Finding Jim (16 page)

In the evening, my half-brother performs in his high school musical,
Grease.

“The show must go on.” Dad clears his throat. “Are you sure you don't want to come?”

“Yes. Thanks.” I swallow.

“You'll be okay by yourself, won't you?” He lumbers past, coat in hand, his chin tucked.

“Yes.” I draw my legs up under me on the couch and fiddle with my sock. He tests me. If he coddles me too much, he fears I will crumble. Model a stiff upper lip and I will pull through. It's his way of showing his faith in me. I stroke the weave on the cushion so that I won't raise my arms up to him like a child and wail, “Please don't go. Hold me. Rock me. Sing to me. I can't do it on my own.”

The front door clicks, and my gaze darts to the darker corners of the room, half expecting ghosts to appear. I huddle inside my sweater and turn on the television. I follow a few dialogues before the noise blurs into white. I stare at nothing and sob, shoulder-shaking, aching sobs. I might not stop. I might shake myself into nothing.

Suddenly, I hear something and stop crying. There it is again in both of my ears. Loud. I straighten, jerk my head around to face whoever is there. But I am alone. Where is that breathing coming from? Like wind rushing through my ears. In. Out. Heavy. Scared. I plug my ears. Still there, with more of an echo. I realize it's my own breathing and lean my head into my hands, relieved that there isn't a stranger in the house but frightened that I am going crazy.

A book I read describes my experience as disassociation. In post-traumatic stress, a person might separate herself from her body in order to escape the pain. I do not tell a soul.

FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1999

The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why.

–
RUMI, SUFI MYSTIC

“I'd like to take you to a bookstore to buy you some books … about grief,” Andrea offers on the other end of the phone line.

“Okay.” My numbness retreats for an instant to allow a dagger of fear and hope.

Andrea and I have been best friends since kindergarten. As children we spent summers at her family's cottage where she taught me to bait a hook with a live crab and to catch garter snakes. In elementary school, she was the quintessential tomboy, and the two of us would challenge the boys in our grade to a soccer game at lunchtime, and we would win. Now she is a family physician living in Victoria with her husband and two girls.

We meet in Vancouver. Andrea hooks her arm through mine as we enter the maze of bookshelves in Chapters. Normally I would head to Fiction: Elizabeth Berg, Flannery O'Connor. Or to Travel. So, the black sign with bold lettering “Grief” in the Self-help section kicks my body back. Andrea urges me forward. So many books about dying and grief.

I scan the titles for something familiar or friendly. With information comes knowledge and with knowledge comes understanding. I've relied on this mantra before. Why was Jim killed? Why? After an hour, I juggle six books and Andrea suggests two more. At the cashier, I scatter the books on the counter. Andrea grunts and spreads the titles out so she can see them. She sighs and pulls six books to her side and pushes the remaining two toward me.

“I'll pay for these ones,” she waves at her pile.

The two books in my pile are
Journey of Souls
, by Dr. Michael Newton, who contacts the spirits of loved ones through hypnotism, and
Soul Mates
, by Thomas Moore.

“Okay. All right. Thanks.” I glance at her and alternate looking at my shoes and checking whether the cashier is ready.

Back in our Whistler home, I pull on a pair of Jim's jeans and his fuzzy sweater and slump on the blue couch that has been in Jim's family for decades. When I look up at the clock, I am surprised that two hours have passed. Every movement echoes in the empty house. I look at the book titles on the coffee table:
On Death and Dying
,
Facing Death and Finding Hope
,
The Healing Journey through Grief
,
The Courage To Grieve
,
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
,
The Resilient Spirit
. I pick up one and anchor it open on my lap. My eyes water after a few minutes of reading. I read a sentence, and as soon as I pause on a word, my mind wanders so that I have to go back to the beginning. It takes me 10 minutes to read one paragraph.

The first stage of grief is shock and numbness. The shock and numbness insulate you from the intense pain until you can cope. As I read and reread, my inner dialogue pulls my train of thought: Yes, that's interesting. Shock. Okay. When is Jim coming home?

