THE MAGIC SWORD

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Allen lays three of his swords on the rug in front of me. Like others who function on the autism spectrum, he has many collections of many things, but swords are his favorite. One sword is heavy and broad, one is short with a curved blade, and one is thin but strong with a fancy handle. It is the last one that is the newest, purchased just hours ago at Booth Corner's Farmer's Market for Allen's birthday.

"I need to put my consciousness into one of these swords," he says. "Which one do you think will be best?'

A million questions circle through my head, but I look at each sword and ask the one I think matters the most. "All of your consciousness," I ask, "or just part of it?"

It is the right question. "Just the bad things," Allen says. He sighs. "I'm tired of feeling bad about Dad. I'm tired of trying to make him come back. I know..." he gulps "that he's gone. I did everything I could but--" he holds his hands out in front of him--"none of it worked."

I nod in sympathy. In the fifteen weeks since Ron passed away quite peacefully in his easy chair, Allen's magical thinking has kept alive the hope that his father will one day conquer death and return. Almost every Saturday has found us on another quest for clues. About three weeks ago, the journeys stopped as Allen processed the finality of his father's death and struggled with his loss.

Allen stands up and takes a deep breath. "I don't want to feel bad about it anymore. I don't want to remember the bad things. Like how sick Dad was. And how much pain he was in. It was really sad and I don't like thinking about it."

"Neither do I," I say and fight back tears. The nineteen years since the car accident injured Ron have been difficult, but the past two years were particularly grueling, not  only for Ron but for our family.

"So," Allen continues, "I'm going to take the bad thoughts and I'm going to transfer them to a sword. And then I will only have the good thoughts about Dad. The fun things. The happy things."

"I think, " I say, " that is an excellent idea." I get down on the floor to examine each of the swords carefully. I am not at all alarmed by my son's idea. As an adult with Asperger's Syndrome (HFA), Allen needs tangible items to help with intangible ideas. Many therapists posit writing down your worries on a piece of paper, folding the paper up, and letting the paper handle the worries (PsychCentral). 1 Peter 5:7 suggests that we, "Cast all your worries on Him, because He cares for you." Harvard Health concludes that many people with Asperger's suffer from anxiety but find it difficult to address. I've let Allen do what he needed to do to come to terms with the finality of his father's recent death.

And it seems we have arrived. I study each sword and comment on its good points. Then I touch the one in the middle, the one just recently purchased. A "Three Musketeer Sword" the seller called it because if its fancy red and gold grip. "This one," I say. "And I have two reasons."

"I agree that's a good choice," said Allen. "But why?"



So I tell him. "This sword was not here when Dad was here. So it has no...previous print from Dad. It has no...memories of him, you know?" Allen nods. "And it's long and strong and made of steel. It will hold even your unhappiest memories."

"Okay," says Allen and gathers up his swords. He takes a deep breath. "Good bye to the bad memories!" he says and carried the swords up to his room.

"Good-bye," I whisper and turn back to my knitting. Upstairs I hear the sounds of Allen's footsteps, his door opening, then silence. I do not know how long it will take to transfer all Allen's bad feelings about his dad.

But it does not take long at all. In a few minutes he is back. "I did it!" he says. "Now, I don't need to feel bad about Dad anymore. They're all there in the sword. I don't need to carry them."

"Great," I say.

"But," and he grins at me with the smile that has charmed since childhood, "I kept the good memories." He touches his chest." I kept them all right here."

I nod and look down at my knitting, letting my tears fall. "I kept my good ones, too," I say. 

Words from a Widow

God is close to those crushed in spirit; God will not leave you alone. Psalm 34:18

A few months ago, I joined a group of 700,000 American women without any intentional planning. I became a widow. And I am sorry to tell you, my sisters, that 75% of you will someday join the same club that does not discriminate due to race, creed, religion, socio-economic strata, or sexual preference (Kenen, 2018). It is a cold hard fact that women who lose a spouse outnumber men who lose a spouse by 7 to 1. And while there are logical reasons for that--women tend to live longer then men and marry someone a few years older than themselves--it doesn't help when you find yourself rudely thrust into a role for which you are not prepared and which is--sad to say--undervalued in today's culture.

