Month: May 2019

Many years ago I had my first date with a kidney stone when I was minding my own business and got a stabbing pain in my upper back. Within minutes I was bent over in agony. I didn’t know at the time what it was but it was bad and I told Mark I needed to go to the emergency room. For a guy who worked at a medical center, he wasn’t inclined to use it much and thought we should take a wait and see approach. I told him that wasn’t possible, he didn’t argue, and I threw up in a plastic bag all the way there.

Once we got there it was determined fairly early that it was a kidney stone, and, yes, they are as bad as you’ve heard. Because the med center is a teaching hospital, students wander in and out and do the same thing and ask the same questions that the ones before did, there is a doctor with an actual degree but still training, and after what seems like forever a real doctor makes an appearance. I was in there for hours and they took me for a scan to confirm the diagnosis and by that point I didn’t care because I’d already had a shot of morphine. We waited to hear the results of the scan and to finally be discharged when another doctor came in and said that there was indeed a stone and I also had a mass on my kidney. A mass? Mark and I both looked at him in shock as he went on and on about my “mass.” He and Mark had a very technical conversation about kidneys while I zoned out in the hospital bed and I was sent home with meds and the recommendation that I see a urologist stat.

We drove home in silence and I went right to bed to sleep off the morphine. After a few hours Mark came to check on me and crawled into bed. “What if this is really a mass,” he asked me. “What if this is bad?” Even in my groggy state I was worried about the same thing as the word mass flashed over and over in my head. “While you were sleeping I was outside and all I kept thinking is this whole place is you. The garden, the landscaping you wanted so bad, getting the house repainted, making everything look better. Everywhere I look is you and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if you’re not here.” After a worrying couple of weeks, I finally got in to see a urologist and my mass turned out to be a cyst which was a far better diagnosis and Mark and I breathed a big sigh of relief.

Early on a Saturday morning two years ago I had another kidney stone. I waited for Mark to get home from bike riding with his buddies, he changed and we drove to the med center, me throwing up in a plastic bag the whole way there. The ER was quiet at that time of the day so I got put in a room pretty quickly. I was in a shaking, fetal curl of misery on the bed and peppered with questions about my pain. Why did I think it was a kidney stone? How could I be sure? What happened the last time I came in? How long ago since I came to the ER? What did I get for the pain? What prescription meds do I take on a regular basis? I realized that they thought I was shopping for pain killers and were going to take their sweet time giving them to me. This went on for a long time and at that point the only thing they’d done for me was start an IV. When they left the room I pulled Mark down next to me and said, “Why aren’t they doing anything? Why aren’t they helping me?” He threw himself on top of me to stop me from shaking and said, “Look at me. They’re going to give you something and you’re going to be okay.” It would be awhile longer before they ordered a shot of morphine and when they did the nurse only gave me half. When asked by the doctor why she said, “I’ve found that a half usually works,” and he said well clearly it isn’t and you need to give her the entire dose. Finally, I got some relief for the pain.

Like the house and yard were the epicenter of me for Mark, the med center was mine for him. Because of my own job I didn’t visit him often but if I did he’d be leaning over the 2nd floor railing and saying “Hey, darlin,” when I got there. Since he died I have only been back to clean out his office but I do drive by there often. In the before days I’d text him if I were close by to see if he could meet me for lunch, but in these after days I don’t even turn my head in the direction of the building he worked in every day.

This week his two graduate students were doing a presentation on his career at the department spring retreat and invited me. I supplied some photos for them to use and said I’d do my best to make it but could make no promises. Outside of my own kids I have worried about their emotional well-being the most, and have done what I could to support them and their grief. Tough as I thought it was going to be, I also know that it helps me to see and talk to them. The three of us share a connection to Mark that I hope never goes away.

My anxiety about the day, though, was off the charts and I wondered why I was putting myself through that. To go to that building that was so much of Mark’s identity but he is nowhere to be found is like a stab to my heart, but I think if there were anything he would want me to do professionally in his absence it would be to be supportive of Alex and Pierce until their graduation.

