Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I still check the weather where he lived.  Every day.  I’ve got his town set on my Yahoo weather so I can see it at a glance.  We often talked about the weather, the running joke being that the temp in Campbell had already exceeded the high forecast for the day by WeatherBug.  It was uncanny, but it happened all the time.  I was always surprised on the rare occasions when it was warmer there than here.

I checked the ‘Bug today to see the live weather cam, the same one I always used to check.  I saw the same light I recognized on a sunny California day, but it upset me more than just seeing the temperature, or little icons indicating the forecast.  Maybe because it was real, the photos.  I can remember that light as clearly as if it were shining down on my face, feel the damp heat of Memorial Day all around me.

I had to turn it off, because my stomach was knotting up.  I’m not sure why, other than I had this vague sense of the sad ridiculousness of checking the weather in a place he no longer was.  He is not of any place now; he is everywhere.  I wonder if he still cares about California per se.  I’m sure he cares about those he loved that live there, but I doubt he cares about the weather there.  So should I?  

I know what it is; I’m desperately holding on to that time and place as it slips away from me.  I know I’m unlikely to have any reason to go back there; even if I did, it would be terribly difficult, emotionally, to do so.  But it was his home, and I just want to keep hold of it.  Maybe the fact that I didn’t feel any comfort from checking his weather means I’m ready to let that bit go.  I really don’t know.  All I know is that the grief rollercoaster continues its up and down for me.

I was reading my daily grief meditations book last night, and there was a bit about how though we are not grateful for the loss, we are grateful for the hard-won wisdom that came out of that loss.  That was important for me to read, because I’ve read similar sentiments in a lot of other grief books about the so-called “gifts of grief.”  And as I’ve thought of it, the two have always seem inextricably intertwined, and I knew I could never, ever be grateful for losing A.  So how could I be grateful for anything that came from it? I don’t have to be—said so in a book.

That said, I don’t know what wisdom I have to be grateful for, if any.  I don’t feel wiser.  In fact, I feel like less of a person than I was before A died:  less fun, less patient, less helpful, less steady, less kind, less sure, less content, less willing to put myself out, less compassionate.  I would say “less optimistic,” but that would imply I still had some optimism left, and I’m not entirely sure I do.  The only “more” I’ve got is that I’ve become more negative, more wary, more difficult, more sad, more distant, more insular, more bitter.  I’m the me I remember being in my twenties; she wasn’t a lot of fun.  Moments when I feel compassion leave me in tears.  Is that to the good?  How can I know?

There’s a real element of “Why bother investing in people when they can just be taken away?”  Two of my three best friends in this world are 55 and 69 respectively.  They’re going to leave me, too.  It’s not the best way to think, I’ll grant you, but I can’t help myself sometimes.

It’s not that I don’t have enjoyable moments and hours; I do.  It’s that I feel like my baseline is so much lower, so much darker, than it used to be.  My tongue is sharp, and even if I hold it, my mind is still right there.  I am what I abhor:  negative, prone to nastiness, apathetic, lazy.  And I’m aware that my mask is riddled with cracks; I don’t think I’m fooling those closest to me.  I guess I don’t like me very much these days, so I don’t know why anyone else would.  Or maybe I just don’t like BEING me these days; that I can say without equivocation is true.  I have so much good in my life, more than so many, and yet I’m unable to appreciate it beyond the intellectual level.  I can count my blessings easily; what I cannot seem to do is FEEL them, and allow them to bring me the contentment and joy they would under circumstances that don’t include the death of my sweetie.

I don’t know if this is a stage to be lived through, like all the others, or if it’s the threat of my future.  Will I stay this way?  If this is part of healing, I can take it.  But if I’m settling into patterns that will make me increasingly bitter, reclusive, harsh, and sad, I’m concerned.  How do I know which is happening?  I don’t want to be this way for the rest of my life.  But I honestly don’t know where the switch is to send me down another track.

This Saturday I went up to Phoenix with some friends to see my favorite comedian live.  I last saw him in 2002 or so, and we had to go out to L.A. that time, but it was totally worth it.  This time he was coming to us.

We had dinner at my favorite restaurant, laughed our asses off at the comedian, and headed back to the hotel for the evening, since no one wanted to make the drive back to town that late.  Oddly, the hotel we got was the same chain I stayed at, and cried myself sick at, when I went to meet his gang in California in September.  Fortunately, there were no difficult flashbacks.  The rooms were very different, and it’s been almost a year since then.  Dang…where does the time go?

By the time the evening ended, and I was in bed reading until I fell asleep, I was marveling at the fact that I had thoroughly enjoyed myself.  And it wasn’t because I didn’t think about A; on the contrary, he was on my mind quite a bit, as he always is.  His name was in the dessert I ordered; I ordered it because of that.  I shared the comedian with him, and we watched some of the videos together when I visited him, laughing until we cried.  But for the first time in over a year, I had unsullied enjoyment, and it felt like a miracle. 

Up until now, I would have moments where I’d be enjoying myself, but there was always the mental follow-up of “I’d be having a really good time if only A hadn’t died,”  like “This moment would be perfect if only he was still in my world.  I’d have no worries.  But he’s not, so I’m unable to enjoy it fully.”  Like the enjoyment was discounted 25% automatically with that thought, and truly, it was.  I could feel myself sink.  But not Saturday.  Saturday it was more “I’m having a really good time.  A is not here.”  They were two separate facts, but one did not necessarily inform the other for a change.  Reality was able to hold both pieces without making them causal or intertwined.

