Middle school-aged students in their school athletic uniforms gathered at the port, large backpacks and wheeling suitcases in hand. A flock of adults huddled around – presumably a combination of school staff and parents. Cars periodically pulled up with parents escorting their kids to join the others, unconcerned with leaving their cars in no-parking zones (which are really more of a suggestion or aspiration here than a legal reality). The Patmos Junior High soccer team was ready for their big match against some other team up the Dodecanese chain. Which one? I don't know other than the ferry their waiting for goes to islands to the northeast instead of south toward Rhodes – and it's not the ferry to Athens. Will they be playing the Warrior Nymphs of Kos or the Samos Titans? I can be sure they won't be playing any teams with Trojans or Spartans – those actually mean something here.
The scene looked familiar – kids gathering to depart for a distant away game. Only instead if a yellow school bus, they get on an orange catamaran speed ferry and go to another island. Funny how similar and different the world can be at the same time. Especially since I noticed the scene while moving my car because I realized I couldn't stay questionably parked at the marina in case the local ferry/tour ship that usually docks there returned. Instead, I moved to the parking lot by the Chris Hotel with no rules other than they don't ticket you if your car is in it.
In Thai and a number of Southeast Asian and South Asian languages, there is no word for similar. There is only the same. What happens when you need to compare and contrast? How does one express overlap, spectrum and subtlety? Same same, but not same. Not only is it an inefficient use of words, but it doesn't quite hit the mark of similar. Still, it's usually close enough for government work.
Yesterday at the end of my chickpea lunch, I got chatting with Giliakakis, the restaurant owner's son. His grandfather opened the restaurant in 1951 and his cousin are he third generation of the Flisvos family to run it. They are starting to take over from their fathers who have carried the torch for more than 25 years and who still aren't ready to leave the restaurant completely the hands of mere thirty-somethings. Besides, Giliakakis' father is a fixture – the face of Flisvos that most of us know and recognize: kind, charming, welcoming but with that Greek talent of not hurrying to help anyone until done with his cigarette.
The check was 20.50 euros, so I pulled out 21. Giliakakis said not to bother, 20 euros is fine. I said that as an American, I am uncomfortable not tipping, so I'd rather pay a little too much anyway – and I actually pulled out three euros. He said it's not expected to tip here. I said I understand, so I've tried to compromise on tipping one or two euros, which I understand to be the European way of tipping, if they tip at all. Giliakakis said that Europeans are the least likely to tip, but Greeks – especially locals – are more likely to give a gratuity, especially if they have ordered a lot or had a large party. Through that and several other comments, I realized that to him, despite the currency and the blue flag with a circle of yellow stars in certain places, Greece isn't Europe. The French and Germans are Europeans. Greeks are Greeks – warm, hospitable, family oriented, generous and a bit chaotic. Unlike the Europeans.
Same same, but not same.
The other day, my Dad suggested that going through a divorce is like mourning. You go through the grief and pain of something dying, something you valued and miss. I realized he's right. For me, the hard part is that while a divorce is highly likely, it's also not for certain. I have to leave room that anything is possible in ten weeks and Emily might decide she wants to try further and not jump into divorce. I can't know. So, maybe this is a same same, but not same situation? Maybe this is more like when a loved one is in the ICU, on life support or going through pancreatic cancer. You know the odds are terrible so you start mourning. You say all the things you need to say. You face the impending loss and grief but can also be tortured by a flicker of hope, the off-chance something works. Some people come off the life support. I know someone who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer more than three years ago – and through various treatments, she's still around – albeit in a constant battle against cancer cells that might be repelled, but never give up their assault.
Still, framing this time and process as one that involves mourning is useful. I understand mourning and loss. In fact, I think death and loss are one of life's challenges I'm best at meeting. I'm always surprised that so many people are so jolted by death or at such a loss as to what to do. For me, I think it's a combination of not finding death fearful and the example my mother gave when my Bubbee died. My mom, to her credit, is also not afraid of death. I think to her – as to me – it's an inevitable end that is neither painful and may well lead to some other, interesting plane of existence.
