Well, I did it. I listened to “Alive,” by Pearl Jam.
That song gets heavy rotation on every rock-oriented radio station on the planet. Scott liked Pearl Jam, and while I appreciate the band, I was never into them. I do like plenty of their music, though, and “Alive” is special.
We traveled a lot throughout the years, by car; be it to military bases to see the boys, or to concerts, or to colleges – you name it. He was the exclusive driver because he was experienced in big city driving and I was not. A lot of times, I would nod off, but he had to stay alert, so he’d play upbeat music and sing along.
I lost count of the times that I would wake up after drifting off to hear him singing along with Eddie Vedder to “Alive.” It was so comforting and – I can’t even explain in adequate words the calm that would come over me and the love for him. Just like the night he sang “Silent Lucidity” to me in that motel room, “Alive” evokes these memories and feelings and THEY ARE AGONIZING. I’ve avoided it by refusing to listen to the radio and removing it from Spotify playlists, but this morning, a thought suddenly formed in my head:
It’s time to listen to “Alive.”
I told my brain No, it’s too hard. I don’t want to cry. Then, I heard him and saw him looking directly into my eyes and holding my face.
“You can. You can do this. I’m right here.”
So, I did it. And cried so hard, I scared the cats. Goose thought that I was sick, Frankie peered at me from underneath the chair, and the boys hid. Every time I think that I’ve cried the hardest that I ever have in my life, I surprise myself, and achieve a new level of gut-wrenching, heart-tearing, unendurable grief. I did the thing that I’ve never done, not once, since Scott died and begged him to come back. I begged the universe to reverse this nightmare I’ve been living in and to let me wake up to his face. Please, come back to me. I’ll do anything, whatever you want. Just please, this was a mistake. Come back. I promise to be good. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Whatever I did, I’m sorry.
While that kind of bargaining is normal and a very common reaction to such a deep, personal loss, it isn’t something that I have done with Scott’s death. I held his face in my hands and kissed him over and over again in the funeral home that night. I stroked back his hair and touched his eyelashes, and traced his lips. I committed his face to touch memory like a blind person would.
I know he’s gone from this world. He’s contained in an urn just 18 feet away from where I’m sitting. I know that it is impossible for him to return. Just as I know that there’s no God, nor Heaven, nor Hell, I know that people can’t re-materialize. Magic does not exist.
And so I have not bargained with the universe or with my dead husband to come back. Until today.
There may be parallel universes or timelines much like we see in movies and books, because the fact of the matter is that what we know about time and the universe and how things actually work is knowledge that fits onto the fingernail of a newborn baby.
We don’t know what we don’t know. I really hope that he and I are in another reality together. I even hope that we might be separate in others – because the important thing is that he’s still alive in them. I love him that much. I’d be willing to exist in an alternate universe without the knowledge that he exists just as long as he’s alive. That he’s well and happy.
I love him, and the ache of loneliness is so painful that I did what I haven’t done and made a wish that can not ever come true.
Please, Scott. Please, come back to me.
Anyway, I listened to the song. He said I’d be okay, and he was right. I survived it. I felt the soft flush of his touch along my face as I struggled to catch my breath after keening in my sorrow for 10 minutes. It calmed me, much like his voice singing the song did dozens of times as we traveled dark roads.
I have a friend who I met on a social media platform years ago, when we were “Military Moms” – Moms of kids in the military. I’ll call her B to protect her privacy. About 8 years into our friendship, she lost her husband to a terminal disease. I watched as she grieved and struggled to figure out her life after such a devastating loss and tried to be a supportive friend from afar.
Within a year, she had remarried, much to my surprise. B’s second husband was a friend of her deceased spouse, and in their shared grief, a passionately deep love had blossomed. “Good for her,” I thought, “Although I could never do that if I lost Scott.” He had a teenage daughter whose mother was not in her life, and B became her mom. She seemed to have found her second chapter, and it was a life filled with love and fun and new experiences.
