Falling

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Episode Transcript:

[Music]
[Singing]

♪ Hush, hush ♪
♪ Somebody's calling my name ♪
♪ ♪ 

[Music]

It's autumn. I can feel her cool, golden breath.

The leaves haven't taken the hint—not yet, not yet. But they do look tired.

Almost as if being green is a bit overwhelming. And I can empathize. I don't feel green either.

[Music]

There was always something about the fall, the anticipation of starting a fresh, new classroom, new teacher, back to school. The crisp, white notebook pages of life awaiting new stories and new adventures.

Oh, how I wish I could write… a new song.

[Singing]

♪ A new song. ♪

♪♪

[Music]

Last season, I left you with a letter written to my beloved Phil. And I don't know, I thought it was a thing, this goodbye, something said to make it final a moment in time. But Grief has had me stumbling again and again, falling through, goodbye-ing with every passing season.

[Various voices]

Dear Phil.
Dear Papa.
Hey Dad.
Dear Papa.
Dear Phil.
Dear Papa.
Hey Papa.
Hi Phil.
I can hardly believe it's been over two years since you've begun.
I can't even tell how long it's been because I feel your presence daily.
It seems as if it were just yesterday—that we took a break and went to fish.
We just found such solace in the quietness of the place.
Chatting in the office or scurrying off to some meeting or presentation.
I do miss hearing your voice.
I miss hearing, you know, hearing you speak and all in the kind words you always had to say about me.
But I think about you every day and every time I see a rainbow.
Which makes us smile.
And these past two years have been super crazy, but I've been—holding it together.
And you've given us all the life skills we've needed to be able to do that. So I thank you, thank you, thank you for that.
You were so incredibly encouraging and supportive.
I'm hearing your voice in my own voice when I tell the kids what to do, and you being the model for being an excellent father/professional.
We're just that type of guy.
You were so much more than an architect. You were our state of grace. Your voice is always in our ears, reminding us to listen before we react. To consider a different point of view, to do the right thing. And you're still guiding us with your wisdom.
I'm just so grateful that I got a chance to know you.
You made the world better, and you made me better. Thank you. I miss you.
There's so many things that I remember and miss about you.
I miss your non-anxious presence.
I miss you.
Your work family misses you and thinks of you often.
And I miss you sitting on the left side of the congregation toward the back.
Now, since you left.
I've went to this cool summer camp. It's a ninja summer camp. And I've also went to outdoor survival camp. And I've learned how to survive outdoors and stuff. We made tents and roasted marshmallows.
And I've been building a lot of stuff with my art project stuff.
I've been doing a lot of singing and starting field hockey.
I've been growing a lot as a father, as an artist, and I've been seeing your attributes manifest through me.
You know, just the importance of music to our family, I think is really, you know, never ceases to amaze me.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWYXZ. Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me.
I love you.
So, I love you.
Bye.
I love you, too.
'Til next time.
I love you.
And see you later.
Until we meet again, my friend.
Bye.
I love you.

[Singing, scatting]
♪♪

Wow. I fell. I mean, I fell down. Now, I've fallen before in my life, but not quite like this. To have stumbled in the dark, misjudged a step, or slipped on a wet floor? Now, those kinds of falls seem perfectly reasonable. Could happen to anybody. The stories attached to those scenarios make all the sense in the world.

But this falling of mine? Well, let's just say it did catch my attention. And I've been creatively exploring falling as an act, an arc, and a meditation.

My grief journey has led me to places that I haven't felt ready to face. And I've made it my business to go out of my way to avoid. Usually, these are spaces that hold strong memories—like our favorite restaurant. It was just too much for me to even walk past, much less make a reservation.

Oh, Phil and I enjoy each other's company, laughing over a great meal? Wow. It felt hard. So I avoided even the proximity—an easy way for me not to remember.