In my wilderness first aid training, I learned that one treats shock by reassuring the patient, laying her down and keeping her warm, hydrated and oxygenated. I've treated shock before.

There was that young woman, my first call when I worked ski patrol at Whistler Mountain. She was screaming when we arrived. I looked down over the side of the run, through the trees and saw her in a heap on the snow. No blood. The lead patrol crouched beside her.

“C'mon!” my ski patrol mentor ordered as he plunged into the deeper, ungroomed snow. I froze. He turned and looked at me, “Sue, come on. I need you.” I followed. The radio talk sliced through the air. Young woman, about my age, maybe 23, lying almost completely flat on her back but slightly propped on one elbow, curled protectively to one side, arm reaching toward her leg and her neck muscles straining, yelling, “Help me. Ow, it hurts. Oh, help. Please.” I knelt down and invited her to lean her head on my thighs. She slowly relaxed back.

“Hi, I'm Sue. What's your name? Where are you from? How long have you been here? Are you with friends or family?” Use a calm reassuring voice. Stay close so she feels your body's warmth, so she won't feel alone.

She stopped yelling to answer my questions while the patrol team scuttled around stabilizing her fractured femur, dislocated hip and broken ribs. As we lugged her in a stretcher through thigh-deep snow to the waiting helicopter, I explained that they would fly her to a hospital and the doctors would care for her.

“Are you coming with me?” She raised her eyebrows.

“No, but a patroller and a paramedic will fly with you.” I patted her hand. When the machine was out of sight, my legs wobbled and I sat down on the snow.

I close the grief book, slump on the couch and encase myself in a blanket. I wish I had Jim's warm body beside me. I wish I did not feel so alone.

SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1999

It is the weekend, and I know this because Susan and Terri have come to stay with me. They buy groceries and make dinner. I mash the food slowly in my mouth, like a cow chewing cud. The three of us fall asleep holding hands.

Susan and Terri snap out of bed at the first sign of sunlight to make breakfast. I move in slow motion and stay in the same sweats and T-shirt I went to bed in. I can't remember the last time I took a shower, and my hair feels heavy on my head. My eyes are half-lidded, as if I have not slept.

“Let's walk into the village,” Terri suggests as she fills bowls with granola, yogurt and fruit, the same breakfast Jim and I shared each morning. I sit down at the kitchen counter, my jaw clenched.

“Why don't you two go? I'm just not up to it.” My body is exhausted, and the smaller I shrink my world, the less energy I'll spend trying to contain my grief. Terri and Susan would bravely hold me up if I crumbled in the middle of the crowded village. But openly displaying such emotion terrifies me.

“Okay,” Terri stammers as she pushes a bowl toward me. “Are you sure you'll be okay?”

“Oh, sure.” I squeeze out a smile.

As soon as the front door clicks shut, I lumber upstairs, close the blinds, crawl into bed and draw the duvet up under my chin. Curled in a fetal position, I cry for a few minutes and stop. I cry some more, until my insides wring dry. There is a zone between wakefulness and sleep where my mind hovers, neither thinking nor feeling. When I snap out of this no man's land two hours later, I feel more tired.

The doorbell rings and I burrow under the covers. The front door scrapes open.

“Hello? Anybody home?” I recognize Glyn's voice. Terri and Susan's husbands have arrived.

“I guess they've gone out,” Ken adds. Heavy footsteps on the stairs and a pause.

“Oh, man, look at this place.” They roam the main floor.

“Look at that photo of
K2
. Beautiful.” Glyn's voice and footsteps work their way upstairs toward my bedroom. I breathe quietly and close my eyes. The footsteps stop on the stairs, followed by shuffling and heavy sighs. I picture both men sitting down.

“What is she going to do, Kenny? I mean what the hell is she going to do? This house … what is she going to do with this house they built? She can't stay here. Too many memories.”

I tense when I hear how scared they are for me.

