[Oe List ...] [earthrise] Witness: Beginning again

[larry@icatw.com]

I am sorry I meant to send this to one person and I sent it to the list 
without Susan's permission. I apologize.

With respect, Larry

larry at icatw.com wrote:
> This witness is not according to the schedule.  I'm not due to write 
> one yet, but I missed last year and today is a milestone for me, so 
> I'll just jump in.
>  
> I am learning to live alone for the first time after 40 years of 
> marriage.  When my husband, George, died last year, I couldn't fathom 
> that I was alone at first.  And then, when the horror of his being 
> gone morphed into the consuming activity of putting together the 
> funeral and letting friends know and family arriving, I could almost 
> evade the reality of it for awhile.  But when the funeral was over and 
> friends and family gone, I was alone in a way I've never been alone in 
> my life.  I would never hear George laugh again, or tell me what had 
> gone wrong in my life was okay, or convince me that I was competent 
> when I felt stupid, or tease me out of a funk, or smile and make 
> everything right, or tell me how much he needed me.  I was left 
> grasping to hold onto memories of how brave he was, how tender he 
> could be, what a sense of humour he had, how passionate about life he 
> was, and I was left with only an echo of the intimacy we shared.  
> What carried me through was my faith and my church, and a caring son 
> who took on the responsibility, this first year, of spending more time 
> with me than he could really afford.
>  
> Today is the first anniversary of George's death.  My older son came 
> over and spent the night with me last night and went to church and 
> lunch and the cemetery with me today.  It was a beautiful day, and I 
> felt able to celebrate George's life instead of mourning his loss so 
> keenly.  Little by little this year, I have begun to accept that my 
> life is not going to be what I always expected it would be.  I'm not 
> going to grow old with my husband.  He's really gone.  I think today I 
> realized that I always thought if my husband died I would feel his 
> presence -- and I don't.  I haven't in this whole hard year.  He is 
> just really gone.  There is a sense of abandonment, and the reality of 
> aloneness in life, despite family and friends, is deep.  But today, 
> for the first time, I feel as though I am ready to move into this new 
> phase of my life, whatever that is.
>  
> I'm reading Joan Didion's book about the loss of her husband, "The 
> year of Magical Thinking," and she describes how she realized at some 
> point that she hadn't been willing to give away her husband's shoes 
> because he would need them if he came back.  On the face of it that 
> sounds just ridiculous, but that is kind of how I have felt this 
> year.  I've had so many dreams in which George was alive again, and i 
> was having to explain to everyone who sent flowers or came to the 
> funeral that he wasn't really dead, and I've been worried, in those 
> dreams, because I sent all his suits and shoes to the Salvation Army 
> and threw away his shaving gear.  "He can't really be gone" hovered 
> about in my psyche the whole year, even though I knew he was.  Today 
> it's like I woke up and said to myself, "He's really gone."  And I'm 
> at peace with that.  I'm ready to give him up to the Lord, and I don't 
> think I have been until now.  And I'm finally ready to figure out the 
> rest of my life.  How many times in this life so far have i had to 
> begin again in one way or another?  Countless times, though nothing 
> like this.  Something like an ant building and rebuilding his anthill 
> every time it gets squashed or washed away, only this time there is a 
> crater to fill.  But the Lord is ever faithful, and over and over 
> stands with us as we begin again.  and again.  and again.
>  
>
>     /George Dykes and Susan Fertig-Dykes first became involved with
>     EI/ICA in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1971 through an RS-I.  They
>     became part of the cadre, took other courses, were part of the
>     Religious House experiment in Caracas with Rev. Bruce and Marcie
>     Bunker and Fr. Ralph Davila, and helped recruit the first ITI
>     there in 1973.  (While living in Caracas, George attended a
>     Guardians meeting at Centrum, but Susan's first visit there was
>     last year.)  They moved to Houston, Texas, at the end of 1973 and
>     engaged with the cadre and the Religious House there with Priors
>     Don and Christina Clark and Sherwood Shankland and Sunny Walker
>     and others.  They were deeply involved in the Town Meeting 76
>     effort before moving to Denver in the summer of 1976 and
>     disengaging from the Spriti Movement until 1993 when Susan started
>     up ICA branches in Croatia and then in Bosnia during the war
>     there.  Susan is now working at USAID buidling democracy in former
>     communist countries of Europe and Eurasia.  In the space of a
>     year, between April 2004 and April 2005, she experienced the
>     deaths of her mother-in-law, her only and younger sister, and her
>     husband./
>
>  
>  
> Susan Fertig-Dykes
> telephone: (703) 751-5956
> Email: Susan at gmdtech.com <mailto:Susan at gmdtech.com>
>  
>
>
> LAURELCG at aol.com wrote:
>> In a message dated 4/3/06 11:15:09 AM, shahn at iquest.net writes:
>>
>> << I'm afraid Susan's witness never made it to my mailbox (and I am on the 
>> earthrise list).  Could someone please forward it to me?  Thanks! >>
>>
>> I didn't get it either.  I don't know about the earthrise list.  I've 
>> wondered about Susan a lot, and would love to receive her witness.
>>
>> Jann McGuire
>>
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>>
>>
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