Widow Brain

This morning I burned sugar on my stove. It could have been very ugly (uglier than the dark brown burned mess in my pan). I needed to fill my hummingbird feeder, so put a pan on the stove with the water and sugar which just needed to boil for two minutes to kill all the possible impurities. I ran upstairs to get a couple rolls of paper towels. That's it. I got upstairs and immediately forgot what I had been doing. I gathered some dirty clothes -- then remembered what I was up there to get. I got the paper towels -- then, holding them on my lap so I wouldn't forget to take them downstairs -- I checked email. I haven't checked email in days, so there were some items that needed attention. I gave them my attention! Who knows how many minutes passed before I headed downstairs, catching a waft of burning sugar half-way down. I hurried to the stove, imagining that the pan was boiling-over with sugar water down in the burner and under the stove top. Thankfully, that had not happened. What I found was a caramel just starting to burn -- definitely scorched. I considered adding butter! but then abandoned that idea to attend to the pan. There were no glass jars in the garbage, but I did find a paper ice cream container (the plastic yogurt container would not serve this purpose). I put it in the sink and began to pour-out that steaming, sticky substance. Though it might take some elbow grease, the pan will be okay. There was no fire. I was quite thankful. I know better than to leave the kitchen without setting the timer -- ever. Dumb!

When I tell these kinds of stories, most people commiserate -- empathize -- concurring that the aging process brings about these kinds of events more and more, but I know there's more to it. My sister calls it "widow brain." Just for fun, I googled it. (Actually, I like Yahoo, but I love the new verb.) Sure enough, the search results confirmed it. I also discovered some widow blogs that I never thought to look for before. Huh. Anyway -- it's a real thing. Most traumatic events can cause this alteration of your mental faculties -- but it just so happens that the death of your lifemate is hugely traumatic, so we've claimed and named the phenomenon.

My dad ... and my husband ... used to refer to my mind as a 'trap,' that is, once whatever got in there, it stayed. I didn't forget things. David bemoaned this fact when we had discussions (arguments). He never had a leg to stand on because I retained all the facts -- remembered everything. Every word uttered. Every action committed. He often said that I had missed my real calling -- a trial attorney. He put that in a song ...

Our society is so scared of death. We have practically disinfected the process -- insulating the living from the dead -- and yet somehow punish those who remain anyway! The very day my husband died, I was on the phone with the funeral home, making arrangements. I was visiting the funeral home the next day -- a Sunday! There are so many "urgent" decisions to make, especially if you're going to have a regular old burial. There's a rush and you're involuntarily swept-up in it when all you want to do is escape -- to sleep -- to hide. The funeral home people are very practiced at calmness and even-keeled-ness, but it's a farce. You're like cattle moving through the process. After you figure all of that out -- you have the bank accounts, the life insurance, the various accounts you shared -- investments, electric, phone -- even the garbage service. Then there's the house and the cars -- the will ... when all you want to do is rest. How can you possibly think straight with all of this going on when your heart is breaking, your memories are swarming, your children need you ... It's really a form of torture, in my humble opinion.

Ancient communities and some peoples today view mourning in a more caring and restful way. Take the widow, for example. Yes, she wears black -- so that people know she's mourning. They leave her alone! except to bring her food, take care of her home and her other responsibilities. They have no expectations of her. She has no obligations. She is permitted -- encouraged -- to rest. In some cultures, this goes on for a full year. I can't even begin to imagine such respite from the demands of the world.

We do try. I don't want to sound like I wasn't cared-for. I was -- extensively. Many, many meals were brought to my home. Hours of yard work were accomplished while I was just inside my door. Friends called on me -- checked on me. My family was constantly attentive. But some things I just had to do myself -- and there were deadlines. My lists were long. I kept a journal of all the details. This started with the specifics of David's medical care those last few months -- notes from the consultations with doctors and details about surgeries, medications and people in important places. Then I kept a record of the many gifts that were brought and sent to David and us when he was in Hospice. The journal then extended to lists of gifts that were delivered after he died -- and particulars about the business with the funeral home and the extensive planning of a Memorial Service. Finally, it held all the nitty gritty information about the overwhelming business of death. It was a huge relief to close that book for the last time.

So in the midst of all of that minutiae and grief, with your brain and your heart in high gear, it is quite understandable that you forget things. And I did. I still do. For someone who never forgot anything, this drove me nuts. Someone could stand right in front of me and tell me what I had said I would do or what I had already done and I would have no memory of it whatsoever. It was like I had had my memory wiped, like a bad sci-fi movie (or a vampire show;-). Widow Brain. It's a thing.

I'm the first to admit that I don't mind being insulated from death. I've dealt with a lot of it -- but not very up-close and personally. I was not with my mother when she died; the last time I saw her she was unconscious and still on a heart-lung machine. Neither was I with my grandparents nor my father. My parents were cremated, as well, so there were no viewings ("visitations") -- no funeral processions, pall bearers or graveside services. But I think it might be a mistake for our society to treat death with such distance -- with gloves. A Mumford & Sons song talks about being "washed and buried." I know that Amish mothers wash their children for burial. That seems so tragic and yet so unbelievably tender all at once. When did we become so separated from this basic part of life? Death.

The next thing I'm going to write about may just be too personal to share. If it's still here when I publish this post, it's still here. David's ashes were stored at the funeral home. Of course, I was assured by the soft-spoken funeral director, they were at an off-site storage location -- not in the funeral home proper. Okay. I have a picture in my mind of metal storage shelving in a bleak storage room containing a vast variety of urns and black milk jugs. I sure hope they have them labeled. I digress.

At the time of his death, I was uncomfortable bringing his ashes home. One child wasn't crazy about the idea; the other didn't care. I erred on the side of caution on this one because I wasn't sure, either.

Anyway, I knew that David had indicated a desire to be interred in a specific place. I wanted to honor this, so we made arrangements to do so. This meant that I had to transport his ashes. This meant I had to go back to the funeral home to get them. I had to walk back through those doors, be seated behind sliding wood doors on a brocade sofa to wait, and handle that which made me so unsettled. My daughter had come along. I encouraged her to stay in the car if she preferred, but she came on inside with me. Lurch met us at the front door, which jingled with a bell when we opened it. I don't mean to be flip or unkind, but he really resembled Lurch -- tall, stooped and in a dark suit -- and rather behaved like him, too. All very serious and stoic. I almost got the giggles. I had called ahead so they could retrieve the container for the thing contained from the sensibly off-site location. It was in a large, faux leather zipper pouch with the funeral home name on it. Actually, I was really pleased with this. The creep factor was pretty low. When we got to the car I wept. This was an enormously emotional and difficult act for me. I think my daughter was both dismayed and moved by my response. I apologized. I slipped the pouch under my car seat and suggested that we take Dad for a road trip. He would have liked that.

If death were more of an "everyday" thing for we Americans, would this have been such a difficult event for me? I don't know. Is it reverence? or is it fear? or distaste? Maybe a combination. Death isn't meant to be "neat and tidy," but we try to make it so. Death is naked and in your face -- and it permanently changes our lives. It makes us addle-minded from the immense loss -- the sorrow -- the trauma. We are changed forever by it.

Should we turn away from facing that? Should we be forced to get back into life -- be kept busy with all that busy-ness that death brings upon us? Or should we be allowed to rest -- rest our hearts, our souls, our bodies -- and yes, our minds. If we were granted that avenue for comfort and peace, would "widow brain" be a thing? I wonder.