I slipped into the back of the room before they started, and they tagged team putting on a presentation of his career that was mixed with his humor and brilliance. He would have loved it. It was hard and wonderful to watch and I was glad I came, for them and me. The retreat broke for lunch after that and I carried my shaky legs out into the hallway where I was met with a few “hey how are you doing” by his colleagues, a congratulatory hug to his students, and a short conversation with his former boss about an award that will be named in his honor. Mostly, though, there was a filing out of one after another who dared not make eye contact with me, the widow who is too hard to see, the one who carries the weight of this pain.

He loved you, I wanted to say to them. He talked about you all the time and now you can’t even look at me? Do you know how much guts it took for me to even walk in this building? That if you looked at me you would see him because I carry him everywhere I go? How can you walk past me pretending not to see me me when I have known you for years?

As if it couldn’t have gotten any shittier, when leaving the building I had to walk past all of them while they took the annual faculty photo, the first one in twenty seven years that he wasn’t in. When I got to the parking garage I forgot where I parked the car which only added to my aggravation, and when I finally found it I got inside, locked the door, and sobbed in a combination of sadness, anger, and relief. I had to go back to work so I blew through a dozen Kleenex, took some deep breaths, started the car, and remembered that time in the emergency room when there was no attempt to help me through the pain until it was confirmed that it was legit.

In all these months there has not been a single colleague of his who has been able to look at me, call, text, or email to simply say, “I miss him too, Kath. A lot.” It makes me think he has been forgotten and that is an unbearable pain to carry, because this time around there is no Mark to throw himself on top of me and tell me it’s going to be okay.

Since Mark’s death, family, friends, and frequently the curious, want to know how I am doing. In the beginning I was so shocked and overwhelmed I couldn’t even put words together to answer the question. In the weeks and months that followed, there were big and small things to tend to that never occur to you when you have a vibrant, living spouse beside you. Most of the time I couldn’t begin to tell you how I was doing.

People who care about me and Mark desperately want me to be okay. I’d be the first in line for a heaping dose of that, but it will be a long time before I am okay. I still have entire days when I think this has all been a terrible mistake, and that with a change of mind Mark can fix this situation and by dinnertime his biker legs would round the corner as he coasted for home. I know that isn’t true but the mind does strange things in the midst of trauma. There are chunks of time that I cannot recall. I remember parts of the funeral, the holidays being hard, and January and February being horrible, but I can’t recall many details about any single day during that time. The only thing I consistently remember every morning when the alarm goes off is that Mark is not here.

What I learned at a very young age by watching my mother and grandmother, both of whom had their share of heartache, is that when life has knocked you flat you open up your compact, look yourself in the mirror, and dust your cheeks with an abundance of stoicism before you walk out the door. They showed me that nobody wants to see you wearing your overwhelming sadness like a cloak, so if you happen to run into me in the grocery store or meet me for coffee I will probably seem fine. The outside, though, doesn’t match the inside, and so you don’t see me sitting in my driveway resting my head on the steering wheel, trying to talk myself into getting out of the car and going into the house.

In these months since Mark died, I tend to get observed a lot. I’m not entirely sure why but I think I am an unnerving reminder that on a regular Tuesday afternoon a close-knit family can have their lives blown to kingdom come. I am proof that all bets are off in the best-laid plans department, and that leading a good life somehow makes us immune to who is here one day and gone the next. I have often walked into gatherings with my unsteady courage, only to feel a room full of eyes on me and the hushed whisper of “how is she doing?” Rather than make me feel cared for or supported, it makes me want to run for the nearest exit, as this new life of mine is so much more complex than any observation can determine.

The people most frequently asked how I am doing are the kids. All of us uniquely and fiercely loved Mark, and for them I wish they were asked what they liked to do with their dad, what lesson did he teach them that stands out, what was the happiest day they ever spent with him, what makes their days just a little bit easier. To me it seems like they are often treated as eyewitnesses to a horrible wreck and are being asked for details when they have their own gaping wounds. I wish I could shield them from some of the shrapnel from Mark’s death and lay to rest the question they get asked most often.