They had only been married for about 5 years when he, too, died – of sudden cardiac death while at work – the same as my husband did, 65 days ago. B was utterly broken, and I wept for her loss and that of their daughter’s. How she managed to survive it was a testament to her inner strength, and I remember thinking that I would never survive not one, but two losses like that were I in her shoes.
Within six months of the loss of her second husband, she was newly engaged to another man. They were building a business together, and while she seemed very happy, the judgment from others about her life choices was particularly harsh. HER life choices – not theirs, her “well-meaning” and “caring and concerned” friends and family. I will admit that her engagement surprised me, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think, “Geez, B! So soon?”
She married the guy within the year, and they’ve been very happy for over 5 years now. He seems to be a genuinely caring and kind man who celebrates his wife every day. Their business is thriving. She raised her stepdaughter, who’s in college now, and it seems that her chapter 3 is, indeed, her Happily Ever After. I don’t know what her judgy friends think about this; a lot of them have disappeared.
My initial shock and yes, judgmental thoughts (B does NOT know how to be alone, I guess) have dissipated as I have watched her life unfold and arrange itself with grace and persistent love after so many losses. She’s happy. That’s the stuff; it’s what matters.
Now, as I find myself living this nightmare of grief and despair after Scott’s sudden death, I think about B a lot. She’s been very compassionate and supportive toward me, even though my circumstances may be slightly triggering for her. “There’s no way around what you’re feeling,”she counseled. “You’ve got to go through it.” She found her way through it, and so must I.
I do know one thing: I will never, ever judge someone’s choices as they navigate their own grief path. I won’t judge them openly, or actively, or even passively. Granted, we aren’t in our “right minds” in the early days; this is why the experts advise that no major, life-altering decisions should be made for at least one year after a spouse’s death. It’s also very important to have a good support system gathered around to infuse some common sense into our lives when our brains may be drowning in despair.
And yet, I find myself wondering if our thought processes during that first year are not just mired down by grief but by our own personal circumstances. In my case, I have never been on my own. I went from my mother to my first (regrettable) husband to Scott. There was no single life, living in an apartment, doing the Mary Tyler Moore Shuffle for me. These last couple of months have been strange, for sure. I’ve changed up my surroundings within my apartment and radically changed my hair.
I did these things without the input of anyone else and without having to take their likes or preferences into account. I share this space with no one but my cats, and if I want colorful surroundings and whimsically strange decor, they certainly aren’t going to complain. And, as I sat in the barber’s chair and felt the weight of my hair drop to the floor, I had to stifle a giggle; this hairstyle wouldn’t have been in the top 10 of looks my husband preferred me to sport. And the color – platinum ash – NOT A FAN.
Granted, it was hard to give myself permission to not give a fuck and to be totally selfish simply because I could about things that concern only me. I’m still struggling with those inner demons and I imagine that I will for a long time. I’ve spent my entire life molding myself and catering to the wants and needs of the people I’ve shared my life with, and this person I find myself living with now – me? I don’t know her at all. With necessity being the Mother of Invention, it’s time to mingle.
And that is okay.
My friend B chose to continue to live her life with a partner. Maybe that wasn’t simply a survival mechanism, nor was it a reflection of her grief. All I can say with any certainty right now is that those of her friends who suggested that “Maybe you should try to be alone for awhile” should eat a bag of dicks. Living alone ain’t for the faint of heart – especially those of us who have lost one half of our heart. Did you know that loneliness is a leading cause of death in this world?
Maybe B already knows herself really well. Maybe there’s a pragmatism within that tells her that while she is most certainly enough, she’s her best self with a partner. And maybe, maybe, it’s nobody’s fucking business because it’s her life. All I know, at this moment in time, is that I will never, ever think “Geez, so soon?” when confronted with another human’s decision to re-couple after losing their spouse. Is it for me? No, right now, it’s not. It may never be. The idea makes me nauseous.
