Peninsula Woman
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
3
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2012
Grieving loss of wife joins father with sons BY DEAN E. MURPHY THE NEW YORK TIMES
Tears fall As the DVD played on, the tears began welling, but this time long before we recited our vows. And it was me crying. My God, she looked gorgeous as she stepped out of the white Cadillac, dodging the raindrops. She beamed a smile at the camera, her eyes filled with anticipation. Everything was perfect down to her painted toenails. I remember it all so well, back when Heaven was so generously shining on me, the lucky guy I was, this dream bride at my side. My oldest son wandered into the room and grabbed a seat. He had seen the tape before but didn’t really remember it and certainly had never watched it with such purpose. On screen, I had a full beard and thick wavy hair and looked more his peer than the middle-aged father now sitting next to him. It was funny watching me pace with my groomsmen, awkwardly waiting for the ceremony to begin. As I sat in front of the TV, I laughed and cried all
BRIAN REA/THE NEW YORK TIMES
at once, knowing with hindsight all that awaited us. His mother — well, she looked stunning to my son, too, and there was no mistaking her. “Let’s get this show on the road!” she ordered. My high schooler immediately recognized his mom, a quarter-century of distance erased by a handful of take-control words. Still, he didn’t stick around. It turned out to be too hard for him to sit with me, his dad by then reduced to a helpless spectator to his own life. He felt like an intruder, he later confessed. And when one of his brothers happened by, he, too, was so unnerved that he darted out the front door. His eyes were swollen and red when he returned, not a word needing to be exchanged between us.
Difficult times You see, as hard as it has been for my three sons to lose their mother — she died rather suddenly two months shy of our 25th — I learned that anniversary night that it also has been hard for them to watch me lose the love of my life. As alone as I feel, I am not actually alone. I have three sons who can pinpoint with laserlike precision the gaping hole in my heart. It is an odd feeling
O
n a visit to the doctor to get his flu shot, my 12-year-old lectured me on finding “healthy” ways to vent my sadness and frustration, gently pointing out that I might have come down too hard on his two brothers that weekend. To the same point, there was nearly a round of applause when I announced that I had found a bereavement group I intended to stick with. as a father to be so transparent, so naked, in front of the children you still provide for. But the death of a spouse rewrites the rules of a family in ways I never could have imagined. Some decisions in life, it turns out, are made for you, leaving you an unwitting accomplice and spectator at once. My sons stood witness as I spent the better part of five months trying to keep my wife alive. She received a diagnosis of kidney cancer a few days after Thanksgiving, and we buried her the week before Easter.
In a flash In some ways it was a flash, those 134 days, fighting for treatments, arguing with insurance companies, pushing for another drug, getting her to the hospital for chemotherapy. Always another deadline, something to arrange, a problem
Moss: Food bank is
‘the great recycler’ CONTINUED FROM 1
For more information TO GIVE TO the Port Townsend Food Bank or to find out more about its services, phone 360-5310275. The food bank is open to all comers from 11:30 a.m. till 3 p.m. each Wednesday at Mountain View Commons, 1925 Blaine St. The two-room pantry is just inside the building entrance. Donation checks may be mailed to PT Food Bank, P.O. Box 1795, Port Townsend, WA 98368. To see Shirley Moss’ jewelry designs, visit the Port Townsend Gallery at 715 Water St. or www. Chainmaker.com. Peninsula Daily News
Remains of marriage Apart from the grief of a beloved spouse gone missing, a widow or widower has the institution of marriage to confront. Not just because you are suddenly without it, but with kids still at home, the marriage lives on in the world you’ve built as a family. The living room furniture you picked out together, the unfinished plans to remodel the kitchen, even who walks the dog in the morning — all residuals of a bygone bond. Over the summer, we celebrated my middle son’s 16th birthday with a boxed cake I concocted with the help of his little brother and a tub of store-bought frosting.
father could give: the example of unconditional marital love. What she didn’t say was that in providing that example, I was also inviting my sons into the inner chambers of my life. That is not something fathers normally do, at least not in the case of adolescent children, and once that door is open, it does not easily swing shut. At such an isolating time in my life, that is perhaps not a bad thing. But this new order can take some getting used to. My mental health, social life and work ethic are all fair game to my children. Is your belief in God shaken, Dad? Are you angry? How are you taking care of yourself?
