Tag: New York

Hamilton

A month ago I went to see this at the Kennedy center, with some great friends, and thanks to my friend Jen’s incredible perseverance to get tickets!  Her husband took this shot of us…. now I’m trying to refrain from the “I’m not throwing away my shot” joke…mvimg_20180809_192341I could not have been more excited.  I’d been listening to the music, and its just so great.  Honestly.  It’s story telling at its best.  Lin-Manuel Miranda rivals only J.K. Rowling in my mind with artistry of words.  But lyrics… to music.  Oh my goodness.  Words fail me.  I would recommend seeing it to anyone who has the opportunity.  So what do the lyrics mean to me? Where I am now, in my life…. in my journey of grief and healing?

Of course Hamilton, an American Musical is about American History, which I love, its about politics; it pushes you to think a little differently about both of those things.  But above all, it is a story.  And it is a story about love and loss and healing.  Romantic love, the love of a parent, the love of a country, the love of freedom, and the ideals of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  Loss through death, loss through War, loss through betrayal, embarrassment and disappointment.

I guess all of us are living a life that is a story about love and loss and healing.  Maybe they all take slightly different forms, but these three things are essentially what our stories are all about.

I could go on at length about what so many of the songs meant to me, but I will pick just three, in honor of Angelica’s “three fundamental truths”…

Aaron Burr is “the villain in your history” and this story of course, but his story is also told in a very relate-able way.  He may not have taken very distinctive political stances but his life was full of love and loss… and hopefully some healing…  This was one of my favorite songs, “Wait for it” which he sang:

Death doesn’t discriminate
Between the sinners
And the saints
It takes and it takes and it takes
And we keep living anyway
We rise and we fall
And we break
And we make our mistakes
And if there’s a reason I’m still alive
When everyone who loves me has died
I’m willing to wait for it
I’m willing to wait for it

I am the one thing in life I can control

I hope that I do not spend my life waiting.  But I do need to remind myself sometimes that I am the one thing I can control.  I can’t control anything else, but my own actions, choices, responses, attitude. I also know that not everyone who loves me has died… but  the one who loved me… the one who loved me the most, in a complete 360 degree way, in the way everyone dreams of being loved… he has died, so if there’s a reason that I’m still alive….
OK, I also just have to mention two other songs that I won’t quote… one is “Burn”.. it is so well-done.  The most perfectly eloquent song about response to public betrayal.  Whether or not you can relate personally, it makes you feel so much.  The other is “Non-Stop.” It is a long-ish song.  It tells so much story, and it incorporates almost every other song from the musical together into one song in the most beautiful way, and exhibits how everything comes together.
Also.. the songs King George does are hilarious.  They are so ridiculous… informative and ridiculous… and then when he jumps in with “he’s never gon’ be president now” in the Reynolds Pamphlet… just hilarious.
Later in the play, after the Reynolds Scandal, Alexander and Eliza’s 19 year old son, Philip, dies in a dual.  Unimaginable.  This song could have been called that.  Alternately, it is called “It’s Quiet Uptown”:
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down
The Hamiltons move uptown
And learn to live with the unimaginable
This.  So very much, this.  Our family’s story was just so very unbelievable… unimaginable.  No one could get their head around it.. suffering too terrible to name.  What else can you do?  But push away?  So often, I have been so deep, when it would have been easier, so much easier, to just swim down.  And yet… I learn to live with the unimaginable.  I learn every day.
You knock me out, I fall apart
Look at where we are
Look at where we started
I know I don’t deserve you, Eliza
But hear me out
That would be enough
If I could spare his life
If I could trade his life for mine
He’d be standing here right now
And you would smile, and that would be enough
This part reminds me in a different way of Tim’s dad.  It’s a different context, for sure.  But how many times I heard him express his desire to trade his life for his son’s.   It is the pain of a parent, that I can imagine, that I have seen with my eyes, but I have not lived.
I don’t pretend to know
The challenges we’re facing
I know there’s no replacing what we’ve lost
And you need time
But I’m not afraid
I know who I married
Isn’t that the truth?  I know who I married.  This time has shown me how very much I know who I married.  For that, I am grateful.
If you see him in the street, walking by her side
Talking by her side, have pity
Eliza, do you like it uptown? It’s quiet uptown
Look around, look around, Eliza
(They are trying to do the unimaginable)
This part reminds me so much of the interesting use of words.  Of their meaning, and of choosing words carefully.  I never liked the word “pity.”  It has such negative connotations in our society.  No one wants to be pitied.  Certainly, I never wanted pity.  Then, a circumstance arose where I could have felt many things… but what I felt was pity.  I didn’t want to say that to the person I pitied though, because it felt mean.  And that’s not what I wanted to convey.  Meanness or ill-will was not what I was feeling.  So I looked up the meaning of “pity” almost for a thesaurus option, and the very definition of the word was exactly how I felt for this other person: the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.  And then I realized, that I have no shame for all of the pity others have felt for me.  Why should I?  Should I not be grateful that I have people in my life who are caring enough to have sorrow and compassion for the suffering and misfortune my children and I have endured, and continue to endure for the sudden loss of the love of my life, of their father?
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
They are standing in the garden
Alexander by Eliza’s side
She takes his hand
It’s quiet uptown
Forgiveness.. Can you imagine?  Forgiveness.  Can you imagine?
Have pity… they are going through the unimaginable.
I resound with these words so much when I think about how others see us.  Everything we have experienced, and do experience, I know is (to others) unimaginable.  And yet, to us, it is life.  It is hard to imagine.
May we all experience the forgiveness.  May we all experience a grace too powerful to name.
And the final song in the play… “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.”  Isn’t that what it is all about? When I have read about others’ discomfort with the widowed finding love again, that is often how it is explained that others feel… would their spouse “move on” so quickly?  What does their life mean?  Who would keep their flame, who would tell their story?  The thing that maybe only the widowed can really understand, is that we may move forward, but we never move on.

Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control, who lives, who dies, who tells your story?…….

But when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame, who tells your story? Who tells your story (who tells your story?)

(Eliza) I put myself back in the narrative
I stop wasting time on tears
I live another fifty years, it’s not enough

Wow.  That’s possible.  I could live another 50 years…

I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings
You really do write like you’re running out of time (time)

He really did… My Tim.  He ran out of time.

I rely on Angelica
While she’s alive, we tell your story
She is buried in Trinity Church, near you
When I needed her most, she was right on time

Isn’t this the truth? My sister was absolutely right on time, when I needed her most.

And I’m still not through
I ask myself, what would you do if you had more time? (time)

You could have done so much more if you only had time
And when my time is up, have I done enough?

Will they tell our story? (will they tell your story?)
Oh, can I show you what I’m proudest of? (The orphanage)
I established the first private orphanage in New York City
(The orphanage)
I help to raise hundreds of children
I get to see them growing up (the orphanage)

OK, this is something I can’t exactly do but… are there other things that I should be doing?

In their eyes I see you, Alexander
I see you every time

In A, R and D’s eyes, I see Tim.  I see him every time.

And when my time is up, have I done enough?
Will they tell my story? (will they tell your story?)
Oh, I can’t wait to see you again
It’s only a matter of time..

Those last two lines haunt me.  I hear them in my head so often now.  When I miss him the most… I hear them at the gym.  Or when I am driving in my car, alone….. and after all, I guess it is true.

… I can’t wait to see you again.  It’s only a matter of time…

Terrible, thanks for asking – Perfectly

I’ve mentioned before in my What Grief looks like post how much I love the podcast American Public Media Podcast “Terrible, thanks for asking” with Nora McInerny, Yesterday, they put out a new episode and it hit home to me in such a profound way.

While I was at the hospital, the infectious disease physician was one I often really liked to see.  She seemed to understand what I was thinking sometimes, even when I couldn’t say it.  I asked a LOT of questions.  She felt my guilt over whether I should have gotten him in earlier.  She told me that she was a physician, her husband was a physician, and she doesn’t think she would have brought him as early as I did.  That was immeasurably comforting and yet… a part of you has to wonder if that’s true.  That same physician described to me what happened to Tim as a “perfect storm” of negative occurrences with a disastrous outcome.

And here was a story about a woman who’s life fell apart suddenly very similarly to mine… a woman who’s husband had a very similar set of circumstances also come together “perfectly” and lead to his death.  His death, essentially from sepsis, on the table in her ER.,, because she was an ER doctor! I can’t imagine it happening at your work.  And yet, on the whole, I can imagine,  I lived it. And her guilt over whether she brought him in sooner… but she and I could have easily traded places for any of it,  She even talked about being jealous of a family who got the chance to prepare for the end.

