"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.)

Widow - Party of One

This week, I was hit with a triple whammy of "suckage." (Is that a real word? If not, I just made it up. ) February 13th marked exactly 19 months since my husband's sudden death, and it also fell on a Wednesday, which was the day of the week he went into work and never came home. And then, to put a big 'ole ginormous cherry on this awfulness of a sundae, today was Valentine's Day.

My plan to protect myself was simple enough - go to work, stay away from all couples and happy people in love, and have dinner at my best friend Sarah's house; where the sarcasm, hilarity, and banter between us are served up right alongside the always delicious gourmet food.

Well, as I have been made harshly aware by the universe, plans do not always go the way we hoped. Dinner at my friend's place was great, but everything leading up to it was borderline ridiculous. Here's the problem: Im an Adjunct Professor at a University. Universities are filled with teenagers and super young people who are super enthusiastic about every little thing - especially Valentine's Day. Before my first class even began, as I sat in a perfectly innocent lounge-area, to, ya know, lounge .... a large gaggle of giggling girls appeared out of nowhere, like a nightmare, carrying red and pink balloons and hugging and falling into each other while squeeling in a sing-songy voice: "Oh My Godddd!!! Happy Valentine's Dayyyy!!!!!" "Oh My God! You too!"

Oh My God! Get me outta here!

Not being able to handle this Ode to St. Valentine display, I took my bags and walked over to the campus cafeteria to grab a quick breakfast. As I waited for my food, this horrific dialogue took place between me and the worker behind the counter:

Him: Happy Valentines Day to you! You have plans with your husband tonight?

Me: Nope. (no idea why he assumed that I was even married, but he refused to stop talking about it.)

Him: No plans? You no do anything with your husband? Does he work tonight?

Me: Nope. (in my head, Im thinking "Please please please stop saying the word husband. Please stop!!!)

Him: That's not good. Your husband needs to treat you nice today. Maybe you do something on the weekend, you and your husband? You go out on the weekend?

Me: Nope. (For the love of God, STOP SAYING 'HUSBAND!' WE HAVE NO PLANS EVER AGAIN!!! HE IS DEAD!!!! DEAD!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND???)

Of course, I didnt say any of this, because there was a huge line of people behind me and my face was turning beat-red, and I was seconds away from sobbing right there in the middle of the University Center. I also knew that this man wasnt trying to be rude, and he obviously had no idea that my husband is dead. And the last thing I wanted to do was embarass him and make him feel terrible when he was just making small-talk. Granted, it was the worst small-talk in the history of small-talk, but still .....

By the time the end of the day came around, I was so beyond ready to go home and sit with our two adopted kitties and just stare at the wall all night. And that's pretty much what I did tonight. Stared at the wall. But before I did that, I did this. I hope you enjoy it:

 Top 5 Ways to Annoy People In Love on Valentine's Day:

1. Stand in the cheap-candy aisle at a drugstore and approach all the guys about to buy awful Whitman's Samplers with: "Seriously? This is what you're going with? Dont even bother with the tacky bear holding a balloon on a stick thing. Now you're just being insulting."

2. Stand at the grocery store or gas-station, where men go to buy last-minute flowers, and yell out from a bullhorn: "Guys who dont give a crap - buy these! Tell your girl to ignore that weird, musty smell coming from the bouquet - we dont know what it is either! She can water these, but it wont help! These flowers will die suddenly and without warning - just like my husband!"

3. Go to a restaurant and give them the name "Widow", so that when your table is ready, they have to announce: "Widow - party of one. Widow???" Get a table alone, in the center of the room. Once the place is filled with happy couples, begin talking and giggling loudly as if another person is with you. Pull a rose out and present it to yourself, and say: "Oh baby! You shouldnt have! You're such a naughty boy! Let's go home!" Exit restaurant laughing up a storm with your imaginary partner, leaving everyone completely baffled.

4. Start your own line of Conversation Hearts and sneak them into the bags of normal ones in stores. Come up with classic messages such as: "Alone", "Everyone Will Die", "Be My Widow", "Be Mine - Until I Die Unexpectedly", "There's a Good Chance One of Us Will Die Soon", and "Will You Be My Valentine ... Cat?"

