of this I am certain: something happens every time I stop fighting with the way things are.”

When I was doing my chaplaincy training at the VA Hospital, I was responsible for noon-time worship once a week.  I was free to use the 15 minute pulpit in any way I desired.  So, once a week I would dutifully set up the chapel to my liking, having created a 15 minute devotion.  Precisely at noon I would begin.  For the most part the chapel was completely empty.  But there was a video camera on the wall opposite that broadcast from the chapel to all the televisions in the hospital.  I never knew who was listening.  Sometimes someone would walk past the chapel door and look in, seemingly wondering why I was talking to no one in particular.  No one ever commented on them to me.  And I still remember the slight imbalance I felt Wednesdays from noon till 12:15.

Starting this blog feels a little like that.  Launching my thoughts into the blog-o-sphere, not knowing where it will land.  At least this time I can ask for your responses!