“I don't know. Sue is a thinker. She'll think her way through it.” I imagine Ken nodding his head to emphasize his opinion. Yes, I am a thinker. I think to know and I know to understand. I make decisions based on information and experience, instead of reacting instinctively, so I can avoid the unknown and feel in control. As humans we have this luxury. But now, faced with my greatest unknown, all I can think is “why?” And any answer brings me back to that same circle of why, the same black hole of uncertainty. I cannot fix death or make a different decision now to bring Jim back. I am Ayn Rand's protagonist in
Atlas Shrugged
: “He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act … not an assurance of victory – who can ever have that? – only the chance to act, which is all one needs. Now he was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of terror: being delivered to destruction with one's hands tied behind one's back.”

But if you think too much, you don't get anything done.

My leg muscle cramps. The front door opens again.

“Hi! We're home!” Susan and Terri's high voices float up the stairs.

“Hi!” Glyn yells down and whispers to Ken, “Wait a second. That sounds like just Susan and Terri. Which means Sue is here. Which means she heard every word we said.” Silence. Glyn and Ken pad downstairs to meet their wives on the main floor. Glyn confirms, “Is Sue here?”

“Yes.”

I sigh and push myself out of bed, creak open the bedroom door and thump downstairs.

“Hi,” Glyn moves forward to hug me. “You heard everything we said.”

“Yes, it's okay.” I have no energy to pretend I was asleep.

Glyn works his hands together. “I figure you're on a five-year plan, Sue.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's going to take you five years to get back on track from this thing.” Glyn nods his head slightly and looks right at me.

“Hmmm.” Five years. I can't keep this up for five years. I'll go crazy or die of exhaustion.

SUNDAY, MAY 9, 1999

“I've made an appointment for you with a counsellor I know.” Jim's close friend gives me an address over the phone. “She's a wonderful woman. Don't feel any pressure to go, but she's there if you want it.” I stare at my handwriting on the paper: time, date and place.

In the parking lot of the counsellor's apartment complex, I sit in my car and breathe. When I stop crying, I open the door and tiptoe to the pavement, half expecting a tornado to rip my legs off. Looking over my shoulder several times, I shuffle to the address on the paper.

The counsellor asks to see the eight-by-ten photo I clutch to my heart. I hold it out to her as if it is a baby bird. Jim and I slow dancing at our wedding; his eyes are closed and his lips caressing my ear.

“This photo speaks volumes of Jim's feelings for you.” She cradles the frame for a second and leads me by the elbow to a soft chair in her living room. Her townhome reminds me of being in my grandma's apartment. Dark wood. Floral patterns. And it smells of talcum powder. A cozy cluster. She sits opposite me on the couch, elbows resting on her knees. The way she looks at me with her deep brown eyes seems to say, “It's okay.” I talk about Jim and she listens. That's what I want to do: talk about how wonderful he was.

“Would you like to tell me about Jim's accident?” She leans forward, hands clasped together.

“Okay.” I fidget in my armchair and look past her at the painting on the wall. “They were in Alaska, climbing. And they went up this chute they thought had already slid.”

“Hmm, hmm.” She reaches out and lays her warm hand on my forehead. Her other hand hovers over my stomach. I gulp for air. My grief rushes to her hands as if they are portals. To be touched when I am in the abyss of pain, a leper to the normal world, is overwhelming. I feel human and just for a second believe that I am doing okay.

“Do you feel guilty?” She keeps her hands in place.

“I wonder whether Jim was meant to have children. It was my idea to have a baby. I wonder if he died because of that.” My face contorts and I hold the edge of my chair. It must have been my fault. Please tell me it wasn't my fault.

“Survivor guilt,” the experts call it. But this is also my way of keeping my world together and always has been. I make myself responsible regardless of whether I am the cause so I can pretend to be able to “fix” mistakes in life and make sure they never happen again. Be in control. If I am responsible, then I can “fix” Jim being dead.

“In the scheme of life and destiny, you are a pretty small player.”

I nod and hold back sobs.

“It's so soon after Jim's death. Really, too soon for counselling. But one of the first stages of grief is denial, and I don't think you are in denial. Trust yourself. Trust your feelings.”