That doesn’t mean that it will always be that way, though. If there’s one thing that I have learned in the past 3.3 years of my grief journeys, it’s that things change. Nothing is permanent or promised. That includes my current convictions. For now, and, I think, for a long time, I’m going to get to know myself; that human who never had an opportunity to fully form into whoever it was that she was going to become.
Hey there – you, there in the grocery store, taking care of your grocery list with your spouse/partner in tow. Have you got a minute?
Yes, I’m talking to you. It’s weird, I know, to be addressed by some random stranger – especially one who looks slightly disheveled in her baggy clothes and who has a bit of a feral gleam in her eyes – but I promise you that you want to hear what I need to say to you. And by need, I mean that you need to hear this as badly as I need to impart it to you.
You’re pushing that cart along, and your spouse is slightly behind you, following your lead. They look a bit lost in thought, and you seem to be bouncing between purposeful intent and then distraction, as reminders pop into your head about items you need to pick up and the things you’ve forgotten in the aisles you’ve already visited. You vocalize these thoughts to your spouse –
“Don’t let me forget to grab hamburger buns.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re out of mustard.”
“Oh crap! I forgot the paper plates!”
Your spouse says they’ll go back and get the paper plates. They head off to retrieve them, and you continue along, selecting things as you traverse the aisle. Your spouse will walk along the main aisle, peering down each one, until they find you again. Sometimes, you’ll catch a glimpse of each other as you travel along one end and they travel the other; you might each smile just a little at the sight of the other, but you’re not even aware of it. There’s an equally good chance that you’ll think, “Finally, there you are!” There’s an even better chance that your spouse will be thinking, “Jesus Christ, can’t you stay in one place?”
You have an air about you that I recognize, having been in the same exact headspace as you about a million times. You both have a day or two off, and you take that time to get things done, right? You run errands, get the groceries, visit other stores where you might need things, and maybe even have plans to see a movie or go out for dinner. Maybe you’re just doing all the running around because you’re looking forward to spending the rest of the weekend at home, catching up on TV that you missed during the week or watching that new release on HBO that you’ve been waiting to see. Maybe there are small projects to accomplish at home; a leaky faucet needs new washers, or there’s laundry to do, or there is yard work to do, with the melting snow exposing bits and pieces of trash, twigs, and dead leaves.
You’re not thinking about tomorrow morning, when perhaps the two of you will sit together in your pjs on your living room sofa, sipping coffee and reading or scrolling through your phones, while NPR plays on Alexa in the background.
You aren’t thinking about how the two of you will do the household chores together in companionable silence, except for the sound of music from a playlist of both of your favorites filling the space to motivate you, and to make the tedium of cleaning more tolerable.
You’re definitely not thinking about how your partner will walk up behind you and wrap their arms around you from behind as you stand at the kitchen stove, stirring pasta or how you’ll do the same to them as they stand at the sink, washing up the few dishes that are dirty. The kisses occasionally placed upon your forehead – you don’t think about them at all. They simply are.
All of that? It’s just everyday stuff that you take completely for granted. You might even regard those things with a twinge of boredom. It’s okay – we all do that. I’m not criticizing or trying to make you feel guilty. I’ve been there, many more times than I care to admit.
This is what I want to tell you, though:
The everyday stuff is important.
You might not think so at this moment. You might be looking at me and thinking, “Holy People of Walmart,” but I promise you, I’m not a crazy person, even though I may look like one right now. What you’re seeing in me is profound grief. I wear it over me like a cloak, and I never take it off; it’s invisible to you, but you see it. You’re also seeing unbridled envy on my face; howIwish that I was doing the same thing as you with my love.
I try to avoid looking at people too much when I need to go out. I don’t like to look at couples just like you, immersed, together, in the everyday doldrums and responsibilities that life brings us. It’s incredibly painful. It’s completely defeating. It drops me even farther down into the pit of despair where I reside now, clinging to crumbling outcroppings, hoping desperately for a rope to drop down and pull me to safety before I fall to its bottomless depths for good.
