The Beat Goes On

My heart is still beating. I am surprised. It is nearing five months and my heart is still thumping away in my chest. Sometimes it pounds so hard I am sure it is trying to break out. Sometimes it barely taps out the rhythm of life–quietly–so quietly I think it might stop altogether.

There is nothing wrong with me except that Lane is gone and I cannot seem to find myself without him.

We have a concert series here on the Ranch. I have worked on the committee for more than 20 years. I have wonderful friends from the committee, from the neighborhood, from the mens’ beer and softball society. There is always a week’s supply of hugs and kisses…and I am still alone. The music is a summer tradition. I go to the concerts, I pack the picnic supper for one, and I look for his face in the crowd. Most often I leave early because it hurts to look for what is never there.

I try not to dwell on the aloneness. I try to remember the love. But even remembering the love reminds me that there is not a soul in the world today who knows me as well or really ever wanted to.

Lane’s brother is ill. Yes, cancer. His stomach will be history this time next week. Lane died on February 20th. Bob’s surgery is July 20th. It isn’t nice that mom has so many unpleasant 20s so close together. I would try to comfort her, but I remind her Lane is dead and she doesn’t like to be reminded. She is 86. She can grieve or not however she wishes. I think we could have given comfort to each other but since she didn’t want to find out, we go through whatever these steps are 20 miles apart. I wonder if she feels alone. I wonder if she wishes her heart to slow and stop or if she wonders that it beats at all.

I was surprised that mom would not participate in the memorial celebration that had rock and roll ringing from the hills and 300 people eating street tacos and drinking beer to the memory of her son. I was even more surprised that she declined attending the inurnment at the National Cemetary–family only. She acts as if he is being obstinant in not coming to visit her. Or perhaps, I am keeping him away.

It is the end of another day. The hour approaches when all working women must tuck themselves in or risk very bleary eyes in the morning. The hardest time of the day is the half hour between the shower, sleeping pill, and the 11:00 news and the blessed relief of sleep. Sleep would be more blessed if Lane even came into my dreams but I cannot even find him there.

Healing Touch

I go to the masseur just to have someone touch me. He must think I am a real whack job. He works the kinks out of my back and shoulders and I just sob. I have the same response to a manicure. If the girl doing my nails knew she was the only one to hold my hand all week I bet she’d flip completely out. Hey. I flip completely out. I work in a very high pressure environment. I am feeling completely out of my depth. I cannot sustain a cohesive thought and I am sure that everyone is wishing I would get over it already. I am not used to feeling inept. I don’t much like it. I am afraid it may become my new definition. You cannot imagine the restraint it takes not to just go off at people who are patently stupid. I have no patience. I have less than no patience for stupidity. It will be four months on the 20th. And Lane’s birthday is the 22nd. The grandgirls always have a birthday party in January for Dr. King. They are having a birthday party this weekend for their papa. Papa (Lane) is more important than Dr. King–so say the six-year-olds and the gramma says amen.

One More Month

The routing number on my checks is not in the same place as other people’s checks. I entered the numbers wrong…well, according to the cheatsheet on the website…and the bank did not honor the payment. When I picked up the mail this afternoon there was a letter notifying me of my mistake and adding a $25.00 gotcha to the bill.

In the past month, I have learned that the world is very tolerant of the holes in my brain. When I called the management company, the nice lady was happy to reverse the charge. She just couldn’t quite figure out how to put the account in my name rather than his. He is dead. He isn’t answering the mail.

It’s not like they don’t have a complete profile of the property, including that my name is on the title. Indeed, by now, mine is the only name on the title. Note to world: DO NOT argue with a new widow. The waves of emotion that have absolutely nothing to do with property management or HOAs crashed over me in wracking sobs. I don’t want to do anything, particularly anything extra or requiring thought. Don’t ask me to find the title and send it to you when it is on file somewhere in your archives.

The waves crashed over me and they also crashed over the nice lady who was just trying to do as little of her job as possible. She felt bad. She called IT and yes they had the information…no problem. The name is changed. Just quit crying please, please?

Twenty five dollars is not the end of the world. I just spent more than that on a ledger that will not work for my accounts and I owe the government an order of magnitude more money than that (unless I figured the taxes wrong). This grief thing hurts. It makes me act like a crazy lady. It makes me feel out of control and out of my mind and really lame.

I am supposed to be kind to myself. How do I be kind to myself when I don’t even know who I am? I have been his wife for so long. His wife, his friend, his partner, his…what am I going to be going forward? I know I have to go forward. Backward is not an option. Dead stop is, I suppose, but it doesn’t appeal.

