Got it. Wish I hadn’t.
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.