Every had one of those weeks where every day is a Monday? A week when everything breaks, costs more than your budget? When you’ve unpacked boxes and moved furniture to the point where your body just quits and stops? A week when you’re not just alone, but deeply lonely and angry at your husband for dying?
I’ve questioned my faith and beliefs a lot since he died, because nothing I knew could make sense of that loss, but four and a half years after the fact, I made up my mind to do my best to be present and live while I’m alive, as I believed he wanted me to. I trusted that he’d watch out for me and give me a heads up when I was heading in a wrong direction. I believed that because we were always each other’s “ride or die,” and it seemed natural to me that not even death could break the bond we shared through the ups and downs, good and bad.
So after a particular vision towards the end of last year, I determined to be open and allowed a friend to put me on a dating app. After about three dates, I met a lovely man and had an intense, three month affair that reintroduced me to the living and revived my love of concerts and dining, among other things. And although our parting was sad and hard, I’m grateful for that and believe that he was the right person for that mission.
But it also renewed my anger at my husband for dying and leaving me alone, vulnerable, and far from friends and familiar resources. For the first time in my adult life, I was seriously considering packing it up and discontinuing the care of my Ancestor table, feeling as though it was another bit of magical thinking I should move away from in my quest to remain grounded and present.
So this morning, after the plumber left and I resumed unpacking, with an eye to where to put the table and its contents, I saw the set of elekes I’d taken from a box yesterday. At the time, I was more attentive to a plastic bag with photos that I hadn’t seen in years, and I just set the beads on the sofa. But today I looked at them, knowing they weren’t mine, but wondering for a minute, if I’d had an earlier set I’d forgotten. Suddenly, like a punch that winds you, I realized that they belonged to my Raymond.
And I lost it. Again. Almost five years after his death, all the hurt and grief, anger and despair came spilling out, like lava from Pele’s gut. Once again I was bereft and stricken, the blade slicing through from gut to heart, just as those metaphorical organs had been pieced back together.
I so want to give up, but there’s no where to go and nothing to be done. I’ve no where to fall and no one to catch me or break my fall.
I’m not the first woman to mourn a man who died too soon. Not the first woman who lost a man to stubbornness because he wouldn’t listen to her. Not the first to feel this searing, horrendous, self-renewing pain.
I’ve previously compared grief to Michael Corleone’s famous line about leaving the Mafia, and it’s true. There are respites and even periods when an earlier sense of normalcy is restored. But it’s always lurking, like a “Mr. Smith” from The Matrix: always ready to spring out and take you over, as though your peace had never existed.
I’ve never smoked and don’t much drink, so I guess it’s sad and happy music, cake, and busywork until another false scaffold can be built. Till another “box” gets opened and all that I lost comes spilling out at me once again. Till it maybe feels safe enough to let my heart peek out again, if there’s anything left of it.
In the meantime, I’ll dance and write and look cute practicing weaponry, because I can. I’ll joke and cook, and do what all life demands because despite it all and how I feel, I won’t shame my Ancestors by being the weak link.
shamamaspeaks 