[Singing]

♪ Not to remember. ♪
♪ I turn away. ♪
♪ Not to remember. ♪
♪♪

Of course, the strategy didn't really work because I was already somehow thinking about not thinking about what I hoped to avoid. Ah yes, the memories of 40 years of life together. Now, that was imprinted in my DNA. I missed him so much. So much that I became adept at dodging anything that I felt could be a trigger.

But Grief? Well, she has a strange way of hiding in everyday mundane situations.
I'm not asking you off guard, making you notice, and asking you to pay attention.
A simple dish. Plain, at that. Oh, I noticed a tiny little crack. Yes, I dropped it once, and it broke in two. You fixed it with superglue.

It's good as new, you said to me. I smiled and nodded, "Hmm, I agree." Now, with tears, remembering how you could fix almost anything. But oh, my love, how I do wish that my broken heart could thus be fixed.

The 5K cross-country trail was a place that held lots of meaning for both Phil and I. We loved walking in the woods. Well, I was walking. He was running. It didn't feel like we were exercising, because every walk held its own magic. Phil would make the trail an enjoyable physical challenge by running the course and then walking on his cool-down jog with me.

One of our many encounters with grief was when Phil was no longer able to walk.

[Singing]

♪ Walk with me. ♪
♪ Walk with me. ♪
♪ Can you walk with me? ♪
♪ ♪ 

Did I decide to stop walking the trail? Telling myself I had neither the time nor the energy? Or was it more like, if I couldn't walk with Phil, then, nope, no walking for me at all?

There was a steep hill on the course, and Phil called it "Heartbreak Hill." It's a very steep incline at the three-quarter point. He'd always step on the gas and charge up the hill. And when he got to the top, he'd yell, "Come on, Nnenna!" in an attempt to "motivate" me. And there I was, huffing and puffing. And I'd laugh and say, "I am coming. This is exactly what coming uphill looks like."

[Music]
[Singing]

♪ Oh, yeah, Heartbreak Hill, come on, come on. ♪ 
♪ Heartbreak Hill. ♪ 
♪ Coming up the rough side of the mountain, Heartbreak Hill. ♪ 
♪ Well, it will either make you stronger. ♪ 
♪ Or else it will kill you. ♪ 
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah. ♪ 
♪ Heartbreak Hill ♪ 
♪♪ 

Oh, Lord, those were some happy times. How interesting that Heartbreak Hill holds on an entirely different meaning for me now.

Whenever I'd have an occasion to drive past the 5K trail parking lot, I'd purposely look the other way. Blinders up and on, determined to drive as fast as the speed limit would allow. All the while, my heart murmured: "Look, right over there, that's the parking lot. You know, the one where we used to stretch before we entered the trail? Yeah, right over there!" I'd just say to myself, "Don't look, don't look, just keep on driving."

Well, on this particular day, resistance was futile. Now. I thought I was on the way to the grocery store, but something compelled me to turn into the lot. I parked the car, and I just sat there—waiting, wondering: "Why did I just do that?" What in the world am I doing here? What in the world? What in the world? Am I doing here?

You know, when Grief speaks to me, she sometimes uses music, song lyrics, poems, and the like. Other times, it's more of a feeling. Rarely is it direct and to the point. But this time, she clearly said, "Let's go for a walk."

Immediately, I felt resistance. "Walk the 5K trail," I asked. "By myself? Alone? Right now? Absolutely not." I was in protest mode, but Grief's voice in my air whispered, "I'll walk with you." Perfect, I thought to myself, "You and me, me and Grief, a walk in the woods."

I brought no water bottle. She suggested I look in the backseat, and low and behold, there happened to be a half-filled bottle, who knows how old, lying right there.
But I don't have my earbuds, you know, I wasn't really planning to walk this afternoon, and you know I need my music.
"It's fine," she cooed. "We can just chat."
Hey, now I'm grocery-store dressed, not trail walk-and-dressed.
She pointed out that I had on my sneakers, which would do nicely.
Then, with a deep sigh in all my ready excuses quieted, I got out of my car with grief hovering nearby and ventured onto the trail—the trail I'd been estranged from for years.

And that's when it happened.