How is she?

She is sad, she is lonely, she is afraid, she is bewildered.

She is exhausted.

She misses him every waking minute of the day.

She loves them.

She is trying.

She is here.

Mark Fisher was an invested kind of guy. When he was in he was ALL in, so when Donald Trump surprisingly got elected to president he’d plop himself in front of the tv every night after work and watch hours of cable news. He’d yell back and give the finger to some of the interviewed guests and generally go nuts about the state of the country. I was right there along with him, but I’d get side-tracked and scroll on my phone, put things in my shopping cart, google anti-aging creams that popped up in my Facebook feed, and comment on posts with haha or heart emojis. After months and months of those news filled nights, I decided I’d watch an hour each day and then go upstairs and watch something else or read. Mark would come up later and often said the same thing, “They’re getting close, Kath, won’t be long and he’ll be out of there.” He said this so often to me that I finally told him, “Just come and get me when it’s a sure thing and I’ll pop the cork on some champagne.”

Since Mark died it is hard for me to watch the news at all. Being outraged isn’t as entertaining without him and I don’t need anything else to make me depressed, so I read a lot of news sites but watch far less than before. My attention span has been greatly affected by grief so I don’t get involved in anything more than very mindless stuff, often HGTV and the DIY Channel.

It was during the cold and dreary nights of early spring when I climbed into bed and stumbled upon the magic of QVC. There’s no plot line or need to pay close attention, and with a purchase on easy pay you’ve got yourself life-changing products for twenty bucks a month times infinity. This is way cheaper than therapy, and so I settled in for shopping via television. As someone who has sold a lot of useless crap in my life, I found it fascinating that the host and seller could talk about a tshirt for thirty solid minutes.

When I was watching one night last week the featured item was floral jeans. A vertical cascade of flowers went down the side of one leg and after the host went on and on about the stretch and comfort of these jeans she said, “It’s like wearing an oil painting.” Wearing an oil painting? I looked at the cat and asked, “Who actually wears an oil painting other than for a Halloween costume?” The cat didn’t seem to want to get involved in this and jumped off the bed and disappeared as a customer was calling in – Betty from Pittsburgh. As a novice QVCer, I thought taking customer calls would be an absolute crapshoot. In the art of the retail deal, you don’t want customers chatting it up to the masses about a product unless you are absolutely sure what they are going to say. I needn’t have worried. Betty proudly stated, “I can’t say enough good things about these jeans. I have 75 pairs.” 75 PAIRS?? What kind of person buys 75 pairs of jeans that are a walking da Vinci? I had to turn it off. Not only did I feel sorry for Betty from Pittsburgh with her 75 pantsy oil paintings, I wondered what kind of person I was becoming by watching this kind of stuff for entertainment.

A few days went by and I climbed into bed and again turned on QVC. That night’s guest designer was Isaac Mizrahi who puts the E in entertaining. I had a feeling the old ladies at home sipping their chardonnay can’t get enough of this guy. The host said that for the first time in YEARS, Isaac’s line was featuring a cardigan. Years? A fashion designer of mass produced clothing has not featured a cardigan in years? I called fake news on Isaac. The sweaters were floral and came in six different colorways. Shawn, the host, said it sure was hard to pick a favorite and Isaac, who was dressed in head-to-toe black, said spring is for color and how could you ever decide with such an array of beauty. After twenty minutes of describing the scalloped neck and functional buttons, Nan from Florida called in. “Hi, darling Nan, tell me which one is your favorite,” Isaac asked and Nan said they all were. She bought four yesterday and was getting the other two tonight. Isaac said, “Oh my, you can’t go wrong with that,” and I thought that both Nan and Isaac could use a lesson in fashion overkill.

I imagined Nan was laying in bed with her phone and shaking the hair of ten cats off her Visa card, racking up her bill with too many of one thing and her nightly pretend friends. This started to hit too close to home so I turned the tv off and picked up my book on grief where it said that after the death of a loved one a person could have difficulty in concentration that may last months or years. Seeing as how that is the current state of my life, I closed my eyes and hit the rewind button on my memories when my husband was here, outraged, and joyfully dancing to the news of indictments. If only he were the Value-Of-The-Day I’d add him to my cart and easy pay him to the front porch, and those long and quiet nights of watching shopping would be something the brokenhearted did and not me.