Because, let's just face it, there are no longer any rules.

Remember that scene in Gone With the Wind when Vivian Leigh, as the charming Scarlett O'Hara, is tapping her black-shod foot at the Bazaar for the Glorious Cause and Rhett Butler, played by the devilish Clark Gable, offers an enormous amount of money to dance with her? Dr. Mead, without hesitation, explained that "Mrs. Hamilton is in mourning," and encouraged Rhett to choose another lady of his  liking. And while Scarlett defied all social customs of widowdom and consented to the dance is besides my point; the thing is that everyone KNEW Scarlett was a widow. And they KNEW the proper etiquette required.

I'm not suggesting we return to the donning of long black dresses which cover our faces and hide ourselves inside our houses for a year or more. Heck, I didn't even wear black to my husband's funeral and I'm not about to start. But I do wish that, just as we teach employees in a workplace how to interact with each other, we'd pay a bit more attention to what we say to widows. Widowhood is uncharted territory for all of us. It ranks up there as the number 1 stress of all time. It's falling into a new dimension without a guidebook, plunging down the mountain with no safety net, and arriving in a foreign country without a translator.


Scarlett's black widow's weeds were at least public acknowledgement of her loss, a way of telling the world, "Look, I've been through something here so give me some space." For the most part, widowhood is invisible. I still go to work, pay my bills, care for my house, my autistic son, and my two older kids. While I'm missing Ron's SSI, I'm better off then some women who lose 75% of their income when a husband dies and who are often left with  no idea of how to handle the checkbook or when to take the car in for inspection. Ron was ill for 19 years so I've been doing all of those things anyway.

But I am still grieving and will continue to do so for a long time to come. I dreaded going back to my job as a teacher in September because those ,"What did you do over the summer?" conversations were bound to come up. "Me? Oh, my husband died," left people stunned into silence. Should I have avoided the truth?

Recently, I caused a bit of a stir on Facebook when I suggested that people think about what they say to a widow. Let me make this clear: I am always gracious and grateful for anyone who cares enough to ask me how I am doing and actually listens. I am not grateful to the ambulance company who sent me a bill for the night my  husband's body was taken to the morgue and noted that Medicare would pay "if the deceased signs for it." I am not grateful to Medicare who sent a letter addressed to my husband saying they would no longer approve claims on his number because, "on July 13, you died. Our condolences." I am not grateful to Ron's retirement fund assessor who suggested I cash the last check--sent the week after Ron died--by having him sign it when I had just told him Ron had died.

Widows have been with us a long time. We're not going anywhere. Maybe, once we get over our grief--often compounded if, like me, you've been a caregiver to a sick spouse--we can organize and march on Congress, demanding a decent bereavement period and financial aid. But in the meantime, I have a list of suggestions of what to say or do for a widow you know.

1. Pray for them. Widowhood is lonely. And scary.
2. Send a card. I have a box of sympathy cards sent the weeks after Ron died, but I do appreciate a simple, "Thinking of you" note that lets me know I have not been forgotten.
3. Make a call. My phone still works.
4. Make a meal. Truth is, I don't feel much like cooking. Allen and I are existing on hot pockets, pizza, and scrambled eggs.
5. Give a restaurant gift card. For when we get tired of the hot pockets, pizza, and scrambled eggs.
6. Extend an invitation. We live in a two-by-two world. But I'd still like to be invited over for dinner or a game night.
7. Offer to do a chore. Show up at the house and offer to rake the leaves or lend a hand at home repairs. Allen and I have become pretty handy, but there are things we cannot do.
8. Give a gift. A friend recently gave me a little basket of soaps and sachets. I treasure it because she remembered that I am still in need of some support.
9. Listen to them. Recently, several people have asked me how I am doing, but haven't stayed to hear the answer.
10. Hug them. If appropriate and in the proper place, offer a hug. Chances are good that we've been missing quite a few.

