Month: November 2021

Today was Thanksgiving. It’s the first holiday since you left us. Today is the day people give thanks for all the blessings in their lives. Some people go around the table before they eat the meal that took all day to prepare and tell the others what they are thankful for. I went through my list in my head today. I’m thankful for my children, my grandson, my other family members and my friends. Without them I don’t know how I would have survived these last seven weeks without you.

As we sat down to eat our Thanksgiving dinner tonight there was an empty seat at the table. There was one less person there. The chair you should have been sitting in was empty. The two full plates of food you would have had didn’t get eaten. The pumpkin pie that only you liked didn’t even get cooked because you weren’t here to eat it. I only cooked the apple pie, which you would have had happily eaten along with the pumpkin pie.

There was no sports playing on the television today. There was no yelling at the players on the screen for the dumb move they made on the playing field. There was no nap in the recliner in between our usual late Thanksgiving Day breakfast and our normal dinner time. There was no asking me if the food was ready yet. There was no late night snacking of leftovers from the fridge. None of this happened today because you weren’t here to do any of it.

I realized today that this is the first of the empty seat at the table on holidays. I guess that empty seat didn’t fully hit home with me until today. I don’t know why a holiday is any different than any other day but today, on the first holiday since you left, I felt that empty seat at the table even harder than I have since you died.

I have no idea if looking at that empty seat across from me will get any easier to cope with. I know that no one can ever fill your seat because, well, no one else is you. All I do know is that life feels like a living hell right now and all I want is for you to be back in that empty seat at the table.

Loneliness is one of the unwanted companions that comes along with grief. It’s hollow, cold, dark and silent. It feels like a heavy blanket has been thrown over you that you can’t take off no matter how hard you try. There are days you wonder if you’ll ever be able to escape the iron grip it has on you.

The kind of loneliness you experience when your spouse dies is vastly different than when you’re divorced. In divorce, one or both of the partners choose to be alone and they go their separate ways. When your spouse dies, you don’t choose to be alone. It’s chosen for you because the Creator decided, for whatever reason, that it was time for your spouse to leave this earth.

This kind of loneliness is indescribable to anyone who’s never experienced it for themselves. The closest thing I can think of to try and make someone understand what it feels like is being in a forced solitary confinement. That kind of prison feels empty and desolate and it feels like you can’t ever escape it.

You have friends and family members to spend time with and talk to but they can’t fill that void that’s left behind after the death of your partner. That’s because there’s a metaphorical dance partners do with one another that can’t be replicated by any other types of relationships. It’s the yin and yang of being the other part of another person. When one partner dies the one left behind falls into an imbalance, much like when the person on the other side of a teeter totter abruptly gets off. The one that remains can’t balance it by themselves because they need their partner to help them do so.

Your partner also provides to you comfort in many different forms that those other relationships can’t give you. That comfort encompasses a large spectrum from emotional to physical and everything in between. There’s a feeling you get when you share energetic space with your partner that’s much different than when you share it with others. That feeling is comfortable and familiar, whole and complete, and no words need to be spoken between the two of you to understand it.

When your partner dies there are so many things you took for granted before that are now gone. There’s no one’s face to look at across the table in a restaurant. There’s no one to walk around with in a store. There’s no one to have a conversation with in the car. There’s no one to call in the middle of the day to tell them you love them and can’t wait to see them at home later. There’s no one to make plans with, both short and long term. There’s no one’s arm to lay your hand on top of when you’re sitting in bed reading. There’s no one to talk to when you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. There’s no one to wake up next to each morning.

Now, things are vastly different. I sit by myself at a table in a restaurant, usually in a quiet corner. I’ve become that person my heart always bled for when I would see them sitting alone. I eat my bagel, drink my coffee, and read about things on my phone. There’s no one sitting across from me to talk to about anything. There’s no one to tell me how their day went . There’s no one to talk to about silly, insignificant things or matters of great importance. I stay at the table way longer than I would if my partner was still here because I don’t want to go home and be reminded that it’s just me now.

I’ve adjusted the way I buy things at the store that I need to accommodate just one person. I don’t need the large coffee creamer or the gallon of milk anymore. It would spoil before I could use it all. I don’t have to buy a large bag of rice anymore. I don’t buy tarter sauce, tomatoes or the soup with the little sirloin burgers in the can anymore because I wasn’t the one who liked those things. There’s no need to buy a large amount of anything anymore because it won’t get used like it did before.

