Category Archives: Grief and Loss

My Own Terms

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We are in that transitional time between late summer, segueing into early fall. I have felt a sense of being adrift. Six months into Covid, with little abatement in sight, the looming darkness and colder days don’t bode well for anyone preferring light and summer breezes. Simply, summer has offered some respite from Covid lockdown. What’s coming, I’m afraid, is a dank, Dickensian dystopia to be endured over the course of the winter.

Last week, a well-known local musician touched down on Facebook about his bookings drying up as the summer places began shutting down for the season. A drive along East and West Grand in Maine’s premier tourist Mecca, OOB, on Sunday revealed summer’s dying embers. Many of the places that had outside entertainment like the Sunset Deck and Myst have closed until next May. Others are open for another three weeks at best. Who knows if The Brunswick will have indoor entertainment come late October.

For the past 44 months I’ve been journeying through the loneliness that apparently is endemic in those relegated to living with the loss and associated grief that accompanies the death of someone deeply loved. During my sojourn, former associates have disappeared. Not sure why. I’m guessing that surface relationships can’t come to terms with darkness of death, subsequent depression it delivers, and all the associated fall-out from an event inflicted on someone.

On days like today, my first inclination used to be to sit down and write a blog post. Given that Mondays don’t require me to check-in at Whitey’s Farm until later in the morning, I went down the stairs to my bunker and picked up my acoustic. As I’ve intimated before, I’m not certain I’d still be here if on that dark day in August of 2018, I hadn’t opened the dust-covered guitar case housing my Yamaha guitar, rather than seeking the alternative hidden in the closet upstairs. Continue reading →

Complicated, but Simple

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Mark was killed two days prior to the day that serves as my birth day. In 2017, feeling celebratory 48 hours after receiving the gut punch of knowing your only son was gone was impossible.

The following year, I realized I didn’t give two shits about anyone knowing it was my birthday. My better half talked about celebrating halfway through the year. Being born in January means that the day signified with cake and ice cream (or your own special guilty pleasure) is usually cold and foreboding. But any day with cake can become a great day.

I haven’t had much cake over the last three years. The summer party never appeared—the idea was a good one, it just lacked a trigger for execution—namely me giving it the green light. Again, losing Mark made celebrating another year of life seem like an exercise in futility and the kind of self-indulgence that grief and loss robs you of.

Mark loved bell hooks’ writing. I was also a fan. Shortly after Mark’s death, I bought her book All About Love: New Visions, at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick. Continue reading →

Days of Death

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I’m taking an anthropology course at USM over Winter Session. These are “compressed” between semester course options. Basically, 15 weeks of work gets forced into an intense four-week offering. Lots of reading, writing, and reflection tacked onto an already busier stretch than I’ve had in probably three years. For a part-time student like me, it’s a way to make progress. “It’s all good,” as they say.

One of our assignments required watching an excellent documentary produced by the BBC on the Mexican Day of the Dead. In a nutshell, this is a day that combines indigenous Aztec traditions about death with the Catholic Holy Day, All Saints Day. Because Americans are rarely curious about anybody else but their own dysfunctional culture, most know little or nothing about this Mexican tradition that actually honors the dead in a way that Americans fall far short in their avoidance of the topic, or their superficial “thoughts and prayers” Facebook contributions.

Once a week since Christmas, I’ve had to respond to one of three assigned student questions we’ve all had to generate from our reading for the class. This week, I tackled this question because death and how we as Americans process it is something I’ve been living for the past three years. Continue reading →

The Holidays are Here

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I’m no longer sure who visits this space. Since almost everyone uses social media for communication and I’d prefer not to, it’s been months since all but a tiny contingent of people have remained connected.

It’s December. For some of us, it’s not a time of holiday cheer, or happy memories from Christmases past. For families who’ve lost a child, or currently going through their first holiday season without a loved one, it’s a painful time, one infused with memories that more often than not elicit sadness.