5. Attack Hallmark stores armed with a magic-marker. Draw sad faces, moustaches, and giant penises all over the Valentines cards. Hide behind display and laugh.


Or, just do what I did tonight, and sit in your dead husband's favorite old recliner chair, staring at the wall. I will try this whole "life" thing again tomorrow.

I am not alone (why I am glad I blog)

I'm sitting here, calmly typing this and it's been 622 days since my husband died.
I know exactly how many days because of my regular blog.
But to think that I can type this without tears would have been unthinkable a year ago.

I began writing about my pain just over a month after the accident.

I blogged everything because I knew I'd always be able to find it ... the internet being forever and all.

Now I read those posts back and tears stream down my face.
Was that me?
How did I ever survive such pain?
How did I keep my kids functioning and how on earth did they get from those first jagged, razor-sharp days to these days of a duller, aching pain?
(Pain which still flares up both rapidly and unexpectedly but the jagged edges are not quite so sharp).

and the short answer is that I don't really know how we got here.

... but I do know that time has helped.
I do know that friends and family have helped.
I do know that routine has helped.
and I do know that blogging has helped.

My blog helped (and continues to help) me pour out the hurt, anger, fear, rage, devastation, worry and horror of this journey.
...and *this* blog helped me see that I am not alone in these feelings.

Widow's Voice was one of the first blogs I read in The After.

I've cried and nodded along to more posts than I can count.
I've marvelled at how brave other widows and widowers are.
I've recognised similarities and differences between my journey and the varying journeys we are all on (for our spouses were unique ... as we are ... so no two of us are on the exact same path).
I've laughed at the dark humour.
I've rejoiced at the finding of new love, but seen that it's not a magic bullet that takes away this pain.

But most of all, I've realised that

I
Am
Not
Alone.

...and nor are you.

Guilt of a Happy Widow

Got this little Nutella freak from here

“Hey! How are you?” she asks.
With that question a hand is placed gently on my upper arm. Her eyes are round, her voice soft and kind, as if she were talking to a person who is old.
I wonder “Do I look ill? Is the lack of sleep that apparent?”
My friend wants to know, to
…really
… know
how I’m doing.
Only her assumption is that I’m not doing well. After all,
I
Am
A
Widow.

And all I want to do is smile and say “I’m doing….

GREAT! Today, the kids got ready for school by themselves and this included Langston (age 14) folding his laundry. The very same laundry he put into the wash AND the dryer by himself the night before.

I had to tell Ezra this morning as he dilly-dallied over his breakfast to “put down the book or I’d have to take it away from him." This same child, 2 months ago, I had to cajole into picking up a book.

Pallas is using me as her confidant (I know this will change) she comes into my room and we talk about friendships and bodies and nail polish color.

Me. Well, I closed my business and I feel free. I have an informational interview next week and you never know where those end up! Our new place is great. I like that there aren’t all these places to disappear to. If Langston is not in the great room then he’s in his bedroom or the bathroom. That’s it. No where else to look for him. And did I mention that it was 75 today? And I wore shorts that I couldn’t fit into when Art was alive because I am now healthy skinny not a holy-shit-my-husband-is-dead skinny? “

I want to tell her all of this. I want to go on and on and on to show her the other side of widowhood, the side that is beyond just getting through another day.

But I don’t. Because I also don’t want her thinking that it’s all OK again. I don’t want her to walk away from our conversation thinking I am “over” Art's death.

And then I feel guilty. Guilty for feeling good..

Guilty for thanking Art for dying. Without his death I would never have become 70% fearless. 89% authentic, and 100% alive. I really like all the ways I have been pushed to grow and expand and live.

Guilty because the kids and I are actually ok. We laugh and have fun without him, without thinking about him.

Guilty because the intense bouts of grief come further and further apart from each other. I can go weeks without crying about him. I can go days without yearning for him.

Guilty because most of the time, when I think of him, it is with sweetness, laughter and a deep sadness that doesn’t overwhelm me.

And honestly part of me doesn’t want to disappoint her. I want her to know that as a widow my life will never be "back to normal." I want her to know that I am still different from her and she absolutely CANNOT complain about her husband to me. I want her to know that it’s still a struggle – just less and less of one.

So instead of answering her, I simply change the subject.