It has been six weeks–a month and a half–a century–a lifetime–the blink of an eye. I cannot tell time with holes in my heart.

Be Careful in Thought

I should monitor my thoughts more carefully. If you wait for something, it probably will come. I waited for the shoe to drop. Didn’t expect the entire shoe department to fall on my head in the same hour–in the middle of the night.
Truth be told, I was feeling like a bit of a freak. I really was okay and that bothered me.
I have watched the interviews of witnesses and interrogators who were so sure how real grief would look. I have been skeptical of their observations and but, even so, critical of my calm. What does it mean that I have slept like a baby for the past four days? What does it mean that I have felt able to do anything that didn’t require sustained concentration? What does it mean that I have really felt okay?
It means that I was exhausted and normal. Now I wish I still felt calm and freaky because sad, lonely, manic, wide awake, and normal feels like Hell itself.

The Other Shoe

I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I read all the material the kind hospice people brought me. I know that the novacaine of relief will wear off and I will probably cycle through the levels of pain again and again.
For now, I am doing okay. I have a few business things to do; a few insurance issues to see to; an urn to select. But I am fine.
As I actually made my bed this morning I realized he never slept on these sheets. He bought them for me–or threw them in the Costco cart just after the doc banished him to the bed with rails–the cage he hated. He could still walk then. But the sheets…went from package to laundry to bed and then to the laundry again. They do not smell like him. Nothing in the house smells like him. Cancer and the cycle of everyday life took his scent away.
I’d love to bury my nose in a sweat shirt and find him there.

The Telophase

We are entering the telophase–the last phase before the end. For days at a time he sleeps the clock around. He loses days. The mornings and evenings run together. He isn’t hungry. He isn’t thirsty He neither eats nor drinks and the doctor says that means a week at most. Then he wakes demanding bacon, French toast and orange juice–just at the moment I have come to terms with a week; maybe two of the constant heartbreak that comes part and parcel of watching him die.

What does that mean to the timetable someone finally shared with me? What does that mean to the progress of the disease? When will I be able to start thinking about how to heal? Lane won’t recover no matter how he rallies from time to time–each rally a little weaker than the last. How selfish is it to want to know when my pain will start to lessen? Can I possibly take care of myself without feeling self involved?

A Trying Time

I try so hard to stay up.

I try so hard not to let the water get from the back of my nose to the front of my eyes.

I try to pretend that everything is as it should be.

I am not fooling myself. I doubt I am fooling anyone else.

 

I really want to laugh but I think that the laughter is stuck somewhere in the rubble of my heart.

I want to think about something—anything—except my life and I fall back into the darkness and lose focus on the light.

 

This is the hardest thing I have ever done. I thought sitting with Joyce was the hardest. Maybe it was. I thought prostate cancer was the hardest. Maybe it was. This, though, is devastating. I don’t think I could feel worse if it were me dying. I think I would feel better if it were me dying. Sometimes, I think I am dying—at least the me who has been Mrs. Carroll for 25 years and the me who loves Lane beyond all words. The me who can find his hat in a crowded mall or hear his voice across a soccer pitch—that me—is in terminal pain.

 

The book says there are 7 stages of grief. Colleen says I am angry. I agree. I am angry—but is that one stage or seven? Will I ever not be angry again? Will I ever not cry at the goofiest things? Will I ever be able to just get from Monday to Thursday without wishing the world would end? Will I be able to live with so much of me dying with him?

Okay

Am I okay? No not today. When will I be okay? I wish I knew. I have never done this before. In fact, I never want to do this again. People say that this is better than being hit by a bus. I am not so sure.

 

I am glad to know the passwords and the account information. But I am not good at waiting. I am not good at waiting for pleasant things and this is not a pleasant wait. I want to be doing something, changing something, making everything alright—and there is absolutely nothing I can do.

At Last

There are a lot of lasts coming up. Perhaps the last cruise has happened. The last Senior Prom may have been this week. The last Christmas may be just around the corner—the last new year, the last anniversary, the last kiss, the last chocolate mousse, the last bottle of Opus.

 

There are a lot of lasts coming up and we’ll never know which one will be the last. I do know there will never be a last I love you. I will love you over and over again in the years I stay behind. There will not be a last I love you.

A challenge of sorts

If Mogo’s mom can write 1000 words about things she loves, maybe I can too.

 

I love my not-so-furry big guy. I love the way he smiles with his whole face—eyes first. I love when he smiles at me. I love that he smiles at me often, even when I am not looking. I love that he is not in pain, although his life is sneaking away.

