Mourning and loss isn’t an illness. We don’t want to recover from it. We don’t expect to recover.
We do, of course, hope to get past the initial shock and sadness. But the loss, that’s now and forever.
The loss is permanent. Burt’s not coming back. I mourn that loss.
It saddens me to have to live the rest of my life without Burt.
I know he’s not here, and I will go on without him.
It saddens me but I know I will go on. Without Burt. With Burt in my heart, in my memory; without Burt physically here. Burt’s here. Burt will always be with me.
I still greet him when I come home from my day out and about.
I still, sometimes, tell him about my day.
I still, sometimes, share things from my day that I think he would have enjoyed, or found interesting.
After he passed, I changed its configuration, flipping bedroom for livingroom. There is a kind of hush over both rooms.
In many ways, it doesn’t feel like it was his house these last few years. Well, that’s not completely true; actually the big brown chair – his recliner- was so identified as his that I refused to sit in it for a while. It was his chair.
The hospital bed is gone, and the rearranged furniture has the effect of taking the room out of his ownership.
The bedroom had definitely been Burt’s room. I stopped in to visit with him as soon as I came in from my outings, before I put down whatever I brought home.
The Burt who had inhabited our home was ill, he was impaired the last many years.
If the house doesn’t feel like it was Burt’s house, it’s because I had made it over. Really, I had to, to reclaim the better memories.
Caregiving carries with it a grand responsibility. Rather than make us grandiose, it humbles us.
One of my caregiver friends is as thrilled by the purple umbrella she gifted herself as a diva is by pearls, champagne and fancy chocolates. No diva, but a queen of caring.
My own experience has made me stronger but more pliable. I have become kinder and I judge less.
It’s not easy exercising patience now that Burt is no longer the prime customer for this precious personal mineral.
But I do. I choose the smooth ride of patience over a hot flash of anger. Most of the time. Burt has left me with this gift.
We shared this neighborhood for several months while the apartment across town was undergoing repairs. Once the renovation was completed, we often returned for theater.
Burt lamented that his address had changed from 555 West 42nd Street when mgmt put the front entry on W43rd. [Note that they have given the address to the ensite theater, see below.]
Soon after we met, his address changed again from the 500 block in midtown west to the 500 block on E72nd.
While he had my apartment refurbished, I moved into his rental and enjoyed the pool and amenities and walking to the pier with him.
We were in the heart of Bway so both Bway and off-Bway theaters were a really just a hop away.
Yesterday was a chance to go back for a revisit. I went to Theater555 (it housed the Pearl Theatre for a while as I recall, and under a different name) to enjoy Breakin’ NYC.
Like the apartment on East 72nd, this one was pretty far from the subway. I took the bus. And going home I walked along 8th Av to the favored M31.
Let me guide you through the map of pictures at the top of this bit of nostalgia.
After we left this Bway nabe, we found ourselves here often . We were avid theater goers, and the Signature Theater, Playwrights’ Horizons, and Theater Row brought us back.
Starting with the top photo left, this little motel was a home of gay pride. Now, it appears to have taken on a Hudson Yards identity.
Photo 2 is a tribute to the caprices of mgmt. (Full disclosure, not the same mgmt that elected to change Burt’s address back in the day.)
Pictured 3, 4, 5, are all The Little Pie Company, now 40 years old, a youngster in 1990. We were not regulars back in the day, but we were always fans.
On this occasion, I went for that elusive strawberry-rhubarb pie [despite a warning from my friend BW that its season was Apr-May.] Photo 2 is cherry Montmorency now in season and tart enough to be a proper substitute.
Going up 8th Av, there are snaps of building and traffic up to the 57th St stop where I caught my homeward bound bus. Some of the buildings and restaurants I passed were new to me but it all felt familiar. It’s pretty much just as it was when Burt and I walked up the Avenue.
Burt understood that when I bought him yet another hat, or one more shirt, it meant I loved him.
It’s the heart is a materialistic muscle approach but I did buy him colorful garb out of love. I wanted him dressed in nice shirts or hats he loved. I knew the hats [especially] would please him.
Burt was canny enough to know that the books I made for him for birthdays, other special occasions were also tokens of love.
That’s more like it. Your words of love mean that you love me.
It’s all true. Things, words, they all show how much I love you.
After my dream of us in a gazebo, I awoke to your vivid absence. It was startling and maybe it will be startling for ever not to have you here by my side.
Maybe, it’s startling because in so many ways you are here, by my side.
There are moments in my grief that I just want Burt back. I wish he were here. It’s an ache in my bones, my heart, behind my eyes.
I know it is just grief and missing him, that hurt I am feeling. He’s better off, given the progression of his illness.
It was time. But, I am wishing we could go out somewhere together, maybe for dinner or to a concert. Wishing, although he really could not go out even for the ice cream he wanted that Saturday back in December.
this is our life 