The chain of losses, from Amy to Arnie to Cougar, felt like being kicked in the gut time and time again as I was trying so hard to regain my footing. I felt powerless against the overwhelming message that, ready or not, you’d better always be prepared to say goodbye. I guess that’s why it wasn’t surprising I went to the grieving temple every day of the festival. I needed to.
I sat in silence and wept, side by side with other mourners, each of us deep in the throes of our solitary grief but profoundly connected without saying a word. Hugs were shared. Tears flowed. It was a huge milestone in my healing journey, and more than worth the dirt, dust, heat, cold, noise, and crowds that were the cost of attending.
For some reason, I would remember a random thought about Amy while I was in the desert. One that came to mind was early in our relationship. We were well into our button business, scouring flea markets for interesting buttons and spending a good deal of our free time making sure we had enough product. When we had ample inventory, we registered for space to sell our wares at an outdoor artist’s market that was popular in Chicago at the time. The event was called Market Days and was held near our home, in an area affectionately known as Boystown, one of the largest LGBT communities in the midwestern United States. Amped with the enthusiasm that she brought to most things in life, Amy invited her parents down to visit us at our booth.
Now, Ann and Paul are two of the most amazing parents anyone can imagine. They showered Amy with love from day one of her existence and taught her so many of the values she carried with her into her migration to adulthood: love and kindness, hard work, family, and a message to give back to those not as fortunate as her family was. However, they were definitely, by their own admission, more 1950 than 1990 at the time of this art show. They supported Amy always, cheering her on from the sidelines without hesitation, and they agreed to come down and visit us there and see what the art fair was like. Little did any of us know that the crowd was, how shall I say, not 1950! There were boys in bikinis and girls on skateboards. Men with nipple piercings and sweaty bodies.
Amy’s parents were incredulous. They could not believe that we thought they would want to be a part of that scene. It became a story told time and again throughout our entire marriage. Sitting there in the temple, the story made me smile, thinking about Amy and her infectious lust for life.
The trip to Burning Man happened only a year and five months after I’d lost Amy. But a year and five months on the journey through loss and grief is a good distance. My path already felt like a roller coaster—I had moments of joy and other times of profound sadness. Attending this truly unique experience, however, was unlike any other part of my odyssey thus far.
Because my entire being was so open to any experience at Burning Man, my heart was open as well. As I sat in the grieving temple, I could close my eyes and weep deeply. And I could sit with those feelings for as long as I needed to. My tears flowed for my Amy and for what we had together and for what we were missing out on. Soon, when I was ready to, I left the others grieving and biked back to my RV. Within hours, I was dancing to the “oontz, oontz” of the DJ music emanating from multiple locations. This process made it clearer to me that my life might just be this way, and that it was okay. One moment I might be really deep in my grief, and the next I might find myself discovering joy in my new life.
By the end of the festival, I was exhausted yet oddly energized. I’d done something Amy and I had talked about doing together, so there was a certain feeling of mission accomplished, especially since she would have loved it there. I was pretty much on my own, left to step out of my introverted comfort zone and find my way in the foreign space of Black Rock City, and I did it.
Burning Man isn’t necessarily for everyone. But I think it forced me to confront things that were still lingering beneath the surface, things that I still had to purge, and I needed the space and lack of judgment to do it. Not everyone needs this, nor should they. For me, though, this experience was difficult to quantify but absolutely crucial to my healing process.
There are quite a few takeaways from my Burning Man experience, and many reasons my first trip there wasn’t my last. My sense of accomplishment, having navigated this process as a solo mission, helped me accept that I could continue to fill my blank page with fascinating experiences on my own. I learned that I was thirsty for and willing to fill my life with new, unfamiliar exploration. Even though I might be anxious about attending a conference, traveling on my own, or meeting new people, this trip allowed me to feel the power of being enlightened by the unfamiliar.
Something happens at Burning Man that is transformative for me, not just for the time I am physically there but for a long time afterward as well. It is like no other place in the “default world,” as everyday life is called by Burners. Certainly, the setting contributes to that feeling. In the middle of nowhere. No cell service. No showers. No plumbing at all . . . you get the point. That, combined with the fact that I felt perfectly comfortable sporting gold pants and a black fur coat while riding my bike in the cool evenings, made it clear that my mind and body were free to express themselves and absorb feelings in a totally different way.
18
Deepening the Loss
I Get this Feeling of Impending Doom . . .
Is there Something You’re Not Telling Me?
—Tom Wilson, writing as Ziggy as he stares up to the sky
I was entrenched in my solo life and experiencing new things in the fall of 2018. I felt happy at times, a bit wabi-sabi at others, but the darkest moments were fading somewhat. I had even planned a wonderful trip for the kids and me during the winter holiday. And that’s when I was thrown once again.
We got the news that the small spot of cancer on my father-in-law Paul’s lung had traveled through his bloodstream to form a mass in his brain. Brain surgery was essential.
Paul had been devastated by the loss of his eldest daughter. He was fond of saying that he went to a grief counselor once who told him that “everyone grieves differently.” I think that gave him permission to feel okay about not crying, even though he and Ann talked about the impact it had on the two of them when they were in private conversation.
After I delivered my TED talk, he was effusive about how well I had done. Because of my deep respect for him, this filled me with confidence about my path forward. He was fond of telling anyone who would listen that after watching me deliver the talk, he thought I should tell the producers of Amy’s film that I should play myself. Paul was never shy about making his opinions known, but he always did it in an endearing way. The sudden possibility of losing him was crushing.
Our family, our pack, did what we do—we descended on the hospital en masse to ride out the wait together. Brain surgery isn’t a quick procedure, so we whiled away the day reading, working, pacing, eating, and reflecting, staying positive every minute. I wore a sticker I found in Amy’s drawer that read, “Feeling pretty good about this.”
Courtesy of Brooke Hummer
Sure enough, Paul made it out of surgery. Sadly, though, he never bounced back to his old happy, smiling, hot-dog-eating, shirt-stained-from-food-inhaling, corny-joking, exercise-hating, Cubs-loving, Ann-adoring, family-heading self. And sadly, before long we found ourselves in the awful, familiar setting of home hospice again. Three generations gathering for Paul and for one another, not just needing to be there but wanting to be there, because it was him, because we wouldn’t have dreamed of being anywhere else.