Courtesy of Whitebear
There’s no rope coming, though. He died. No one is coming to save me.
I want you to know this because life is terribly fragile. You’re pushing your cart along, and your spouse is scrolling through their phone while you stop in front of the lunchmeat case, trying to decide what selections to make for the next week. I want to slap that phone out of your spouse’s hands and shout at you both:
“FUCKING PAY ATTENTION!”
Please…pay attention. You don’t think that any of this is important. You don’t think that an afternoon of errands and responsibilities spent together is anything special. You’ll just be back here, doing it again in a week or two. You’ll pass the time in between juggling work and home, passing each other in the hallway or collapsing, exhausted, onto the couch at night, trying to get the energy to get back up and go to bed. You’ll be brushing your teeth while your spouse is showering, or you’ll be in the shower and your spouse will pop in to pee, and you’ll say, “Don’t flush!” and they will reply, “I won’t!” Yes, this is just your life, and it’s nothing exciting or consequential. You’ll just get up every morning and do it again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Except that maybe you won’t. Maybe they won’t.
Maybe one of you will find yourself alone, like me. One minute, you’re just poking along, living your life. You’re completely unaware that the other half of your heart has just collapsed, dead, on the floor. They say that when you love that deeply and when your connection is so strong, you feel when it’s interrupted; a disturbance in the Force, so to speak. I’m here to tell you that’s not always the case. There’s no warning, no premonition, no sudden jolt in reality that blares, “DANGER DANGER DANGER.” You do not get the benefit of prelude.
It’s a thunderclap in your brain when it does come to you, that knowledge, and then you’re falling. You’re falling for a very long time, and you’re pretty sure that you’re never going to land. There will be moments when you silently pray, “Please let this all end. Please make it stop.” You’ll wish for oblivion that never comes.
I don’t know when that part of it ends, because I’m not there yet. I don’t know when the sun will again shine on my face, and I will be grateful for it. I’m told that it will happen eventually, and I am choosing to have faith in that, because my sources are themselves survivors of the end of their lives as they knew them: the end of an “Us.” They assure me that, while I will always be sad and miss my other half, I will also emerge from the chrysalis that I have been placed against my will an equally beautiful, different butterfly – when it is time.
You know that saying about the little things being the big things? It’s truer than you know right now, lost in your to-do list. Those little things are everything. The big things are bonuses. The tiny details of life are the lifeblood, the oxygen, and the nutrients that make all of the big things possible. You spend so much time planning, daydreaming, and waiting for the right time to come along to do the big stuff you want to do together to accomplish.
You’ve got to stop, okay? You’ve got to recognize the gifts before you, in each other. Don’t take any of it for granted, because in the blink of an eye, or the snap of fingers, or during 40 minutes in which three sets of first responders do everything they know how to do, it all can be gone, and your life will change so quickly, you won’t recognize yourself in a mirror.
I’ll leave you alone now to get back to the most important things in the world: the little things. I hope that the rest of your day is perfectly unremarkable and mundane in every way, and that you end it with each other…
Two months ago, my entire life as I knew it ended when my Scott left this physical world. The days have been dark and my outlook has been dim ever since.
There are days now when I say that I’m okay. I’m not, truly. I don’t think that I ever will be. I look for legitimate reasons to stay here and not join him every, single day. Some of those days end with me choosing this life because there are a multitude of reasons that my brain can validate. Others end with just one or two. Every day that there’s at least one reason to stick around is a day that I triumph over this crushing loneliness and an utterly broken heart. I’m not optimistic that I’m winning the war, but the battles, yes.
I choose to be honest with you all about this struggle because I have always promised to be transparent about my mental health. I know that by revealing my pain, there’s at least one person out there who will relate, and choose solidarity with me in this constant battle to remain mentally stable. I am a s u i c i d e survivor, not once, but twice, and ideation/intrusive thoughts have been a part of my psyche for about 44 years now. It’s an exhausting, constant battle within. Scott was my battle buddy, or maybe even my commanding officer. He was the only person on this planet who knew absolutely everything there is to know about me, and who loved me both in spite of, and because of those things. He saw directly through my darkness, into the tiny space inside me where I reside. He was the one person who could take my hand and lead me out into the light. He WAS the light.
