In my dream, I was trapped under the back right wheel of a car, one of those large 1950s cars, a Buick or a Pontiac like you see in Cuba. My father Leo walked beside the car next to me. As the car rolled inexorably backward, I hung onto its rear bumper for dear life, afraid my legs would get caught under the wheels. Somehow they did not.  “Stop, stop the car!” I kept yelling, but Leo paid no attention. Nauseated and trembling, I woke up hard at 7 a.m.

Woke up this day at 5 a.m. Consumed by an outrage that felt out of proportion to my usual clenched teeth wake-ups. Rage against political injustice is justified yet on this early morning the wretched state of the world infuriated me beyond measure. I was incensed at the images of vicious Muslims who sacrificed their children in the Blockbuster film American Sniper and enraged past any reason that a friend could not understand why I, a former cultural revolutionary, would choose to step outside my liberal birdcage to watch a movie that is a bellwether of American national chauvinism. I was furious at David for dying although I knew he could not help it; and I was angry with myself for my hyper-vigilant emotionality. Bob Dylan spoke for me when he said, “If my thought dreams could be seen they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.”

I got back to sleep at 6:30 and woke up at 7:30 determined to go through the stuff in David’s office. Before a good friend came for a sleepover. And a friend of David’s will arrive soon who deserves a few mementos. This sleep-deprived, angry, nauseated fool forgot how much emotional energy it takes to spend even one hour cleaning David’s office. Was I postponing the inevitable fatigue-induced meltdown? My answer is complex – yes, yes-but, and no. All of the above.

UPDATE : still felt tired but better after a walk in the Marina and this. The egret has flown!.

I was raised in a Communist Party family with Soviet images of the heroic. I still possess a 30 kopek Stalin stamp, all green, complete with dictator’s head and mustache superimposed on a line of eight white horses charging forward, flags waving in the wind.  Stew and I came up with the phrase “Stalinist discipline” a joking reference that described both my childhood and our desire to stay heroically on track. In those few hours of meetings with the lawyer and financial planner, my heroic self emerged: I generated ideas, I talked details through, I felt fine when I teared up. Unlike when I’m paralyzed by the passivity that accompanies deep grief, I could bring my love for David into the room. What would David want? I queried Hale the lawyer and we figured it out. How would David do this? I asked Jim the financial planner. And teared up. David arrived through other’s recollections to help me through decisions that had to be mine alone.

My Stalinist upbringing means its easy for me to love the take-charge Judy Gumbo.  But Stalin, as we know, had no sympathy for the weak. When I’m in the throes of grief I find it difficult to accept and love the wimp, the Judy Gumbo who is vulnerable and imperfect. I fear I’ll make a wrong decision.  As things turned out, Tje decisions I made over the last two days were perfect, but they were good. And nor are they irreparable.  The process I began has relieved my anxiety of tasks undone and taken the stress they caused me off my proverbial plate.

By 2 p.m. yesterday I was exhausted.  I retreated to the comfort of my bedroom with its peacock-blue walls painted in a color David and I selected together before I moved in.  I vegged out in front of our TV for at least six hours.  By myself.  It was that kind of lonely evening I’m learning may be typical for me as nighttime falls. I felt sad but also calm. I’d found a new way to process grief: to  accomplish what I wanted and at the same time allow myself not to be a Stalinist hero.

I woke up this morning looking forward for the first time since David died to getting out of bed.  When I came downstairs to make my morning Peet’s French Roast, half decaf and half regular, I greeted David’s picture with “Hey Smiley, “and heard longing in my voice but not the pain. To my surprise, my version of an upbeat mood stays with me. I may still be as fragile as a dandelion seed floating on the breeze;  even the slightest brush with negativity may blow me off my balance but before the day’s exhaustion sets in I will enjoy my relaxed body. Like Janis Joplin says: get it while you can.

My capacity to make decisions may be compromised by grief; still I decided I am ready to wade into two consecutive visits over the next two days – to my lawyer and my financial advisor. My dear friend Bets asked quite rightly why don’t I put such decisions off while I cogitate and let the answers rise on their own to the surface? It’s an excellent thought. But my upbringing insists that I’ll feel better if I adhere to  Stalinist disciplineo and move forward.  I got a decent night’s sleep last night. The wrinkles under my eyes are less. For the moment my brain has entered its familiar, instrumental “deal with” mode that can block me from processing emotions. I convince myself I do this for my own well being, so I can finish up the tasks surrounding Davids’s death, tasks embedded in my brain that, if left undone, niggle at me like an itch I cannot scratch and make me anxious. Better to repress, I tell myself , than to postpone any longer. I hope my clear-brain mode will hold until I’ve taken care of business. But I have no guarantees. The fog of grief surrounds me on its own schedule; I cannot control when or where it chooses to appear.

I am deflated. Like a flat tire. I sit by the side of the road and watch my world whizz by without me. I can do nothing but stay put. The phone rings. The call comes from a 212 area code. I tell myself it might be someone I know in New York City. Naturally, it’s a phone solicitation. The line clicks. I hear a human voice. It belongs to Frank. Frank asks to speak to Albert. “Frank,” I reply, in my most put-out, angry widow voice, “Albert has just died. Take me  off your list.”  I hang up.

What a hoot! Only total strangers confuse Stew’s last name with his first. It’s true, David, Stew and even Albert are all dead. But thanks to Albert, wherever he is, this formerly flat tire can get back on the road again.