For Mary and me, this is the first year we’ve decorated a tree since Mark was killed. He was a Christmas baby, born on December 19. This will be the third birthday of his we have to endure without our son.

Christmas in the saloon.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be filled with joy and happiness (I probably never have been), but at least this year, the dial on the sadness meter has dropped a few notches: still sad, just not “wrecked with grief.” I guess that’s an improvement when you’ve set the bar very low.

Today, I concluded a difficult class at USM. This was the first one of my history classes I’ve taken that I didn’t enjoy. In fact, I really didn’t care for the professor or anything about the class. First, it was an online class. Being that in 2019, universities are moving away from bricks and mortar and face-to-face meetings, I guess I need to adjust. Continue reading →

A Journey That Never Ends

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Grief is primarily a solitary slog. If you and your partner end up being thrust into the position of having to share in the journey, then there are times when your parallel paths join and then, depart again.

Briefly, there are times when others come alongside: We both experienced this in the days and weeks following Mark’s death. But then, people go back to wherever they were before the tragedy occurred.

In a nation where our empathy deficit is just one of a host of maladies, this inability of other people to understand at first is maddening, then it becomes the source of anger (or sadness), then eventually you simply stop caring. You are left alone to live in a place you never considered before—but there you are—a ghost among the living.

This weekend, in addition to being pleased with the documentary that was made about Mark, we got to spend time with people who reminded us both of Mark. They were a lot like who he was, believing that our better angels might win out. The filmmaker, Julie Sokolow, is a force to be reckoned with. It would have been enough for Mary and me to have a wonderful film. But, to see Julie in her element, bringing her “A game” to the Heartland International Film Festival, on message in interviews, was a thing to behold. She’s also so easy to be around and we’ve come to consider her a friend in addition to the woman who gets to tell Mark’s story in documentary form. Having spent so much time with Mark and his memories she’s forged a unique connection with his parents.

Barefoot: The Mark Baumer Story (poster by Jim Rugg)

Continue reading →

Fatigue

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I am tired. That’s a statement about physically feeling a dearth of energy at the end of each and every day. Likely it’s due to trying to cram as much as I can into a 24-hour span. Having a new job and also working at another part-time gig, while taking a class at USM probably has something to do with feeling “wrung-out.” Continue reading →

Lamentation (for David Berman)

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[from the New York Times, Aug. 7, 2019]

With wry songs full of black humor, his band became an underground favorite in the 1990s, and a new group, Purple Mountains, was set to tour.

David Berman, the reluctant songwriter and poet whose dry baritone and wry, wordy compositions anchored Silver Jews, a critically lauded staple of the 1990s indie-rock scene, died on Wednesday. He was 52.

 His death was announced by his record label, Drag City, which released music by Silver Jews and Berman’s latest band, Purple Mountains…A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the matter said that Berman was found on Wednesday in an apartment building in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, and pronounced dead at the scene.

 A spokeswoman for the city’s medical examiner said that Berman had hanged himself, and ruled it suicide.

Another artist has left this world-David Berman [NY Times photo]

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To spend hours, weeks, months, and even years with people and then have them so profoundly reject you at the hour of your greatest need is demoralizing at the very least. The act of abandonment becomes deeply personal and affecting. You internalize it and adopt methods of moving through and beyond it. It leaves you scarred, however. Continue reading →

Something Other Than Writing/Anyone Can Play Guitar

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Spring speaks to certain sense of rebirth—at least in places like Maine where inhabitants are forced to endure the bleakness that inevitably comes during winter. When life gets reduced to finding a way forward post-tragedy, then any extension of hope can serve as a stand-in for a talisman.

Writing as a central element dates back to 2002 for me. That’s when, in a job that I hated, I latched onto cultivating my craft as a writer. I wanted to become a writer and I was willing to put the work in.

After Mark was killed, writing was all I had to sort through the randomness and pain that a tragic death like his delivers to the father left behind. I initiated the process of using narrative as a tool to find a few shards of meaning from the randomness of what I’d been dealt.

