So, for the past month I have been engaged in my own personal brain re-training program, and trying to recapture the "real" memories - not the sick ones. If I am going to be thinking about Alex so much, I would rather not make it all about the disease. There were 5 years of illness that were very painful - and a couple of years leading into that that were confusing and jumbled. But there were also about 25 years (give or take) that we lived together before anything started going wrong, and those years hold so many memories - sweet and funny and dramatic and beautiful and... I want to find a way to re-integrate them. I can certainly never forget the ending, but I fear that in all of that very intense (and actually, truth be told, beautiful) time, I will lose sight of all the history that led us to where we ended up.
In that vein, I went out to Oregon to visit my west coast family, and spent a few days all by myself, walking the coast and doing just exactly what I wanted to do - and nothing else. I did NOT want to be hanging around the house, moping as our 35th wedding anniversary was on May13th. But I also had a mission - I brought a notebook, and Alex's favorite pen with me, and I spent hours writing down old memories. Believe me when I say, that at this particular moment in my life, I take NO memory for granted. I wanted to capture as much as I could think of while it was still somewhat fresh.
In the end, a lot of what I wrote was a very long thank-you note to Alex. There is so much to be grateful for. All the ways we changed one another in the course of our years together could easily fill several notebooks, and that very long list of things gushed out so quickly I had a hard time writing. As I sat there with my glass of beer (Alex taught me to appreciate beer - thanks, Alex) and the beautiful pen that Alex got in Paris (Alex believed quality was more important than quantity ALL the time - thanks, Alex), I cried and cried, and kept writing, like some kind of lunatic.
As I wrote, I remembered that the first time Alex travelled without me was in the very early days of our lives together. He was heading "back East" and asked me what I wanted him to bring back for me as a souvenir. I said, "A sand dollar."
I can't tell you why I love them so much. I think they are amazing - part of me just can't believe they are real. When I lived on the Dutch coast for a year, I went out as many days as I could, and searched high and low for a sand dollar. Up north like that, they are very tiny - and even so, the damned seagulls always got to them first, and they were never completely intact. Every time I visited a coastline, I would search in vain - bringing back my pitiful little shards, and realizing that hanging on to them was kind of stupid.
So, when Alex came home on New Years' Ever, 1981, he brought me a sand dollar. I was more than impressed. He confessed that he did NOT in fact find it on a beach - but rather had gone to a gift store and found it (almost always better to be truthful - thanks, Alex). I put it on my grandmother's table which sits in front of me when I meditate, and it has been right in front of me every day for more than 30 years when I try to clear my mind.
With all the years it has seen, it is pretty ratty. But I cherish it nevertheless, because it was the very first gift Alex ever gave me.
The day after I recorded that lovely memory in my notebook, I set out for a walk on beach. I was all by myself except for some sea birds. Looking out at the waves, and thinking about Alex , I looked down and there it was! A PERFECT sand dollar., Glistening, bright white, and without a scratch on it.
I was amazed, I was amused, I was simply delighted. Alex was a complete skeptic, I am pretty far along that path, too. But at that particular moment at that particular place, I was certain it was a gift directly from him to me. And for the first time since Alex died, I FELT like maybe we're all going to be okay.
Many times in the course of our marriage, Alex would remark on how absolutely perfect a particular moment was. In those moments, time hangs suspended, and one feels, if only for an instant, that everything in the entire universe is absolutely perfect. Those moments are a whole life time of memories for me. And all of that came flooding back to me in my few days at the ocean.
And now I am home again. And of course, life with all of its contradictions continues. There is enough bad news about friends and family and the world to provide a stark contrast. But the seeds of the beautiful are found in the most ordinary things, and the beautiful new sand dollar sits right in front of me when I meditate.
When I was at the beach, I finished re-reading Peter Matthieson's book, "The Snow Leopard," and many things struck me with completely fresh eyes - it has been years since I first read it. But life is precious - and sweet and bitter and rough and smooth, and it would be churlish (one of Alex';s favorite words - thanks, Alex) to not be grateful for ALL of it - the whole, entire complete experience.
If you haven't written a list of thank yous to anyone special in your life, I encourage you to give it a try. It is very therapeutic. And who knows, maybe you'll find a sand dollar.
