On my way to my morning breakfast taco place, I had to dodge a large truck in the road carrying a huge backhoe. Oh brother, I thought. They are going to tear something up. That’s going to be an inconvenience for someone. And I didn’t pay another thought to it, at least until I drove by on my way back home just thirty minutes later.
The beast that was once on the back of a flatbed truck was now dancing on top of wreckage that just moments ago was someone’s home. What just a few minutes ago was a place of family, birthdays, and rocking chairs had been, in mere minutes, reduced to a pile of crushed wood, steel and stone. Where just minutes ago sat a place of warmth, happiness and holidays, now was a treacherous wasteland filled with splinters, shards of glass, and razor sharp edges no one would dare explore.
It shocked me how fast it happened.
On December 9, 2006, while preparing for a huge birthday party to celebrate her 31st birthday, Maggie grabbed my hand, put it to her chest right below her rib cage and ask “Does this bump feel weird to you?” “Oh”, I thought, “This might be an inconvenience” but didn’t think much more about it and we had a great party that night.
It shocked me how fast it happened.
By the following weekend, she was having pains. By Christmas break she couldn’t keep food down. By New Year’s Eve (the one in New Orleans with friends we had been planning for months) my once vibrant wife was having difficulty walking. And by January 6, 2007 we were in the hospital. That big ol’ backhoe, the one parked right out on the street in front of our house that we didn’t pay much attention to, had just taken its first crushing scoop out of the side of our happy home.
For the next 850 days we carried on with our lives, defiantly ignoring as best we could that cold, metal backhoe bucket as it methodically turned our loving home into rubble. With its final swipe, it left me holding my angel sitting stunned on top of a heaping mound of twisted steel, crushed wood and broken glass that covered the happy memories of what used to be our life together. Now, it’s just me, alone.
It took a while, a long while, but now I’m no longer sitting. Daily I scoop and sweep. With a lot of tough work, I’ve cleaned off a small area now where I live. The rubble is still here and some areas are quite treacherous. But the foundation is still strong – we built it solid and reinforced it with lots of love and respect and smiles, although it sure is chipped up and I just don’t know what it can be used for now. And I still have a whole lot of cleaning to do. But I’m cleaning and (shudder) eventually rebuilding.
I think I’m going to put up a big sign that says “Watch This Space!”
Maybe if for no other reason than just to remind me.
I really like this post, because I feel like this is what had happened to me. My home has been reorganized, but under the surface is the mess I am still working on clean up- but on my emotional side and literally. My basement has looked like a bomb has hit it since my husband had got cancer, his mom died, an addition added on, and a kitchen renovation. The upper floors we live in has almost been transformed and this summer the scars of the outside construction will be repaired. It is very much like my emotional state. Sometimes depending upon my view, I can feel hopeful almost repaired, but then I am forced to look at the parts of myself that are still ripped open. Taking small steps is all I can do, when I want to run.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post. That's exactly how it is. Our backhoe came in and destroyed our lives in two and a half hours and, two years later, my sons and I are working on rebuilding (I agree with the shudder!). The idea of a sign that says "Watch This Space" makes me smile and gets me motivated! Thank you so much for this great metaphor.
ReplyDelete... although it sure is chipped up and I just don’t know what it can be used for now. ...
ReplyDeleteawesome. thank you.
great metaphor for grief...thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post - I always described my husbands diagnosis of a brain tumour in this way, as a disastrous wreck. One minute he was whole and well and we had a future and the next minute he was on a stretcher in an MRI and later brain surgery, paralysis, life stopped as we knew it - I liked what you said about picking up the pieces and I think of the people in Japan doing that with their lives having survived this horrendous earthquake. We have had earthquakes too and now we have to carry on.
ReplyDeleteThere is a great quote I read somewhere about resilience and happiness and I will paraphrase here but it said "if you want to be happy, you have to realize the minute circumstances change, and you have to accept that it has happened and pick up the pieces because if you don't there is no way to carry on. Change is the only constant in life"
I believe that.
we are helping each other do that
This is so good! What an amazing visual to help understand why this is all so hard and how we have to move forward, but slowly at best.
ReplyDelete"The small area in which I live"...that is so true. I just hit 18 months. Our experience was six years long, a slow descent, knowing it was terminal. Doesn't really matter if it was a fast shock or a long slow heartbreak, at the end of the day we are left with emotional rubble. It is still a struggle to accept and to get through the day, with all of the fallout. It would be so easy to stop fighting, but for some reason I don't. It's like a limbo, caught between the living and the dead.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great way to relate to the wreckage left behind. I'm getting ready to move and it has forced me to clean out closets and drawers that haven't been peeked in for quite some time. Is there anywhere that I can look that I won't be smacked in the face with memories? That backhoe is starting to look like an option. Just walk away and let 'er rip. Hmmm....time to go pack.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Thanks.
I have found such refuge in this blog.....thank you. Awesome post. If this didn't hit it on the head I don't know what would.
ReplyDeleteLove the metaphor - thank you, Chris. That backhoe bucket took its final sweep here 7 months ago today. I'm still sitting on the rubble but know I need to put up that "Watch This Space" sign soon.
ReplyDelete