It Is What It Is- but What is "IT"?

This blog needs to start with what I have been spending the last 10 days almost exclusively focussed on- the untimely death of my ex-husband.  Last Saturday I looked at my 12 year old daughter and said "Your father died today."

He was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforma brain cancer in October and he died 4 months later on February 10 at the age of 63 years.

We were married for 22 years and have 4 children together, we divorced 4. years ago  I have been remarried for 2 years. All of those numbers don't really explain the down-deep reality that my time as an adult on this planet was largely formed as a reaction to his presence in my life. The reasons why we married, travelled, had kids, worked together, built a house, built a company and added and subtracted from each other are all a part of who I am.  They are, along with my family of origin experiences, my place.

Since his death there has been the rush of activity to get the kids here, find beds for them and their boyfriends, shop for groceries and cook for my children and their significant others- some of whom share our vegan lifestyle and some who do not. I remember again about the role of food in our lives- how we long for the foods of our childhood in times of sadness or uncertainty. How the "vegan version" of a favorite dish might just not be a reasonable replacement. How what we eat and how much of it and with whom are parts of our ritual and tradition.  

Almost as complicated as navigating the question of nourishment of body is the nurturing of the spirit and heart. The complicated constellation of childhood, young adulthood and personal choice react like gases when confined to a given space- the pressure builds!

I shared once again with my kids the memory of a late May day in 1989 when my own father decided to stop pushing back against the cancer that was everywhere, changing the world with its unrelenting and insatiable growth. I recalled how that day is surreal and such a point of reference to me and how I recall the eating and the drinking and the laugh-crying in my parents' backyard.  I searched back through the years to that day for clues as to how I should be now that I am in the role of comforter, the one who must pick up and move along.  I found no direction there. I can not look to my mother for any road-map. She who was 43 years old at the time and had just lost the true and great love of her life.  I am not her. My emotions are those of nostalgia, a sadness for the grandparent who will never be, mostly a knowledge of how my daughters will feel as the loss and reality of life without a father comes and goes, creeping up when you least expect it- even years and years from now on a Tuesday afternoon.

I went back again to sort through the memories of my own thoughts and feelings of that day and the days that followed.  Would I be able to connect with my 20 year old self in a way that would help my daughters ages 12, 20, 24, 28 to navigate their emotions now?  I felt even less direction in that approach. I am not her- the person still transitioning from girl to woman and tied so strongly to my father that the pain of his death felt like the thing from which I could not recover. Clearly, this is new territory and while I might open up my backpack of experience from the time and space of my own father's death what I find there is like clothing that only fits the former version of myself. I can hold it up, admire it and know that it is no longer for me.

I have heard the well-wishes and condolences. The references to my "strength" and how the girls will find comfort there. The fatalistic sentiments of escaping suffering and "going fast". And lots and lots of, "well, ...it is what it is.." This is the default statement that seems to be an absolution from both responsibility and any call to action after the fact. IT is, no doubt, whatever IT is.  I'm just not sure what the IT is. Is the IT the brain cancer that we all knew was terminal. Part of IT must be that the person who died wasn't my husband anymore (no one could be happier about that than me) and he has a new partner to mourn him so I can just leave that to her. Is IT the lack of planning and the resulting cluster f@$k over who is going to pay the kids' health insurance and where the child support payments are supposed to come from? Maybe IT is the balance of work that does not get done when your kids need you in ways you are not even sure about; the readings unopened, the lesson plans not written, the meetings you can not attend nor contribute to over the phone. I am pretty sure that IT is trying to create harmony and resolution and some sort of shared meaning among the five of us who were parts of a flawed and complicated human life.

The days are running along and the adult children will soon go back to the places that are home to them now. They will start doing the old things and then some new things and there will be a feeling or a thought lurking around the edges that will make itself know from time to time and remind them of childhood and Maui and of parents and the passing of time. Soon, IT will be mostly me and Kulia, folding up the futons and storing the extra blankets away and trying to make space for that faint presence that is just as likely to obfiscate as illuminate the path ahead.