At night I got to bed and close my eyes hoping that sleep comes swift and easy. It usually doesn’t. Sometimes sleep eludes me for hours because I lay there thinking about what I lost and can never have back again. I look at the empty bed beside me and it literally makes my heart hurt. After sleeping next to someone for 35 years you get used to hearing them breathe. The room is so quiet now with no one else in it. The silence is deafening and it sometimes feels as though I might lose my mind.

After your partner dies, there’s an emptiness to every aspect of your life. Their death overshadows literally everything and you can’t move it out from the front of your brain. It is always there like a giant plate of steel and you can only see around the edges of it. To try and cope you take things one day at a time. And when you can’t manage to do that you take it one minute at a time. Whether it’s one day or one minute, it’s at least something. As the quote from Lao Tzu goes, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.

I opened the dresser drawer the other day. The one you kept your socks in. There’s so many pairs of white crew socks in there because you kept buying packages of them because you didn’t like the ones you bought before. You didn’t want to get rid of the ones you didn’t like. Why, I don’t know. So, the drawer is too full.

I picked the sock drawer to go through to start putting things in a give away bag. Because you don’t need them anymore. Because you died. I figured socks are an easy thing to let go of because they are just socks. There’s so many socks in there and socks shouldn’t hold any sentimental value so giving them away shouldn’t be hard.

But, it was hard. I stood there looking at all the white socks in the drawer. Some were nearly new. Some were old. Some were the good brand. Some were the cheap brand. Some fit your extra wide feet just right. Some were too tight and made your feet hurt. Some had dirt stains on them that didn’t come out in the laundry. But, all of those socks were yours.

I picked up a pair of your socks and held them in my hand. I stood there quietly for a few minutes and looked at them. I said to myself “These are JUST socks. Put them in the bag”. I looked at them longer. I used them to wipe away the tears that I just can’t stop from streaming down my face. I put the socks back in the drawer and I closed it. I held on to the knob on the closed drawer and stood there for just a little while longer with my head down, feeling unproductive and stuck.

Today is not that day.

I don’t know when it will be that day……but, today is not that day.

I opened your T-shirt drawer numerous times, before I ever attempted to clear out the sock drawer. I took some out to look at them. There’s the many surf brand T-shirts you loved to wear ever since I met you. There’s the plain white T-shirts with stains all over them that you liked to wear to work in the hot summer because they were cooler than other T-shirts. Those should have been easy to part with, but, not today. Today is not that day.

I’ve looked through your closet at all the clothes you hardly ever wore because T-shirts and shorts or sweatpants were your usual attire. I found things hidden in the shirt pockets because you hid things in them for as long as I’ve known you. I took the old and worn leather belt off the last pair of jeans you wore. You bought other belts over the years to replace the old one but you always went back to that one with the leather peeling off of it because you said it was your favorite and none of the other ones were as comfortable to wear. I can still see you sitting on the edge of the bed, putting one leg in your jeans and then the next and then standing up to tighten the belt before finding the right hole in it without having to look where it was. Your hands just knew where that right hole was. I gave that belt to our son who said he was going to punch extra holes in it so it would fit him. That would make you happy.

I looked through all your baseball hats. You were so picky about the hats you wore. You didn’t like hats with a flat bill, only the curved ones. You would bend the bills on hats to give them the perfect curve if they weren’t just right. You had hats you only wore to work and ones that you wore when we went out somewhere. The work hats all had a permanent stain on the top and bottom of the left side of the bill where you would grab ahold of it with your thumb and fingers to adjust it. You always asked me if I could get those stains out when I washed them but I never could. I watched you put your hats on a million times over the years and take them on and off your head again till they were situated just right. Your hats squished your dark auburn curls out of the opening in the back of your hat and that’s when you could really tell you needed a haircut. All your hats are still hanging on the hooks in the kitchen and the bedroom where you left them. I can’t move them because today is not that day.

I moved your Keen work boots out from behind the kitchen door where you left them sitting next to your Stanley lunchbox and water jug. I put them in the hallway next to the rest of your shoes. You hadn’t even had those boots long enough to break them in really good. You didn’t want to spend that much on work boots but I reminded you again that the podiatrist told you to wear good supportive shoes because you weren’t a teenager anymore. Besides, cheap shoes and boots always made your feet hurt. Spending money on something for yourself was never something you liked to do and I always had to talk you into it. I see the boots in the hallway every time I walk out of the bedroom and they’ll stay there for now because I can’t give them away yet. Today is not that day.