For two years I’ve written and rearranged words in an effort to craft a story centered in grief and loss. I recognize that none of it provided much solace for the emotional agony I’ve been feeling. In fact, like has happened countless times over the past 17 years of writing, editorial arbiters either ignored my writing, or sent back notes that served as the publishing world’s version of the “thanks but no thanks” notice of rejection. Continue reading →

Racing in the Streets

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A rainy spring it’s been. Everyone knows the adage that “April showers bring May flowers.” But weeks of rain and little or no sun drags down one’s spirit, no matter how hopeful your view of the future remains.

Early last week, Mary and I began counting down the days. We were anticipating yet another trip south related to our son’s death. We watched local weather and even Boston-area weather (via NECN) to determine—would it rain on Sunday?

It rained and the day was cold and raw. Nearly 50 people—all members of Team Every Mile Yeah—turned out for the Providence Rhode Races. They ran and some walked. Our group was arrayed in green t-shirts that Mary arranged to have produced for the event.

Mary and cape prior to the start of the Providence Rhode Race 5K.

Green shirt drying out from the rain

Family drove down from Maine. Friends from the earliest days of Mary’s life rode buses and trains to Providence. Ironmen from Minnesota who had let Mark into their world of localized competition came from Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, and San Antonio to run in Mark’s memory and support our efforts to hold an event that also connected with the foundation we began: The Mark Baumer Sustainability Fund.

As I was walking a sort of rear guard action during the 5K walk that our small family contingent made together, I was flooded with memories of Mark and me in the place he’d adopted as his home. Not only did he find his niche in the city, Providence welcomed him and adopted him, too. One thing the two of us never got to do was walk down the middle of Memorial Boulevard, sans traffic.

These streets were made for walking.

Mary and I spent Saturday with a special group of people who joined us first at Mark’s garden in front of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Brown. That’s where the Eastern Redbud was planted in Mark’s memory during the fall of 2017. There’s also a plaque commemorating his life. The group then walked, drove, or Ubered to Federal Hill and dinner at Trattoria Zooma. Somehow, they managed to accommodate our crowd just like they told Mary that they would.

Most of Team Every Mile Yeah (Mark’s Garden-Brown University)

Marching for Mark (heading to Trattoria Zooma)

Continue reading →

On Not Doing Sports

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“Doing sports” was always a big thing in the Baumer household. Mark had a WIFFLE® Ball Bat in his hands not long after he learned to walk. He’d later grow into an outstanding hockey and baseball player, doing the latter sport well enough to play in college, win accolades for his accomplishments, and have a hand in leading his college mates to a spot in the Division III College World Series in 2006.

On Mark’s final walk, we communicated less about sports than at any time in our relationship. I knew he still followed the NBA to some degree. While he’d never played basketball beyond elementary school in a structured fashion, he’d become enamored by “the Association,” even joining a Golden State Warriors fan board back in the mid-2000s during his undergraduate winters at Wheaton.


[Come on! Do Sports!!]

Mark brought me back to basketball. I’d played in high school for the woeful Lisbon High Greyhounds. As one of the team’s tallest players at 6’3”, I often found my nights on the hardwood matched up against the other teams biggest and usually best, offensive player. I couldn’t jump, wasn’t particularly fast, but I did have an aggression and a “mean streak” that lent itself well to pummeling opponents who possessed greater skills. Of course, this also meant I was usually in “foul trouble,” and regularly on the wrong side of the officials. I’ll simply add that my basketball career wasn’t as distinguished as my time on the baseball diamond. There, I could “throw that speedball by you, make you look like a fool boy” as Springsteen sang in “Glory Days.”

Once Mark moved back east from California and settled in Providence, we began an annual thing together: we’d pick a team we both wanted to see the “hometown” Celtics take on and we’d order tickets and plan a rendezvous in Beantown. I think we began this sometime around 2010 when Mark joined Brown’s Literary Arts program, in pursuit of his MFA in Creative Writing. Continue reading →