Twenty-Four Days In

 In 1988 I lost my grandmother. From my earliest memory until I started school, my mom dropped me off at my grandmother and grandfather's house. Every day. And sometimes on the weekend. For the rest of her life, my grandmother was an important person to me. Even after I was an adult, I called her weekly, and stopped in to see her whenever I was in the town where she lived. It was pretty much the same with my grandfather (We all called him Pop) until he died in 1992. The loss of these wonderful people hit me hard. I remember I couldn't sleep the nights they died, and grieved for them for months.

In 1994, my mother was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. Her decline was difficult to watch. My mother and I had butt heads for most of my teenaged years and into my young adulthood. She had trouble with high expectations and often found it hard to accept the people around her weren't perfect. When she went on Hospice, I moved in to help my dad take care of her. It was one of the most depressing times of my life, watching my tall, beautiful, healthy mother become unable to take care of her own most basic needs. She died in February 1995. Her death was both a relief and a tragedy. I sleepwalked through the funeral arrangements, and did what I could to help Daddy through those first days. I know now it wasn't enough. For weeks after Mother died I had night terrors. The way she died haunted me and caused mild PTSD.

Daddy outlived Mother by 18 years. He moved closer to me and we saw each other several times a week. He was there for me, my rock, my north star, through the erosion and dissolution of my 34-year marriage. He listened to my rantings, gave me words of encouragement, and when I met Wayne, he gave me his seal of approval without me having to ask. I adored my dad. He was always my champion. When he died in 2013, I was devastated. It took me years to recover from that loss. I'm still recovering from it. And then in 2018 I lost my brother, my only sibling, to cancer, and again I grieved.

In between all these important people in my life, I've lost cats and dogs I adored and grieved for. I've lost friends who died too young. I've had close relations and in-laws I respected and wept over when they passed. But put all those losses, parents, grandparents, sibling, pets, friends, in-laws—put them altogether and they cannot begin to compare to the indescribable grief I feel for the loss of my beloved soulmate, my Ol' Darlin' Wayne. 

One of the things that has become crystal clear through these past weeks is how much more compassion and care I could've and should've shown to others in my life who lost their soulmates. I remember my Pop sitting in his chair, a crumpled old man with tears in his eyes and my grandmother's photograph on the table beside him. I didn't commiserate with him enough through that. I remember my Dad marching from the funeral home to the gravesite after Mother's death, grief marring his face despite his bravest efforts to put one foot in front of the other. I didn't help him through that enough, either. I left him alone far too much in those first weeks. And the same goes for all the others. I realize all that now as I stumble through this landscape of grief, wanting to find the easiest way out. 

Each day brings some new obstacle whether it's dealing with the world, the frustrations of settling his affairs: credit cards to notify, a will to probate, a memorial to contemplate, what to do with all his belongings, who should receive what momento of his life. And then there's the self-care aspect, the brain fog, starting one project only to abandon it to another, forgetting to eat, to shower, to wash clothes, to pet poor Sam, who is also grieving in his feline way. I make lists of things to do, then lose the list. My Echo Dot and Alexa have become my personal secretary. There literally are not enough hours in the day. I wake up wondering, will I ever get through this first part? 

Maybe the worst thing is losing interest in things like reading, sitting out on the deck, having a glass of wine, all the things we liked to do together. We never missed Jeopardy and I think the DVR is still recording it. All those episodes to eventually erase. Buying wine, a thing we both relished and enjoyed. We made a game out of it—"You pick three and I'll pick three." Buying wine has just become another job, like filling a prescription because I need that glass or two of wine so I can sleep. The deck sits out there unused, almost the entire reason we chose to buy this house, that deck. All the plans I had for it, gone. Who do I cook for? Who do I clean the house for? 

When I went through my first divorce, my wise grandmother told me, as she stoked my hair off my forehead, "In a year you will look back and realize you are doing better." She was correct. In a year I had met my soon-to-be second husband. A year after that marriage ended in divorce, I had met Wayne. So I know a year can make a difference, but when I was 20 a year wasn't such a big bite out of my life. Now, at 70, a year is a big sacrifice. It's a year I'll never get back, but if in a year I will believe in the future again, it's a year I will gladly give. 

Onward....