Okay, I am done my grumpy widow rant. Honestly, I do know people have their own lives to live, but I also know that, as a society, we have done a poor job of following James 1:27 to care for the widows and orphans. I've seen about a hundred commercials asking for donations to animal shelters and not one suggesting you take a widow to dinner.

Maybe the 700,000 of us should get a publicity agent.

Gone with the wind Atlanta Bazaar

FADING MAGIC

The magic thread of its huge haunting spell,
And that linked his life to magic kingdoms
And to lotus-land
--Tom Wolfe

He'd tried his best. For the last twelve weeks, he'd hung his father's shirts on the branches of a tree at Smedley Park, watched a horse race across the field at Linvilla, set his Dad's shoes out on the porch, waited for a train that never came, and watched a ship with a mysterious symbol on its hull float down the Delaware River. He'd kept hope alive in his heart, even as it grew fainter with each passing day, trying to read into the world around him clues about his father's return.

Despite it all, despite his fervent wish, despite the magical thinking that kept him from grieving too deeply, his dad hadn't come back. And now, as more and more pieces of his father were packed up and put away and the sounds of his father's voice became fainter in his memory, he began to think that maybe the magic wouldn't work. Maybe, wherever his father had gone, he just wasn't coming back.

"Why wouldn't Dad want to come back?" Allen asks me one evening.

Inwardly, I sigh. It has been a common theme of our conversation the last three months. Patiently, I give him the same answer I have been giving him all along.  "I'm sure he wants to come back," I say in a level tone. "But I don't think he can. It's like he's in another dimension in heaven. He just can't take a train or a boat to get back to us."

"Sounds stupid to me," says my son who lives on the upper edges of the autism spectrum and understands the world in the most concrete of terms. "If he wants to come back, he should be allowed to."

Ever since Ron passed away in his sleep, quietly slipping from us while my daughter and I were visiting my father, I have struggled to help Allen accept the finality of death. It is a concept illogical to most on the autism spectrum who find comfort in the ability to control the world around them, a world they often find too loud, too colorful, too busy. I have tried to make Allen's life predictable again with routines for the two of us: who cooks dinner, who cleans up, who does the laundry. Every Friday night is market night and take-out supper; every Monday night is pasta and a movie. The routines help Allen whose emotions have been scrambled by his deep loss (Indiana University, 2019). 



And I have accepted the pieces of magical thinking that has found us spending most Saturdays searching for clues to Ron's return, seeing each of Allen's ideas as a step he needed to take in order to mourn his dad. I have put no time table on it, resolving to participate in the magical journeys as long as Allen needed them.

But the magic appears to be fading. It has been two weeks since we have waited at a train station or checked the shirt Allen hung on a tree. 

"The thing that really bothers me," and Allen pounds his fist on the table to make his point, "is that the night Dad...left"--his voice catches on the word--"he didn't say good-bye. " His voice drops to a whisper. "I wish he'd said good-bye. Then I could have said good-bye to him."

"I know," I tell my son. "I wish that, too. But I don't think Dad knew he was leaving, that God was going to call him to Heaven. I don't think he had time to say good-bye."

"I was just upstairs," says Allen. "If he'd called me, I would have come downstairs."

"I know," I assure him. "And Dad knew you loved him."

Allen nods his head sadly and is silent for a few moments. I wait, giving him time to process. Then he heaves a huge sigh--full of loss and pain--and closes his eyes. From experience, I know that he is putting his words together carefully. "I guess," he says after a while, "the only thing left to do is to find a way to honor him."

My heart soars. This is a huge step towards acceptance. I nod my head.

"What would you suggest?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Well, maybe like once a month we could cook his favorite foods and play his favorite game," he says.

"That would be good."

"And at Christmas we could still hang his stocking."

"Definitely."

"And once in a while we can go outside at night and look at the stars. And think that Dad is looking at them, too."