Perhaps that's why when her mother was dying, she managed to perform a tremendous balancing act – sad without falling apart, present enough to support her kids (especially me who was distraught and developing gastric pain over it), able to show up for her parents and in the end, she helped organized the funeral and shiva. My mom demonstrated that when a tragic loss occurs, we can both feel deeply about it and rise to the occasion. Or said another way, we aren't faced with the choice of functional repression or falling apart. She was also generous with the fact that she had feelings and so did everyone around her – and that was fine. I learned that in some ways, moments of loss that can overwhelm people and tear families apart are my mom's finest hour. She has a clear and grounded view of what to do in times of loss – and at the time of experiencing my first loss, I absorbed her approach. It worked and it has always made sense to me.
When I remember the four or so months that my Bubbee was dying from a ravenous and unmerciful pancreatic cancer for which in 1989 there were no viable treatments, I think of my mom taking daily walks around the lake, her frequent trips to the hospital, her bringing me medicine at school for my gastroenteritis and late night conversations over casserole dishes full of raisin rice pudding. There are many moments of my growing up years I wish my mom and I could replay differently, but not those four months.
We each can mean very different things to different people. As is common in the difference between parental versus grandparent relationships, my mom's relationship with her mother was far more complex than mine was with her mother. My Bubbee was one of the most special, loving people in my life. She saw me and made me feel very loved. She was exceptionally generous. I loved everything about her – and she made me feel that she loved everything about me. That's as good as it gets. So the loss was devastating and profound. To this day, I have trouble talking about her – even writing about her – without tears.
As the severity of her illness and the conclusion that it was terminal became apparent, we all began mourning the living. While in a way it sounds terrible, losses from cancer and terminal illness can almost be easier for the living. We say goodbye in phases and degrees. We can say everything that needs to be said. We have time to think of what needs to be said – time to recognize what someone means to us and the regrets we might want to express. We can know our loved one's wishes. We can hold the hand of the departing. The loss is tragic, painful and yet, frequently less soul shattering than an unexpected event or accident.
I have never seen anyone in as much pain as my college friend Jason's parents when he tragically drowned swimming in Seattle's Greenlake the night before his last final exam of sophomore year. He was their only son and a wonderful person. It was as if all of their happiness, stability and purpose sunk into that lake too and it took them many years to find any joy or hope again. Jason's mom eventually developed a blockage in a tear duct and took that as a sign.
Five and a half years after my Bubbee died, and one year before Jason, my Aunt Jan passed away from a lung cancer that metastasized throughout her body. A possibly negligent physician either missed or dismissed the signs and by the time the cancer was discovered, there was no hope. Only Aunt Jan – in passing as in life – broke the mold. While the time of someone passing allows for mourning to begin, I was thrown for a loop. Jan seemed to quickly and gracefully come to terms with her fate. She embraced her exit and used her remaining time to have phone conversations with everyone who mattered to her and even a party at her hospice. The last time I spoke to her – two weeks or less before her death – Aunt Jan was chipper. She asked me all about me. She assured me she was fine. She sounded genuinely good. It almost made me question if the information my mom had been reporting was right. How could a single-mom dying of cancer and leaving behind her 17 year-old daughter be so fine? How could I be more mournful than she was? She wanted to go out on a high note – so what did that leave me? I was up at college – so I was all the more removed and without context.
I loved my Aunt Jan. She lived five minutes away from us and was very present in my life. Aunt Jan was sweet, loving, serendipitous, often impractical, artistic, fun, sometimes flighty and made the densest cakes I have ever had. She always connected with me and cared. She had a photo of me at age three animatedly talking on a toy phone on display in her house because she just loved it. She bought me Double-Stuff Oreos when they came out – and my mom wouldn't get them for me (for reasons that today seem very obvious and reasonable). And she taught me about magenta, cyan, burgundy, amber, chartreuse, sea-green, turquoise and all the in-between colors. In fact, if I had to sum up my Aunt Jan in a few words, I would say that she was all the in-between colors.