And I certainly get that.

The emotions in all of this are so complex.  Some days, I think I’n doing great.  And then a song, or a memory, or an issue with a kiddo – or a podcast – will bring the pain and the loss to the surface.  And all I can do is sit in it for a while.

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.” Albus Dumbledore through J.K. Rowling

The speech I wrote

The speech I gave was pretty hilarious, with interrupts, distractions, screaming children… my girls shouting into the microphone… but I think I got my point across.  No doubt the speech I wrote was too long. I’m glad to have a record of both.  Below is the speech I wrote to give at the (Altamont,) New York Celebration of Life.

_____

I drove in yesterday and it struck me  that it was almost 10 years since I drove in wTim for the first time… and he gave me a detailed tour

I was amazed by the town of Altamont then, and I am amazed now.

I thank each of you for the welcome you have given me and to Tim and my children, and for everything that went into making this event what it is. To Chief and Nana Chris for everything they’ve done for us to keep Tim’s memory alive and to pull off this amazing event. But also to each and every one of you who pitched in in such an amazing way with your unique talents.

Tim would have been amazed. Dumbfounded. He truly would have.

Tim would have wanted a happy celebration.  He would have loved seeing all these different sports jerseys and t-shirts. He would have felt right at home and could have walked in here and immediately struck up a conversation with any one of you, on any sport.  I said this in Virginia, but its even more true here in Altamont!

 

The thing I really want to say to all of you that watched him grow up….or are his family and really loved him…. was that Tim was really very happy until the very end… and he hated goodbyes….. so as horrible as the situation has been for all of us who loved him it gives me some comfort to know that it was the best thing for him.

I think because what happened to Tim….. to my family… was so unbelievable I have found that people try to put more believable thoughts around it ….that just don’t exist. The weekend before Tim got sick he went to Richmond with his friends for a brewery tour and he had a fantastic time…. that week he went for a 5K run through the neighborhood ….he was always trying to take care of himself and eat well and exercise and he was very happy.

Tim told me when he had a hangnail…. he didn’t want to go to work if he had a sore throat…… Last year he had a ingrown hair that got infected that he reached out to his aunt about because she’s a doctor and her husband’s a doctor and he wanted some advice …. Tim didn’t have extraordinary complaints that last weekend that he was home with us… he stayed in bed a lot. He said he didn’t feel good but he asked me when I went to the grocery store to pick up ice cream and tiny chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookies…then  when I was putting Declan down for his nap on Saturday, Tim and the girls made me chip wiches. For mother’s day. Because I love chip wiches. He kept thanking me. He said I’d get a mother’s day do over.

We went to the doctor on Monday morning when I insisted… he went to the ER with me on Tuesday when I insisted on that… and many of the doctors there told me they wouldn’t have even brought him in as soon as I did.

The fact that he never reached out to his aunt tells me he had no idea how bad this could possibly be… Before they intubated him he knew he had low white blood cells and he knew he had pneumonia. I asked him if he was scared and he said yes because it was all very scary…. particularly the idea of being intubated and not being able to breathe on his own. But he had no idea that this could happen. He never knew he had cancer.  He said he should have asked me to bring his extra phone charger. He asked me if I brought a book.

It was a crazy ridiculous series of events and while I wish that I could have said goodbye in a different way… and when I know that people who loved him wish they could have said goodbye at all… I am sad for us but I’m still not sad for Tim because he would have hated goodbye.

So let’s not say goodbye today either…. let’s try to preserve wonderful memories of him that you have that I can share with our children when they’re having a hard time and they want to remember dad… I’d like to make sure those memories are there for them because their dad was such an amazing man.

I brought with me some of the things that people learned from Tim and some of the memories of Tim that we had from the Virginia celebration of life. If you read them you’ll find a lot had to do with pop music…. which I totally get because I find myself now even when a poppy song comes on the radio that’s annoying and I probably would have changed it before….like Rebecca Black’s Friday or Carly Rae Jepsen’s call me maybe or anything by Britney Spears… now I always leave it on the radio because Tim would have listened to it and it feels like a little bit of a hello from him.

Thank you for all of the memories you share.

Keep talking about him… keep his memory alive here and for the days to come. Never feel afraid to mention Tim to me or to the kids for fear of bringing it up and upsetting us…. We are always thinking of him and it’s great to hear his name said by someone else.

Thank you.