Blue Heron: The First Stage of Grief

The next few weeks felt like being buried alive under the rubble of old bricks. If Lee had physically stabbed and twisted a sword into my belly, it would not have hurt any worse than it did to be metaphorically tossed out the nearest window with the words “I want a divorce.” 

I saw Lee’s decision as an act of final betrayal, the last in a long string of thoughtless actions that had brought us to this very point. It was time for me to accept the torrid facts: there would be no reconciliation, no resuscitation or recovery, and no transcendent future with the man I was still deeply, tenderly in love with.

Intellectually I knew it was over, and I let my auto-pilot brain guide my hands to do the things that had to be done. I called Salt Lake and spoke to a divorce paralegal. Our situation was pretty simple –we had no children, no businesses, and very little property. The paralegal assured me our divorce could be handled within a couple of months, assuming Lee didn’t try to fight it. I pulled out my credit card and paid the retainer, horrified at how easy it was to start legal proceedings. It felt like paying blood money to a mercenary in exchange for an execution order. Like putting a mob hit on my marriage, the one that was supposed to be a precious blessing for time and all eternity. 

The entire conversation made me want to sick up. How could I do this? 

What am I doing?    

                                                               

I remember sobbing alone in the guest room, hands pressed against my face in a vain attempt to stop my body from expelling swells of overwhelming grief. My body shook as I helplessly rode the waves of this emotional tsunami, so unprepared for it that all I could do was gasp in awe when the supernatural strength of the tides swept my heart out to sea. 

Lee had been my refuge for so long. Life can be cruel and bitter, but the IDEA of happiness with Lee was my comfort, my resting place. Dreaming of a beautiful future with Lee was safe because it was familiar, and now the fragile illusion of love had turned into a waking nightmare. 

I missed him in ways I couldn’t have possibly imagined. Now I had no one to dance and sing songs with, no one to tease or admire from across the room. I often thought back to Lee at his very best: holding me gently, murmuring softly, staring at me with eyes intensely passionate and kind. 

Sometimes I would awaken in the middle of the night and find myself reaching out for him in the bed, the way I used to whenever I felt afraid and alone. Finding the other half of the bed empty and cold was so desperately shattering, and yet my stubborn fingers kept searching night after night. 

He used to call me babydoll. I was once someone’s eternal beloved, someone’s flesh-and-blood WIFE. 

Now I was none of those things. I was nothing at all. 

Existence suddenly seemed so terribly meaningless, so cold and empty without my Lee. 

It couldn’t be over. It just couldn’t. 

And just like that I hit denial, the first stage of grief. 

During these weeks of legal pleadings and court filings I developed a routine. When the ocean fog and overcast clouds burned off, I would change into a swimsuit and float on a little plastic raft in my parent’s pool. It was warm and quiet, and I quickly found that I could float and read at the same time. 

I devoured Marianne William’s Return to Love, and I began to think that maybe her mystic message was actually a secret call-to-action from God Himself. Maybe He would give my husband back if I could just conjure up enough unconditionally loving feelings. 

Somewhere along the line I became convinced that God was merely testing me to see how gracious and forgiving I could be. My marriage WASN’T over until a judge signed the papers, right? There was still plenty of time for Lee to have a mighty change of heart. I just KNEW that God still had the power to pull us out the fire. 

I showed God the pages of the book I was reading. 

See, God? I know I’m not a perfect person, but I can change. I’ll be whatever you want me to be – loving, patient, forgiving, obedient.  There’s still time to take it back, Lord.

Please, please, please don’t do this. 

It was during this time that I found Hope and Love, a poem by Jane Hirshfield: 

All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one –
not knowing even
that was what he did –
in the blowing
sounds in the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.

Hope was the torch I bore, and the mantra I faithfully repeated every hour of every day. Hope was the cross I brought on my personal hajj to Golgotha and, like the heron, it was the hardest love I had ever carried.

Lee Makes Up His Mind

Speaking in present tense for a moment, this week’s post has been incredibly difficult to write. I spent hours this evening staring at an empty screen as I tried to decide exactly what to say, how to put it. 

Sometimes emotions hijack your life. You feel like the captain of a sinking vessel, wailing a tragic struggle against the crisis of your own ruin. 

Other times feelings stay hidden, elusively lurking in a clouded fog.  

The heart is a funny thing. 

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you about Lee calling me up on a Monday night to formally end our marriage. 

My parents were hosting a ward pool party in the backyard. It was Mormon Family Night. Isn’t that ironic? Dozens of ward members milled around outside my bedroom window, chatting and laughing as I sat huddled alone on the bed with a phone pressed to my ear. 

It was not an angry or confrontational conversation between me and Lee. There was no name calling, no bickering or pointing fingers. Just the quiet recitation of stories we’d told before. I couldn’t live with things as they were, and Lee couldn’t fathom changing. 

The archetypal dead-end on a lonely road leading nowhere. 

