"Screw" You, IKEA!

So, my new roommate and I took a trip to IKEA last weekend so that we could begin the process of furnishing our new apartment. For me, specifically, I was in desperate need of a small computer desk, because up until now, I had been typing with my keyboard and monitor sitting on top of boxes and things. Now, my only memories of the hell that is IKEA, are from the apartment that my best friend Sarah and I shared together in Forest Hills about 14 years ago. I remember we bought, among other things, a tiny end table called “LACK”, and it lived up to it’s name in every sense of the word. We also purchased a small dresser for Sarah’s bedroom, which she was hoping to use to put her clothing and undergarments into. Well, since IKEA specializies in crushing people’s hopes and dreams, the dresser turned out to be about as large as a Weeble Tree House, and I think Sarah was able to fit her nailfile and one sock into the microscopic, horribly designed drawers.

For any of you who have not had the honor of shopping or buying from IKEA – you should know that almost everything you buy there has a sign that reads “some assembly required.” Anotherwords; what you are sent home with is a large cardboard box filled with endless screws, european pieces with names that you’ve never heard uttered or printed anywhere ever in your lifetime (it’s a Swedish company), instructions that have NO WORDS IN THEM but only pictures that involve lots of circles and big X marks drawn through things, stick figures of people with question marks above their heads, and endless arrows that lead to absolutely nowhere. It is a cardboard box filled with confusion and mind-games, that leaves you a baffled, frustrated, manic-depressive mess on your floor, screaming at the universe to please let lightning strike you now, so that you dont have to put this goddamn desk together. It taunts you and it laughs at you and it mocks you with it’s Swedish pieces with names like “divet”, that are supposed to somehow fit into other pieces that they never actually fit into at all.

So there I was – in my new bedroom – the pieces of my new, tiny corner desk and all it’s assembly parts scattered across my bed – trying to decifer and make sense of these directions. I think it was somewhere around the time that I saw the big square with the X through it, next to the other big circle with the square with an arrow through it, next to the smiling stick figure guy with a cartoonish-looking hammer in his puffy hand - that it really started to hit me. My husband, who was soooooo good at this kind of stuff, will never again be able to do this for me. He will never again take care of the stupid instructions that don’t make sense, or change the oil in my car, or check to see what that noise is in the other room, or find the mouse and get rid of it, or kill the cockroach without pause, or take out the smelly trash, or open the door for me, or hold his umbrella over me or give me his coat to wear when its cold, or make sure Im safe and lock all the doors at night, or send me a text to let me know he arrived at work safely, or hold my hair and put a washcloth on my forehead when Im sick from a reaction to percacet. He would never do any of those things, and so many other things, ever again.

Of course, I already knew this. I already knew that he wasnt ever coming back. But somehow – sitting there attempting to put together this stupid desk in this stupid new life that was forced upon me because of his stupid death – I really felt it. And suddenly, without warning, the emotional breakdown came. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and then sobbed some more, like I havent done in a long while.

It wasnt the organ donation reception honoring my husband that my mom and I attended a week earlier, or the moving for the 2nd time in 7 months, or the rejection from my ex-roommate, or the sheer stress from the past few months of my life that brought me down. No. It was IKEA. It was those damn Swedes and their “do it yourself” furniture that finally did me in.

7 hours later, and with the help of a fellow widowed friend who very sweetly walked me through each step of the idiotic instructions on the phone, my task was complete. I now had a desk. And if anyone reads this and says some shit about how I should feel empowered because I did that all by myself and “Wow! Look at what you can accomplish all alone!” or any of that type of bullshit, please dont. Just dont.

I was 28 when I met Don. I was 35 when I married him, and I was 39 when he died. For all of those years before meeting him, I did everything by myself. I moved out of my parents house when I was 18 years old, and came to NYC to become an actor/performer. So, I have had decades worth of “empowerment”, and by the time Don and I moved in together, I was so grateful and so ready to have this partner, this teammate in life, and to no longer have to do every goddamn thing by myself. Now there were two of us struggling through this mess called life instead of just one. Two of us to pay bills, get groceries, talk about having kids in the future, buying a house one day, figure out the logistics. And then it was ripped away – just like that – and suddenly, I was back to doing every goddamn thing alone again. Im sorry, but when you have the right person, two is sooooo much better than one. It just is. There are just so many things in life that are so much harder to do alone, and so much easier to do with two of you.

