Sudden Grief

Got this photo from here

I’m with her and we are walking to find the bathroom in Macy’s. Pallas (my daughter) and I have just been bra shopping...for her.
A momentous occasion full of “Moooommmm!” and “Why are you looking at me that way?!”
She has requested this shopping excursion and I go along, resisting the urge to take photos and whip out the recorder to “document” the occasion. (Langston forbid me from documenting his first shaving lesson with our wonderful neighbor.)

We walk towards where the sales woman said we would find a restroom.
Completely unaware of the time, the casino-like lighting making me feel out of touch, in a dream like state.
We pass the mens clothing on the left.
I think “Huh, Art would look good in that.” Then chuckle, remembering his frustration. The day Banana Republic started selling tall clothing online was the day I tossed those ugly, but long enough jeans! His 6’6” frame too long for regular clothes.

I stop to touch a shirt as Pallas and I pass the rest of the lingerie department. I see the restroom sign off to the right.
I stutter step in my mind
“Fuck, is he?
Really….no way!
It just simply can’t be.
He’s never coming back? How can someone never come back?
I don't understand.”

The thought encases me in what feels like a full body plastic bag.
I run toward the restroom.
Hands to mouth to catch.
Open stall or not, I don’t care, I need to get it out of me.

It. Out. Of Me!

Pallas is running behind me, “Hey," she says disappointedly, "you can’t just decided to race without telling me!” Using her longer-than-mine legs to catch up. She notices my hunched run, reaches for me and says “Mom are you ok?”

There’s an empty stall
Lunch, bile and tears mix together
Into the toilet
which automatically flushes.

Loss swirling down.

He’s Not Here

Last weekend we moved. 
Our new place is smaller, more intimate.
I like it.

It’s simpler to manage. (There are only so many places Ezra’s left shoe can be!)  It makes sorting through the boxes and boxes of stuff I should have sold, much simpler.  (If it stays, exactly where is it going to go, Kim?) 

And I feel lighter here, less weighed down by stuff and keeping track of the stuff so I can find the stuff. 

But today, I walked out of the bathroom, I looked at my bed and I realized…

Art’s not here.

He’s nowhere in this new place.  Not in the decision of which draw to put the utensils in, nor in which painting to hang where.  He’s not in the money spent at Ikea nor will he be in the car when I return a few things. He’s not in the assembly of the shelves, or the finding of the toothpaste.

He’s not in the walk in closet.

He’s not in third call to Xbox Live in two hours about the hook up issue. He’s not there when the electrician, plumber, handy man and old renter all arrive within 20 minutes of each other. 

He’s not in the dinner I cook, the good night kisses I give, or in the bed where I collapse.

He’s not here. 

It was not till I left the house that I see that I have left him too.   I didn’t think I left him. I thought he was coming with us. But here in this new place, I see that he was in every damn thing in the old place: in the walls, in where the toilet paper was stacked and where the breakfast trays were kept. He was in the lights he put up around the large kitchen window that looked out onto the back yard. He was in where the canned soup goes, the best place for the dresser and the fiction book order:  black writer fiction, black female writer fiction, dead male writer fiction and damn good fiction to reread over and over again. (Yes we really had the books divided like that!)   He was in the up high shelf with the extension cords and the bicycle tools tool box.

There was this weird potential, like maybe, just maybe, he'll show up again.

I could hear him sometimes, in the catch of the kid’s voices as if, for just a moment, they might forget and call to him, instead of me.

In this new place, their voices are clear and call, with piercing clarity, only my name.

The potential is gone.  

This feels like this is where it begins.  Where our new family starts, this family of four.

Our dinner table no longer has the extensions out.  It is square: one side for each of us.  Tonight, I looked at each of my kids, one across from me, two on either side of me and sigh. We are a family of four now.  Four sides of a square for four people.

The most weird, unnerving, pleasant and peaceful thing about this observation is that

I’m OK with it.

In 2009 we became a family of four. It was not what I wanted, not what was planned.

In 2011, it is what I have accepted and come to embrace.  It is what we are, it is who we are. It is neither bad nor good. It just is.

My new place just taught me that. 

Sick, Clothes and Backwards

The last two days I've been sick.
Fever.
I found myself lying in my bed, the wrong way.
Backwards (head where my feet usually are, feet where my head usually is)

The fever is making me feel backwards.