Our decision to divorce was a pivotal, defining moment in my life . . . and yet, right now I am unable to summon the emotions I felt that night. For the first time since starting this blog, I feel disconnected from the story in a way I can’t quite explain. I have replayed the scene over and over in my mind, but nothing profound or intelligent wants to come out of me right now. 

Why can’t I tell this part of the story? 

(Yes, I’m honestly asking)

Possible explanations: it’s been a long week for me. Other concerns of a different nature have been pressing in. My emotional self is somewhere else at the moment, working out other questions. 

What’s that thing Kurt Vonnegut said?

So it goes.  

I remember a voice moaning in pain, hoarse from weeping. Mine. 

Me. I was crying.  

My brother heard the noise and came inside. He hugged me. This is the part of the story I wanted to tell, the time when I was heartbroken and my brother came to comfort me. 

It was the first time my brother had ever hugged me. 

So it goes. 

Father-In-Law

Five hours and 3 minutes.

That’s how long I stayed at the hospital that night. It grew late. In that time I saw 2 bloody suspects in handcuffs, 3 exhausted police officers, and 1 distraught woman chained to a bed because she thought the doctors were trying to experiment on her brain. 

The nurses drifted in and out of my area, running tests and taking blood. They thought my heart was having some sort of spasm or attack. I remember doing an MRI, but nothing abnormal turned up.
 

In the end they decided that I was suffering from acute gastroesophageal reflux, brought on by extreme stress. They made me swallow a Lidocaine tonic, and sent me home with a 2-month supply of prescription acid reducer. 

I spent most of the next day passed out in my bedroom. 

That is, until my father-in-law called. 

*Nathan’s voice sounded tense and worried as he explained the situation with Lee. He and my mother-in-law had flown from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City the week prior. They had visited with Lee each day at our apartment, holding their collective breath, waiting for their only son to open his heart and express his deepest thoughts. 

Lee remained silent. 

In vain they tried to help him understand the gravity of the situation, the importance of taking action.

“He isn’t saying much,” Nathan admitted. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere unless you come back. I know Lee said he’s against couples counseling, but mom and I think you need to drag him along and make him do these things. Divorce is a terrible, terrible thing. We don’t want that.” 

Of course you don’t. Nobody wants divorce. 

I felt a steep, strangling pressure over my chest as though a dark cloud of smoke had enveloped my entire body. I could almost imagine the oppressive energy taking shape and form, reaching with its thin, bony fingers to steal away my last vestiges of light and hope. 

I came very close to giving in then – weak with fear, with love, and now illness. I had the proverbial white flag clasped in my quivering hands and I was almost ready to wave it. 

But then another voice broke through the shadow, soft but insistent. Call it God, or guardian angels, or a transcendent inner-knowing. I saw glimpses of the stagnant, oppressive wreckage my life would become if I gave in to Lee’s dismal paradigm. 

I remember my sorrow was so heavy. 

I can’t do that, dad. Lee’s ambivalence and refusal to work out problems is why I left in the first place. I hear you. I understand that you want me to come back, you want this fixed, but I need Lee to say those things to me, not you. Did you know he’s only called me twice in two weeks? And every time it’s the same thing. Lee doesn’t want to work on the relationship. He just wants the problems to magically go away. I’m tired of being the only one willing to act. I can’t drag him along anymore, dad. The stress is making me sick. Did you know I was in the hospital last night? 

No. He didn’t know. Not surprising, since Lee didn’t call much. Nathan cleared his throat and told me a story about Lee as a child, how he used to clam up and give his parents the silent treatment when he knew he was in the wrong. 

“It’s just how he deals with being wrong,” Nathan said. 

I sighed. 

That doesn’t make it right, dad. At this point his behavior is unacceptable, and I just can’t do it anymore.

I could hear the disappointment in Nathan’s voice. 

“Well, mom and I will keep working on him. Just promise you won’t file divorce papers yet, alright?”

Alright. But I can’t hold off forever. I need to hear from Lee. 

“Okay.” 

We ended the call and I collapsed into bed, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. Standing up to other people has always been outside my comfort zone, outside my realm of desire or experience. The adrenaline took a long time to wear off. 

Sleep arrived in fits and starts, my mind sliding down into blissful nothing only to be yanked back into the painful present.  Even in sleep I couldn’t escape. 

I always dreamed of Lee.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy

**The author apologizes for not updating sooner after the last cliffhanger. Thank you for your patience! Cheers!

The Hospital

Waiting for Lee to make up his mind felt like keeping watch over a coma patient. 

Every little bit of attention he paid me was like a stirring of fingers, the flutter of eyelashes. Any moment now he would come awake from this long sleep, see my face, and say my name. In one bright moment of thrilling recollection he would remember that he loved me. 

I poured over pages of scripture ever morning, and at night I prayed to God as fervently as I knew how. Maybe Jesus would have mercy on me, and help save my marriage. I prayed for Lee’s heart to soften. I asked for angels to visit his bedside. I wanted Lee to dream dreams or see visions, anything to have a mighty change of mind. I wanted miracles. 

Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. 