After her funeral and the obvious sadness of the moment, I rarely thought about Jan and when I did, it was with lightness and happiness. Until one evening, about three months before getting married – after a meeting with the wedding planner, no less – I was at a gas station on Ventura Boulevard. I had the simplest thought that Jan wouldn't be at my wedding – and I fell apart right there, four gallons into filling the tank of my Saab. It was as if I had been punched in the stomach or a giant wave had come crashing down on me. I couldn't stop crying for a half hour. In fact, I was beside myself in part because I didn't know why I couldn't stop crying. Apparently Jan's outgoing celebration that threw me off when she was dying left me to wall-off the grief and the dam burst. Now I cry every time I think of her.
In the end, there's no escaping grief. There is no skipping mourning. You can delay it, do it in pieces, grieve intermittently. Some grief is life-long and you just have to settle-in knowing it will surface at different moments and ways – often unexpected. So often, I see people perceive grief as linear – being strongest and most present at the point of loss and then tapering-off slowly until it's dissipated and we return to "normal". That seems to be our cultural expectation, but I don't think that's at all how it really works. Sometimes we feel little at the time of loss – blinded by shock or denial. Frequently, it's in the little moments when you would have expected your lost one's presence where the grief kicks in. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, fishing trips, washing the dishes on a Tuesday night, at your child's school play, when you see someone who looks like them, hear a similar voice, run into a friend of theirs, see magenta or pump gas at a Shell station in Tarzana.
I don't know for certain my marriage will die. It likely will. So I wonder what those things will be that trigger the grief? If it does die, will I do like with my Aunt Jan's loss and wall-off the grief while getting through the moment? Or will I follow my mom's example from my Bubbee's loss and manage to both have my feelings and keep it together? Can I stay present and strong in equal measures? Will I be able to be there for my kids as gracefully as my mom was there for me at that time? How deep will the pain go? Will I still be crying at triggers 26 years later, or is this kind of grief easier to release? And when I cry, who will I be crying for and why? I suspect it may be for more than what specifically was lost.
When a marriage dies, the body isn't buried. You live with the corpse and the ghosts. How will I handle my grief and pain in the face of a relationship I have to maintain with someone who no longer is who they once were to me? Someone who perhaps isn't even kind or respectful? When does the grief finally get put to bed? Or does it ever completely?
One of the reasons for mourning and grief is because we don't just lose someone else. Those people are part of us. Through whatever time of life and set of experiences we shared with them, they became part of us. Those moments were formative – for better and worse. They are a part of the fabric and texture of our lives – of who we are. We cry for the parts of ourselves we lose or are left with – whether it's something lovely like reminding us how valuable we are to something painful like the scars they left us. We wonder how we'll feel filled up again without them – or how we'll ever repair the damage they did and how we'll ever heal. Or both. And many more things.
In this case, after throwing everything I have into my marriage, it's hard to be told that all the love, dedication, devotion, responsibility, willingness – it's not enough. Who I am and what I have given don't move the needle. It's not the right thing. It wasn't worth fully reciprocating. I wasn't worth reciprocating. In the end, what I gave, how I loved, who I am didn't matter.
Intellectually, I can understand all the things going on for Emily. Her perspectives, emotional issues, psychological composition – all the rational reasons for how we got here. I can even understand which things are mine to own, and what I can comfortably and assuredly assign to her. I can externalize what is in fact, external. Our lives are shaped by many externalities – I understand that.
That's just not how it feel sometimes. Just like a loss isn't our fault and we can understand how our lives go on – and appreciate the gifts given from those we mourn – our hearts and psyches still take it hard. Inside, we are still tender, lost and alone in those moments. So we grieve.
Then I remember one of Sennen's wise moments. A couple of years ago, Emily was once worried he felt hurt by something someone said. At bedtime, she put her hand on his chest and said that she was sorry his heart hurt.
"Mommy, I'm fine. I'm not hurt. And our feelings are in our heads – I don't know why everyone thinks they're in our hearts."
