Soul Mosaic

FINALLY!!! A totally FUN and joyous entry to write!

Just like that Robert Frost poem – Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood….

We were in the midst of Ed’s health struggles. I was volunteering at the science museum and LOVING it. But still, there was no immediate chance for a job, and only a long shot for some future positions when the new museum wing construction was finished…in about a year.

Bills were mounting. And I was that responsible, oldest child raised in an immigrant culture that drilled into you to always be working. “Get a job. Now! Earn as much money as you can.” It was understandable. They lived at the edge of life, hunger, and poverty. And while our current situation wasn’t like that, still, it wasn’t that flush. And any savings were hard-earned and weren’t going to last. I needed a job.

So when a colleague who ran her own pharmaceutical research-services company kept inviting me to work for her, it seemed like the right thing to do. It made total sense. She wanted me there. My whole background fit what she needed. And I had been floundering over what to do next with my life. It was the logical thing to do…on paper.

Given all that, I started making plans to take the job. I would be a contractor for her, and no question, she would compensate me very well. The last thing I had to do was set up my liability insurance, and then start earning my keep again.

The quotes came in. I filled out the forms. All I had to do was sign them and submit them. It was like that moment-of-truth scene you see in all the movies, where the person’s hand hovers over the form, pen closing in on the bottom line. But in my “movie,” every single fiber in my body screamed, “Don’t do it!”

It was absurd. My husband was killing himself at his job. We needed me to work at something that could bring in money. I loved the museum, but I had no right to pass this job up. I couldn’t do that to him. Who did I think I was? Yet, I just…couldn’t…sign…that…form.

Finally, I went to Ed. “I can’t do this. I just can’t do this work anymore.”

He looked at me with an expression of “it’s about time,” and said, “I know.”

Prayer from the Reform Siddur (prayer book) – Mishkan T’Filah

This is an hour of change.
Within it we stand uncertain on the border of light.
Shall we draw back or cross over?
Where shall our hearts turn?
Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,
or cross over?
This is the hour of change, and within it,
we stand quietly
on the border of light.
What lies before us?
Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,
or cross over?

Why Judaism?

So why did a born-and-raised, formerly devoted Catholic, with an aunt who was a nun and two uncles who were priests, go to a rabbi and ask to join “The Tribe?”

Maybe that journey was like the name of my blogs: Soul Mosaic. Not any one thing, but a creation made of so many small and diverse pieces accumulated along the way? An image formed slowly that became impossible to ignore?

The mosaic pieces were scattered all through my life:

In Ed’s own words…

While I could give the exact list of all the ways we researched, investigated, and pursued answers to help Ed, and while I could certainly say it was a hard time for him, nothing gives the portrayal of what Ed went through as powerfully as his own words.

Ten years after he nearly died, he wrote a piece for his blog to reflect on what those years were like. Rather than me paraphrasing, with his permission, here are his observations from that time.

Soon, he will be writing the “Twenty Years Later” piece, and I will share that as well.

And I will say that amazing things can happen when you refuse to give up. No, it’s not perfect. He has worked so hard, and it isn’t easy. But still, ten years after the “ten years” assessment, he is in a much different, much better place. And we are so grateful.

But right now…2016.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Opening the Door

“Today marks the tenth anniversary of the day I failed to die. I call December 12th my “life day” and have celebrated it, in my own quiet way, each and every year.

But “life day” is a phrase that fails to capture the full import of that time: it speaks of victory, of a foe vanquished, of death avoided (well, to the extent we all avoid it.)

But that’s not the whole story.

Yes, my life day is the day I cheated death. But it’s also the day the person I once was started to die.

The departure of that “presence”

Just as I had a lot of work to do to piece myself back together emotionally, Ed, too, was waging his own battles, physically and emotionally at the same time. But at least we were starting to work together to pull each other out of the darkness. And the word “darkness” doesn’t even come close to describing his ultimate dark place at that point…that “presence,” just off to his periphery.

At the worst of that time for him, that deepest, suicidal point, he could feel a constant “companion,” a black depression that was so crushingly real it felt like a living, breathing entity standing right at his elbow.

“It was right there, just out of my sight, off to the side. I felt like if I could just turn around fast enough, I would see that dark form standing right by my side. My peripheral vision was just frightening DARKNESS. Like I could touch it. It was ALWAYS right there.”

To this day, whenever he speaks about those days, I can see intense fear in his eyes and a deep revulsion in his facial expression. It is the expression of someone who came so close to the edge of a cliff that it still scares him to think about.

Blinded by the fog

If there were a painting to depict a large chunk of my life, it would be this one. In looking back over the entries now, I can see how many periods of challenges there were, sometimes a few at the same time. There were also places of joy and calm — and we made our joy in any given moment. But always lurking just out of sight was the question of what might happen or be needed next.

Here are the rest of the photos showing the sequence as I painted the piece for New Directions. It’s a dawning of true brightness on the path, after wandering in the dark for so long. Tomorrow, the rest of the story.

Note: All paintings by the author

The image for New Directions

The next several entries in this “Old Country” section of my memoir — the “Old Country” being the story of my life — cover these last fifteen or so years of my life. It has been the part that has gifted me with “New Directions.” Joyous directions. Directions full of curiosity, creativity, and most especially, PURPOSE.

This last segment has been the part that finally took everything from my life, synthesized and transformed it into something that has just blossomed. While I managed to thrive in some fashion through all those earlier years of pain and hard work, these past years have been an absolute joy to me.

As with all my earlier posts, I have paired the text with photos or paintings that represented those times. So, it is only fitting that for this “New Directions” phase, it has its own painting — a visual expression of what I felt to move beyond so much struggle and emerge into the life I was born to live.

The seeds of thriving

The thriving wouldn’t come overnight. It was more of a slow-growing plant nurtured by my wonderful therapist. And it is a still-going-on process. But at that time, her help gave me hope. I didn’t expect it to turn out as wonderfully as it has. Hope was enough then.

The help of my therapist, and the medications the psychiatrist prescribed had brought me back from the edge. The PTSD anxiety was coming under control. The depression was improving, though it would take a little longer.

The best way to show its progress was in from something I wrote in 2017, about a 2011 trip Ed and I took.

I can’t do this!

Maybe I didn’t dare speak those words at that point about my life situation…I felt it for sure. But as long as I didn’t admit them, I could go on. But I did have to say them about working in the memory-care center.

I had started volunteering there in the fall of 2008 and helped with the Christmas party for their residents. We danced, brought out food, and sang songs. I tried to keep my mood light and match the delight of all the patients. It was surreal, though. One moment, someone would seem worlds away mentally, then you’d play a certain song from decades ago, and they would come alive, smiling and singing along. While it was nice to see them have a moment of joy, it broke my heart because they would mentally “slip away” once the song was over.

Lost in the chaos…

I spoke in an earlier post about my struggles with female friends. During that time period, there were a couple of friendships that really triggered me. The conversations seemed to have an energy behind them. There seemed to be undercurrents of things unsaid, and even the things said felt provocative, interrogative, almost confrontational. So those things added to the trauma from that December intensified my anxiety.

I literally began to feel unnerved. Like I was being watched…viewed as guilty of something…bad….poked at emotionally…and unsafe. Maybe the weird energy was mine projected on them. Maybe it was both. I know that after almost losing Ed, and realizing I couldn’t be the strong, self-sufficient island anymore, I was desperate to nail down a friend I could depend on. I felt lost in the chaos of life and started to question my sanity.