Memories

Grief attacks. Out of nowhere, the tears fall, for no apparent reason. Seriously, I looked at a jar of pickles! I felt like today was going to be a wonderful day once I took my shower and got dressed. Then I headed out to tackle all my errands. My first stop, groceries, but  right in the middle of shopping, I looked at a jar of pickles and suddenly I am sobbing uncontrollably as memories of him flash in my head. It wasn’t simple tears, it was racking, snorting, nose running like a faucet kind of sobbing. The younger generation calls it ugly crying and that describes this scene well. The wails were trying to get out, I was powerless to stop them, but I still tried to hold it in. I had to get out of there fast! So, I left my half full grocery cart in the middle of the isle and ran out of the doors of the store hoping I didn’t run into someone I knew. It’s interesting in that moment, those who didn’t choose to ignore me, made eye contact and I could feel that they knew I was having a grief attack. As soon as I got into my car, I let out a scream, turned the volume up on the Nirvana song playing and scream sang along with them. I imagine I looked like a hysterical woman who had lost her ever-loving mind in aisle seven of the grocery store. But to  the others, they knew, it was a grief attack.

If you know you know.

To say I miss him is an understatement. It's a raw, physical pain that follows me everywhere. Sometimes it even consumes me. I am frozen in my tracks. Again. Just like that night. I let it in for a minute, but these days I try not to let it stay. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail miserably. Like today. It was supposed to be a wonderful day, I could feel the hope as the early morning sun shined on my face and warmed my skin. Now, I’m disappointed in myself and while I tell myself it’s okay. It’s not. Sometimes giving myself permission isn’t even enough. My sweet Aunt Sue called me the day after Rick died to tell me some of the deep, dark secrets of grief that I had no idea about. She was the closest thing to an expert that I knew since tragically losing her daughter to a rare cervical cancer only nine months before.

After that conversation I was committed to letting the grief happen organically and to always be congruent in my grief. If I understood what she meant by her words, if I ever wanted to enjoy life again, I had to go through the grief to get through it to the other side. That started my journey of healing through my congruency with grief. I am healing. Or at least I'm trying to. Somedays I get so frustrated with how painfully slow it is. As the weeks rolled on, it rarely seemed to be the same. It was challenging and confusing to try to navigate all these new sensations every day. I was emotionally drained, walking in a surreal fog filled with dread and anxiety that was compounded by my inability to sleep. The pain was raw and unrelenting, and I was sure I could not survive this for much longer. It was too much. Too much pain, too much heartache, too much fear, too much loneliness, too much unknown. Not enough hope.

I was weary.

The first few weeks after Rick died, one of our childhood friends checked on me often. Whenever I was having a particularly painful day, he sensed it, and I would have a text or call from him unexpectedly. Some days I didn’t have the energy to answer or respond. He usually lets me have a week of ignoring him before he would say, “You okay? I’m starting to get worried. Please text me one word so I know you’re ok. I would respond, “I’m tired. Crying too much.”

When I did answer he would ask how I was, and I would give him the generic answer that I gave to a lot of people. I felt like I was Debbie Downer and I tried really hard to not always be so dang sad when friends checked in on me, but it was hard to fake it at this point. I was afraid others would abandon me if “fun” Dar was always “sad” Dar.

He would respond, “I can hear it in your voice that you are not ok. I’m here for you if you want to tell me. No pressure.”

 Sometimes I simply did not have the energy to talk and other times I would fall apart immediately. Tearfully, my voice quivering with emotion, I would tell him all that was wrapped up in the awful pain I was feeling on this day since losing Rick a lifetime ago when in reality had only been two months. If I were getting more hysterical, and saying the same things repeatedly he would carefully change the subject. After I had settled down a bit, sometimes we would circle around back to it, and other times it was too hard, and I didn’t have the energy to talk more than initially letting it off of my chest. If you didn’t already know this, grief is exhausting and healing from it, is hard ass work that seems unrelenting!

One of his tricks he would use to shift my mind set was asking me to tell him one of my favorite memories of Rick. When you spend forty years and your whole adult life with someone, there are bound to be a lot of memories to choose from. I had a few that came to mind instantly. This has become a tool I use on myself when grief attacks me out of nowhere. I think of one of my favorite memories, long enough to let me finish whatever it is I’m in the middle of, especially if I’m in public. It usually slows the tears and makes me smile, even if it’s only for a minute or two. It gives me a break from the overwhelming sadness. When I realize that I'm beating grief in my own way, the only way I know how, thinking of him, I do feel a bit proud. Keeping memories of Rick alive is not difficult, we have a lifetime of memories together and even in my most despondent days it’s easy to pull something happy one out.

My number one favorite memory of Rick, and the first one I told our friend was an old one way back from the late 1980’s. When we were newly married, during one of our sweet moments when we weren’t being bombarded with toddlers squealing and running around, he said, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna make sure that I kiss you every single day. I never want you to doubt how deep my love is for you.” I smiled at the sweet sentiment, even if it was a bit corny and I kissed him. Teasing him that eventually he would get sick of me and not want to. He replied, “Never.” And damned if he didn’t keep that sweet promise made so long ago.

As we got older, it became a game of sorts. I was forever trying to catch him, forgetting to kiss me. And damn. By the end of the day, just when I was thinking I'd won, he'd come up to me and say, “Hey, I don't think I kissed you today.”

I would pretend to glare at him and say, “ Richard, you know damned well you forgot.” I would cross my arms and pretend to be hurt. He'd exclaim, “No I did not! I was saving it up for this.” And he would plant the biggest kiss on my lips, pretending to eat my face and making me laugh hysterically while pushing him away. It just so happened that he was leaving for work and never left without kissing me goodbye, no matter what I was doing. That didn’t count! Even on the weekends, I’d wait until we were heading to bed, and it would be almost  midnight. I’d giggle to myself that at 1201 I was going to finally catch him red handed, forgetting to kiss me that day. Damned if he wouldn’t kiss me before the clock struck midnight. I accused him once of setting an alarm on his phone, he never denied it, he just laughed at me.

For most of our lives together, Rick worked nights at Boeing. He got home at 630am. One of the traditions that continued after we moved into the log house, is he would make my coffee and then sit down to relax a bit until I got up. That simple gesture made the log house suddenly feel like home and I always looked forward to walking down the stairs smelling fresh brewed coffee and seeing Rick smile brightly at me. Every single day I would walk down those stairs and he would glance up from his phone with the biggest smile, his eyes sparkling with undeniable love for me. He would say, “Good morning beautiful! Did you sleep well?” Most mornings I doubted my beauty with my hair up in a messy bun, smeared mascara, and puffy eyes. Yet, I always believed that to him I was absolutely beautiful. I would tease him and say, “They say love is blind. Now I know why.” I miss seeing that look in his eyes and how the feeling of being loved unconditionally would make my heart flip flop with more love for him than I thought possible.

One time after listening to the Garth Brooks song If Tomorrow Never Comes, he asked me if the love he gave me would be enough to last. I paused and the sweetest images popped into my head of  the ways he showed me  throughout our lifetime, how much he appreciated, adored, and believed in me. His love for me was one thing I never doubted. I thought naively, “Of course, it was enough.” As I leaned over and gave him a kiss, I looked into his bright blue eyes and replied, “Absolutely!”

I was dead wrong.