An Unquiet Mind - Kay Redfield Jamison [56]
I spent the rest of my time in England with friends and, bit by bit, began to understand that the future I had assumed, and the love and support I had come to depend upon, were gone. There were a thousand things I remembered once David had died. And there were many, many regrets: for lost opportunities, unnecessary and damaging arguments, and a deepening realization that there was absolutely nothing that could be done to change that which was true. There were so many dreams lost: all of our plans for a house full of children were lost; all of seemingly everything was lost. But grief, fortunately, is very different from depression: it is sad, it is awful, but it is not without hope. David’s death did not plunge me into unendurable darkness; suicide never crossed my mind. And there was very real solace in the offsetting and enormous kindness of friends, family, and even strangers. The day I left England to return to America, for instance, an agent at the British Airways ticket counter asked me if my trip had been for business or holiday. My composure, which had been airtight for almost two weeks, suddenly snapped. I explained, through a flood of tears, the circumstances of my visit; the agent immediately upgraded my seat and put me where I could have as much privacy as possible. He must have sent the word ahead to the stewardesses, because they too were unusually kind, solicitous, and left me to my thoughts. Since that day, whenever possible, I fly British Airways. And, each time, I am reminded of the importance of small kindnesses.
I returned home to a tremendous amount of work, which was genuinely helpful, and, unnervingly, to several letters from David, which had arrived in my absence. In the days to follow I received two other letters, long delayed in the mail, and then, inevitably and terribly, they stopped. The shock of David’s death gradually disappeared over time. Missing him never has. Several years after his death I was asked to speak about it. I ended with a poem written by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
Time finally did bring relief. But it took its own, and not terribly sweet, time in doing so.
They Tell Me It Rained
The accumulated pain and uncertainty from David’s death, as well as from my own illness, for several years very much lowered and narrowed my expectations of life. I drew into myself and, for all intents and purposes, shuttered my heart from any unnecessary exposure to the world. I worked hard. Running a clinic, teaching, doing research, and writing books were no substitute for love, but they were interesting and gave some meaning to my badly interrupted life. Having finally cottoned onto the disastrous consequences of starting and stopping lithium, I took it faithfully and found that life was a much stabler and more predictable place than I had ever reckoned. My moods were still intense and my temperament rather quick to the boil, but I could make plans with far more certainty and the periods of absolute blackness were fewer and less extreme.
Still, I was unquestionably