Goodbye 2012, You Jerk

Dear 2012,

You really have been a shithead of a year.  I think we can safely say you have been the worst year I've experienced, if for no other reason because Ron died in you, on 5/8/12, and he was the love of my life.  I don’t think any other crappy year can top that . . . the loss of my partner, my soul mate, the one who made me whole.  No matter what these other years dish out, you truly take the cake as being my shittiest.

I am eagerly looking forward to bidding you farewell.  I wish I could do it good and proper.  I wish I could kick your ass while I was at it.  I want to scream in your face and tell you how much you suck.  I want to pound on your chest and kick you in the gut until you are doubled over and writhing in pain, much like how I would crumple and curl into fetal position on the floor in random rooms of my home for so many months after Ron died, whenever I was hit with the totality of the loss.  However, you are just a year.  And how can one fight a year?  You are not a tangible thing.  You have no face for me to smash.  No shins for me to kick.  This makes me even madder at you.

But I cannot pretend that nothing good happened in you, 2012.  The worst event of my life transpired, it is true, but there were a lot of precious and wonderful moments and events that cannot be ignored.  As crazy as it seems to have so much anger and hatred toward you, I can’t part without acknowledging the nicer stuff, too.

2012, I am grateful for the 128 days I got to spend with my darling Ron Clark.  It was not the best of times, as he lost more and more function and I had to leave work to take care of him.  It was not like we were having a party when just helping him with basic functions took up a huge amount of our days.  But it was time we had together.  He was still alive.  I could look at him, kiss him, talk to him.  We fell asleep together telling each other that we loved one another.  I even treasured taking care of him and helping him in every way that he needed it.  I really wish he would have spent more days alive in you, but the way he went was the way he wanted - quickly, peacefully, in our home, and with no drama.  I am glad that it worked out that way and that I was at his side when he stopped breathing.  There are so many worse ways it could have gone and I am glad it went the way it did and glad for getting to spend so much time with him while I was off work.  Sick Ron is not the Ron I remember when I think about him, but admittedly it is the Ron I got to know the closest. 

I got married in you, 2012.  I know I said I never would do it.  I have been in very long relationships and never wanted to take it to that step.  I just didn't see the point – I can be committed and love someone without the “wife” and “husband” words coming into play.  But I confessed to my little sister a few months after (re)meeting Ron in early 2009 that if I ever were to marry someone, it would be him.  I knew he was the one.  I loved him at first sight.  All of that mushy stuff.  And I have been told Ron was saying the same thing to his confidants.  And we were telling each other we wanted to get married ridiculously early on in the relationship, but there were all these other things in the way to get through first.  Then he got diagnosed and we were so busy fighting cancer.  In early spring 2011, Ron asked me, “seriously, Heather” to marry him.  I was driving west and he was in the passenger seat of my car.  We had just seen a movie with a happy ending and he was choked up.  I knew why; it was the same reason I was.  The movie ended with footage of the man and the woman hanging clothes out on the line with all of their animals in the yard of their country house and their children playing nearby.  It was an ending he and I both knew we would never be granted, but so desperately wanted.  A simple, peaceful, long domestic life together.  I think he saw marriage as a way to make that unattainable dream closer to real.  I answered yes.  And then I attempted to start planning a wedding . . . while also working full time at a stressful job, taking care of him and the house and the dogs, going with him to his appointments, and planning a bucket-list U.P. vacation for him, all while trying to take as little time off from work as possible so that I would have some paid time off saved up for when he really needed me.  It was simply way too much.  I began having nightmares and intense anxiety.  Ultimately, I told Ron I just couldn't plan it, so maybe we shouldn't pursue it.  Ron, sick and weak from chemotherapy, said he would plan it.  A few days later, he acknowledged he couldn't do it, either.  So, we postponed wedding plans and truthfully, I didn't think it would ever happen.  But, 2012, you brought so many people into our lives, including the wonderful folks from Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan.  Several of them talked about other clients who had small ceremonies in their homes, officiated by the hospice chaplain, as a means to get married.  As soon as Ron heard this, he became focused on making it happen.  So, while I was off work and with just a few weeks of planning, we made it happen.  On 3/9/12, I married my best friend in our home with just eight people in attendance, including the chaplain.  2012, you brought me the worst, but you also brought me the best.  That day is so special in my memory, both because it made me so happy, but also because of the immense happiness it brought to Ron.  I will always remember the contented glow he had around him. 

2012, you also played host to Ron’s 30^th birthday on 4/28/12.  It was a milestone that he greatly feared he would not make it to.  We celebrated with a huge party and he said he had the best birthday ever.  I am glad to have that day and the outpouring of support we received to reflect back on.   

In fact, one strong theme of goodness from you, 2012, was the steady communication from friends and family that Ron and I experienced during his illness.  We had so much support.  My coworkers arranged for Food Fairies, which transformed into a cleaning fairy when we no longer could handle so much food.  Ron’s family and friends came down to visit at least once a week.  My brother and sister-in-law who live in Kalamazoo came over to spend time with us and to help with whatever was needed.  My friends and more distant family checked in and offered words of support.  Both Ron and I experienced a blending of our friends, as some of my friends genuinely loved Ron almost as completely as I do and some of his friends have become close to me in what I hope will become lifelong friendships.  And of course we became a part of one another’s families; this was already in place before, but strengthened in 2012.  Everywhere we turned, people helped us out, including our hospice team and volunteers, some of the staff at the West Michigan Cancer Center, and the phenomenal team at Borgess Interventional Radiology that took extra steps to celebrate special occasions and had Ron looking forward to every one of his at least weekly visits there.  I feel so blessed to have had complete strangers offering help – companies that donated their services, friends who asked church congregations or family members who didn't know us to assist us, and even the check we received from Giving Anonymously (which I am sure came from someone we knew, but I don’t know who).  Financially, we were taken care of out of sheer kindness from others.  2012, you forced me to become more humble, to admit that I couldn't do it all alone, and to ask for and accept help.  Those are BIG BIG issues for me and you forced me to face them.  You also gave me so much to be grateful for in a time of so much sadness and loss.

