Grief and April Fool’s Day
Grief is tricky. It’s sometimes deeply sad and sometimes surprisingly joyful but never the same at any given moment. And April 1st, the day for jesters and fools, now brings this multidimensionality of grief into my heart and soul every year. You see, this day reminds me I once was a fool, acting contrary to the facts in front of me. I was hopelessly head over heels for a woman who appeared perfectly content to be on her own. She was strong, courageous, holding herself ramrod straight and walking with confidence. A smart, stylish dresser who lit up every room she walked into with an engaging, inviting smile. Who was I to think she would ever see me in more than a casual way? But, truthfully, that question never entered my mind. I too was, and still am, courageous and strong-willed, although admittedly never will be as stylish as she was, and I’m okay with that.
One April Fool’s Day, I consciously began to court her, first as a friend because to me friendship is the core relationship in life. When done right, it is foundational. When built on honesty, trust and mutual respect, friendship provides the emotional support and companionship we humans need for surviving and thriving. Our friendship took form quickly and deeply. Within a year’s time, again on April 1st, we transformed our friendship into a deeply spiritual and sexual bond that lasted forty-two years in physical form and will continue for an eternity in spirit form.
Certainly, like all intimate relationships, we had our ups and downs, our differences of opinion, our moments of righteous anger with one another. What we never had, though, was any doubt we would work through those challenging periods or leave each other for something better. There wasn’t anything better that could entice us away from each other. We chose each other every day of those forty-two years, whether they were beautiful, walk-in-the-woods-with-sunlight-streaming-through-the-trees days or dark, soul-struggling, tear-soaked days. All of those days were days we chose to love each other as best we knew how, days we chose to learn to love each other even better than we had loved the day before. We committed to grow alongside each other, being each other’s best supporter and best loving challenger. We wanted each other to be our best selves, nothing less.
And then came the day I knew she had finally begun to succumb to a fatal genetic brain disorder, the day she had feared throughout our decades together and also the day she had worked so hard to push out of the realm of possibility. That day is when anticipatory grief first caught hold of me, a deep sorrow that threatened to consume me, make me incapable of love or caring or even valuing life itself. And that long, endless type of grief played a major role many times in the four years of her decline from the behavioral variant form of frontotemporal degeneration (bvFTD).
Other types of grief gripped me in the days after she died. A tormented grief that I hadn’t loved her well enough. A bottomless grief that screamed Why are you still living? What’s the point? A fearful grief that questioned my very sense of self. Who are you without this relationship, without the other part of yourself? Neuroscientists now understand a lifetime spent together rewires your brain to exist in an interconnected state with your partner. I knew that the minute she was gone, and I had to admit I didn’t know who I was without her.
Yet, throughout the seven years of her illness and death, just like all the other years we had lived and worked together and loved each other, there were days when sorrow did not enter my heart or body or psyche at all. Instead, joy ruled. Even while I watched my beloved declining, I had days of immeasurable happiness. They happened just because I could hold her hand and exchange smiles that expressed our immense love for each other without any words needed. They came when we shared quiet moments on a park bench or visited our newborn great nieces and nephew. In the years since she died, I also have experienced increasing moments of joy every time she enters my thoughts, which is often, or when I hear a favorite song we shared.
It's not that the sorrow of her physical absence is gone from my heart. It will live there quietly for the remainder of my physical life. Rather, this third April 1st since she died, the joy that fills my heart when I see a photo of her or have a memory of our many fun times together now exists alongside that quiet sorrow. They are integrally intertwined. And in their mutualistic symbiosis—a state of close, long-term interaction that both benefit me—the combined sorrow and joy of grief I feel now empower me to continue living my life to its fullest. This healthy grief is a tribute to our long, healthy love. My beloved would not want it to be any other way for me.