Sunday not-so-funnies
It’s a rainy October day in the desert, really rather unusual weather here for this time of year, and it doesn’t help my mood any. I feel as gray and heavy as the clouds outside my window. I found the Sunday paper treacherous, as I do most weeks now. And it’s not just the page after page of other people’s tragedies, and so much death, which is bad enough.
I read the Accent section, and get to the NY Times crossword that I would cut out every week and send to A. He was a crossword fan in general, but his paper had stopped carrying the NY Times Sunday puzzle, so I was happy to hook him up. There were 2 in the last package I was going to mail to him but never got to. I bought him a whole book of them for Christmas last year. Any little thing I could do for him, anything I could do to brighten his day, make him smile, I delighted in doing. It seemed especially important, given the long-distance aspect, because as much as I wanted to be, I wasn’t there on the crappy days to give him a hug, rub his back, or just hold him in silence if that’s what he needed. So I made sure he got something in the mail at least once a week, always accompanied by a “smell-good card,” as he called them, the scent of my perfume greeting him as he opened the envelope.
Then I try to hurry past the Big 5 ad, the one I checked every week to see if his favorite hiking boots were on sale. That one is easy enough to pick out and set aside, although I confess, I looked at it the first couple of weeks after he passed, out of habit maybe, and maybe some masochistic desire to stab myself in the heart. I decided that hurt, and I was going to stop doing it.
The Target ad was lying in wait, though, and I wasn’t expecting that. The Corningware casseroles I bought him as a housewarming present when he first moved into his new apartment were on sale, and seeing them there, and thinking about that just brought tears to my eyes. I’m crying even as I write this. So much history in a white dish, in the cupboard of the apartment we spent such happy hours in together, in the kitchen that he cooked for me in, and that somehow we always ended up removing clothes in.
Corningware doesn’t seem like it’ll kill you, but when you’ve lost someone, everything you ever shared, did, talked about, takes on new significance because it is a talisman of something that you had together. Even mundane things become holy.
It was cold when I got up this morning, and I thought about grabbing my slippers, and then I remembered that A and I got them in Chinatown, together. I’d forgotten that, not permanently, but it hadn’t been a part of the parade of memories that have flashed across my mind in the last 3 months. And I am grateful that all through my house I have small things that will remind me of things I may have forgotten, small caches of memory I can count on when I cannot count on myself.
I was not asked if I wanted any of his things. I would’ve loved to have his favorite Henley shirts that he looked so good in, and so I have bought 3 myself, to wear on sad, cold October days like today. Today’s is blue-green. I figure that the things of his I would’ve wanted are just symbols of the man I can no longer have except in spirit, and there is no reason I cannot recreate my own symbols. So I have done so.
In a transparent attempt to buy happiness (grief makes it easy to be self-indulgent), I bought a new guitar Saturday afternoon. It’s a beaut, and I spent the morning in eager anticipation of a guitar I hadn’t bought yet, but I knew I was unlikely the leave the guitar store empty-handed. And once I had found her and taken her home, I was giddy with the joy of a new mother bringing her baby home from the hospital. But as the day wore on, I felt the now-familiar weight of sadness in my chest. Because A and I could discuss guitars endlessly, and so we would’ve as I proudly announced my newest acquisition and he proclaimed his jealousy and how he couldn’t wait to play her himself. He’ll never play her. I told him about her, but he was silent on the subject, as he has been silent on all subjects since he left. And yet he, and guitars, and music in general, are so inextricably tied together that I cannot hear or play a single note without him being here, present in my mind and heart. And I want him here, but it’s always bittersweet.
God, I miss him. The cruelest irony of bereavement is that your beloved is everywhere…except where he’s supposed to be.