I fell, without warning. Not metaphorically or in a manner of speaking, but for real. I fell down like a cartoon—splat—on the ground, and I hit hard. My phone skittered to the right, and car keys flew out of my other hand, landing in the pine needles a few feet away from my outstretched arm.

I remember thinking in the split-second before a stumble, am I really gonna fall? But I knew. There was no hope, angle too steep for any sort of recovery. This was no, "Oops, almost fell!" I was already committed to the physics of the moment.

[Singing]

♪ Down, baby, down. ♪ 
♪ Down, baby, down. ♪ 
♪ You going down, baby, down. ♪
♪♪ 

I heard someone, a guy behind me, asking, hey, you okay? He offered a gesture of help that I waved off with a faint smile. "Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine," I said, not entirely certain that was true. My right hip was mounting an argument that it very well might not be. I took a moment to scan my body and realized nothing broken, but a sister was going to be sore.

Brushing away the pine needles—and checking to see if my phone was busted, it wasn't—I listened for a word from Grief, who moments before had been so chatty. Nothing.

I looked around, trying to determine what had just happened—how in the world? Everything looks so normal. There was nothing in the way, no gnarly root ready to snag, no uneven terrain to call balance into question. Slippery? No, not really. Yet, without explanation, damn it. I fell.

♪ Falling ♪ 
♪ Falling, falling ♪ 

The clouds were the first to notice; fair weather cumulus and puffy wonder felt the downdraft. Had they not turned in time to see a flash of brown, head, legs, flexed arms as if in mid-dance, open-wide surprise of the fingers—left hand, especially—and the glint of wedding ring?

Had they been preoccupied with other cloud busyness, the open mouth and wordless "oh no," would have gone quite unnoticed. And the hair, the hair, the hair clenched in gravity's teeth, stretched between earth and sky, could have just been a piece of wayward satellite, or some other explainable thing that fell from a high-high place.

Trees, Hondurosa pine, for example, are known to point skyward. It's no wonder then that their needles bristled first, spotting a tiny moat way off in the distance. Both male and female cones noted her furious falling. The wind announced her plummet. Coming in fast.

It was curious, this wind current, unlike those that occur in widely scattered thunderstorms. The maples agreed that this was quite, quite different. A personal conjuring of some sort, for they all felt their sap rise at once.

Was she then flying or falling?
These were the questions asked by the great blue heron.
Now, there are certainly important differences between the two.

She, uh uh uh, wingless sort of thing. Her arms poised as in flight, head and torso angling downward. And while not the best aerodynamic posture, still, she could, with a few minor adjustments, actually be flying and not in free fall.
Hmm, the problem was one of velocity.
She was moving too quickly.
She was too heavy.

But before a suggestion could be made, the plants had joined the conversation. Opinions varied on the fall, the how, and the possible outcomes, but the consensus was that she was definitely falling.

Why just look at her, they said.
Why just look at her?
No control.
She's in gravity school.
Yep, hard lessons right there.
Mm-hmm.

The moss, the moss, the moss. The moss was always the last to know about such things. Being older than almost all the other plants, she'd grown accustomed to awaiting news from above.

She was way more concerned with spreading out than looking up. It would all eventually be in her purview anyway. The world above her head was just a temporary mystery.

Soon and very soon, all the goings on in the upper realms would come to rest in her kingdom.

[Singing]

♪ Soon, it will all be mine. ♪
♪ Every little thing. ♪
♪ To have and to own. ♪
♪ To change. ♪
♪ Turn from green to gold. ♪

Ah, moss. Her role is the ancient deficient, welcomes all of the falling to the forest floor. Absorption is her superpower. Her credo? By accepting all without judgment, we expand. Yes. We expand.

She will minister to this falling heart. And upon arrival, offer a soft green carpet at the cool, damp floor of the world.

"Have you fallen in the last six months?"
It's one of the questions doctors ask in your yearly physical. I never paid much attention to the question, because the answer was always no—until we began the journey with ALS.

