A Rumination on Loss and the Rocky Road back to Normalcy

Five mornings ago, I was out for a walk as I tried to clear my mind of something that I knew would soon come to pass. I decided to set my music to a "radio" station formed by the music of the progressive metal/rock band Green Carnation. To be fair, I know much of the music of Green Carnation to be somber and thoughtful and certainly not triumphal. However, for reasons that cannot be known, the particular playlist that the app served me was particularly downtrodden and bleak. Although I kept on that channel for about an hour, I did eventually have to switch out of it to something less emotionally heavy. Soon after I returned home from my walk, I was informed of the death of my father-in-law.

Certainly, this is not my first rodeo in someone close to me passing away. The first major passing of my life happened when I was a mere eight years of age, when my father Peter passed away after a relatively brief battle with a particularly virulent form of Leukemia. The memories of that time in the fall of 1980 I can still recall vividly but rather unemotionally. I certainly remember his final trip to Boston to Dana Farber - a strange family trip where my mother Doris and all of the kids (Me, my brothers Ryan and Sean, and sister Dawn) were walking around the streets of Boston near to the hospital - making note of the crisp weather and the changing colors of the leaves on the trees. I also recall us stopping at a gas station that was right next to Fenway Park and picking up some sort of souvenir from a Red Sox game that happened to be on the ground. Little did I know how my life would be intertwined with Boston and the Red Sox at that moment.

My father passed away not that long after that trip to Boston - something which in retrospect we all had to have known. I recall being driven to the funeral parlor (which was relatively near to his office - as an independent CPA) with a long-time family friend. I recall that she told me that it was OK to cry. It was a strange evening - there was an early season snow that came down - and lots of people who came up to me to give me condolences for my loss. It still feels strange to look back upon this and the ensuing funeral. People who I did not know giving me condolences which I didn't truly understand for a death that I couldn't actually fathom. Not that I was too young to process what death meant. I knew that Peter was not just sleeping. Or on a long trip. I was cognizant of what death actually was. I am certain that Doris had given all of us enough information to understand what was happening. But how could an eight-year-old actually process what this actually meant. However, I do recall, I never cried. 

In many ways, the ensuing years were the usual abnormality of normality. Our family largely lost touch with my father's side of the family. I was certainly too young to know the specific politics that broke that bond apart - especially since the Magee "family compound" was literally within walking distance of my grandmother's apartment - a place we visited relatively often. Things happened. Life moved on. My mother got remarried. We moved a couple of times. I had new grandparents. There was a new normal. No one else of major prominence in my life passed.

Until May of 1993, when my grandmother (mother's side) Gladys passed. This was just after completing my third year of college. I certainly remember visiting my grandmother often - she was certainly a vibrant lady (even if she did attempt to kill me one time by excess Miracle Whip). But this death didn't hit me particularly hard, she had lived a long fulfilling life and was in her 80s at the time of her passing. But I do recall the same situation as with my father. A long line of well-wishers giving me condolences. I didn't get it. Yes, death can be grim. However, shouldn't we be celebrating a long life lived?

As always, life moved on. I moved on. Different jobs. Different residences, Different experiences. A life full of experiences - some good, some bad, most just abnormally normal. I had business trips to Seattle, to Tennessee, to Germany. I had a job interview (and offer) in California. I saw 41 bands over 4 days in the middle of the Caribbean. I met my wife. I married my wife. I gained adult children (Sara and Jon). 

My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer not too long after I married Dawn. Stage 4, small cell, lung cancer. It was all but a death sentence. Probably within 6 months. Except, Doris was stubborn. She was a fighter. Chemotherapy? Bring it on. Radiation? Bring it on. The treatment helped. She was never actually cured, but she continued living. On her own. Because she wasn't sick. Even if she was, she was going to tell you she wasn't. A year went by. A year and a half went by. The cancer never left. It just eventually mutated and metastasized. She lost mobility. She became frail. Eventually, it went to her brain. We were told that this time, the end was nigh. Not that Doris would have it. I recall discussing how much her stay at a rehab facility would be after the insurance stopped paying. She paid no mind to the cost - thinking it was for a month as opposed to a daily rate. Alas, that cost never had to be paid. She had a final seizure while in rehab and was brought back to the hospital for her final days. However, she was conscious. She was able to speak to all of her children and loved ones. She had a chance to say goodbye. 

When she did pass, I was of course sad. My parents were both dead. My grandparents as well. I still had my brothers and sisters, but they weren't extremely local either. We decided, based on Doris' wishes, not to have any public ceremonies at all. Of course, when I returned to work, I got the same condolences I had received in the past. The people who gave them knew me - most had only briefly met my mother once if at all. I took it as a well-meaning gesture of support for me and my mental health. Perhaps, I was cracking the pattern of grief and normalcy after all.

Of course, losing one's mother is a traumatic experience regardless of the time and method. No matter how well one prepares for these eventualities, you are never prepared for the reality. I knew my mother was dying. I knew for multiple days before her death that she was breathing but would soon cease that final activity. Yet mourning was not on my playlist. I had other things to do. I had to prepare her final wishes. I had to execute her estate. I had to clean up her apartment. I had to rehouse a cat. Was I intentionally running away from actually mourning the passing - or was it normal to just try to get on with life?

