Going on

Eight weeks and still counting. Every Sunday I am still acutely aware of the clock, remembering what happened at this time and at this time… In the meantime, a few applications and forms have been processed, a few more signatures delivered, some bills paid, transferred or deferred. And I began what is allegedly a new year by paying all the bills for the recovery, storage, transport and cremation of Peter’s body and all the funeral arrangements. I’m not sure I really wanted to know in such detail what I was paying for, but it’s done now.

There are more bills to pay now, not only my own bookkeeping to close for the past year, but also Peter’s as well. More phone calls to make, more emails to write, more things to sort through and organize and put somewhere else. At the same time, I am deeply grateful to Cornelia for her beautiful description of our experience in Windischgarsten, this necessary reminder of the overwhelming sense of love and loss, which is the reason for doing all of these things.

Holidays are over now even in Austria, everyone else has gone back to normal everyday life. Somewhere in the middle of the past few weeks, however, there seems to be a blank space for me. As I learned after my sister’s death, grief has an adverse affect on the immune system. It is therefore hardly surprising that after a few lovely days of Christmas with the house full of people again, immediately afterward I succumbed to a virulent flu bug that has been circulating in Linz. Feeling very ill with a fever and aches and pains seems to facilitate denial, repression, something like that. I didn’t even feel guilty about escaping for a few days into fantasy novels and silly films, forgetting about everything else, but by the time the fever resided, it was very late to be thinking about plans for New Year’s Eve.

I didn’t really want to be anywhere on New Year’s Eve, I didn’t even want it to be at all. Inside Peter’s wedding ring, which is still lying on my dresser, since the police returned it to me in Hinterstoder, it says that he married me on 31 December 1986. We should have been celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve, so anything else couldn’t possibly feel right. In the end, the boys persuaded me to drive back to Vienna with them that afternoon, and the drive itself, with my two highly entertaining sons, was actually surprisingly enjoyable. In the evening I went to a small party with Christopher, which felt like the right place to be. Of course, there is no way at all to escape the Blue Danube Waltz at midnight in Austria, so when the time came, I gave up, put my head on Christopher’s shoulder and just cried.

Since I felt worse again the next day, I simply got on a train and went home again to cough, sniffle and ache my way through the first week of January, the first week of a new year. Although I sadly had to cancel my plans to meet with one of my oldest friends that week, I did manage to finish the one translation that I felt I absolutely needed to do myself – I needed to do it to remind myself that I still have a life, I still have something valuable and meaningful and useful to contribute to this world. Then I sent off the translation in good time to just sit there feeling glum, remembering that 7 January would have been my father’s 82nd birthday, had he not died at the early age of 68. And after all these years, I still miss him terribly, especially now.

In a way, it was probably the most convenient time to be ill, since I didn’t miss anything, since no one else was working or expecting anyone else to be working. Unpleasant and annoying as it is to spend two weeks battling with a flu bug, I tend to suspect there is a reason for that too: when I think of the past eight weeks, when I remember experiences from the past eight week, I have the feeling I can remember no physical sensations at all, as though I was there, but not actually physically present. Being ill has returned me into my body, and although I’m not particularly thrilled with the situation, I can still see certain advantages in living embodied experience.

For one thing, I now live with two cats. Before Christopher and Paddy returned to Vienna in November, before Pat returned to Albuquerque, they surprised me one afternoon by taking me to the local animal shelter and coming home with a kitten, Ginevra. Two days before Christmas, Paddy surprised me again by bringing home a second kitten, Hester, as an early Christmas present for Ginevra and me. Living with two small feline companions does require more than theoretical reflection, so they help me to remember where I am. They are also helpfully bilingual, which enables me to continue living in two languages, even though I still miss being able to tell Peter what I’m thinking about. Of course, Ginevra and Hester are no substitute for Peter, but they are good companions, and for that I am very grateful.

My “widow’s tasks” are still far from finished and my energy level is still quite low, but a reminder of an overwhelming sense of love and loss is sufficient motivation to keep going – and to be fully present again to do so.