I hold back my tears and nod. "Sounds good. And when Bonnie and Dennis are here on Sunday for your birthday, we're going to go put the flag from the VA on Dad's grave."

He is thoughtful. "My first birthday without Dad."

"I know. It's sad, but we'll all be together."

"Okay. Maybe we can sing the birthday song in the off-key crazy way Dad had."

"Of course," I say. "It's a family tradition."

Allen smiles at me and walks into the kitchen to get a snack. "I'm making you tea!" he says.

"Nice," I say. Magical thinking may not bring his father back, but it has been helping Allen cope with his loss and move into a world without his father at his own pace and in his own time. I hear him in the kitchen now, talking to himself as he fills the tea kettle, takes a mug from the cabinet, gathers up the creamer and the sugar. Step by step, he reminds himself what needs to be done. He gets to the other side of the task.

He, like his brother and sister, is getting to the other side, beginning to imagine life without Ron.

I look at the family picture on the shelf next to my desk, a photo taken years ago when the kids were small and Ron was well. On some plane, on some level, Ron still exists. Then I feel a tear escape from my eye. I, too, am learning to move into a life without my husband. 

I think I am going to miss the Saturday journeys. Even though I knew Allen's magical thinking would not bring Ron back, it was nice to keep the magic alive just a while longer. 

My Love Letter

Dear Ron,

Happy Anniversary! Today would have been 45 years for us, 45 years for two crazy kids who had no money, few skills, and no idea how hard life would be. The night before our wedding, I worried that I would  not be able to love you in the way that you deserved.  But I knew we were meant to face life  together. When we promised to love each other--no matter what--we were both too young to know just what "the no matter what" could be. 

It didn't take us long to find out.

Somehow, we managed to scrap together enough money for a down-payment on our "starter house", the place where we lived all of our married life. Within the walls of that three-bedroom row home, we raised three kids and provided shelter to the horde of "Lost boys" who joined our ranks and stretched our food budget. There was never quite enough money, but there was always more than enough love.

Those years raising the kids on a shoestring might have seemed hard at the time, but they were only practice for what was to come. We learned, in the first 19 years of our marriage, to stick together, to uplift each other. The love I had for you when I was twenty grew by leaps and bounds. We learned to laugh even when the cupboards were bare and the bills were deep. We learned to hang onto each other and onto God.

Then came the tough years. In 1992--the same year I returned to college to finish my purloined degree in education--you began to show signs of mental strain. Our furniture and our walls suffered as you often needed to take out your inner demons on physical items. We rode the roller coaster of bipolar disorder for years while you fought your battles and I did all I could to protect the kids. Those years really tested my commitment to you and there were times my love wore a bit thin. But I was--and am--a girl who honors her promises. I stayed. After seven years of hospitalizations and therapists, you made some progress. Life settled down. I finished my degree, started on a Master's, and took a job as a teacher. At last, money was no longer a major issue.

We enjoyed the lull for a few months. Right up until March 2, 2000, when the driver of a red pickup truck ran a red light, broadsided your Taurus, and put you in the hospital for ten months. Despite our best efforts, despite multiple surgeries and heartfelt prayers, you never really recovered. My heart--once afraid I could not love you enough--broke to see the pain you faced. 

Somehow, we found a way to make it work. I got my Master's, got a better job, began work on a doctorate. It wasn't easy. None of it was. But even with our lives bent out of shape, we still find pockets of happiness. Too many hospitals, too many surgeries, too many pieces of you left a piece at a time. Too much of me was stretched too thin. I was exhausted. But I still loved you. 

The older two kids left for their own lives. I stayed and held the pieces together. In the last few years, my love, I did everything I could to help ease your pain, to find you the care you needed. I would have willingly spent my last breath taking care of you.

God had other plans. He took you home to Him on July 13. Now I am walking life alone, but with the memory of you forever in my heart. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I take you with me.

Our life was seldom an easy one, but I would do it all again. Because, in the end, I really did love you enough.

Forever,


Linda