I was working on my first book of poetry. I had decided to self-publish. My husband and I agreed it was the right time; we were in the right position. I had enough pieces to choose from, and there were to be four separate sections that would flow into and organically follow one another into the planned slim but substantial volume. Each piece had been carefully selected, edited and categorized. I was putting the pages into a plastic sleeve – everything was that ready. My editor and writing partner, Ruthie, was on the phone, we had just discussed the cover graphic.

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When my husband screamed from another part of the house I said, “Ruthie, we’ve got an emergency, I’ll call you back.”

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Ten days later Ruthie visited me in the waiting area of the hospital ICU where my husband’s life was precariously balanced between the spiritual world and ours. I hadn’t called her, but the “grapevine” had updated her. Ruthie and I didn’t speak of my poetry book again for about two years. During that time my life and those of my family had been sliced off and discarded by the amputation of my husband’s leg and subsequent, continuous, illnesses.

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The transition from poet to full-time caregiver was jolting, heart breaking and revealing. It revealed an amazing strength that I could only have guessed at. And at the same time, I found myself to be a coward who was no longer in touch with her feelings. The social worker in ICU had suggested that I keep a diary, an especially good therapeutic tool for a writer. On second thought, I told myself, no. I was too afraid to remember any of the emotional turmoil. At that point I had no idea how long my husband would live, if at all. I never wrote a word of what happened in real time; I do not want to experience any type of vivid re-call. The memories of that time, when they do come in the small doses that my sub-conscious will allow, are all negative in the extreme.

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About two years or more into my husband’s illnesses, which had developed from an acute crisis into a chronic one, I again dared to pick up the plastic sleeve of poems, with Ruthie on the other end of the telephone. I found the whole process, the poems, the editing and sorting, even the idea of publishing, meaningless and a waste of time. I thought no one would be interested any longer; my words had lost their unique ring.

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To prove my point to Ruthie I read a stanza from my poem “Gray Hair” (published in Israel Senior Life): “The stray gray hair / has been hidden for years / under the brown wig / waiting for the war to end”.

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“So what,” was my attitude. Then I read to her from “Hannah” (published in Fallopian Falafel): “Mother! / Daughters cry out through the generations” – and I shrugged into the phone. Who wrote these? And, what does anyone care? To me they seemed valueless.

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Ruthie parried with full quotes from several of my other poems, award winners among them, and they left me empty. I had been writing throughout the crisis – I never completely stopped. But I no longer recognized myself in my work, didn’t feel I could “waste my time” with it. I was no longer me; the earlier version was exposed for the fraud I felt she was. But Ruthie persuaded me to go to a poetry workshop that I had given up at the start of the crisis.

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The group leader, having heard my self-flagellating introduction said, “I don’t want to hear that any more, you’re an excellent poet.”

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One year after my husband’s passing I can report that my senses have slowly begun to re-convene: I have continued to co-edit, and write for The Deronda Review; I have submitted poems and articles elsewhere, albeit at a much slower rate. With the encouragement of writers here in Gush Etzion, I started a writing workshop which I call Pri HaGush, the sister group to Pri Hadash in Jerusalem. Surrounded by writing companions, I have been able to breathe more easily as I write. I have stopped tiptoeing around the rawness of my feelings. Even before mourning and grieving entered my life, writing was a process. The women writers of Pri HaGush have helped me recognize myself, the old and new versions, at least as much as I have helped them with writing skills and publishing venues as the group leader.

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Most recently I attended the Jewish Women’s Writing Conference in Jerusalem, where I reconnected with friends and colleagues, and put a face on my by-line from cyber-space.

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I still have so much to work out, work through. There are those feelings that I’d rather not deal with. There are the conflicts, the regrets, and guilt too. But yes, there is writing after death. I didn’t die, my words haven’t died, neither has my style. I just need a reminder from time to time.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, The Poetica Magazine Blog

Mindy Aber Barad, Guest Blogger

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Mindy Aber Barad’s poetry, stories, book reviews and essays have been published in Fallopian Falafel, The Jewish Press, CyclamensandSwords.com and other publications both on and off line. Mindy is the Israeli co-editor of The Deronda Review. – Linda Pressman, Blog Editor