Month 5 Update

The "Jack's Care Team" group of my email address book, which I used last month, is 100% empty when I went to address this email. I'm using the "Summer" addresses and am adding ones that I now are missing. Please pass on. [Aggravation!]

Dear People,
As I reread my November journal entries, trying to find pieces of thought for this email, I see the scattered emotional, physical, and mental states of my being. And it's so many little things, so little, yet so significant, that often overwhelm me. Like looking up from my monitor just now, searching for the words, and seeing two pictures of him on my desk and immediately being in tears at how much I miss him.

Or, earlier in the month, I was buying veggies in a local grocery store and froze, flooded with a memory with each item. Jack would intentionally mispronounce asparagus : "Ass-per-gus." When I finally gave in and started to use his way, he would get this silly grin and tell me, "See, I was right." Or how I would buy brussels sprouts (not his favorite) and wait until he wasn't home for dinner to put them up for myself...and now, I don't have to "hide" them anymore, and how odd that feels to be so overt and brazen about it. And not buying a bag of potatoes, because how many do I really need for just me?

Or coming back from the cabin, driving his truck, and crying as I adjust the outside mirrors to fit for me, something I would never do while he was alive, or if I did, I would re-adjust them back for him. And now, I leave be.

Or discovering that I can DO many things, but how much easier it would be with him. Like the clothes washer kaputzed on me. I got it removed, replaced, and disposed of (with much help), but I did it without him. And how easier it would have been with him, fewer phone calls, less arranging of assistance and time.

Or going to our Washington beach spot for Thanksgiving and ALL the trips to pack car and then unpack up one flight of stairs, with dog in tow. How easier it was doing it together.

Or coming home from a soccer game with my gear and having his face at the door to help carry things in. Now, there's no one at the door and it takes two trips.

Or having the utility bill come, showing the year usage, and seeing water, electric, and gas amount cut in half from November '07 to November '08. And thinking what we were doing last November: the last chance treatment study and all was going so well. Even the damn bills show he's gone.

Or finishing a book for the first time since May '08, because reading was something we did together. Now, it is something that takes more focus than I have. And I smiled that I accomplished what I see as a step in healing and I cried because I read a book without him around.

Or while heading to the beach on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, being joined by a friend and her daughters for Thursday and Friday, I realize I hadn't brought anything for Wednesday night dinner. I had only turkey meals planned, which wasn't being put up until Thursday. I stop in a grocery store to get some clam chowder, which is something we always have this week, as a break from turkey. As I stand in the soup aisle, comparing salt and fat content of soups, I feel transported in time and space, and I see Jack comparing soup cans, as I taught him. "This is the best one," he would figure out, and it got to the point that I believed him. (A long slow process.;->) And I start to cry. In the soup aisle. A can of clam chowder. Who would have guessed?

I struggle with being gentle with my forgetfulness, lack of focus, scattered processing. I'm not sure who I am when, sometimes. I am so quick to anger or impatience over trivial matters. And I don't have the answer to the endearing question, "What do you need" or "What can I do for you?" I don't know, and even if I did, the answer could change mid-sentence. And that is frustrating for me, to say nothing of you, my friends, standing off stage, waiting a cue from me. The washer was easy, black and white problem. My healing is not. I noted in my journal on November 11th, that "Grief is not something you can figure-out. It's something you must endure." My intellectual brain wants to find the black and white tasks to complete, check-off the list, and move to whatever needs to be done next. "Let's get this show on the road" type of thinking. And grief doesn't work that way and God knows I keep on trying to do otherwise at times.

I know why the tears are deeper than before: the denial stage is wearing thin and reality isn't. Jack is not coming back, and even that choice of words feels like it has a smattering of denial in it, as if he is gone on a trip, "....not coming back". Let me reword that, as a step into what is real: Jack is dead. I am without him and this is my life now. And if a can of soup or the veggies can be so powerful, imagine going into his study and finding a romantic card he saved...or a picture of us in Hawaii August 5 years before we knew he had melanoma. Ah, what we didn't know then. I don't deny it, how much I wish I could have back that carefree unencumbered time with a healthy and loving Jack. (He was diagnosed Dec. 5, 2003. What a ride into hell it was from there.)

So, I made it through the first of the winter holidays. One down, one to go. Yes, my brain has checked off this accomplishment; I did it; I endured. Jack's son, Steve, and his family, will join me at the cabin for Christmas, weather and jobs permitting for them. If not there, then at their home. Weather permitting, I will be at the cabin for post-Christmas week, to avoid the New Year's fireworks and the hurtful impact on the dog. I've picked out a gift for myself, maybe two or three, but, like Thanksgiving, it will never be the same, and that is reality. There is a hole, a missing person, that, no matter what I do or try, will still be missing and I will still notice. Nothing will fill that spot this year or ever. Sigh. Darn. Can't check that off any ol' list.

To the here and now,
Tally

P.S. Got back from the beach this afternoon, Saturday. That's why I'm not on time with the "28th" entry. Kinda a good thing, in a way.