I don’t know if I’m cut out to help anyone navigate the grief process.
Process. Now there’s a word.
The other day I leaned out onto the porch to toss a sack of trash when I saw it. Some people who have lost dearly loved ones see cardinals, pennies, feathers, and other things. I looked down and saw a rock.
For a few hours I thought it was “The Rock.” I’ll explain.
After Gary died, I went around the bend. I went around hundreds of bends. My sister couldn’t keep up with all the bad decisions I made. She lives an hour away so by the time she would find out what I’d done, it was too late. And she was afraid to scold me, so she sat in silent judgment on the other end of the phone.
Thing is, I lost my memory of the first few days. There was a phone call from my sister-in-law and I remember her saying she was bringing over a cake, some soup, and a tuna casserole. She did. And that was the best tuna casserole I’ve ever had in my life.
I don’t remember anything about the days after that. (I tried a couple of times to force myself to go back and try, but I ended up having panic attacks, so I stopped.)
A wonderful friend from my newspaper days offered to make a pillow out of one of Gary’s shirts, so I gave it to her and it now sits atop a bookcase next to a framed painting of a yellow Lab. Lots of people remember Gary walking Sarah Jane all over the place, so I thought it was a perfect pairing.
And that thought brings me to Blacki. There’s a sweet, poignant story about how she got her name (involving Gary’s grandfather and his lost dog), and as usual, this pup picked Gary as her favorite person. She did have a bad habit, though – she ate rocks. At first, Gary told me I was making too big a deal out of it. After I told him what rocks would do to her stomach and our wallet, he went a wee bit berserk and fixed her tie-out so she couldn’t get to any. Well, except the one you see in the photo.
I was sitting at his desk a few weeks after he passed away. I was sorting through nicotine patches, allergy meds, lighters, papers…and then I saw it. “The Rock.”
See, we both had to make the heart-wrenching decision to return Blacki to the humane society. Gary had gotten so weak he couldn’t handle her, and I wasn’t in good shape either, but I was trying to take care of Gary. The rock I found was the last one Blacki brought into the house.
It tore us up when she was no longer with us. I now know that Gary held onto that rock because it reminded him of his pooch.
I have a little collection of “Gary stuff” in the living room. He loved belt buckles and eagles, playing and watching tennis, and we both were fans of the Yankees. The business card was for his lawn mowing gig (at one time he had almost 35 lawns).
For those of you who have lost loved ones, I don’t know if it helps you to have a little collection like this, or if it hurts too much to be reminded. We’re all different. So very, very different.
I’m not a big fan of posting my sorrows and pain on Facebook, but I do it anyway. It may make people uncomfortable, or maybe wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling sorry for myself.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record, like maybe I’ll lose friends. Hey, I lost family after my sweetheart died, so nothing would surprise me now. Maybe that’s happened to some of you, too. I understand it’s quite the common thing.
Doesn’t make it any easier, though, does it? No, it does not. And I’ll bet some of you are sitting up alone, in the late night hours, missing your person and crying silent tears. Sometimes my crying gets pretty loud in this big, empty house. But, hey, that’s okay. It really is.
For me, it doesn’t work to stuff it down inside and pray it goes away. It won’t. If you loved someone deeply, you will probably grieve deeply. Others can carry on, seemingly only looking forward, while you can’t seem to shake what once was.
I get it. And, yet, after a few years, I can smile more at the memories instead of crying. The tears won’t stop anytime soon, but there is a new space inside of me that breathes a little deeper, that embraces the pain and turns it into something useful. Like reaching out to you and offering an understanding of what grief is. It’s actually simple. It’s love.
But you knew that, didn’t you? It’s love.