Now, I'm sure the way you answer the question tells you doctor some things about your risk for future falls, and it depends on this or that underlying thing, but I'm really not sure how I'm going to answer the question the next time it comes up.

There are, first of all, lots of different ways to fall. There's falling in love. Falling from grace. Falling out with someone. Or falling for a scheme.

I keep telling myself that I was distracted and that's why. But it's way more complicated than that. I read somewhere that grieving makes you more likely to fall. And oh, I can testify to the truth of that. I might answer by saying, "Why yes, I've tripped over grief quite a bit in the last few years."

This is part of what I'm discovering. Falling through and with grief is not unlike the regular sort of fall. My spinning head and churning stomach agree. But although fractured bones and blood may not be involved, it doesn't mean there isn't any pain.

[Music]
[Singing]

♪ Standin' by the window. ♪
♪ Lookin' up at the sky. ♪
♪ Reachin' for the memories, ♪
♪ The shape of goodbye. ♪
♪ Walkin' round in circles, ♪
♪ Wonderin' what comes next. ♪
♪ Prayin' for some closure, ♪
♪ Now that love's been laid to rest. ♪
♪ And we're fallin', falling, falling. ♪
♪ Falling women, falling just like rain. ♪
♪♪

I realize something, with my heart splayed out on grief's ground floor: The 5K trail was holding Phil. The strong, athletic version, full of good humor and competitive spirit—yes, that Phil. Maybe, just maybe, maybe, maybe Grief wanted me to rediscover him there.

I could almost hear him saying, "I'll meet you at your halfway point," as he sprinted off.
Had I misplaced this part of him?
Had I misplaced this part?
The vigorous husband in excellent health who could run laps around me?

Had I poured into my mourning bowl only the last three years of our lives together? The places where we confronted the physical losses one by one.

What of this Phil? The one who made me laugh with his antics, the one who made me want to walk, to run up Heartbreak Hill and meet his outstretched high five?

This was a very particular grief, one that held both joy and sadness. My hip was achy, but by this time, feeling better, as I slowly, slowly limp-walked, testing what was possible.

Now, I thought I could turn around and go back to the car, but somehow, that felt like breaking a promise—one I hadn't even made. I mean, after all, just moments before I'd fallen down. What if I fall again? Even if I could walk the entire trail, what then?

I tried listening for a word from Grief, and this is what I got:
♪ All the king's horses, all the king's men, what could put my poor heart together again? ♪ 

Hmm, that's all I get? Grief. I was still falling. Each moment, a cloud still falling. A plummet, head bowed, still falling. Still falling, across memory's face, falling and falling, amazing to fall through time and through space.

I decided to go for it, to walk as slowly as I needed to. I passed familiar signposts like the Married Tree—that's what we called it. It looked like two separate trees very close together that had merged into one big tree halfway up its 30-foot height. Maybe, maybe, grief wanted me to notice that this tree was still standing, still standing, still standing—and looking pretty good.

I kept walking, my hip feeling better as I advanced along the trail. I was hoping for some kind of, I don't know, revelation—some answers to the questions inspired by this unplanned grief walk. I just walked and walked with Grief—now, so uncharacteristically quiet.

But then, a memory began bubbling as I neared the end of the course: When our kids were little, watching them pull up, stand, and then take a few steps, cruising around, holding on to things, it was like magic. We'd hover close by, smiling encouragement, arms wide to catch the falls that were an inevitable part of learning.

Nobody expects a baby to be born knowing how to walk. Falling is a natural part of the practice that leads to the knowledge. Ah, I wondered, could I offer myself some bit of that kind of grace in this moment? How lovely if this falling could be without judgment. Hmm, if I could fall just like a baby.

I imagine being gathered up in the arms of love.
It's okay, you're okay, ringing in my ears. Pressed against the soft bosom of love. My tears wiped, and my heart comforted. Wouldn't that be something?

If I could land on that shady resting spot underneath the maple. The one with the patch of bright green invitation. Yes, yes, how sweet to lay my heart right there, and receive a hug from the mossy softness that knows all about the falling.

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