I spent many months during you, 2012, wanting to be dead and thinking about ways to make this happen.  Even as I was back to work and screening suicidal clients, I listened to them and actually found myself considering the methods they suggested.  I know this is really sick and I could see that, even when I was in the situation.  I had a lot of self-awareness.  I just saw no hope.  I saw a life I didn't want extending out before me for way too long of a time for me to accept.  I did not want to be alive without Ron (there are some moments when I still feel this way).  There was nothing anyone could have said or done to make me feel differently.  And probably anyone who wanted to say anything to try to help me, I pushed away.  Losing Ron has been such a blow to my heart, my soul, my psyche, my sense of self, my future, my everything. 

Still, something has shifted in me.  2012, you brought me closer to something I had been admiring for four years now.  I started going to roller derby practices.  Roller derby is a sport I love, but not one I ever really thought I would do.  I am not an athlete.  Ron Clark was the one who bought me all the gear in a fresh meat package and so strongly encouraged me to pursue it.  He wanted me to join a team while he was still alive so he could see me skate.  Really, I happen to know from conversations early on in our relationship that he has wanted to date a cute derby girl since well before I met him.  But, for the same reasons I couldn't plan a wedding, I couldn't do derby and take care of him during his illness.  So, we started talking about me doing derby after he died, as a way to pick myself up and give myself a new hobby while paying tribute to him and his wishes for me.  Of course, when he died, I didn't feel like doing anything.  None of the hobbies he and I talked about me pursuing sounded good anymore.  Nothing I used to enjoy sounded appealing.  And certainly the idea of starting something new was overwhelming.  I really have to thank my friend Jen O for also being interested and being an accountabilibuddy to make me show up for a Battle Creek Cereal Killers practice one night.  Even though her schedule has not allowed her to pursue it, I saw derby and thought, ‘yeah, maybe I could do this.’  And so I have been.  I go to as many practices as I am able to (there are three per week).  I still am not completely comfortable on my skates and my body doesn’t always do what I tell it to and sometimes I feel like I am an imposter, but I am learning and getting better every time I skate.  Yesterday, after just under three months of practicing, I passed the skating part of my derby evaluations.  I am ecstatic.  This is something I was not sure I could do.  It will allow me to get more involved in practice drills with my team so I can learn to give and take hits.  And it brings me closer to being able to participate in a bout, which is my ultimate dream and was Ron’s dream for me.  Derby is changing the way I see myself.  It gives me something to work hard for.  It gives me something to throw my time and energy into.  It gives me hope.  It gives me a way to feel like I am still making Ron proud.  I just wish I could have showed him this side of me while he was alive; I think he would have loved me even more.  2012, thank you for getting me more closely involved in roller derby and especially for letting me pass my eval just before the year’s end.  It is a truly triumphant close to what has overall been a wildly craptastic year.

I am in such a different place right now than I was when 2012 began.  At the start of the year, I saw myself only in relation to Ron.  To being his caregiver.  To being his partner.  To responsibly and efficiently getting all of our needs met, including coordinating visits with his friends while not having much time to spend with my own.  I didn't see it then, but his cancer had taken away my self-identity.  Cancer just kind of takes over everything. 

When Ron died, I became his widow.  I was absorbed in my grief.  I regressed back to some pretty unhealthy ways of behaving and thinking.  I felt insane.  Crazy.  Like high school all over again.  Unstable.  Inconsolable.  Dark.  Deeply depressed.  Smoking.  Thinking of ways to not exist anymore.  Parts of me resurfaced that I had not seen in years – parts I was sure I had outgrown.  Grief has a way of bringing out the worst in you, I guess, though there were also moments when I think it brought out the best, too. 

As you draw to a close, 2012, I find myself not totally absorbed in grief or in taking care of someone.  So what am I?  I am in the process of becoming, I think.  I am becoming myself.  I am figuring out who that is and what that looks like.  I am still in love with Ron and still miss him terribly.  There are still occasional moments when I don’t want to go on.  But, by and large, I am filling my life up with things I like.  I have hope for something in my future.  I am getting very used to being alone and have come to really like it.  I can see myself staying single for many years, if not the rest of my life, and just being glad for the amazing love story I did have with Ron during our short time together.  I have the memories, his words, our photos . . . it might not be ideal, but it has to be enough. 

Goodbye, 2012.  I can’t say I would ever want to repeat the experience of living through you again.  I honestly feel like I barely survived – there were so many moments I came close to not.  But I also cannot say I wouldn't want to have you at all, since you have brought me so many good moments.  Let’s just be glad our time together is done and usher in 2013.  I always prefer odd numbers.  Here’s to hoping 2013 is a year of more self-growth and becoming whatever it is that I am.  Here’s to hoping there will be less sorrow in my life and also less sorrow experienced by those I care about who have also faced tragedy, serious illness, trauma, violence, and/or significant loss during 2012.  You were a year of mixed experiences, from some of the very worst to some of the very best.  Unfortunately for you, the loss I experienced was unimaginably enormous.  It far outweighs the good stuff, so I am glad to be rid of you, 2012.  Bring on 2013!

In always too much honesty,

Heather Belle