I looked at the two new pairs of New Balance shoes you had just bought the weekend before when we rode up to the outlets in Williamsburg. You didn’t want to spend that much on shoes but I convinced you to because you needed new ones and they were on a really good sale. You wore the everyday pair you bought only once when we went out to dinner the night before, the last time I would see you awake and conscious. I don’t know anyone else who wears a size 12 double wide shoe like you did.

I left the pair of Crocs you would wear outside in the yard in the hallway, too. Our grandson always liked to stomp around the house in them. We would laugh because the shoes were giant on his tiny feet and it looked like he was trying to walk with snowshoes on. I couldn’t give them away because it might upset a 4 year old who is still asking to go find his Papa. Today is not that day so those shoes will stay in the hallway with the others.

I took your favorite Columbia jacket off the coat hook in the kitchen where you hung it the last time you wore it. I put it on to see what it felt like. I stuffed my hands down in the pockets like you used to do yourself. I took it off a minute later. I was going to put it away in a drawer or a closet but I decided to put it back on the hook hanging next to my aprons because that’s where it belongs. I touched the quilted flannel Wolverine jacket you used to wear when it was cold. I found that for you years ago in a thrift store and bought it because it was in your hard to find size. I sewed the rips up in that jacket so many times because you didn’t want to get rid of it because it was so warm. I held it up to my face and it still smelled like the wood you worked with every day, just like it always did. I don’t want to wash it because it wouldn’t smell like wood anymore, which is what you smelled like all the time. Today is not that day.

I left your toothbrush in the cup in the bathroom and your razor full of copper colored beard and mustache hairs in the medicine cabinet. I left your hairbrush on the shelf next to mine. I can’t throw the toothbrush, the razor or the hairbrush away. I don’t want to do that right now. Today is not that day.

You are everywhere in this house. Each day I look at all these things that were yours. Things that are really small and insignificant but are important to me none the less as they help me feel closer to you. Giving them away right now is just too hard. Giving them away right now feels like I’m purging you from my life. Giving them away right now feels wrong. Giving them away right now is just too painful.

I just can’t give your things away right now.

Today is not that day.

Grief is something we will all unfortunately experience at one time or another in our lifetimes. It comes in many forms and there are varying degrees of the grief we will feel. No matter that form or degree, grief is always an unwelcome visitor at your door.

When grief first comes it arrives like an angry steam roller, barreling through and flattening everything in its path. It doesn’t have eyes to see what’s in front of it so it doesn’t know what it’s destroying.

It doesn’t care that you loved something more than anything else in this world. It doesn’t care if you don’t know how you’ll get through each minute of each day. It doesn’t care that you feel like you’ve been shattered into a million different pieces that can’t ever be put back together again.

When grief moves in it hangs the heavy, dark drapes on all the windows so the sunlight can’t make its way through them. It makes everything cold to where you don’t know if you’ll ever feel the warmth again. It takes all the beautiful colors of the rainbow away and replaces them with a thousand different shades of gray.

You can try and hide from it but it won’t go away. It knows all the places you go to in hopes of it not finding you. It sees you in the dark with your head buried in the pillow. It finds you in the shower and in your car. It slaps you in the face while looking at pictures or reading a book to a 4 year old. You might think it can’t find you in your quiet place of worshiping your higher power, but it knows where that’s at, too. Grief pulls up a chair and deposits itself right next to you and it’s not leaving anytime soon.

If you try to ignore grief’s existence you won’t be successful. The longer you do try and ignore it the harder it will be to get through it. Grief most certainly will demand to be dealt with eventually so you may as well let it in the door now.

Sit with grief for as long as it takes.

Ask grief why it showed up at your door.

Cry uncontrollable tears at grief.

Yell at grief.

Be silent with grief.

Tell grief you hate its existence.

Scream at grief.

Tell grief why you’re angry.

Tell grief why you’re full of rage.

Tell grief that things are not fair.

Ask grief how long things will be like this.

Ask grief how long you will hurt like this.

Ask grief if you will ever see the light again.

Ask grief if you will ever feel the warmth again.

Ask grief if you will ever see the beautiful colors of the rainbow again.

Ask grief if you will ever be okay again.

Beg grief to never show up again.

Sit quietly with the grief that has made a permanent home inside you.

Realize that no one is immune to grief.

Come to terms with the fact that grief is a part of life and our door will be knocked on by the unwelcome visitor at some point during everyone’s time here.