Americans – and I include myself – love a happy ending. Us former revolutionaries admire courage, strength, determination and heroism in the face of terrible odds. Including death. But I woke up this morning thinking I’m doing too much too fast. Doing, as we know, is my way to run away, to fill the blanks in my day, to meet the expectations of others – and myself – that I’ll feel better soon. I push myself to make my pain diminish and allow my happy ending to arrive. This may be a false hope, still I want to get back to feeling like myself as quickly as I can. Awakenings are hard.

Last night I attended a well-known Berkeley Shabbat group. And met people I didn’t know. I introduced myself by talking briefly about David’s death. “I’m so sorry for your loss”, was their response. “Thank you” I replied and smiled wanly, grateful for this sentiment, so much better than the generic “How are you doing?” To which my stock answer often is “I’m here. ” Or “getting by. ”

The conversations that followed led invariably either to my new acquaintance’s illness or to the death of her/his parent or close friend. I understand – the person I was talking to was trying to express empathy, to share common ground with me. This is what we’re taught, it’s comfortable, it’s what we know. “What would you prefer people say to you, Judy?” I can imagine someone asking. It’s a fair question. To which I have no answer. I’m in one of those “we know what you’re against but what are you for” moments. I wanted and I chose to be at this event, still, except for a few very close friends, it’s difficult for me to listen to other people’s problems. Beyond that, everything is murky. Now I understand. In the true spirit of Shabbat, the Shabbat group did what Shabbat groups must: made me remember that the essence of the holiday is to slow down. To take it easy. To declare that all my worldly tasks are done whether they are done or not, to reject their claim on me, to
deny their existence. To go back to what I wrote about being and doing.

Joking that she rarely uses words with so many syllables, my friend Jeanne  referred to me the other day as the indefatigable Mary Poppins.  I laughed when Jeanne said this, but I hope she’s right. Four days after Tucson my upbeat mood holds.  I did, however, notice slippage this morning. It’s not just David’s loss, it’s the loss of trust in myself that blank spaces in my day will fill, that I will make up the gaps in my social schedule I see ahead of me. Even Comcast has gone down, causing me to miss the openings both of Good Wife and Downton Abbey. I’m grateful I have them taped.

I’ve chosen to ignore Private Judy who warns me I may jinx my mood merely by writing down what feel like accomplishments: I haven’t taken  Xanax since I returned from Tucson. My Fitbit tells me I was awake only twice last night and logged 6 hours and 44 minutes of sleep.  Last evening for the first time, I left the photograph of a smiling David in my living room instead of carrying it upstairs like a baby to my night table. I find more emotional resonance in a photograph than in any impersonal black box,  even one filled with David’s ashes. Still I needed his companionship. So I took the black box , perched the stuffed eagle comfortably on its top, then placed it on the floor in that corner of my bedroom next to where David slept.

Material objects are symbolic; I’ve begun to integrate pieces from my life with Stew into those from David.  I
put Stew’s father Harold’s 1930’s Martin ukelele on top of David and Donna’s tonsu;  their brown woods match.  On top of David’s CD shelf I’ve added a beige 1930’s vase that Jessica calls “the vagina vase.” It looks like an open ribbed scallop shell on a pedestal.  I bought it when Stew and I lived in the Catskills, over Stew’s objections. Women love this vase while every man who deigns to notice takes an instant almost visceral dislike.  That I can change my home’s decor to integrate both husbands makes me realize I have accepted David’s death, at least to the point where I can begin to re-imagine what used to be David’s and my house – and life – into mine alone.

The escalator I take down to Macy’s basement still has its allure, especially when I run into setbacks.  Yet, to mix a metaphor, I want to fly away, still sheltered under my Mary Poppins umbrella so recently collapsed by grief.  I also reserve the right to let go of that umbrella and step back on the escalator. Death may be permanent, yet today is the first day of the rest of my life.

My first morning home from Tucson, I woke up from a dream. It was 5:44 a.m., or so said the too-bright Comcast clock. In my dream, David is on top of me. His  tongue licks my neck, tickling me so much I can’t breathe. I struggle, wiggle my body back and forth, unable to free myself  from under his weight. I’ve always been extremely ticklish so in my dream I panic out of helplessness. “Stop, stop you’re torturing me, ” I yell out and then wake up.

A dream can re-enact an extreme version of reality.  But what am I to  make of this? Am I weighed down by some misunderstood aspect of  my relationship with David, or does my dream represent a new awareness set free by the serenity of hiking between Tucson’s psychedelic Saguaros? Has my grief for David been so deep it feels like torture? Let’s add my resurrected anguish over Stew to the mix.  Am I to understand that the dead have been torturing me, or does my dream make clear I have been torturing myself?  That I’m torturing myself is the kind of revelation that seems obvious only once you have it. I rarely remember my dreams, but now I understand why, after Tucson, I could walk into what I now call my house, say hello to David’s picture and feel at home. I’ll still tear up at each condolence card that continues to come in the mail, and I’ll still grieve especially as night and darkness fall, but this morning I enjoyed a calmness I had not felt since David died. I hope it holds.

Leonard Cohen puts it this way: “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in. ” I think it may be time to start listening to Leonard again, just as I did after Stew died.

FOLLOW UP: Second morning home wake-up dream: David wears a beige silky one piece woman’s bathing suit from the 1950s. Explain that one, Dr. Freud!