I have never trusted someone so implicitly with my life and the lives of those I love. I never will again. I realize that, by making that vow, I consign myself to a life of loneliness. I don’t want that, but I can’t imagine ever allowing the possibility of this kind of pain happening to me again into my life. I would not, could not survive it. And I can’t believe that the kind of love we shared could ever be possible with anyone else.
So I need to choose myself. I need to love me. I’m not quite there. I have work to do. But as long as there’s one, single reason each day; one, single glimmer of light that guides me into the next day – I will get there. Grief is not only a journey, but it’s a life partner who we must chose to coexist with.
I was able to get out and walk yesterday, even though it was slightly chilly. On my way through the neighborhood, I saw these pretty, little crocuses blooming amongst a disheveled bunch of bricks.
Small mounds of baby grasses are springing up everywhere, and I saw a few bunches of daffodil stalks, as well. Spring is definitely announcing her arrival, but it’s still cold and blustery inside of me. The changing of seasons doesn’t serve as a reminder that I’ve lost Scott; it is more akin to a clown running up and shouting, “BOO!” into my face. It’s the passage of time. It’s the inevitability that holidays and birthdays will arrive, and he won’t be here to celebrate them with me and with our family.
With every day or week that passes, I experience a wide range of emotions. I laugh at funny memories, and I cry when I get dumped into the dark place where reality is there waiting to smack me hard across the face. I rage, and I wish for numbness. I think clearly for a few minutes, and then I emerge from hours-long foggy periods and I’m thankful that I have my wits enough about me to not light candles or leave something on the stove to simmer or worse yet, bake. I’d burn the place down, for sure.
I worry about everything.
Will I forget his voice?
Will I lose the ability to conjur up how his hugs felt?
Will I forget what his skin felt like, smelled like, tasted like?
Sometimes, I find myself gazing at a photo and having this moment of surreal disbelief: did my Scott really exist? Was this man mine? How could he be real and then just GONE? And I YELL at him; I shake my fist at the air, and I shout, “WHY DID YOU LEAVE??? WHY DIDN’T YOU FIGHT???” And then, just as quickly as the fury comes over me, it leaves, and I apologize for yelling at him, crying with a mixture of self-loathing and horror at being angry at my poor, dead husband, who would never have left me if he’d had a choice.
And he knows when the days are like this. The strange things happen, the signs. Today, as I walked home, I encountered a few strangers on the street, and I thought to myself, “Situational awareness.” I’m a woman alone, and there’s no one to call for help or to give me that sense of safety.
Walk in well-lit paths.
Hold your keys in between your fingers.
Listen and see with your gut. If your gut is telling you that something is not right, listen to it.
Don’t talk to strangers.
Stay observant of the men you might encounter.
All of these thoughts raced through my head in seconds. I kept up my pace, because home was not far away. It occurred to me that I have never felt that way in my life: exposed, vulnerable, alone. Of course, that just made my heart sink into my stomach and then my stomach into my feet. It’s amazing that I could walk with the weight of all of that pain inside of my shoes. Keep moving, I told myself. Home and Goose are right there in sight.
I began to smell a familiar scent about a block from the house. It was around me and very strong beside me when I turned my head. It was one of those scents that are so familiar that you take them for granted unless you’re deliberately thinking about them. All at once, I stopped dead in my tracks.
It was Scott’s cologne. Kenneth Cole. I used to bury my face in his neck and breathe in deeply, feeling all my worries just fade away. I was safe and protected in his arms. It lingered as I got closer to the front door, and then it just disappeared.
Walking me to the door, perhaps? Or have I completely embraced delusion and lost my fucking mind? Nah, don’t answer that, because I’ve been a sensitive all my life and I know contact when it happens. He’s a very active entity, both powerful and smart. His energy is pretty impressive. And it’s almost painful because I don’t want Spirit Scott; I want to turn back time 6 months and have him back and do things differently – like get him a goddamn angiogram.
