Written on April 15, 2011
729 days and 22 hours ago…
we were dancing in his room.
We were drinking beer, watching American Idol
and eating.
I can’t remember what.
We were laughing together,
his sister, his best childhood friend, my friend and I.
And then one of us would look at him,
and cry.
I tried to forget all of that today.
I told myself that I will “ignore” tomorrow.
I had decided that I would ignore this anniversary.
The 730th day.
730 days since my life
shifted,
became Jell-O under my feet,
since it ended up on a different life plane.
And those memories of the last hours of his life
can’t be stopped.
I tried eating my way into ignorance.
I tried drinking my way past them.
And yet, there they are,
those pointy edges,
those fragments of memory,
pricking me,
making me bleed tiny little droplets
and
as I bleed out,
in comes the physical response to the grief.
My spine aches,
my eyes feel prickly.
I feel fuzzy, unclear and surreal.
Just like I did 729 days ago.
I am filled with the same joy too. It was us, the four of us there, in our cocoon. The world stopped at the hospital door. Those three were there with me, we were there to help him leave this life. It was beautiful those last hours.
His leaving so black, so unknowing. Sarah McGloughlin reminding me to:
“Hold on.
Hold on to yourself.
This is gonna hurt like hell.”
I remember the nurse telling me that I wasn’t coping well.
And I yelling at her, “I know I’m not coping. My husband is dying! Now get him more morphine!”
I remember all of it
It pours into me.
There is no stopping it, no deciding to ignore it.
So I sit still
Let the tears come in their sporadic, unpredictable rhythm,
dropping down my cheek and onto my shirt.
I use my hands to swipe at them, smearing the wetness onto the back of my hands then onto my cheeks and then my pants or the bed duvet cover. Tissues …I can’t. Placing something clean and white under my eye to safely contain the grief feels absurd.
Grief is messy and wet and unpredictable.
I want these tears to represent all of it.
And then I want to cry not just to honor what has been lost,
but what
has
been
gained.
I can’t be one without the other.
730 days.
730 days.
730 days.
730 days.
To be followed by 731.