I visited the Redlands Temple on Tuesday nights. Lee’s name went on the altar every time and we would gather round for Lee, pray out loud for Lee, beg for divine intersession in behalf of all God’s lost and ailing souls. Afterwards I would sit in the beautiful rooms for hours, desperate for comfort, straining to hear God’s voice. 

Did Jesus really know what it was like to fall in love? 

All I heard in the still silence was the sound of my own fear. What if Lee chose to divorce? What if I ended up alone, old and washed-up? Unwanted. Unloved. 

Lee called me one night just to chat. He asked if I thought my parents hated him. 

No, I said. They’ve done nothing but show concern for us since this whole thing started. They would really like to see us work it out. My mom is a little surprised you haven’t shown up on the doorstep yet.

 

He laughed at that. Did you think I would come? Did her tell her I would?

I paused, an old familiar sadness pinching at the back of my throat as I struggled for words. 

No. She thought you might, but I told her no. I knew you wouldn’t come. 

I could almost picture Lee nodding his head on the other end, not in resignation, but in matter-of-fact acceptance of the way things were. Lee preferred to view his own actions as phenomena outside the realm of his control. 

People don’t change, he would tell me. They are the way they are.

 

The next night my stepdad grilled steaks on the patio, and we ate our dinner by the pool where the light was warm and the breeze cool. My toes were bare on the pavement and it felt good to dip them in the water. I was wearing my brown and white sun dress. 

I remember washing the dishes afterwards. There was a small feeling in my chest, something tight and painful like the poke from a thumb tack. I ignored it for a while, thinking that maybe my stomach was just trying to settle. I wiped down the counters and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. By the time I retired to my room the pain was exploding in sharp, pulsing stabs. It felt like my lungs were contracting. I couldn’t breathe, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was hyperventilating. In my panic I ran to the family computer where my stepdad was typing. 

I think something’s wrong with my heart, Steve. I need help. 

Steve had been a paramedic once upon a time. He took one look at me and dialed 911. 

I ended up at the local community hospital in Wildomar. The nurse stripped off my dress and asked if I had a religious preference. Mormon, I told her. LDS. She wanted my name, my birthdate. She filled out the forms for me because my hands were shaking too much. I still couldn’t draw a proper breath. 

She asked if I was married, and I answered her with tears I didn’t even know I was holding. 

Yeah. 

But my husband isn’t here, I cried, nearly choking with the shame of saying it out loud. 

It was like hearing the awful truth for the very first time. 

I’m afraid, in terrible pain, and my husband isn’t here. 

A Phone Call

It took Lee 8 days to call. 

By that time I’d heard from Lee’s parents (twice), my concerned cousin, my out-of-town friends . . . everyone but my own husband. 

In the bleary wasteland of my dreams I imagined that Lee loved me fiercely. He would miss me soon enough and call me day and night. Surely a man in love would do what was necessary to save his marriage, or at least retrieve his wife. 

My entire world had shifted in the blink of an eye. I went from being an autonomous married woman to being a dependent child in crisis. I would wander about the first floor of my mother’s house, not sure what to do or how I fit in to this new reality. There was no meal to prepare, no space to tidy, no one to take care of. Life was in limbo. Every thought I had was a plea, a prayer for God to soften Lee’s heart, because I could only go home if Lee agreed to save the marriage. Tears came spilling out of me whenever I forced myself to consider the possibility of divorce. Whatever happened would be Lee’s choice, and not having any control over the future of my marriage was killing me inside. 

Mostly I just missed Lee. I loved him with all my soul. 

Every day my stepfather would come home from work and ask, Did Lee call yet? I had to answer no each time and he would walk away grumbling, shaking his head, unable to comprehend Lee’s silence -- the same silence I’d lived through for two years. 

Lee’s photograph finally came up on Caller ID and I barely let the phone ring twice before answering. My hello was too quick, too desperate, my heart unbearably lonely after a mere week of separation.
 

Lee said nothing at all for a long time. 

I listened to him breathing on the other end, soft and calm. He cleared his throat a few times, the way he always did when the air was dry and hot. 

I just wanted to hear your voice, he said, and then explained in a roundabout way that he’d been thinking about the things I said in my e-mail. He sounded confused, unsure about what to say, and frankly admitted that he didn’t know what he wanted to do about our situation.

When I asked if he was willing to quit gaming and see a counselor, the answer was emphatically NO. For good measure he added, My feelings on the church haven’t changed, by the way. You should see how the people in our ward have been treating me since you left. 

He fell silent as I told him things I would have said in my missionary days: testimonies, like relationships, can be rekindled with effort and dedication. Both could be saved, and our marriage didn’t have to be over.

Lee quickly replied, You’re the one who started all this, you should be giving me reasons to take you back. 

Firmly I told him he was gravely mistaken, that I left for good reason and was not ashamed of what I’d done. I felt no need to beg my way back into his good graces. Not this time. 

There was a long and awkward silence. Lee mumbled a quick apology for his comment and said he would give it some more thought. 

I hung up empty and discouraged.

Back to waiting, and crying, and waiting.