I miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall
Last week was a really tough week for me, because every single day of it was an “anniversary.” This time last year, A was here in Tucson. He came in October at my suggestion; it is the most perfect time of year here, in my opinion, and as I was out and about Saturday evening, I reaffirmed that opinion in my own mind. 70 degrees, breezy: perfect. It was a great trip. He and E finally met in person. We took in the sights. We saw Santana. We were together and happy. He saw me perform on October 12th, his last night in town. He, E, and my friend P, the three most important people in my life, were in the audience of open mic that night, and I remember very clearly thinking that life didn’t get much better than that. The people I loved most in the world were there, together, with me, and I played really well. I counted myself among the extra-blessed in the world.
It never occurred to me to imagine how bad things could get. Until the day I found out for sure that he’d died; and then I didn’t have to imagine. I couldn’t have, even if I’d tried. I had no idea. P walked past the window E’s office as I hung up the phone from talking to A’s daughter; she told me later she’ll never forget the look on my face.
He was planning to come visit in October of this year, as well, but no specific plans had been made yet. The nature of his work made planning too far ahead nigh on impossible; it all depended where the current half-dozen projects were. That’s the second trip we’ve missed now. The secondary losses just pile up on top of the unthinkable loss, insult after insult to injury. And so not only did I have the memories of last year flooding back, I felt the loss of what we aren’t having this year. Such is the way of grief: you mourn the loss of what was, and of what will never be. We had plans, so many plans. In my entry-way is a huge Arizona map A gave me for my birthday last year. He had the California one by the same company in his bedroom. It’s a beautiful map, and I have often looked at it and planned where we’d go during his next visit. He never saw the map up, except via pictures, and we will not be going to those places. He really wanted to see Tombstone; I know he’d appreciate the irony. I wanted to take him to the Salt River Canyon. I wanted to sit on the swing in the back yard with him and spot satellites again. I just wanted him here. That’s all. Again. I just want “again.” And it’s just not available.
He got back home on October 15th last year, after an overnight with his daughter’s family. This year October 15th was the 3-month anniversary of his death. What a difference a year makes. I suppose it’s a blessing we don’t know the future. That would be its own special kind of hell.
Sometimes I’m sitting at work, doing my thing, and I step outside myself and think “Hey, look at you—you’re doing all right…you’re getting along pretty well, under the circumstances,” and I am surprised that I am. But just as I’m about to break my arm patting myself on the back for my progress, I am overwhelmed yet again with disbelief that this is indeed my life. I think it cannot be; it must be someone else’s, because my life had him in it. I feel like I’m an understudy in a play I thought I knew like the back of my hand, but I can’t remember any of the lines to this part I’m playing. I’m just playing a character based on me. The real me has a totally different life where none of the main characters of my story are missing. I find I am baffled over and over again by something that I know is fact. It’s not that I don’t understand the fact; I just don’t understand how this fact could possibly be true. And then I cry a little, sigh a little, and go back to going on, but still shaking my head. Because he’s supposed to be here, and he isn’t. He just isn’t. And I cannot get used to that. It doesn’t compute. It’s too bizarre to be true, despite all the evidence of its veracity.
I haven’t found peace; I have sort of made my way to something that may appear on the outside like peace, but tastes more like resignation. I don’t like this, what’s happened. I don’t understand it. I don’t know what to do about it. And it doesn’t matter, because the choice is not mine. It was never mine. I have to be resigned; what other choice do I have? To go crazy? Rest assured, I’ve been doing that, too. I am mercury from a dropped and shattered thermometer, going out in all directions as I scramble to try to pull back all the pieces of myself and not being able to grab hold and reintegrate them into this thing I call my life. They just don’t go back quite right, and some pieces are missing.
It’s a weird thing, to count on scar tissue to hold your soul together. And yet that’s what you do, knowing full well that it will ache in the rain for the rest of your life. The ache is an improvement over the raw, bleeding wound in your soul. I ponder this lowering of standards often, where “okay” is good, and an ache is good, and crying only once a day is good, in comparison to the worst. And I feel sorry for myself that I have a basis for comparison now. Ignorance truly is bliss.
Am I better than I was in July? Sure. I can see huge progress from the me that would lie and bed and cry until I was cried out, and then lie there another hour, just staring into space until I fell asleep, sleep being the only refuge I had. Now I only do it every couple of weeks instead of thrice daily. Woohoo! Party time!
Not so much.
There is a world of difference between “better” and “well.” I am approaching “well,” I think, but cannot for the life of me tell you at what speed, on what course, nor can I hazard an ETA. It’s a cha-cha of forward and backward. If only I could go backward far enough.