Things like:

Parallel parking. Changing the litter in the litter box. Carrying a large box or other large items up the stairs. Having someone to shut the light off. Sitting in the car when you have to double park it in a city or busy neighborhood. Brushing the kitties teeth like the vet instructed. Clipping their nails. Locating a foreign “thing” that appears on your body in a place where you cant see it. Scratching an itch on your back. Say

Saying your vows. Then repeating. It takes two people to look into each other’s eyes and feel love. Two people to make love. Two to dance a foxtrot that you spent 8 weeks of dance lessons getting it choreographed so you could have a lovely First Dance at your wedding.

And it takes two people to figure out how the fuck to put together a crappy computer desk from IKEA. One to hold up the piece of wood, and one to screw in the weird-plastic-looking-screwy thing. One to decifer the picture instructions, and one to put them into action. One to light the match to set the whole damn thing ablaze when you finally lose your mind, and one to call the police and make it look like arson.

So, Congratulations IKEA. Because of your unbelievable incompetence and inability to create items or directions that humans with brains can follow, you have forced me to start feeling my feelings again. You have  made me sob like an infant again, and shoved the grief back into my life, much like you shove those divets into the holes that are way too small to fit them.

Are you happy now, IKEA? Have you had your little fun with the widow? Good. Glad to hear it. You should know that your desk sucks and it’s a bit wobbly and thats not my fault. It’s your fault, cuz your furniture is questionable and shady on it’s best day. Screw you.

Pictures In order: 1: IKEAs stupid picture directions. 2: my desk, in pieces, ready to be created. (cat not included. Although if he was, some assembly would be required.) 3: Our first dance Foxtrot from our 2006 Wedding. 4: The piece of crap tiny desk, finally finished. I need a drink ....... or six.

Fishes

Ever since losing my husband, people like to rationalize and insinuate that it has to be somehow “less painful” for me, because after all, we didn’t have children. To me, it feels like they are saying we weren’t really an actual family, since it was only me and him and our pets. People have actually said to me time and time again: "Well, at least you didnt have children." As if that is somehow supposed to cushion the tremendous lifetime blow that MY HUSBAND IS DEAD! I’ve also had lots of people wrongly assume that we werent planning on having kids anyway, so therefore, I didnt really lose anything in the way of a future family. Sigh.

Sometimes I really hate people and their insensitive remarks. Who cares if we were planning on having kids or not? Does it matter? The point is; the possibility, the hope, the option; was taken from us the second he died. Not only do I grieve the loss of my husband – I also grieve the family we never got to have. Each time I see other families playing happily together, kids swinging on a swingset, a little boy that maybe looks a bit like Don, a little girl with his sense of humor, a dad and his son tossing a ball back and forth, it all comes flooding forward and instantly hurts my heart. All of these scenarios are cruel reminders of what will never be. There won’t be any kindergarten or 1st year birthday parties or school functions or science fairs or graduations or marriages or grandparent days – not for us. The brutal and sad truth is that my husband will never get to be a dad, and I will never get to be a mom. We will never have our family, and that, in itself, is a whole other kind of loss to grieve.

About 11 months ago, my brother and sis-in-law, Jen, had their 2nd child, my niece, Jillian. She was born after Don died, so she will never know him. But my nephew Brian knew him, and my husband really loved that kid. A few months ago, my brother told me that lately, Brian had been asking questions about Uncle Don, out of the blue. He only 2 years old when he died, and now he just turned 4 and is very curious. He wanted to sleep in the bed with me when I went home for a visit, because he said “Auntie Kelley is sad.” He whispered into my mom’s ear during dinner one night that he had a secret. “Uncle Don died”, he told her, with me sitting only a few feet away. “But don’t tell Auntie. She doesn’t know.” My mom laughed nervously and said: “Im pretty sure she knows, Brian!”