He’s also busy because there are a lot of people missing him and feeling extremely vulnerable now, without him here. That was him in life – always there to support, guide, and bring both wisdom and common sense into any situation. We’re all just running around like ants trying to avoid a flamethrower right now.
Okay, so it might have been an exciting announcement 6 weeks ago, before my life became a real, live Upside Down ala Stranger Things. Announcements in this world are things like
– I took a walk today and didn’t cry for a single second of the time.
– I went to Dollar General, bought one of those accordion file thingies with the elastic band that secures it closed, and then I labeled the tabs and put every, single important paper and document in each corresponding section. And, if you’re scratching your head and asking yourself, ” Why is she doing this just now, at age 56 – when she should have had a filing system many moons ago?” Well, let me just say that The Husband managed that system and he was very fastidious about keeping everything important in one place. It’s just that that one place happened to be two storage cubes and his filing system amounted to stuffing them in the cube and walking away. It took a couple of hours of separating every single piece of important paper into piles, but we good.
– I did laundry and folded it all in one day.
– Social Security finally set the date for my disability claim appointment.
– I managed to string words together and make whole sentences when I spoke to my lawyer.
Yeah, so that’s just a sample of the exciting announcements that occur in the Upside Down. In this world, The Husband is dead and absolutely nothing makes sense. I don’t recognize myself in the mirror, my familiar surroundings are unfamiliar, and I’ve even gone and altered my looks radically in an instance of what I believed was honoring my husband, but which may have looked more like a moment of complete insanity to everyone else. Let’s just say the words “barber” and “clippers” and leave it at that.
Throughout this lonely, excruciating time, I have relied heavily on my writing in order to get my feelings out somehow. I’ve written poetry since I was a kid, and I’ve been told that I’m quite good.
I recently met a dude online who writes the most poignantly beautiful and real poetry that I’ve ever come across. Nearly every single poem makes me cry at the depth of feeling they convey and how they explain exactly how I’m feeling in this new reality without my Person by my side. He’s a writing teacher, but he channels his work into different ways to support himself and his work, and so when I wondered, “Could I perhaps do this?” he replied, “You absolutely should.”
My life is chaotic, and finances are so tight. The circulation has nearly been cut off while I wait for the toxicology report to come back in order for the death certificate to be finalized. It’s a formality, but one that life insurance companies require in order to disperse monies. So do banks that service auto loans and 401ks. “Cause of death” cannot be “pending;” it must be complete.
Therefore, I need to be able to generate some form of income to pay bills. Bills that come due every month, whether or not your whole life has become a lonely, living nightmare. Friends and family have been helping immensely, and for that I will be eternally grateful, but because I am proud, and because I have worked since I was 13 in some form or another, being able to simply allow people to take care of me because they love me is still a huge pill to swallow. I need to generate something to give back that isn’t just my gratitude.
So, here it comes – the exciting announcement:
You can support my creative writing by buying me a coffee, or two, or three, or once a week, or for every poem or story you love. So far, I have been amazed at how much coffee that people have bought me, and it makes me feel so motivated to upload older works and continue to create new.
Just follow the link under the photo to visit my page. I love coffee, and I love electricity and heat and being able to buy actual coffee to brew. I would be so grateful if you could buy me a cup or two and simultaneously enjoy my work. Also, if you like what you see, please SHARE, SHARE, SHARE, so that more people can read my work.
I thank you, and I promise you, The Husband thanks you, too. He’ll sprinkle some moondust over you as you sleep tonight. Look for the glitter.
When I was falling asleep last night, a thought came to me:
You’re gonna get out in the sunshine tomorrow, because it’s gonna be nice. And tomorrow, you’re gonna listen to music.
I haven’t played any music except Mozart since Scott died. Music was one of those things that bound us together, united us, and sometimes, divided us.
