Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

Yesterday morning when I was getting ready for work, I grabbed a necklace to put on.  The necklace was one that I bought in a little jewelry shop in Mendocino, with A at my side, during my camp trip of 2006.  He’d spent the weekend up there with me, and when I had afternoons free from classes, he’d pick me up and we’d wander about the nearby small towns.  He was a good shopper, happy to poke around in little boutiques with me.  Another afternoon, we found a wonderful little world imports shop in Ft. Bragg, and when we left, I had a new hat and mittens, and he was carrying a didgeridoo.  He never really learned to play it; he hardly had enough time.

The chain on the necklace has a tendency to leave a dark streak on my neck, so I decided to take the jewelry cleaning rag to it before I put it on and remove the tarnish.  I hadn’t gotten very far when the chain snapped in my hand.

Another memento bites the dust.  It didn’t wreck me, as the loss or breakage of other mementos has, but I was displeased.  There was sighing.  I have, strangely, gotten used to losing them, so consistent an occurrence has it been since he died.  So consistent, in fact, that it almost seems a concerted plan in action.  I want to holler to the universe, "Okay.  I get it.  ‘Things’ don’t matter.  I don’t need anymore lessons, thank you.  Can you stop taking my talismans away?"

I know they’re just things; but it comforts me to have them.  I like symbols of the things that matter to me.  As I write this, I have in view a print of a Golden Gate schematic; several of my inlay projects; a one-eyed troll doll I bought in Sausalito with A; an owl E gave me as a gift, a reminder of an amazing owl visitation I had while with A’s best friend and his best friend’s wife; pictures of A, of E, and of my furry children—those I love best in the world; and tons more stuff that all matters to me for what it is, or what it reminds me of.  I suppose to some eyes, it could look like a lot of junk.  But when archaeologists dig, this is the kind of the stuff that they find valuable—household gods.  Old diaries.  Minutiae of a life.  Hell, they even get excited about broken dishes.   These are the treasures of the past, of civilizations and of individuals.  It’s all the same.

When I looked at the necklace again before I left, I decided that perhaps it was a gift, and that I could replace the chain now with one that wouldn’t turn my neck green.  I could take something that was lovely and wonderful, but now broken, and rebuild it even better.

I think there may be something important for me to get from that.

I got a message today from a musician friend I haven’t talked to in some time, and he asked how I was. I wrote him right back and told him I was doing pretty well. And you know, I am. I realized after I typed it that I didn’t even have to think about the answer to the question, weighing how much truth to drop on the interrogator about my current status, as I did for a long time. I didn’t have to choose between honesty and expediency in my answer, because, for a change, I could answer "pretty well," and have both. It took a long time, but here I am.

I’m healing. I am. And moments like that are how I know.