Since March and the start of the pandemic, I recorded over 150 “Walks in the Woods” and posted them on YouTube. They helped me process the pandemic and Donald Trump. Sabine encourage them because I think she new they were helping me be a better companion! (See also the nearly 20 “Sock Hop” videos we made during the Covid-19 era.)
Since Sabine’s death, I have not been able to record another of these 4-6 minute woody reflections. My pain is too raw now, but perhaps in a few months I will get back on YouTube. Except for one or two of the 150+ posts, I stayed out of politics and some practical ways of surviving the isolation of the pandemic.
While I am not recording at present, I still walk in our woods each day to think and reflect; sort of mining and processing my emotional life. Sabine was a great supporter and encourager of these walks — just as she did for many of many interests from skydiving to poetry and book-writing.
Yesterday morning was a good example of that “mining and processing.”.
Here are my thoughts hiking with my trusty canine sidekick, Mocha.
Selecting the photos I used in yesterday’s blog and the events in our life they represented (compassing over 40 years) led me to realize that somehow revisiting my life with Sabine helps my healing — even though going through almost a thousand pictures was mixed with tears and occasional wrenching sobbing.
The walks are not just intellectual (mining and processing) they are also spiritual as I question and even yell at God trying understand why things happen as they do.
Within this mix, I feel healing slowly beginning and sense of peacefulness amidst the pain of losing her. (I remember once a clergy friend, also a trained therapist, told me to beware that Sabine and I were “joined at the hip.” I knew what he meant, but Sabine and I talked about our emotional dependance on one another and decided we liked it just like it was. And, perhaps, my friend was not willing to make that kind of emotional commitment to his spouse because of the deep, passionate, “joined-at-the-hip” commitment to one another Sabine and I had.)
At the same, I realize the adventure we had together, like everything else in life, has an ending. Doesn’t everything eventually end for us mortals? I mean we can’t ride the merry-go-round forever. All stuff, including relationships, eventually ends...
Yesterday morning on my walk in the woods (now peppered with tearв), I realized that Sabine did not have to deal with my death. That Sabine, dying before me, transferred the pain of losing one’s soul mate from her to me so that she did not have to experiment the pain of losing me.
So, think about it. Between the two of us, who was best positioned to survive the death of the other? Quite obviously ME! For if Sabine had to deal with my death on top of her illness would have been far worse for her and, quite frankly, would have been very unfair That’s a reality.
Am I giving her the loving gift of surviving? Standing in, even sacrificially, to let her die peacefully and with dignity. That’s what I am thinking. “Sweety, this is my gift to you!” I promised I would care for you at home as you started to die from this cancer. The diagnosis was inevitable 12 years ago. I am doing what she did not have to experience.
she did not have to suffer? Yes, it was a gift?
I gave her everything I have learned and knew about death and dying pastorally and lovingly as her soul-mate? Yes, God being my witness, I did!
This is what I learned, what I realized, as I walked in our woods yesterday among the newly-fallen snow on a trail through the woods that we have walked since 1980. Even among the new snowfall, shadows of her footsteps still remained.
Note: Today is our 40th wedding anniversary! What a glorious time we had!
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