Patience

teeth-cleaning-27717716An overly ambitious push on the toothpaste tube forced a hollow exhale, but no paste. I stared at it, stupid with the realization I’d almost run out. These days it’s harder to tell. The aluminum tubes of not-so-long-ago stayed where you put them, curled up neatly from the bottom to indicate what was gone and what remained, or crumpled all over with dents and bumps, they nonetheless held their shape as the paste receded. You knew where you were. Now the plastic stays semi-rigid, lulling you into a false sense of security that nothing has changed. But it has; and my toothpaste is almost gone which means a new tube has to replace it very soon.

I remember buying this one a few weeks before my husband died. How could it be gone already? It’s only been a few…months. Hard to believe. We’ve passed so many markers: his 76th birthday (or what would have been); our 50th anniversary (or what would have been); the start of summer music camp (or what was); the launch of his beloved boat (before it was sold). So many markers, and that tube of toothpaste empty, too. Why have I not adjusted along with the shifts? Patience. That’s what they all say. But patience won’t move things along in any dynamic way.

While the birthday, anniversary, summer season and toothpaste all disappeared, friends who were part of our life together, openly crushed by the injustice of his sudden impending death, have also disappeared into a world I apparently don’t inhabit anymore. They see each other at dinners out, stroll as couples in the balmy spring air where I run into them on the street as I walk home alone, plan future gatherings together, and all without me. I wonder if I’ve become invisible. Even single friends have gotten very busy moving their own lives on somewhere I can’t seem to go. Are they all afraid association with me will pull them into an abyss they’d never escape from? I can’t answer. Their reactions come as a complete surprise. I’ve heard of the isolation of divorce and even understand the alienation of allegiances under that circumstance, but what of death? Will patience change this too, or is a trip to another planet necessary? Something major to precipitate a dynamic and creative difference.

Someday…you’ll have enough money to live and not be scared, own a pleasant home without roaches and mice, live on the water or a mountain  with a view of natural magnificence; someday, if you have patience and wait. Realizing that I was not going have any of those things if I waited any longer, I remember starting up with a gasp to remedy those omissions with my husband, immersed so deep in his work he hadn’t noticed the way time jumped forward. Yes I’d been patient and worked hard and with singular focus for a long while, but eventually one must turn patience into action.

I pushed again on the seemingly empty toothpaste tube, reminded it was almost too late to get a new one without an interruption in the cleansing. ‘Just in time inventory’ was being tested severely in my home. I got past the other markers—birthdays and anniversaries—and I can get past the toothpaste, too. But I think perhaps a better balance of patience and proaction is called for. I’ll toss the toothpaste and put a new tube on my shopping list. Maybe I’ll even try a new brand, or at least a new flavor. It won’t happen all on its own, no matter how much patience I have.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

14 Responses to Patience

  1. Most of us stay static. We’ve ordered our world and need it to remain predictable. Change alters the balance and for most of us becomes a frightening prospect.
    What do we talk about that remains relevant and not upsetting the balance.
    Then there is the issue of groups. When one party leaves the group becomes an entirety different entity, some will accept that but others can’t.
    And perhaps the end of the toothpaste is a good metaphor, in that you had the full run of some friends and there is your need, not just theirs to move on and tolerate Hallmark slogans.

    Not analogous but when I had prostate cancer some people clearly moved away from me as if I was contagious. I could see them darting their eyes at my crotch and pulling away as if I was contagious. They didn’t know what to say or want to say, perhaps the superstition that by acknowledgment something bad would happen to them. At first I was angry, then I became amused and even sympathetic, finally I felt it was a cleansing process, sort of as you describe trying a new brand. I had to find new friends and embrace old ones who could accept my new status.

    The entire point of your essay is recognition, rather than making anyone change other than ourselves. Your essay doesn’t provoke sympathy or tears, because I think it suggests a recognition that you still are the major player to make decisions on who you want to be in your life and who cannot relate to your new Sidney.

    Thanks for a provocative and universal essay.

    • You are right, that balance and the status quo play a big role in the way others perceive us. It’s obvious from all the comments coming in that there are many different reasons people pull away, and most of them are not things that actually involve the person they avoid. How interesting we all are! Thanks for your thoughtful analysis and the depth of it, helping to expose the components of the problem rather than just the results.

  2. These are all such lovely responses. You are so right….patience and action……and time. It WILL get better. I remember some wise person saying once that after a severe loss, you shouldn’t make any major decisions for a year, because it takes that long just to process all you have been through. My heart ached for you in your description of meeting past friends of yours and Morgan’s. Rachel hit it on the head, in my opinion when she said that “we are all more self-absorbed than we would care to admit.” It’s hard when you’re aching to see life just go on in other’s lives, when you feel life is standing still in yours. This is such a beautiful but heart-breaking piece.

    • Everyone has a different response to loss and death. But they bring their own issues with them instead of reacting only to the needs of the one at a loss. That self-absorption is so human it can’t be criticized, but just as everyone is unique, I think their recovery is also unique and the one year rule has been proven to be untrue. You can’t put a time limit on emotional healing.

  3. I understand what you mean about socializing and how unnatural it can feel – but It doesn’t make sense to me that someone wouldn’t enjoy your company so I know that’s not the reason! I think the reason is that we are all more self-absorbed than we would ever admit and don’t feel other people as acutely as we could, or make that mistake of assuming that you must be fine because, well I saw you the other day, and you certainly looked fine! Thank you for the reminder of the interior life – just the illustration of the quotidian detail is so powerful.

    I remember grieving for my grandmother (who in many ways was a parent to me) and with it the shock that the whole world just moved along, oblivious to my state of numbness, and what I noticed only later as a sort of depression. Another stage of grief. What an assault. The toothpaste analogy is a great example of those tangible reminders of the passage of time, as the grief doesn’t leave you but eventually becomes quieter. You just described it all so beautifully and in such a real way. I love the simple elegance of patience and proaction as you say. It’s early days still even if it doesn’t feel like it. I know it’s helpful for me this morning to remember what it felt like for me three years ago, even as a reminder that it is something I passed through, even though it didn’t feel like I ever would at the time. Thank you for your meaningful writing!

    • That feeling of isolation from those who can’t feel what we do is the true universal. And yes, we do pass through things because life isn’t static, as Paul suggested. But I do think it’s important to pay homage to the stages as we go.

  4. What a beautiful analogy – the empty toothpaste tube!. It seems that the process moves from coping, to loss, to devastation, to realization, to patience, to reconstruction, to re-identity to coping again, then thriving. In the middle of sudden loss, moving through this transcendence is not obvious and is obscure. What I do know is that you will make it through all these stages to the thriving part, changed but motivated by yourself and that will be a gift to you and to all of us.

  5. This is so beautifully written and so heartbreaking. I am writing through tears as I feel your pain. Not because I have lived it, but because your writing makes me feel it so painfully. I love the metaphor of the toothpaste. I love even more your attitude that you have to take action for things to get better. It’s cruel how our society treats people who have lost their spouses. But I have seen many emerge after some time with full social lives. Like you said, it just takes patience and action.

    • I’m so grateful to find I can share feelings with words. I’d have loved to be blessed with the skill to do it with music or art, but words will do nicely!! thanks Carolyn, and everyone who wrote that they’ve been stirred in some way. What more could any writer want?

We welcome you to the conversation! Please share your thoughts.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.