My mom babysits Brian and Jillian once a week while Dave and Jen are at work. She called to tell me this story of the dialogue that happened between her and Brian during their time together recently. I scribbled it down as she was talking, so while it’s not exact wording since I wasn’t there, it’s close. The conversation began when my mom noticed that the fish in Brian’s fishtank were no longer there.

Mom: What happened to your fishes, Brian?

Brian: Oh, they died.

Mom: Oh, they did? Im sorry to hear that. How did they die?

Brian: They died because I forgot to feed them. I didnt feed them and they died, like Uncle Don died.

Mom: (taken aback) That’s right, Brian. Uncle Don died, and we all miss him very much.

Brian: Did Auntie see Uncle Don die?

Mom: No, but she went to the hospital to see him afterwards.

Brian: He used to pick me up and then go really really high , almost to the ceiling, Grammy!

Mom: That’s right honey. He did. He loved playing with you.

Brian: (putting his hands on his hips and getting very serious, like an adult) You know – he was a very nice guy. Uncle Don was a really nice man.

Mom: Yes he sure was. He was the best.

Brian: He was a really good, good guy. A very nice guy.

After that, Brian went back to playing and jumping around and being a little boy, but my mom was stunned by the seriousness in his tone. She said it was as if she was having a conversation with another adult, instead of a 4-year old. Now, I am quite sure that the most logical explanation for this “nice man” thing is that Brian has probably overheard my brother and Jen say things like that about Don, and he is just repeating it. Or maybe it’s something more.

Some say that when people die, their souls or their spirits are easiest to reach by both kids and animals. Im convinced that our cat Autumn sees Don in the ceilings and talks to him, because of the strange way she acts, meowing like a lunatic for 20 minutes straight each night, while staring at the exact same spot in the hallway ceiling. And as crazy as this makes me sound, I often see Don through our other kitty Sammy’s eyes when Im petting him. I sing to them both the songs that we used to sing to them, and I tell them how much I miss their daddy.

Maybe Im nuts, or maybe I just dont have any children to see my husband’s eyes in. Maybe I see him instead wherever good things are, and because he never got to be that wonderful dad he should have been, maybe it makes my heart sing and skip a beat or ten, to hear that he left some sort of impression on a boy who was only 2 years old. Maybe that boy remembers and understands more than we think and know.

Or maybe my husband was just a really nice man, who is now floating or swimming or walking around in the universe out there - sleeping with the fishes.

(Picture one is my husband Don with Brian as a newborn. Picture two is Don lifting Brian in the air, the game that Brian described to my mom in the dialogue above.)

Phat Widow

Hello, lovely readers. My name is Kelley Lynn, and this is my very first week as a writer for Widow's Voice. I became a widow 19 months ago, when I was 39 years old, just shy of our 5-year wedding anniversary. My husband, a paramedic, died of a massive heart-attack at age 46. Never had a symptom in his life. Since his sudden and shocking death, I've been trying to put the pieces of my own life back together again, and figure out how to really be alive instead of just exist. I cope through humor, friends, and helping others get through this burning fire that we now call life.

I'm a stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Instead of using this first blog to tell you more about me and my background, I figured a fun and creative way to do that would be to pull a piece from my personal grief blog and re-work it for here. I'm in the midst of writing a book about what it's really like to lose your husband, and the harsh truths about grief. A couple of weeks ago, I started to imagine what it might be like if I were to present my book idea or script to a producer. What if my story were made into a film one day? How might that play out in the world of pretentious Hollywood?

The fact is, almost nothing about this “journey” (including the fact that people refer to it as a “journey”) is ever portrayed how it actually is. What you see on TV shows, in films, even in grief books – is mostly a plastic, shallow, often-times glamorized version of widowhood; as if losing your spouse in the prime of your young life is somehow romantic or whimsical. A fun, adventurous journey! Pack your suitcase!

