Unexpected

 Note: Feel free to skip this one. I imagine most posts in the future will be not as "in the thick of it."

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I did not know that some things would be worse after the first month. I guess I see why Lewis started writing then.

I expected that, eventually, the mornings would become like the evenings, losing their special sadness as we reached our new normal. I did not expect that it would work the other way around. No matter how normalized the evenings have become, I guess I am suffering shock at the fact that Heidi still does not come back. My instincts seemed to be working under the impression that she would return if we just made things right at home.

I also expected not to feel angry this time around. That was just hasty.

It can be a dangerous thing to allow expression to one's anger. Angry people know they are right, and, as one wise person put it to me, "One is never so eloquent as when he is angry." Thus, I will be intentional in trying to keep this short.

Some people, in offering condolences, have talked to me about God's plan in all of this. "For I know well the plans I have for you..." etc. (Jer. 29:11). Don't worry if you are one of those people: that is not what makes me angry. In spite of the limits of what I can know, I do see, abstractly, that you are right. You can't believe in providence without a plan. And you can't believe in a real God without providence — hard as that may be to accept sometimes.

And, allow me to interject here: I am well aware, even intellectually, of what I cannot know. If anyone supposes that, because of my academic reputation, I presumptuously search into these matters because I think there are answers and that I can know them: don't worry. My students can tell you. I have a pretty firm idea of the limits of human reason. I commonly warn students about the "modern Catholic problem" of trying to prove everything in the Faith. When I was studying at the Angelicum, I had a particular knack for being being able to discern what is theoretically knowable by reason (investigating natural causes) and what is only knowable through Revelation. I also have some idea of what a finite intellect can never know, even when we are face-to-face with God. Such are matters that deal with particulars. "Why me and not them? Why Heidi and not someone else? Why not NO ONE?!" These are unanswerable questions.

So please do not take my expressions of "why?" to be the arrogant reachings of an academic who won't accept his own ignorance. This is so far from that. I am merely in pain. And I need my time to, irrationally, shout "Why?", even though I will get no answer. "Behold, I cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice" (Job 19:7).

As one of the books that I have received explains, the "whys" must eventually give way to the "hows." I have to get to the point where it's no longer, "Why did this happen? Why me?", but "How, God, will I go on? How do you want me to proceed?" I know this is true. I think I will get there. And I want to hope that I will get there. But I am not there yet.

And so, here it goes.

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Lord, when I look about me and do an informal empirical survey, it seems that young widowhood is rare. It seems that, in this day and age, and in this civilization, you let most other couples bear witness to the beauty of marriage, lived in Faith, by staying with each other for a long period of time, for practically a whole lifetime. It seems to me that you are generally pleased to let many young couples be paths of sanctification to each other and models of Christ's love for his Church by allowing both spouses to be together at least to raise their children. Is this not, after all, the natural reason for marriage's fidelity? Is this not why man and wife live in mutual society for a whole lifetime? Aren't we supposed to try to keep two natural  parents together?

So why not us?!

Someone gave me a book on grief by a faith-filled man who lost his young child. Now, let me not minimize: I am sure that such a grief has its own horrible agony that I cannot imagine.

But the author had one thing I did not have: the consolation of sharing his grieving time with his wife. And he reported that consolation in some detail, if I may say. I couldn't stand it. My estimative sense (the irrational instinct in me) interpreted him to be going out of his way to brag to me. I got angry and cast the book aside.

There have been other triggers, but I shall not belabor the point.

Lewis had a similar exterior experience, but he was much better than I in his own reaction:

An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not.... Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers. To some I’m worse than an embarrassment. I am a death’s head. Whenever I meet a happily married pair I can feel them both thinking. ‘One or other of us must some day be as he is now.’

Lewis is concerned for the embarrassment he causes others. Far more noble than I. When hear of happily married couples sharing the consolations of their marriage, or their plans for each other, I just burn up inside. It is literally emotion: movements of the body caused by external stimuli. It is where I have to admit that I feel anger, almost as a third-person observer. Envy, too? I don't think so. Definitely, there is that heat that is a concomitant of anger.