Taking care
On a visit to the doctor to get his flu shot, my 12-year-old lectured me on finding “healthy” ways to vent my sadness and frusTested tration, gently pointing out that I might have come Not that they didn’t test down too hard on his two me. Little things would brothers that weekend. To conflate into big ones. The the same point, there was struggle over just getting nearly a round of applause to school on time became a when I announced that I flash point beyond reason had found a bereavement as the routines of everyday group I intended to stick life — from when to eat with. meals to whose authority Keeping it going “You’ll like it,” my to respect — were suddenly Birthday cakes were his youngest told me. “Someup for negotiation. mother’s domain, and she times, you just need to say My updates on their made magnificent, artistic whatever you want and not mother’s condition were monuments to their lives, rarely taken at face value. worry about it.” I was hiding something, or confections that told the When I look back to the story of the past year betspinning them, or worse, I morning my wife died, it is ter than any journal entry was in the dark myself. In now clear to me that my a near instant, the world or photo album. Mine was sons were well down this was not what it used to be. hardly that, but I did my road even then — that they And never would be. best to keep my wife’s trarecognized our family’s dition alive — and with it, changed order and its conMustered her strength our marriage. sequences. As we were In a moment of despair, driving home from the hosNothing anyone did pice in exhausted silence, made much difference, not after every effort to save my wife had failed, her my oldest son, in the pasin stopping the cancer or senger seat where his mom even in managing the pain. mother pulled me aside. I had always sat, turned to Still, when it became clear had never felt so helpless or inadequate, and she me and then to his broththat she was not going to could see that. I may not ers. get better, she mustered recognize it right now, she “It is just the four of us her strength and invited the boys into our bedroom. told me, but I had given my now,” he said. “We’ll need to It would be another 10 sons the greatest gift a be here for each other.”
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dynamic,” said Gee, 78. “She’s a very good boss . . . she recognizes everyone’s feelings.” Sally McKelvey, 68, happened to meet Moss in the Safeway parking lot four years ago. Her work at the food bank is a high point of the week, she says. “I get more back than I could ever have thought,” adds McKelvey, who retired after many years at Quimper Community Federal Credit Union. This volunteer job, she says, is the best job she’s ever had. “I get up at the crack of dawn; I can’t wait to be there.” TURN
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fresh pears, organic chard, milk, even Starbucks coffee. Now and then, Moss buys good chocolate from the Lifeline. Or Ritz crackers. These are treats, yes, and they’re part of Moss’ mind set of treating her clients as she would treat her own family. The food bank volunteers are another family group. Moss’ father, Bill Moss of Sequim, volunteered here for years, until his passing in December 2010 at age 82. This family includes quite a few seniors, such as the tattooed guy, aka David Gee, who’s been working here as long as Moss has. “Shirley is very
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Working with Kullman and the rest of the volunteers — “no one here gets paid a cent” — Moss moved the food bank from a smaller space on Park Street to Mountain View Commons, the former Mountain View Elementary School at 1925 Blaine St. Showing a reporter the orderly shelves of the pantry, Moss jokes that this place is “the great recycler. All of this would have gone to no good,” she says of the hundreds of pounds of produce, dairy products and breads donated right after their sell-by date passes. “The stores put the freshest out and donate the rest to us,” Moss adds. The queen of all sources is the Food Lifeline, the Shoreline nonprofit that distributes goods to some 300 agencies across Western Washington. Thanks to its broad donation base, the Lifeline can sell food to the Port Townsend Food Bank for an extremely low price: 3 cents per pound. That’s why a gift of cash goes so much farther than a donated canned good, Moss says. With a check for $20, she can buy 66 pounds of
to solve. But the boys lived every day of it, and while I was caught up in the moment, they were watching in slow motion, each frame frozen in agonizing detail. When they would act out or indicate neglect, I was frank in my plea to them: As harsh as this may sound, I can’t make you my priority right now, so please don’t insist on it. I love you, and remain here for you, but my energies are focused on getting your mother healthy. She needs me like never before.
days before she died, but she said her goodbyes that night in the sanctity of our home and on her terms. We all curled up on the thick white sheets and fluffy down comforter, craving her every affection, tears streaming down our cheeks, incapable of saying much beyond, “I love you.” We knew this was one of life’s consequential moments, even if we did not wholly appreciate the finality of it.
TONNI PETTY
To celebrate our 25th anniversary, I had the videotape of our wedding converted into a DVD as a surprise for my wife. This was going to be a stay-at-home anniversary; we had splurged on our 20th knowing that by this year our oldest son would be frighteningly close to college. So a quiet dinner and a movie — our own movie — were what I had in mind. My wife and I hadn’t viewed the ceremony in years, but the routine was delightfully predictable. She would cry on cue (at the moment when she choked up reciting her vows), and we would hold hands and give each other that knowing look — the one that said, “I’d do it all again, in a heartbeat.” I had forgotten how long it took to get beyond our background stories — the high school swim teams, the travel — all leading to that electric day in Santa Barbara, Calif., when we first laid eyes on each other and knew almost instantly we were meant to be. “I’ve met the man I’m going to marry,” she reported to her mother that first night.
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