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AND CONTINUES
14 December 2007, 00:00
Ken’s friend Phil Poland wrote this to me:
I spent a lot of time talking with Ken and I’ll swear that everything he had of value is meant for you. You were the center of his life. He specifically wanted me to take the Board if he ever gave it up, but the shells and all other things of value were clearly to be yours if anything happened to him. He didn’t specifically mention the shells – just that you were the one in his life he cared most about – that you had each other – clearly meaning all that was his is yours.
What Phil wrote about how Kenny felt ((whether ken may have said it or not or maybe said something sorta similar) is one singular thing I can point too that has given me a strange sense of peace. I read it over and over. Ken was a quiet, stoic sort of guy, not one to show very much emotion in any situation. He was contemplative and silent sort of soul. Not like me. I’m use to large displays of emotion, I’m use to knock down drag outs. Like one particularly assholic boyfriend said once, I’m just a waterfall of emotion. Years ago, I quite often wondered how really happy he was with his life here with us. His interaction with the world became more and more computer centric and I often wondered if he had just given up on life a bit. He still would talk to me and interact with me, but sometimes I wondered if his squirreling himself in his computer room wasn’t some sort of sign that he was unhappy. (I later learned today, that this probably was because he was doing his shell collector activity and was quite a happy activity. apparently its a collector sort of thing). And when I KNEW he was just hiding from the world, I actually was able to prod him out and get him to reconnect, but I felt weird about prodding someone to participate in the life around him more. It felt almost fraudulent.
Lately, in the last year especially, he seem to reengage a bit more, seemingly to care a bit more, seemingly to be more invested in life and the future. We didn’t talk deep conversations, just about the usual daily life stuff, so we never really did the exploring of the touchy feely. I did always make sure I told him I loved him and that he really knew it in some way. I was hoping he felt it. I was thinking I knew he was happy, but there was always lingering doubt, because, in my life, I’ve always had to take things like this with a grain of salt. I was never one to need reassurance constantly, but as everyone, I think sometimes I DID need it.
This has given me real peace to KNOW, really KNOW that he loved me and maybe was happy with his life. I’m so afraid to go through his email and his things because I might run across something that he has written that would tell me he wasn’t happy or there was some injustice or slight that we have done, that we cannot go back and right. And I so wanted to do right by ken. I always was feeling that I didn’t do things right or good enough whether it was true or imagined. i was afraid that sometimes he may have felt trapped by us. This last year when we got the house, things seem to make him really truly happy and at peace. But now, I do find myself looking for little bits of validation, or evidence that his life was a happy one, and that we made him happy. And what Phil has wrote has given me a little peace in that area.
I tend to write out things, a way I work things out. I want to let you know where I am in my head because I know a lot of people worry about me, especially since I’m alone at home. Someone asked me if I was having suicidal thoughts. I thought that was a weird thing (but a very caring thing) to ask because if I was, I don’t think I would tell anybody, and I’m not sure a real suicidal thought is. Lots of time I feel like I want to not wake up from sleeping, but I’m hoping that’s not an indication of something rash I would do. I couldn’t leave the rest of my little family like that, and I would never want to. Someone said to me normalcy was going to change for me. It did almost overnight, not in just that ken was gone, but that things I never preferred to do like sleep with the lights and the TV on (ken did this often) now I have to do. My sleep is irregular and I don’t know how I’m going to deal with that when I go back to the real world. I don’t know how ordinary things are going to effect me when I go back to the real world, when everything goes back to normal for everyone but me. How do you cope when life DOES go on, but you haven’t kept up.
I’ve appreciated all the support and love that have come from all corners. But to tell the honest truth, especially in the beginning, I was very numb to all of it. i know the bereavement couseling is suppose to be good for me, and I will do it, but its like talking to a stranger who has all the “proper” things to say, the “right” things to say. It’s not like talking to friend who really know me or knew ken. I know all the “proper” answers and they ring really hollow. But I feel very bad that this GIANT thing in my life is something I try to make GIANT in others lives. This will probably be the only forum I will be exploring and going through things. And maybe when time has gone by, I will gather all that I have written, in email replies, in post and put it together as a column permanently. I know people have said I could talk to them anytime, but I don’t ever want to invade someone else’s life with these things that I am going through now. Life is hard enough to get through without having to live through someone else’s tragedy over and over again. mostly I just wanted everybody to know I love you and I thank you.
i just realized that me and ken have this in common too. The long working out of things through writing.
(smile)
****
After talking and spending time with his family and friends, I realize that we may have known two different kens. I knew the ken after he was traumatized by death and withdrew from everyone, and they knew the “normal” ken, the ken that wasn’t a lost soul, a sad soul, or I guess the changed soul. It has put thoughts in my head that maybe if I had met the real ken, the one that they knew, would he still have loved me? I know we connected because we were similar. But, were we similar because I was soul sick and lost and we just matched at the time? Would he have even given me a second thought or the third and fourth thoughts if he were normal and I was the big fat mess I was, and still am most of the time? Our kennys were so different it seems to me. The two worlds our kennys existed in are so different. They can’t seem to understand why someone would withdraw so completely, but I could. It was like they were struggling to understand why he would do things he did that was “going down the bad path” when I could and could very deeply and instantly. I felt a stranger in their world. In the normal world of loving families and expectation and connection. I more than understood being alone, standing alone, being mostly disconnected. I lived it all my life. I understood, I lived that “bad path” they couldn’t understand. And I felt bad. I felt that the only reason I even had a person like kenny in my life is because he went down the “bad path.” I felt alone in a room full of people who loved kenny. I felt ashamed that I was a reminent of kenny’s “bad path.” Because if there was anything I wanted for kenny, I wanted the best for him. I had felt like, I was the one step before complete abyss. They didn’t mean to make me feel like that, I know. I just did. I wonder if the normal kenny would have loved me as my kenny did. The one that seemed to disappoint and withdraw from these people.
