THANKFUL FRIDAY

In 1996, Chris and I drove to Kansas City, KS to see Sting in concert. It was the Mercury Falling tour and our first concert together. We had no idea who the opener was going to be and when Tracy Chapman stepped out onto the stage, Chris and I turned to each other and practically squealed with glee. Tracy Chapman was the icing on this cake of a concert. The two women sitting in front of us left the concert when Tracy Chapman left the stage. They paid Sting amount of moneys to see her and I don’t blame them. Seeing Tracy Chapman step out onto the stage to sing her song Fast Car with Luke Combs at Sunday’s Grammy’s made every one I know burst into tears for good reasons.

Chris’s birthday was on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, while getting ready for work, I asked Alexa to play songs by David Bowie. There is not an obvious link between Chris and David Bowie. We loved Bowie’s music and it was often featured in our daily playlists. We never got to see him concert, which is a bummer, but we never really talked about the possibility of going to a Bowie concert (mostly because we figured we could never afford it). My link with Chris and David Bowie is a bit more subtle. Many of you know that David Bowie died of liver cancer in 2016. Some of you may not realize that Bowie died two days after celebrating his 69th birthday. Chris also died of liver cancer within days of his birthday and it’s taken me a long time to say that this is how Chris died. For years, when asked, I’d tell people that Chris died from a large tumor on his liver that was wrapped around his bile duct. It felt (sometimes feels) that “liver cancer” is too simple of a description and the word ‘cancer’ implies that it can be removed and treated. None of these were options for us. There was no excision of a tumor or chemo treatments. We were handed a sheet of paper containing a list of phone numbers for hospice care.

Chris died four days after celebrating his 41st birthday.

Concerts were our church. Movie scripts were his scripture. Girls on Film by Duran Duran started playing in the car on my way home yesterday and I sang along with Chris’s lyrics “Dogs on stilts”. I don’t think I can sing it any other way. Chris lacked the ability to carry a tune, but was more than skilled in linking a tune to a scene. In December of 2011, Chris and I saw our final concert together, Florence and the Machine. He was very sick and in a lot of pain, but we didn’t know then about the tumor or the cancer. He spent most of the concert sitting on the floor and we did not stay for the entire show. The morning Chris died, I drove to work in hopes of getting an hour or two of tasks accomplished. Hospice had settled into our home by then and Chris was comfortable. His mother and brother were there, so I thought this would be a good time to step away for bit. As I made the drive, Dog Days are Over by Florence and Machine came on the radio. I was at my desk for ten minutes before they called me to tell me that Chris had passed.

I wanna hear one song without thinking of you… -Me and My Dog by Boygenius

I have carried a trunk full of guilt and anger over Chris’s last morning for years. I should have been there. He’s such a jerk for choosing the moment I leave the house to draw his last breath. What kind of idiot am I for thinking I could ‘step out for a bit’? If I’d been there would he still be breathing? That is a particularly horrific thought. A day and a half before Chris died, he stopped being the sharp witted person we all knew and loved. He was unconscious and incoherent. The Chris we all knew and loved had already left the building. Chris didn’t choose that moment to leave out of spite or meanness. It was just his time and it was easier for the both of us for me to not be present. My presence made it harder for him leave and he really needed to leave. Knowing this is why I don’t carry that trunk around with me all the time now. I might move it from one place to another from time to time. It is always in the room with me, but I am no longer carrying it every waking moment.

The day the doctor handed us the phone number for hospice care, I was forced to recognize that there was nothing I could do in this situation. Being put into this absolute position broke my brain. It didn’t happen all at once. It took phone calls to various cancer centers and the inability to get Chris’s pain managed for it to sink in. There was nothing I could do to fix this. With time, I’ve started seeing this as less of a failure on my part and more of a surrender. When I tell my students to surrender to their final relaxation it is my cue to them to give in and allow for relaxation. There is a floaty feeling that happens when your body completely sinks into your mat and you have surrendered. It is not dissimilar to the feeling I have when I set down that trunk of guilt and anger.

I am often asked if it ever gets any easier, this whole grief thing, and I still after all this time don’t know how to answer. There is not a day that passes where I don’t think of him or miss him terribly. But I have surrendered myself to the reality that Chris no longer has a physical presence on this planet. That particular reality has become part of that trunk I sometimes move around. The answer to the question of ease has a yes and no answer. That trunk is heavy and takes up space, but it is filled with things I can’t completely dump. On the days I’m carting that around, my answer is no. On the days when I’m not carrying it, but I can see the trunk in the room, my answer is yes.

There is gratitude to be found in the surrender.