And that was the thing…there had been plenty that day that could’ve really tanked me.  Leaving my neighborhood, I saw a sign for an estate sale.  Prior to losing A, I would see signs for estate sales and think, “Oh, I bet there’s some good stuff.”  Because it was a whole lifetime for sale.  It’s a little sickening to realize and admit I thought that way, in comparison to now.  Having had his “estate,” such as it was, swept away to places and people unknown to me, and not having any opportunity to have a treasured memento from among his possessions, I now view an estate sale as a necessary horror.  Yes, a family may not want to hold on to everything, and may have bills to pay any way they can.  But I will never shop an estate sale again.  Anyway, the sign gave me a moment’s pause, and a sad feeling passed over me as I thought of the person who had passed, whoever they were, and the family left behind taking care of the unpleasant, yet necessary, tasks of settling an estate.  I suppose you could call it a prayer, though it was more of a warm, sympathetic wish sent out in the ether in the hopes that it got to them. Maybe they’re the same thing.

But then I was able to go on with the day.  The thought of it came back a few more times, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying myself.  The whole day was remarkable that way.  The reality was still there, but it didn’t have me in a chokehold, unable to see anything else except through that perspective.

I was at Joann Fabrics after work today for a few things, and the decorative box aisle caught my eye, as did the sale sign therein, so I took a look.

Not long after A passed, I thought about getting a special box to put stuff in, reminders and souvenirs and mementos.  I kept putting it on my shopping list, and every time I looked at it, I started crying.  Needless to say, I didn’t buy a box.

I didn’t like the idea of boxing him up, or boxing my life with him up, and putting it away.  I still don’t.  There are a dozen pictures in this room of him, and I will not be the least bit surprised if they are still here the day I die.  I love him.  I love his face.  I want to see his smile and remember him every day.

But in addition to having quite a few things out that are A-related, even beyond the pictures, there were two collections of stuff, mostly paper, that I’d ferreted away in a basket in the closet, having no good place to put them, and another stash of cards and notes he wrote me that I’d collected in an old jewelry box.  They are available, but they are not out, nor do they need to be.  Being mostly paper, they really need to be put away, as paper is fragile.  So it occurred to me that I could get a box for those things, keep them all together, and have it available any time I wanted to look through them.

The fact that I was ready to look for such a box was a big step.  There was no crying (well…over that…the song that we always loved to dance to that came on earlier today was another story); it felt right.  It felt like it was time.  So I picked a box that looked like a little suitcase, and then it seemed too small, so I got the bigger one, too.  And it’s a good thing I did, because it is full to the brim.  I’ll need another one if I find or collect anything else to go into it.

I had my doubts even until I got it home, even as I was putting things into it.  Was I ready for this?  But I figured I would keep going until I couldn’t, and I found that I didn’t even wince.  I have a pair of chopsticks that A gave me that sat on a cabinet in my office; he personally tutored me in their use, and I practiced on popcorn as we’d chat at night.  I’ve dropped them a few times, and I have 3 dogs that love nothing better than to chew on sticks; if they chewed these sticks up, I would be very unhappy.  So I thought I could put them into the little suitcase, too.  I laid them on top, and even as I did, I thought to myself, “If it bugs me too much not to see them, I can always take them out again.”  Even when you think you’re ready, you don’t know.  Will you have cleaner’s remorse?  I have, more than once.  But it was okay.

The next thing I had to deal with was a pair of red Chinese silk slippers that the puppies had gotten ahold of and destroyed.  I had gotten a pair years ago in San Francisco, and the puppies’ elder brother, then a puppy himself, ruined one of that pair.  So four years later, when A and I went to San Francisco on one of our daytrips when I was visiting him, we stopped into Chinatown and got me a replacement pair.  Actually, they were 3 pair for $10, so he encouraged me to get the backups, lest they meet an unhappy end at the dogs’ paws again.  So I did.  I have a purple and a blue pair as well, as yet unchewed by local canines.

The red ones, though, are shot, and there is no saving them.  I was about to throw the pair away, and I hesitated, because I had bought them with A at my side.  And I wondered if I could squeeze in a pair of ratty, chewed silk slippers in the already overstuffed suitcase.  I really can’t.  And the fact is, I have the 2 other pairs, because somehow, we knew this was going to happen again.  So I let them go.

It’s entirely possible I’ll dig them out tomorrow, but for the time being, they’re still in the wastebasket.  And I’m proud of me.  Wistful, and a bit pensive, but proud nonetheless.  Every sign of healing, no matter how small, is a victory.  When you can do the things that made you cry and run the other way not so long ago, it’s encouraging, in the truest sense of the word.

I spent some time today reading at the ywbb.org bulletin board.  I have to say that, lately, it’s been a great support, even if it makes me sad.  Honestly, I don’t know how sad it makes me; I usually go there when I’m already sad.  I’m a lurker there; I don’t know what more I have to say that I haven’t said a hundred times already, and I really don’t want to get into the issue of my official non-widow status, which kept me out of another widows-only group.   It’s enough for me to read.  I find that everyone there says everything I would say.  That’s why I read there; they understand, even more so than my grief group, because everyone there lost a true love. 

One guy wrote about how he used the last check that had both his name and his wife’s on it.  I can imagine how difficult that moment, that realization was, because small things like that have been huge blows to me.  That is why there is horseradish and mayo in my fridge that is almost 2 years old.  I can’t move it.  I wouldn’t have eaten it in the first place, and certainly would not now.  I bought it for him when he visited here.  One day I will take it out of the fridge, wash out the jars, and keep the jars.  But not today.  And not in the foreseeable future.

They have an acronym at that board for folks who say dumb things, or show a lack of understanding.  They call them "DGIs."  I couldn’t find a glossary, and couldn’t figure out what it stood for, and then today it dawned on me:  Don’t Get It.  A lot of people wouldn’t get the sentimental value of condiment jars; but when you’ve lost big, the biggest, you hold on to anything you can.