A Property of Love

Grief is madness. When I look back at who I was, and read the entries I wrote in my journal, it is obvious to me I was insane for almost a year after Chris' death. Sanity, or something resembling it, returned finally. A good thing because it's easier for a sane person to take care of themselves and their loved ones. 

My pets needed me. A dog named Rizzo and two cats, Tragedy and Cyclops. They needed me to take care of them. While I was a bit out of my mind I still fed everyone in the house and walked the dog. I was physically present but mentally checked out. I was in a state of shock after Chris died. The animals did their best to rally around me, and in the end they were the ones that helped me continue on.

I cried on my morning walks with Rizzo. I would pretend that Chris would be waiting for us when we got home. That he would be sitting on the bench he got for the front yard, and wave at us as we came up the driveway. It made those walks more bearable, but my heart broke every time I returned to see that empty bench. I cried. I tried not to cry but it would have been easier to trade places with the moon, and since I couldn't feed the animals from 238,000 miles away, I remained here and cried while I walked the dog. 

There came a night when I had a dream within a dream. In the first layer Chris had died and I was at his funeral after which I wandered lost, looking for him. I awoke and he was beside me and I told him about my dream and he consoled me.

"It was just a dream" he said. "Here I am." As he finished that statement I woke from this dream to the reality he was dead. I kept hoping for another layer but unless I was still dreaming - and I was not certain one way or the other, he was (is) currently dead. The dream hurt so much that I was physically ill. I cried. I was nauseous and head achy. My body wanted to throw up but my stomach was empty, so I couldn't. I lay in bed wishing I could vomit, which quite simply is one of the oddest wishes I ever made.

Back when Chris was going through chemo, after his last surgery, he would have bouts of nausea that would last a couple of minutes.  He would turn sweaty, feverish and a creamy pale white. Pain just radiated off of him but within minutes he was back to normal. As normal as you can be when you are busy dying of cancer.

After about a week I began to feel nauseous as well. At first I thought I had eaten a bad apple. During this time I spent my dinner eating protein bars and apples and very little else, unless I happened to run into a cake somewhere. After a day or so of this I noticed that my nausea came about five to ten minutes before Chris'. I also noticed that my nausea went away as soon as his did.

I don't understand the mechanism but somehow I experienced his pain. Like an expectant father who has sympathetic morning sickness, I had sympathetic nausea. Once I realized this I got two wet towels. One for me and one for Chris. The moment I felt a bit queasy I would sit next to Chris, he in his lazy boy chair and me at the corner of the couch. I put one towel on his side table and told him to use it when he needed it and I sat down with the other towel on my forehead. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then approximately five minutes later he had a wave of nausea. He looked a question at me. I handed him his towel and he held it against his forehead until the feeling subsided. Then within a couple of minutes we both felt better.

"How did you know?" he asked.

" I have no idea."

Chris looked at me in amazement "I think we love each other so much that we have become truly joined in a way I never thought possible." I think he was right.

Here I am. Lying in bed in the fetal position. Still reeling from the dream within a dream, with a desire to vomit but my empty stomach leaves me no way to carry out the procedure. Rizzo climbs up to sit beside me. She has a personal staircase to the bed because of knee surgery she had several years ago. The cats are snoring on Chris' side of the bed. Rizzo sidles up to me, licks my cheek, and looks me directly in the face with her soulful eyes. Then she throws up all over the bed. I freeze for a second then jump out from under the covers to change the sheets and get the freshly puked blanket in the wash before Rizzo decides that the recently regurgitated contents of her stomach look good enough to eat all over again. It took several  minutes to get everything done and then I look at Rizzo. She smiles at me with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. My nausea is gone. Rizzo does Bill Clinton one better. She not only feels my pain, but she is willing to throw up for me.

The ones we love and the ones that love us are connected by invisible systems that I cannot begin to fathom. I have never actually seen these invisible systems but I have seen the results of the connection. I believe it is a property of love. Somehow we build each other into our lives in such a way, that what is felt by those we love is as real to us as what we feel ourselves. Grief is madness, but just as truly as grief is madness, love is magic.