“My husband doesn’t want to go.”
“Huh! I don’t think mine will either!” a woman giggles.
I smile, listening.
wanting to smack them across their whiny, made-up faces which happen to be attached to well-dressed bodies,
wanting to complain about MY husband,
wanting to scream at the top of my lungs…
“I want to belong to this group again!”
I want to live in happy, oblivion and complain about…
MY husband
And laugh at the expense of…
MY husband
And shake my head at the thought of what
MY husband
would say
But I don’t HAVE a husband.
When I refer to MY husband
it’s in past tense...always.
I stand there with a plastered smile, seething.
Finally I turn
walk to the buffet
pick out some fruit and decide to top it with whip cream
that is sticking to the spoon
so I bang it,
on the plate
too vigorously.
And the plate cracks in half.
I let out a “HA!”
Other woman stare.
I smile.
The grief-rage having exited my body so appropriately.
MY husband would have had a good laugh over that.
But MY husband is dead.
That's perfect! I love that the plate broke.
ReplyDeleteI've had a million of these moments, listening to conversations like this. Sucks.
Those women even when they know you can no longer join them with the "My husband" complaining- continue anyway as if to let you know that they do not have husbands that were as great as yours was. Or they are just thoughtless and mean. Bitter am I, you bet I am- then i find gratitude about how i had at least some of what they will never find or have, even if cancer robbed us of growing old and his being here in body.
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