I'm preparing to move from the house the kids, Art and I have been in this home for 6 years. (Huh. The kids and I have been here for six, Art only 4.) It means going into his closet and getting rid of the rest of his clothes. The ones that no longer smell like him. It means going into the attic and going through the ones I put away for the kids and this time asking them what they want to keep.

I am at peace with this idea.
Settled.
OK
Ready.
That feels backwards.
"They" said I'd know when the time was right to get rid of the clothes, to take down one of the photos. I couldn't imagine there would ever be a "right" time in his wrong death.
But without looking for it, it has arrived.

The time is right.
There is peace and gratitude in letting more of him go...
or
is it the fever?

------
Post from
August 27, 2009.
4 months after Art died.

Yesterday, I took Art's remaining clothes out of the closet. I divided them into the one's I want to keep and the ones to give away. Today I drove them to the Mission in downtown LA. Some tall homeless person with size 14 feet will finally have clothes and shoes that fit him.

Yesterday, I took down the get-well cards friends, co-workers, familiy members and students had sent him. This wall reflects me.

I am that wall. I am empty, vacant, not complete. I am not surprised at the depth of the grief, just disappointed in it. I am surprised at how quickly I begin to hyper ventilate, and how powerless I feel. I can't talk, even though I wanted to call a friend.

I think we are fine and then it hits, the wave and I swear that I will drown. And I cry so deeply and so completely that my whole body gets involved. I shake and feel nauseous. I force my breath. My nose quickly fills. My head aches, my arms tingle. My feet move rhythmically back and forth across the sheet. I hold myself, I let go. I punch his pillow. I hold myself again.

I know I need to call someone. Anyone. But what will I say? What is there to say? I don't want to be cheered up, I don't want to be soothed. I want to be held, to be allowed to grieve, with the noisy blows from my bulbous red nose and with the lines of tears from my swollen eyes.

I don't want anyone to tell me it'll be ok because right now, it's not. I want someone to wrap their arms around me, to sit with my pain, to stroke my hair and my back. To NOT say "shhhh." To cry with me even. No judgment, no better world. Just this grief here and now.

Tomorrow is my 45 birthday.

----
August 28, 2011

Today is my 47th birthday.

I am in awe at how different I feel, strong, relaxed and ok with my widowhood. It is a feeling I can't describe, the opposite of the black hole of grief (which is equally indescribable). I'm content, at ease, peaceful words that three years ago I couldn't even understand let alone feel.

Today I cried, not from sadness but from relief and gratitude. I'm OK, but for the grace of God and time, I'm OK!!!!

Happy

photo by Ezra

I’m gonna come out and say it.
I’m happy.

I’m a widow and
I’m happy.

It’s not because of another man either,
and I didn’t win the lottery.
I didn’t discover extra life insurance money or an extra $20,000 in my savings account.

I still haven’t found a new place to live. (If you live in LA, I’m looking for a 3 bdrm, 2 bath on the Westside. Hey, ya never know!)

And no, I have not been drinking or smoking the funny stuff.

I haven’t been eating ice cream or chips or cake for that quick high.

I’m happy because today Ezra and I had a good day and this day would not have been possible if
Art were here.

If Art were here,
my two oldest would not have flown on separate flights by themselves back east. They would not be forging their own, significant relationships with my sister and my in-laws.

If Art were here,
I wouldn’t have taken Ezra to the Venice Beach boardwalk. We wouldn’t have marveled at the roller skating guy, the skate boarders, or the guy in the turban with the electric guitar. I would not have been told, “Wow, they don’t’ make them like you anymore!” by the dummy and his ventriloquist.

If Art were here,
I wouldn’t have insisted (a bit meanly) that Ezra buck up and get on his new skate board. I wouldn’t have dared him to fall 5 times. (He fell 7 times and said he won!)

If Art were here,
I would not have been at the neighbor’s pool. I would not have heard “Mom watch this!” only 9 times (a record low) and been amused that I actually DID watch 8 times.

If Art were here,
I would have said, “I’m too tired, you take him.” Who am I kidding, if Art were here, we’d be somewhere else.

If Art were here,
I’d be in Maine, suffering my in-laws.

But
Art’s not here
and still
I’m happy.

I can’t believe I wrote that.
I’m too happy to even bother justifying that statement.

I am happy.

I’m happy.
Down to my hair follicles happy.

I’m happy because without Art here
I found this new strength, this courage, this audacity to just fuck it all and
be happy.

Without him here,
I have found
something
that was lacking when he was here.
A deeper,
more loving knowledge of
who I am,
faults included.

Without him here,
I like what I’m left with.