Lord, Heidi and I had plans, too! So many postponed second honeymoons because there was always something at pivotal anniversaries! So much left to do with each other. Why everyone else and not us! Of all the perceived unfairness, this one cuts the deepest. Why did you take this from us? Did we not please you? If we are objects of your special pleasure, then does not everyone else please you? What is the deal? What do you want?

Did you not know that I loved my wife, too?

There. I've said it. I am sorry. But Lewis is right. Writing it gets it off your chest.

I think one of the most inspiring characters in drama is Tevye, from Fiddler on the Roof. His piety and easy conversation with God are truly humbling to watch. Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with his song, "If I were a rich man." In that particular song, there are some lines that, even before all of this, even in my times of great happiness, I have always found to be very profound and expressive (especially the way the third line is delivered by Topol):

Lord, who made the lion and the lamb,
You decreed I should be what I am.
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan
If I were a wealthy man?

The thing is, most people are poor. Tevye is asking God if it would be so incompatible with his plan for him to be singled out for something rare: to be wealthy.

In my society and in my circle of friends, most people are not young widowers. They are happily married couples who get to stay with each other. Most keep the companions of their life beyond their early 40s. Most raise their kids together; most are not alone until the late stage in life. Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if we were just left NOT singled out, if we were left to be... normal? Would it have spoiled the vast eternal plan if I could still be Heidi's man, if she could still be my wife? Could you find no workaround? No hack?

No. I guess not. If you let this happen, it means that I, my kids, Heidi, are somehow the object, the mediate target, of the plan. "Let me alone... Why hast thou made me they mark?" (Job 7:16, 20).  My friend said I was "chosen" to bear the double cross. Why? Am I really that bad? Am I really that good? Does somebody really need this?

Who knows? No humans, that's for sure. No finite intellect.

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Yesterday, I lost it in front of the kids. Margaret would not let me put her down or give her to anyone else. Geoff was walking his dog. I was trying to put Margaret in the high chair by removing the tray, already strewn with bits of mushy, greasy food, with my one free hand. I was actually pretty chipper. But then the tray slipped and rotated downward to vertical in spite of my attempted iron grip, and all the food fell to the floor; and, instinctively, I clasped my arm against my body, and much of the goop got all over my pants.

A normal enough experience of child-rearing. But in vulnerable grief, sometimes you never know what the final straw will be.

I merely exclaimed, "Oh, no!" I would have done that anyway. The kids ran forward: "What happened?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Except that... I... [now the change]... I... just CAN'T DO THIS!"

Then Nina said in her comedian voice, "Where's Uncle Geoff when you need him?"

"No! Not Uncle Geoff! Where's MOMMY? Where's MOMMY when I need her! Where's my Heidi! I can't do this, THIS, all of THIS, without my Heidi. I just can't do this!"

I went down to my knees sobbing, Margaret still in arm. The kids watched.

I burbled out, "I'm sorry, you did nothing wrong... I'm just... I'm angry at God right now. I just feel like he's BULLYING me. First my mom. Now my wife. Why?"

The kids were still looking at me.

"Kids, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But... you know I loved your mother. So much. She meant more to me than anyone ever has. She was my best friend. How can I go on without my best friend? How can I go on without my wife? I'm sorry. I miss her so much."

I think Nina, who has always had a special piety, was the most shocked. "Don't worry, Nina. I'm sorry. I'll try not to do that again. But it also is probably going to happen sometimes."

She shed a couple of tears. I asked her, "Are you sorry for losing Mommy? Or sorry for me?" In silence, she pointed to me. She never said anything.

I apologized again. Monica said, "Well, it's all understandable, Dad." Monica is so good. She brought me to tears again. She hugged me, long. She cried, too.

Sometimes, I really do feel like I can't do this. But I thank God—and Heidi—for my kids.

 

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