We’re all getting older.
Deny it all you will, it’s a fact. Currently, on my mantle is an urn. It’s a nice simple shape.
It contains the cremains of my Significant Other. We had 34 years together; some good, some bad, but the important thing is we endured the hard times and celebrated the good times.
There’s a finality to that urn. It’s like a stake in the ground that says, “From here you go on alone.”
Now, there’s all the paperwork and complications. There’s the digging through documents and trying to find accounts and pay for this, that, and the other thing. There are originals and copies of proof of death to be sent to various organizations. It’s complicated, litigious, and annoying.
There’s cleaning, and organizing of all the little bits of stuff that my S.O. considered important enough to keep and deciding the validity of each thing. Should the silly coffee mug from some professional conference be kept? It means nothing to me. But it was a cup that frequently was on the breakfast table. I suppose, in that, some objects have attained sentimental value, but are they important enough to keep?
How do you decide? What merits an object’s inclusion in a cabinet when everything in the house is something you remember picking out together? When your home is full of memories, how do you weight one item over the rest?
There are items that should be returned to my S.O.s family. I’ve been collecting those because these items have historical significance to the family and should be passed on. Like other objects they have little significance to me personally, but to the family they are bits and pieces of their history. The family should have the opportunity to accept or reject these items.
Our home is full of memories. These memories come unbidden at random times and they can be paralyzing.
Then there are all the good people who don’t know what to say or do. There’s really nothing they can say or do, this pain is mine. I appreciate their well wishes and concern. But really there’s little they can do to help, short of standing with me.
There are those among the friends of my S.O. for whom drama seems to be necessary. For them, sharing their trauma of losing a parent or sibling is supposed to be helpful. In reality their repetitive oversharing is just ripping the bandage off the wound.
It’s not that they mean to be cruel. They just don’t understand that grieving a spouse seems to be a private affair. Losing a spouse is very different from losing a parent or sibling. I’ve experienced all three now. The spouse, is a completely different experience.
When you’re growing up, you come to understand that death is part of life. You understand there’s an order to things. You eventually realize that your parents will one day, not be there, and you usually have a long time to come to grips with that concept. Often, your parents, realizing their own mortality, provide you with guidelines and instruction. It’s not overt, but you see your grandparents pass on and by observation you learn how to come to grips with that inevitably.
When your parents pass on, you grieve following your parent’s example of grieving their parents.
When your spouse passes on, you have some rudimentary coping mechanisms but those don’t really fit. You’re in uncharted waters and each day brings new and different pain.
You see something that your spouse left behind. For example, a mess, and your first thought is to be irritated by it, then you remember your spouse is gone. That’s when you feel guilt about being irritated with them, and grief washes over you. Then you wonder if you were good enough to them, were you petty when you expressed your irritation about them leaving messes in their wake.
Should you have been more patient and loving? Then you’re back to guilt.
You don’t really have time to process your feelings because there are plans and decisions to be made.
The love of your life may be at peace, but you’re anything but…
I’ve found myself losing hours of a day over something trivial. I’ve been awakened by the dog in the night because unbeknownst to me I was crying in my sleep. It’s a strange feeling to be awakened by your dog kissing tears away. In the dim moonlight I can see the dog’s concerned eyes. Once I’m awake, he lays down next to me with one paw on my arm, as if to say, “I’m here Dad, it’s going to be alright.”
I’m anthropomorphizing the dog. He doesn’t really understand, but he’s aware something fundamental has changed in our home.
Grief appears to be a journey. It’s not one that I’m prepared for, and not one that any of us have a choice in undertaking.
I’m getting the feeling that this is also a long journey.
All of which is to say, I’m likely to be writing intermittently at best.
