Should I have a slice of chocolate mousse pie?
My stomach is in knots. I’ve had “the stomach flu” for three days now. It started Sunday night, after an all day stint of therapeutic baking. First I had a loss of appetite and then I woke at 1am with nausea and stomach cramps.
Yes, I’ve gone to the Dr. No, I’m not pregnant. Apparently, I have a little stomach flu. How did I get this?
Last week, on Friday 1/23, I went to a trade show in San Diego, on behalf of Fox. Mike was very sick and had been all week. I felt guilty for leaving him, but he assured me it was better that I was out-of-the house as he may still be contagious.
These shows are usually pretty wild. The kegs come out at 4pm. I was feeling the effects of alcohol by 7pm, when at dinner with twelve other co-workers. It was at this time Mike calls with the news:
"Philip Newby is dead. I don't have all the details but it appears that he killed himself."
My first reaction was shock, and then concern for Mike (who seemed to be taking this all-in-stride, which made me think it hadn't hit him yet, either.) Eventually the news that our friend killed himself sank in. Mike was alone to grieve his friend. I was stuck here for the night (I had carpooled here, and no one was equipped to drive). And I felt like a bad wife and a non-partner. I have co-workers who are “friends”, but none that are Friends. I told one girl - whom I carpool with - about the suicide, just because I didn’t feel like I could go back to the room alone and I needed to confide my shock to someone.
She did her best:
“He’s in a better place. If he was that sad, his pain is gone now.”
I stayed out and “kept a brave face”. Or so I thought. If I was stuck there, no reason to bring everyone else down and make them feel awkward. Plus, this news was private.
I spent the night dancing and smiling, as much as I could. Every time I felt tears begin to push against the back of my eyelids, I went to the bar and stoically ordered a shot of Vodka. I did this several times. I will advise my readers that this is NOT the way to deal with grief. Especially when you are alone. I was in a group, but essentially, in this situation, I was alone.
Two hours later, wasted, I drunk dialed my husband and next our friend, Fleur. I was a weeping, hysterical, blubbering, apologetic mess. These themes running through my head: My grief for Phil…. how lonely he must have been…how did none of us see this coming? My guilt for leaving Mike when he was sick…. I knew I shouldn’t have gone…had I somehow sensed greater powers at work?
Me, me, me. My grief. My guilt. Poor me.
My assistant ended up walking me back to the hotel and confiding in me about suicide stories she had endured. I felt exhausted, guilty, resentful, drunk. In short, I was a mess.
The next day I made it home. Barely. Mike seemed to be okay. We spent the day listlessly catching up on Tivo. I baked cookies.
That evening, Saturday, Sacred Fools Theater did a memorial event for Phil. There was a huge outpouring of people both from Sacred Fools and Theater of Note. Everyone was crying, hugging, consoling. I felt awkward. I don’t know how to deal with grief. When it’s my own, I feel weak. When it’s others, I feel unbearably awkward. When I see people my natural reaction is to smile. Smiling isn’t really the right behavior at these things. So I look at my feet and usually say something stupid, typically about myself.
I muddled through the group, doing my best to comfort people who were hurting deeply. I hugged..and hugged…..and hugged. I brought the cookies I had baked.
These situations are never easy. People say to one another "he's in a better place..." and "if he was that unhappy, now he's found peace." I apologize to anyone I hurt with these words, but I can't help but feel this perspective is bullshit.
When my grandfather passed away there was no consoling me, and he was an old man who had been sick for months. I didn't picture him in Heaven, golfing...or amid the trees and leaves. I felt him burning in my memories and buried deeply in my heart – a small cut that will never quite heal properly no matter how old I am. He was alive in me. He didn't need to be anywhere else.
When you lose someone you love, his or her absence becomes blindingly real. I don't think it matters "where they go"...at least not for the person who died. What matters are the people who are left behind. How they feel. How they cope. How they mourn.
Our friend, Jenelle, wrote a beautiful piece describing Phil, his talent and what we all liked about the guy. He really, truly was a lovely, kind-hearted person. And ridiculously funny both on and off stage. She put her grief into a perfectly sincere description of Phil that people can USE. They can apply these positive memories to the raw part of their heart as a kind of salve. Loving him and remembering him is so much better than wallowing in grief and thinking “what could I have done?”
I’d say, “Phil would have wanted that.” But I can’t tell you what he would have wanted. I can only tell you how great a guy I thought he was.
So this brings me to Sunday, and the stomach flu…and why I am asking you if I should eat Chocolate Mousse Pie:
Mike had rehearsal. I went on a somewhat obsessive baking binge. First, Whole Grain Muffins with Apple and Honey; then, double chocolate-chip cookies with walnuts and almonds. I skipped yoga. I didn’t go running. I spent the day baking my heart out. I didn’t feel like I could stop. I would have moved onto a chocolate cake, had Mike not come home.
Sunday afternoon is when my stomachache began. That evening we ate dinner in silence. Neither Mike, nor I, had an appetite. Mike blamed his lack-of-hunger on being sick and feeling “out of it”. I blamed mine on the fact that I had slept too long and had a headache (note to readers: it takes an act of god for me to lose my appetite…)
After dinner, Mike read Jenelle’s piece on Phil, that she had posted on Facebook: http://backstage.blogs.com/blogstage/2009/01/a-great-artist-gone-too-soon.html
Within minutes, it sank in for him. It’s never easy to see the person you love most in pain. It’s horrible. Not long after, we went to bed.
At 1am, I woke from nightmares of nausea to realize that I was sweating and actually on the verge of throwing up. I’ll leave the details out, but I ended up asleep on the bathroom floor for another hour and felt completely yuck.
The next 3 days, I’ve barely been able to eat solid foods. Each day I get a little better, and then a little worse. I got a deep tissue massage yesterday, for my achey joints, and was told my massage therapist could “feel” the stress coming off of my muscles.
The last time I had stomach problems like this was over six years ago. Mike and I had a bad fight. I asked for a “week off” to think about whether I wanted to continue our relationship. I got, what I thought was, the stomach flu during our week apart. At the end of the week, we worked things out, and suddenly I could eat normally. The first thing I did was to go to House of Pies on Vermont and order a big, celebratory slice of Chocolate Mousse Pie – WITH whip cream!
Taking stock of my emotions this week, I don’t feel like I have the right to hurt over Philip Newby. We weren’t that close. But maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep down I feel sad. Deeply sad. Sad that I didn’t see something no one else did. Sad, that my husband MUST be hurting more than he lets on. Sad, that someone I knew, no longer exists in the present sense.
Today would have been Philip’s birthday. Maybe, just maybe, I will go out and buy a big Chocolate Mousse pie and have a slice in his honor. If it comes back up, the Dr was right and I have the stomach flu….but I think the Dr. was wrong. I think the nausea and the stomach problems (and the baking) were all my way of mourning the loss of a kind-hearted soul. What this means for you, I don't know. But I feel some relief in my belly, just in completing this sentence.
Happy Birthday, Phil.