 

I love puppy breath and the smell of warm puppy bodies, just nursed and round with mother’s milk. I love the little eyes that droop and close in the flash of a thought. I love baby breath and the gassy, faintly cheesy belch that comes with careful pounding on a tiny back. I love the smell of baby hair—angels smell just like that, I am sure. I love the way infant fingers, and even more, infant toes look like tiny, fleshy sausages jammed into the hands and feet. I love the way the little feet curl at a touch and the bow-legged, knees-out pose of sleeping legs.

I love the moment when the little mind lets go and sleep wins another battle of wills. I love the weight of a sleeping child against my chest, the hypnotic cadence of breath and sigh, and knowing that the world could end in that moment and it would be just fine.

 

I love baking cookies. I love the challenge of making the dough just sweet enough and pulling the hot sheets from the oven at just the right moment—when the cookies are crisp outside and chewy in the middle. I love putting flavors together to please the people I love. I love each new favorite cookie of the year and adding it to the book.

 

I love feeding people. From the beginning of the preparation until the last dish is back on the shelf, I love the act of nurturing and nourishing. I love the memory of suckling babies at my breast and how cooking for me is an extension of that most personal form of feeding.

 

I love the hours of the night when most of the world is asleep. I love the silence of a sleeping city and stretches of highway with not a car in sight. I love the stars shining in a black satin sky and the excitement of a renegade bit of cosmic dust flashing across the darkness.

 

I love the pounding of a hard, hot shower and the smell of girlie soap and scrub. I love the near-orgasmic pleasure of water pounding in my ear and the guilty realities of handheld sprayers and pressure adjustments.

 

I love jeans that zip without coaxing or coercion yet still cling to every curve. I love a tucked-in shirt and a leather belt. I love a bra with sense enough to support without poking, pinching, or making a nuisance of itself. I love long sweeping skirts and the crinkly swish of crinolines on silk.

 

I love the rabbits nibbling skittishly on the dew-wet grass. I love the twitch of their ears and the speed of their escape when they catch my scent on the breeze.

 

I love shifting smoothly from second to third and again from third to fourth with wind in my hair and the sun on my face. I love waving at the other sports car drivers and feeling like Mario Andretti zooming down the freeway. I love the way my stomach lurches when dropping down the hill on Ash Street toward the bay. I love to drive with no particular destination in mind and know where I was headed as soon as I arrive.

 

I love phone calls with no agenda, dinner invitations for no reason at all, and real letters in the mailbox. I love open armed greetings that melt into hugs that squeeze the tension from my soul. I love being touched and held and feeling understood.

 

I love to flirt with babies and men young enough to be my sons. I love to have them all flirt back. I love the wide-mouth smile of a toddler who knows I am listening just to her. I love being a gramma and a woman and still a little girl.

 

I love the children my children were and the adults they have become. I love that they trust me with their girls and that their spouses love me too. I love my grandgirls, shrieks and all. I love watching them learn and interact and change their environment to suit their personal needs or whims. I love watching their thoughts develop on their faces and predicting the newest brainstorm I love the power of their differences and the continuity of their similarities. I love that they are such good friends. I love the words they have brought to life—lasterday, lellow, and lowshee in particular. I love that daddy cut baby Charlotte’s electrical cord—the one that was plugged into her belly button. I love the minty kisses of freshly brushed teeth and the chocolaty kisses that speak to ill-gotten treasure from forbidden candy dishes.

 

I love the smell of coffee freshly ground and more so, freshly brewed. I love bread baking in the oven and the steam that rises from a just-cut loaf. I love the puddles butter makes as it goes from solid to liquid to undistinguishable, melting into the still-hot slice.

 

I love to turn a flat piece of fabric into clothing. I love to pull needle through linen and leave a mark on history just as women have done for centuries. I love the continuity of doing something so basic as sewing and so artful as embroidery and knowing all the while they are really the same thing.

 

I love to climb into a big soft bed and pull down comforters up to my chin. I love it even more when the bed is shared with the not-so-furry big guy. I love that the thought of losing him makes me cry. I love that he is here now and that he has been my champion and friend for forty years. I love that he has nurtured my children through all their foolishness and that he shares the secrets of the ages with the grandgirls. I love that he explains the glass ceiling to two-year olds and shows them how to kick a soccer ball. I love that my touch is the only one he desires and that it has always been so. I love that he loves me as much as I love him.

 

There, you have it 1,074 words about things I love. I may have to read this twice a day for awhile. It helps with the gratitude thing. We really have had a very good run.