After my mother's passing, other people in my orbit also passed. Co-workers. Parents of friends. Husbands of friends. Some of the deaths were long drawn-out affairs, others were more sudden. I, of course, felt a pang of sadness for these passings, and gave the usual condolences to those left behind. Did it matter? Was giving condolences just a trite remark that humans do to move on passed someone else's grief? Does it actually register as meaningful to the person receiving the platitude?

One September morning in 2022, my wife received a phone call from her son. His wife had died suddenly and tragically during the previous night. While I had lost my father and my mother to cancer, and my grandmother to natural causes... this death hit different. My stepson had lost his wife in the middle of the night. There were no warnings. There were no signs. How is he going to deal with this? How are we going to help him deal with this? How do you give condolences to someone on an event that you can barely believe happened. 

Humans are capable of a lot. Finding words and actions in times of great tragedy is difficult to think that you as an individual can do. But, somehow, we manage. Life doesn't give you options. Somehow, we had a memorial service. And a funeral. All of us in shock. All of us attempting to grin and bear through something that to this day does not make any sense.

On Valentine's Day of 2023, my wife texted me while at work that she wasn't feeling good. She eventually decided she needed to go to the hospital because the pain was unbearable. I got things as situated as I could at work and received permission from my boss to leave and go to the ER to be with my wife. After a battery of tests, a doctor with the white coat embossed with ECHO on it came into the room. My wife had cancer, the only question was which type? It turned out to be ovarian cancer. It was relatively early stage. There was a decision made to have surgery - which went well. At least, initially. Then Chemo. All was good. Until it wasn't. The cancer made a return in November. Another set of surgeries. Another round of chemo.

Meanwhile, my mother-in-law fell ill. A twisted tale of parallel lives and parallel sicknesses. Hospitals and Rehabs. Family members would somehow run into each other in the hallways without knowledge that they were there for the same reason - but a different person. It was a strange, macabre, dance of illness. Which only got more bizarre. For, I also was ill. And, on January 2nd, an abscess that had been growing on my brain decided to make itself known in a violent headache and an eventual collapse while I was at work. I was now down for the count. I now had to have surgery. And rehab. 

Dawn started her second batch of chemo soon after my 3+ weeks of hospitalization. It did not go well, as she was soon back in the hospital due to complications. It was a short respite in the hospital the first time. A second round of chemo soon followed. This also led her back to the hospital for a longer stay. A stay in the same exact room/berth that I had been in 2 months previous. She went back to rehab to get stronger... but she never did make it back home. She had further complications that put her back in the hospital (a different hospital - the one where I had rehab in). Less than a week after entering, Dawn passed.

Dawn, like my mother, was cognizant until soon before she actually passed. She was able to say her goodbyes to her children and her family and to me. All of which allowed her to pass on (relatively) peacefully. But, for me, the loss was devastating. This death hit me in a way that no other death I had experienced had. It hurt. It still does hurt. Dawn had helped me realize who I actually was. Now, I was alone. The morning after Dawn's passing, Jon and Sara came over. We talked. We commiserated. Then, we went over to Bob and June's house to inform Bob over his daughter's passing. Upon entering, we saw June in her hospital bed. She was awake and aware, but in many ways, she was not in this world. We informed Bob and he became a wreck. As was expected, parents are not supposed to lose their children first. It made all the pain I felt just a few hours previous come back in waves.

Plans were made - A wake was held. People came out to see Dawn and to give condolences. Former co-workers and friends came out to show that they cared. My brother flew out from Arizona to be with me. I attempted to show strength. I attempted to greet people and talk to them as a normal human would do. But all I could really do was stare at the corpse of my wife. It was a vacant stare, and I felt as alone as any human could ever be. 

Life, of course, moved on. It always does. There is no stop button. The world keeps spinning whether you like it or not. So, after my bereavement period was over, I went back to work. Attempting to put my life back together bit by bit. A few weeks later, June passed away. The same song and dance was done all over again. However, in this instance, I was hyper-aware of Bob. Bob handled the public portions of this dance much differently than how I think I did. He just was his "normal" self. Talking about the things that he always talked about with the people he always talked to. Does this mean he wasn't devastated by his wife's death? Unlikely. Was it just the stiff upper lift mentality of men of a certain age? Perhaps. Everyone handles grief differently.

Between June's death and Bob's recent passing, there have been some others who have also passed that played important roles in my life with Dawn. Dottie - Bob's first wife and Dawn's first adoptive mother - passed away. James Pate, who had married Dawn's birth mother, passed away in early March of this year. Rebecca Pate Zornado - Dawn's half-sister - passed away a few weeks later of ALS. Learning of each of these passings again gave me feelings of sadness.

And, then Bob's passing came. His diagnosis had come out of the blue. His fight was valiant but quick. And I am left again with the feeling of loss. Loss of friendship. Of companionship. Of knowledge. I just wallow in this ever-present pit of somberness.

During my walk of last Saturday, before I had changed the channel to Kawaii Metal, I found and played the song that I had wanted to listen to by Green Carnation. A song called Lullaby in Winter. Because - "I know you're sad because it's winter, but I can promise you a spring. I know you're cold, I see you shiver, but I can promise you a spring. Tomorrow's new. Tomorrow's Warm. Remember, When you're all alone."