In films, the widowed people who are left behind are always gorgeous and perfect-looking. And they always find love again, almost immediately. They maybe have one big emotional breakdown, perhaps after the funeral, maybe sobbing while sliding their body down a wall in slow-motion or looking out a window pensively. They always have children. Always. And the children are adorable and not at all bratty or a pain in the ass or affected by the tremendous loss, other than to say perfectly -timed, cute dialogue like: “Is mommy in heaven, daddy?” Cue the sappy music. I have a feeling that my "book-to-film" experience might not go quite as smoothly as I may wish. Here is the nightmare I have imagined inside my head:

Producer: We love your script. A beautiful story about the sudden loss of your husband, and how you are living your life since. We are very interested in producing it for HBO ……

Me: Great!!!

Producer: We just need to make a few changes. Tiny changes….

Me: Changes? Like what kinds of changes?

Producer: Like the way he died. Massive heart-attack? Too boring. We were thinking of a tragic fire, or maybe he was shot.

Me: Shot? Why would he be shot?

Producer: He was shot by his partner. While on-duty. He was a cop.

Me: A cop? But my husband was an E.M.T.

Producer: Yeah, right … about that. Nobody really cares about E.M.T’s. Firefighters and cops are much more sexy. Now let’s discuss casting. Did you have anyone in mind to play the part of you?

Me: Yes. ME. I would like to play the part of me.

Producer: Oh no, that won’t work at all.

Me: It won’t work for me to play the role of me?

Producer: No, no, no. You’re too old.

Me: How can I be “too old” to play ME? I am MY age!

Producer: Yes, but we were thinking maybe someone younger. Nobody wants to hear about a woman in her 40′s. Besides – you’re too fat. We can’t make a film about a Fat Widow. Nobody will care about you if you’re fat.

Me: Wow. Harsh. Okay, so Im too old to play myself and too fat to play myself. Who did you have in mind to play me, instead of me?

Producer: We were thinking along the lines of maybe an Amy Adams or a Megan Fox.

Me: But those actors look nothing at all like me!

Producers: Exactly. We would also like to switch out your 2 cats for 2 children. People generally hate cats, and let’s be honest: nobody cares about a childless, fat widow. We need to give the story a couple of kids. Something that will tear at the heartstrings.

Me: But that isnt MY story! We didn’t get to have our family. He died too soon. THAT’S the story that tears at the heartstrings! That he never got to be a dad. I will never be a mom. The truth!

Producers: Yeah, nobody gives a crap about that. Last few things - we need a great chase scene. And we would like Sally Field to play your overly-emotional mother who cries a lot. There should also be flashback scenes with your husband. We would like David Spade for that role. Or Larry the Cable Guy. We need explosions. A bank robbery. A gas leak. Maybe someone like Samuel Jackson tries to kidnap your children? And we want some sort of conflict between your husband and someone else at work. Maybe his partner was jealous because Don got the promotion over him, or maybe Don was cheating on you with his partner's wife, so he shot him to death.

Me: WHAT??? No! Don would never do that to me. He loved me. This is a love story! You are stripping away every single thing that is good about us. This is no longer our story at all. Is there ANYTHING that you plan on keeping from my original script? Anything?

Producers: Yes, of course. You would still be widowed. Also, we are not totally sold on the Megan Fox thing. We may go with a more “urban” cast, in which case, the role of you would be played by that huge chick from “Precious.”

Me: Seriously? Precious can play me but I cant play me? She is waaay bigger than I am!

Producers: True, but fat and black is “sassy.” Fat and white is disgusting.

Me: Okay, I’m done with this insane conversation now. Clearly you people have absolutely no clue how to take a very real and beautiful story and birth it into a film. Even though I’m afraid to ask, my curiousity must know. What is the name of this urban-trainwreck that you call a movie?

Producers: “Phat Widow.” Get it? Phat? It has double-meaning, because, well ... you're fat.

Me: Yes, thank you for telling me. I wasn't aware of my own size. Okay, well this was a big epic-fail. Excuse me while I go home and hit myself repeatedly over the head with a 2 by 4. Good day.

 And that, dear readers, is the truth. We need a lot more truth out there in the world when it comes to death and grief, which is the reason I continue to write. Truth promotes truth, and it all starts with someone like me – just a fat (or "phat") widow, who is not interested in lying about who she actually is, and who just wants to tell her story, and the story of her wonderful, dead husband. Until next time, thank you so much for reading.