hearing voices

A few days ago I looked around at all of the belongings in this house, I felt the incredible attachment Tad had to this place, his center. How could I possibly walk away from a world that was so carefully constructed and with so much love? I felt overwhelmed.

Yesterday it occurred to me for the first time that I could indeed put Tad's belongings in storage, that I could move back into my San Francisco apartment and that one day, alone or with someone else, I might have a weekend house somewhere full of his belongings.

Now this morning I find myself wondering if I am being too cold. Am I just shutting down? Shielding myself from the pain of sorrow, from the yearning?

I once saw a mare give birth to a foal with some a physical deformity. Rather than moving in to lick the spindly animal and offer her nipple she covered it with hay then moved to the farthest side of the stable as if they had not just spent 11 months inhabiting the same body. The gesture felt so cold to me but the Farm Hand assured me this was commonplace if the life of the foal was hopeless.

Last weekend I insisted on being registered for a two-day meditation retreat high in the hill's above Tad's house. It's a Buddhist group I am loosely affiliated with and they lovingly agreed to have me join in at the last minute. I spent hours in silence, then just as many hours sharing open-heartedly and weeping with other folks. We ate tasty vegetarian meals and spent lots of time outdoors in the trees, a mixture of soaring redwoods and craggly live oaks.

When I returned to Tad's house on Sunday - despite my pain of separating from this delicious moment and my anxiety at being back in his house alone - I became aware that something had shifted.

I have entered a new level of acceptance.

Part of it has to do with recognizing that my anger at the nurse the morning of his death had little to do with the nurse and wanting him to be comfortable. It mostly had to do with the fact that - despite the months of preparing for Tad's death - I really did not want him to go. In those last minutes of Tad's life he and I were indeed at odds despite all of the words of reassurance I had given him over the months. Tad had been quite preoccupied by the idea that if he died I would somehow be disappointed. He had mentioned how much people talked about "keeping up the fight" and how hard it was to speak honestly about wanting to let go. Again and again I assured him I supported him either way.

And yet that morning when he said numerous times and in a variety of ways that the gig was up and he was ready to die, I in fact wasn't ready for it. I did not want to stop our painful but familiar fight. I did not want to be hurled into a world surrounded by his belongings but not him, a world where suddenly I need to decide what is best for me.

I began grief counseling yesterday. I met with a woman from hospice who purposely asked questions to evoke Tad, to talk about the history of our relationship. She said the goal of short-term grief counseling is for us to work on the four main "tasks" of grieving:
- Accept the reality of the loss
- Experience the pain of the grief
- Adjusting to an environment where the dead are missing
- Emotionally relocate the deceased and reinvest in life

The first three made sense to me and felt like part of the process but the final task suddenly had me bursting into tears. Where is Tad? How is Tad? Why is he not communicating with me? Why doesn't he let me know how he's doing?

I know this is magical thinking - in the same way that I saw the face of my dead cousin tragically killed on the first day of hunting season-  in the crowded halls of my junior high when I was 12 years old.

The truth is that during the first night of the retreat - a night of tossing and turning, sleeping and waking as I slept away from our bed for the first time - I did have a dream of Tad. I believe it is another reason why I am feeling ready to step more into my world and leave his behind.

In this dream Tad had his beautiful masculine body back, his broad muscular shoulders and his torso shaped like an upside down Eiffel Tower. He was behind me, pushing me on one of those rug-like mats that we used as children to go down giant plastic slides at the fun-fairs. His hands on my shoulders, he was laughing as he pushed me quickly making me a bit uncomfortable. The funny thing is we were not about to go down a giant plastic slide; we were racing across the parking lot of the supermarket of my childhood: Bueche's Groceries in Flushing, Michigan home of my father's father's father's father.

At one point in his playfulness Tad made a sexual comment insisting he wanted to do something right then and there. I blushed and insisted he couldn't do it in public: "People are watching!!" I said. He simply laughed and kept pushing. He pushed me right out onto Main Street then took a right turn up the hill leading to the house where I spent the bulk of my childhood years. The dream ended there as someone's cough in the dormitory woke me yet again.

Tad's and my relationship was constructed a lot around my learning to trust him. In appearance I was better skilled than he was for navigating the real world. I had lived abroad, created organizations, been self employed, graduated from grad school, navigated social circles that are far-distant from those of my childhood.  I helped him get his first passport then took him to my beloved Southwestern France

( I once tried to distract him from pain asking him about favorite shared memories. He actually shared with me that his was a long summer evening strolling through the streets of old Bordeaux where I used to live and work, having dinner outdoors with my best girlfriend and her daughter then wandering along the quais in the moonlight. As he retold the evening I waited for the "punch line" - ie the dramatic moment which I had possibly forgotten. But there was none. This gentle evening walking, chatting, eating outdoors in public spaces -- a pleasure I had indulged in hundreds of times before meeting him-- was indeed his favorite memory of our time together.)

Tad took me down a path of serenity. He took me into a garden maze of minimal words, of deep intuition, of strong ethical boundaries. He had a keen sense of right and wrong and often raised an eyebrow or simply said "I'm not sure that's a good idea". That was enough for me. I know that sounds over-arching and a bit unbearable. But he did it so sparingly and from a place of deep wisdom and love - that I couldn't help but stop in my tracks.

Yesterday I took flyers of Tad's memorial to the local hospital then to the oncology office where we would go every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to get a blood test and then blood products when necessary (the fact that he was kept alive by other people's blood donated out of kindness did not go unnoticed). The nurses and other staff greeted me with love, generously gave me hugs, offered heartfelt compliments and concern about the way we walked through cancer with grace.

The most powerful of these was one of the nurse practitioner's who had been an ally for a long time. She always knew how to hold a professional container but fill it with visible affection. She helped make our visits to the oncologists more meaningful.

She took the time in the middle of her busy morning to come and see me in the waiting room where she said to me (more or less): "What I loved about Tad was his powerful voice. The way he spoke up and said his truth. Even in his pain and weakness he would speak powerfully - at times overriding what other people said and he did it with so much love. I love him."

(As I write these words Tad's sweet cat keeps climbing onto my lap and the keyboard, pushing her way into my world - refusing to take no for an answer.)

I knew what she meant. I used to call this Tad's divine voice - this deep wisdom that he tapped into and spoke from, one that cut through all my muddledness.

If today I stopped to listen to Tad's wisdom, if I just stop and let him push me on the mat across the asphalt and up the hill,  I believe he is saying:
Love your life Greg. Take risks. Love others. I believe he is telling me that all these belongings that he loved to accumulate were just things. Now that he belongs to the ethers he sees they were just another way to cling.

Today Tad's voice is telling me above all else to love life and live love.