DEARMAIZIE

It’s been 3 months since my husband died.

Unless you’ve been through it, it’s hard to explain grief process. Process implies some order or linear progression. Grieving has neither of those. It is chaotic. It’s all over the place, scattered, memories jumping from one decade to another, thoughts, feelings, regrets, joys and whatever else emotional occupies your mind 24-7.

It’s mentally jumping from decade to decade remembering what was, but also moving forward knowing what won’t be. All the minor things he fixed, we fixed together, in our old house, are in need of repair again or new ones popping up, his hands, his tools. Now he won’t know the handyman I’ve had to hire to do them. He was going to do them – when he felt better. But he never felt better. And I can’t make my mind make sense of someone he doesn’t know doing these repairs. That’s what 52 years does.

It’s exhausting. It’s constant. Things you haven’t thought about in years. I might be wiping the counter with an Ocelo sponge and suddenly remember the time he bought a different brand of sponge which I specifically asked him not to do, but they were out of the other he said, which I suspected was an excuse for not wanting to look. That leads to a million other little things about him and sponges or buying stuff or visuals of him standing in the aisle in the grocery store trying to decide what new brand of grape jelly he’d like to try, which of course he never did because he never tried anything new. Nah, I’ll just stick with the Welch’s, as you choke back tears. You can almost reach and touch him as he set the super-sized jar of jelly in the basket and head to the checkout area. And you catch yourself, your hand reaching out into thin air to feel his shirt.

Those are the little things your grief has to explore to get you to the big things, I guess, before you can start to release. Do the memories lead to bigger answers/endings/peace?. The lessons, the paths, the forks in the road, the doors that lead you to the next phase. Then one day, peace. Is that the way it works? I don’t think so. I know now that grief never ends. There is no “getting over it.”

it’s like your mind has to filter all these little things before it can get to a lesson or a point that coalesces or gels into a realization. Ah, that is why I remembered all that, to illustrate this about the kind of person he was. Because your life has been so many little, wonderful things, you forgot the big things.

The fact that he went to the store reminds me how reliable he was. He always showed up. Always. And now, I realize I didn’t always show up.