As a Mother’s Day gift many years ago, I asked Mark to build me a space in the backyard for a small garden. He got railroad ties and plotted it out and hauled dirt home and shoveled and shoveled. It was my first attempt at gardening and I had more misses than hits, but I kept at it and learned along the way. Over many years and a lot of sweat equity, we landscaped the front of the house and the architect who drew our plans made space for a long garden along the front walk. “Don’t you want to see your garden whenever you go in and out of the house,” she asked. I didn’t really know what I wanted but we went along with her idea and it was perfect.

I would hang out in my garden all the time, digging, planting, weeding, and mulching. Often Mark would be right over my shoulder questioning what I was doing until I told him that maybe he needed to start his own garden and leave mine alone, and with that suggestion he was off to the races. He turned my first garden into a raspberry patch followed by one planting bed after another. At the first sign of spring he’d go to Lowe’s and get more wood and build more boxes and haul more dirt and he was in garden heaven. As ideas go, Mark had thousands. His garden became an offshoot of his science brain and everything he planted was a grand experiment. He grew pumpkins one year with a bumper crop that yielded over sixty, tomatoes, peppers, beans, onions, sweet potatoes, lettuce, rhubarb, kale. I asked him to plant some asparagus and he did and daily checked for those baby stalks to birth themselves through the dirt. We would later find out that it takes 2-3 years for asparagus to start producing, but in his Green Acres it never took. Undeterred, he kept digging and planting and would come in with bushel baskets of produce. His problem, though, was that he was terrible at maintenance. Over the last few years, all the grass in back was killed off, the beds were falling apart because the wood had started to rot, and it was more weeds than farm. I was on him all the time about making it look better and regardless of any argument we had I ended it by saying, “And that goddamn backyard….”

Last spring was the first time he couldn’t work in the yard at all because he was writing a grant with a June deadline and every weekend was devoted to that. Even the raspberry bushes felt the neglect and barely produced, and I sometimes wonder if that was a harbinger of things to come. Despite my critical eye on his garden, it was the place he decompressed and that spring he was on a hamster wheel of working, traveling, and trying to meet deadlines.

This spring I wanted to get the backyard under control and looking better for whenever I decide to sell the house. Many people offered to help but I decided to hire a landscaping friend to clean it out, cut the beds, and lay some sod. It has been a big and expensive job and is not even close to being done but, hopefully, by summer it will start coming together. Like the front yard, it will take years and sweat for it to grow and fill in.

When I told people what my plan was for the backyard the response was universally the same. “That’s such a great idea, now you can make it your own.” That is true, but if I could trade that for my husband and his jacked up version of farming I’d do it in a heartbeat. I couldn’t watch when things were getting cleared out, trees were getting cut down, and planter boxes emptied. This is what I told him I wanted all along and yet it was breaking my heart to see it go away. In the last few months my connections to all the people he knew seem to be withering on the tendrils of loss, and to me this felt like yet another place where he was being erased. I tried to prop myself up with garden plans and ideas but my hurting heart wasn’t finding much solace in looking at plants by myself.

I decided to focus on my garden in the front and so I dug up some things from the community garden and split some other things and between that and a lot of rain it’s looking lush and green. It’s always a guessing game of what’s going to break through and make a cameo appearance for another season, and so I was keeping an eye on a plant in the corner because I had no idea what it was and hadn’t marked it.

Every day I checked on its progress and it would be nearly two weeks before I realized what had rooted in my garden. I bent down and stared at these stalks in disbelief, wondering how it was even possible, while on the other side of the veil between here and there, my boyfriend winked and said, “I got you, girl.”

Update: It turns out that what I thought was asparagus is really false indigo. It’s a good thing I didn’t cook it :/ It has now been renamed false asparagus.