Rest in peace

I got a call yesterday from my old friend Ann, with whom I seldom speak anymore. There was a time when she was a very dear friend of my first wife, Nancy, and I. When we divorced, Ann remained a good friend to Nancy. I drifted away, as friends sometimes do. My former mother-in-law, Shirley, wanted me to know and so called Ann, because Ann could track me down.



Ann related that Nancy died the day before yesterday in the home she shared with her parents and her 13 year old daughter. Ann said that Nancy was very depressed after her sister Annette died of MS earlier this year and had been in poor health with a blood clot on her leg. It was not clear whether her death was due to poor health of if she took her own life.



I made the decision years ago that my anger about our relationship was unresolved in many ways, at least between us, and that it wasn't going to work for Nancy and I to be friends. Because of this, I didn't hear much about her life. I knew that Nancy married Bill Phan, a mutual friend, and that they had two children: Adam, 17, and Audrey, 13 (might have Adam's age wrong. . . I just remember him at our graduation party, and Robyn and I were only just married, so I think he'd be a year older than Caitlin).



According to Ann, what I did no hear was that Bill and Nancy divorced with spectacular misery. Their relationship turned violent and Bill became dangerous and at one point held the children hostage at gunpoint. I really don't have the whole story and I don't intend to turn this into gossip, but this detail colors how difficult it must have been for them. As a therapist, I work with families in which violence occurs and I understand the damage it does to those involved, particularly to children, who learn things about danger and intimacy which bitterly flavors their future relationships and steals from their childhoods.



Nancy was difficult and complicated, capable of great honesty and monumental self-deception. She could be very kind and open hearted, and a good friend to those she allowed close enough to know her. We said many things to each other in anger and our relationship was not good for my self-esteem (or hers, probably), but she was, deep down, a good person. She did not deserve her troubles.

Those of you whom I have bored with tidbits from my English degree, have probably heard me rant about the definition of "tradgedy." By definition, it is not a tragedy when an old woman is hit by a train, or a baby dies at birth. In order for a story to be a tragedy, the characters involved in the plot must carry into it the seeds of their own destruction.

I remember when Nancy and Bill began to become romantically involved. I remember Nancy denying that anything was "going on," and thinking to myslef that this was interesting because I had not asked. I remember that Bill was suicidal months before he became Nancy's room-mate and was calling friends at night in despair. I remember thinking that this match was not, perhaps, prudent. Our friend Kathy wore black to their wedding in order to make that point.

There was a period of time when Nancy and I tried to have a child. For reasons known only to the mythical supreme being, we did not succeed. When my children asked me about what happened to Nancy, I told them she married a friend of mine and they had two children and lived in Chicago. I told my kids that, just as I had found some happiness and had raised a family, Nancy had settled down as well. While I wondered how the two of them, Nancy and Bill, had worked it out, it did not occur to me that they were experiencing such misery. Neurosis, perhaps, but not misery.

I left a note on the "guest book" of the Chicago Tribune, where you can find the death notice for Nancy G. Zielinski, and comments from friends and relatives, including a sweet note from her little brother Gary, a truly nice guy. It was hard to come up with something to say.

I wanted them to know I noticed and that I care. I feel relieved and a little guilty for escaping the life I made with Nancy, which was so hard on the two of us.

I guess that's survivor guilt, eh?