Me: The Beastie Boys are so lame.
Him: Nickelback blows and Chad Kroeger looks like a cocker spaniel.
We loved it, though, and there are simply thousands of memories attached to so many artists and songs. The artists we both loved are going to be difficult listens, for sure, but music has always been the thing that was either always in the background or we’d put on in the car and just sing along together. I’d get caught up in depression a lot and my days would be gray, but then, I’d turn on the music. I’d always feel better when I listen to it and then I would say to him, “Why don’t I just do that every day?”
It’s been a very dark, gray, quiet 6 weeks.
I got my walk in, and cried for the first 5 songs. I didn’t set a Playlist, just let Spotify dictate whatever. It was too hard to pick one that wouldn’t have definite triggers.
The first song was “Fortunate Son,” by CCR. One thing you have to know about Scott: he was a baritone who never could quite settle upon the key he needed to be in so that he sounded good. He’d mimic whoever was singing, and he LOVED him some John Fogarty. Therefore, when he’d sing along (and he always did), his voice would sound more like a screech because that was NOT his key. I’d wince and let him go.
Second song: “Black Hole Sun,” by Soundgarden. That’s it; that’s when I went into full panic attack-sob-gasping mode while trying to keep walking. We listened to a LOT of grunge-era music because he loved it; he had wonderful memories of college and hanging with friends and things that I wasn’t doing during that time because I was married to a controlling monster and raising 5 kids. He’d sing this song whenever it played; on the long trips we would take, we’d hear it at least 2 or 3 times. The memories just flooded into my brain and I am sure that I looked like a mental patient to passersby as I cried and tried to maintain my pace. It could NOT get much worse, right?
Song three was “Photograph,” by Def Leppard. Google the lyrics if you don’t know them. Talk about a s t a b right thru my heart.
Song four was “Gimme Shelter,” by The Rolling Stones. Again, another one we both loved. The message was not lost on me, and it was beginning to appear that there was, indeed, a message.
Cue up the fifth song, and I burst out into peals of laughter because it was obvious that Spotify wasn’t dictating this random Playlist. Remember, the thing that made Scott most happy was my laughter. The song? “Fight For Your Right,” by the goddamn Beastie Boys. I listened to the whole, damned song. 😊
I met a dear friend in the Produce section of the grocery store when I stopped in for some veggies. She opened her arms, and I went right into them. I blubbered. She let me. And we talked for about an hour. It was not lost on me that I was engaging in behavior that Scott and I hated to see, having both done our stints working in retail: people having coffee klatches – minus the coffee – in store aisles. I will never judge that behavior again.
I put the headphones back on as I was leaving the store and who I thought I wasn’t ready for began to play: “Summer’s End,” by Foo Fighters. I did fine – he knew that it’s one of my favorites and the words have a newer, more special meaning now.
The next song was “Run,” again by the Foos. Random music on Spotify doesn’t double up on songs by the same artist like that. But I listened for the message. And I got it.
But, he saved the best and the worst for last, as I was heading into the house. The last song was brutal. Brutal and necessary. He knew that I needed to hear it. Because that’s how I’ve been feeling for a few days.
A simple man And his blushing bride (Why’d you have to go) (And let it die) Intravenous Intertwined (Why’d you have to go) (And let it die) Hearts gone cold Your hands were tied (Why’d you have to go) (And let it die)
“Let It Die,” by – you guessed it – Foo Fighters.
I’ve been feeling angry. And I want something, someone, to blame. Because how do I live with this loss of this man who was EVERYTHING to me? The very essence of home?
I think he’s trying to help me to work it out. And the anger comes with it, as does the sadness and the pain. The music has to be a part of it. And he’s gonna make me listen, even if it makes me ugly cry in public places. He knows he can’t heal me, but he’s never going to let me feel alone.
