(This is a post I wrote 10 months after Jim died. It still applies.)
This is one of those pictures that doesn’t need any words about love. It’s there.
OK, let me just warn you upfront. This is going to be a weird post. I’m going to try to explain something that I felt yesterday but I don’t really know how to explain it, and I wonder how many people are just going to think I’m some weirdo. I’ve already told you that I have difficulty stating my emotions, so this post is huge. Well, for me. Probably not for you.
Yesterday while I was sitting in that chair, having my roots canaled (or rather, having my canals un-rooted), I suddenly felt very emotional. It was all I could do to stare at the ceiling very, very hard, so that I wouldn’t cry. And since I spent the rest of my energy trying to keep my palms from sweating, that effort was extremely difficult.
Here’s the “hard to describe” part: the endodontist sat on my right and had to work on the left side of my mouth (strenuously, as I already told you) and so my face was turned in to him. He had his left arm around my head and it worked from the left side of my mouth. His right hand, of course, worked on the right side of my mouth. But the way we were both positioned made my head almost laying against his chest. Not quite, but only about a millimeter from it.
And suddenly, I realized how much physical contact I have been missing.
Before I go any further (and I’m trying not to cry now), get your minds out of the gutter! I am not talking about sex, I’m talking about just being that close to Jim. Just resting my head against his chest. Just having his arm around me. Just having him hug me. Or hold my hand. It was another one of those blows right to the gut. It hit me very quickly — I never saw it coming. And there I lay — his arms wrapped around my head, my mouth pried open and several gadgets protruding from it ….. and tried to keep control of myself so that I didn’t scare the poor man and his assistant and make them think they’d done something horribly wrong.
I was very proud of myself for keeping it all together.
But sometimes, when you keep it all together for a while, there comes a time when you suddenly don’t.
This is that time.
I miss his touch.