I am lost But I feel so heavy The weight of my loss The magnitude of grief With the absence of you I’m in unfamiliar spaces In places I’ve always been I can’t find my home We took a trip And while we were away The weight of your hand Resting on my leg Felt like my home As the miles ticked by You were my destination
I’ve been robbed of everything Yet my burdens are heavy The weight pulls me down Into a pool of leaden despair I sink into a murky viscose Laying on the bottom Of an ocean Rife with mournful calls Of whales missing their mates
Did you feel it The weight My head resting Against your shoulder While in a tight embrace Our love was our home Surrounding us Impenetrable
The weight of your body Laying on top of mine In our fusion We soared to galactic heights It was our home But now you’re out of your body And I am stuck in mine And the weight of my loss Rests on me
I’m cast in cement Thrown into heavy water This is not home So I wait My grief building A mushroom cloud ‘Til I burst into flames And bits of me float upward Like fireflies We’ll be weightless Together But we will be home
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have been absent from my blog for some time now because I was actively starting a home-based business. However, things have taken a turn.
On January 17th of this year, I lost my husband to a sudden, catastrophiccardiac event. He was at work when it occurred, and despite heroic efforts by five trained first responders and two teams of EMS personnel, he could not be revived. He was 52 and had just been to the doctor for his yearly bloodwork and wellness checkup.
Needless to say, my life both ended and changed in an instant. I’m in the most profound grief that I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve once again turned to my writing to “work it out.” This blogspacemay well save my life; time will tell. I hope that you will stick around while I attempt to survive.
– Lori
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I’ve discovered, with profound sadness, that my circumstances aren’t unique. In my search for community, for others who can understand and empathize with this deep well of despair that I am floating around in, I have read so many sad stories of humans who have lost their soul mates. Despite there being a plentiful membership in this club, it’s still so starkly lonely and isolating that it can take your breath away.
You just take for granted so many things about having a happy marriage. You expect it to always be so. You’re so in love with that person that the thought of them not being here just never crosses your mind except for fleeting moments of gratitude that they’re present.
You might be like me, and ask for routines, like “Text me when you get to work, so I know that you’re safe.” It’s just a little insulation of reassurance – especially after experiencing a trauma, like losing your sibling to Covid in a horrific, sudden way. Your person might be so steady, so quietly in command of the chaos of every day, so level-headed and fiercely protective of you, that you live within a cocoon of his love.
He takes it upon himself to remind you to drink water, to take your pills, to eat – because while you’re still living in a PTSD-drenched world and your mind is cloaked in grief and confusion, you forget those simple tasks. As time passes much too quickly, you work hard to heal those wounds into scars because you want to be WHOLE for him. Because he deserves to have his wife back. He deserves to be able to once again take for granted that he’s going to see her smile and hear her laughter ring out at one of his Dad jokes that he tells just to incite such a response. He says it fills him with such joy. You need to give that back to him.
And you’re there, finally – feeling as close to that person you once were when the love was still young and you couldn’t stand to be apart – and it’s much, much sweeter, because you’re both so invested in each other; older, wiser. You can ENJOY each other without interruption, because the kids are grown and you’ve settled into a life that feels less stressful because you’re trading on each other’s strengths to make it all work and taking joy in seeing the other succeed, however small the victories are. This is what your bliss looks like, even as the world around you is nearly unrecognizable in the chaos of divisiveness. There is none of that between the two of you.
And then, in one second, it’s gone, and the divisiveness invades your life in a violent and traumatic way. It’s never going to retreat. You will never again feel that safety and peacefulness that existed within the embrace of his arms and the calming sound of his heartbeat as you lay your ear against his chest. That heartbeat is no more. Well-meaning humans assure you that his love remains within you, around you, and that he is yours forever. You just need to close your eyes and feel him surrounding you. You can still love him just as you always have.
But you know that you can never, ever trust in such feelings again. Besides, they went with him. And it’s the emptiness that you feel most of the time when you’re not completely immobilized by the loneliness and fear. This is life now. And it feels like, at any given moment, the bottom is going to drop out again.
Thanks, I Hate It. 