One of my widow friends keeps a photo of her husband on the center console of her car. Another talks to her absent spouse . . . Talk to my deceased husband? I can’t do that. I can’t talk to Jon or intentionally seek out his company without falling apart, without going to that awful place where Jon is no more.
I can’t even come across an old photo of Jon, or pass through the men’s department at Macy’s where I used to buy his Dockers, or get an unexpected glimpse of the neighbors’ cat, Jon’s favorite, without invoking the ever-ready tears. Also the sobs, which after all these months have turned hoarse and noisy.
Instead, most of the time, I stay in that magical place where Jon is not actually gone. He’s just somewhere else for now. At a baseball game, maybe. Or on the recumbent bike at the gym, working up a sweat.
The Gutters Are Clean, the Light Bulbs Changed
Most of the time I’m doing what my kids figure is “doing OK.” I attend to things. I make myself healthy meals. I get the taxes done. I get the gutters cleaned. The mail gets opened and the light bulbs changed.
I spend pleasant hours on-line deciding between azaleas for the new side yard — or some California natives with cool names like checkerbloom, blue-eyed grass, sandhill sage and crevice alumroot.
Kindly friends invite me over for dinner, and I tell my funny stories. If the stories aren’t funny, I don’t find out. My friends laugh and invite me over again anyway.
Once in a while, I hear my own self laughing.
Full Disclosure
Truth be told, however, there has, in fact, been that one instance in which I did call upon Jon.
It was only that once, and I was desperate.
I was spending a week with Peter, his wife and the grandkids in the Great Midwest last summer and one day, after visiting a friend, I was driving a rental car on an unfamiliar freeway.
Out of the blue, I realized a big interchange was coming up. A fast-moving lane change was required. But which lane? The wrong choice and I’d wind up in Peoria and miss dinner with the kids.
I did what I always did when I was driving and Jon was riding shotgun. I shouted at him. “Hey, Jon. Help me out here. Which lane?”
I made the lane change, the right one. I got where I was going. I was on time for dinner.
Did I thank Jon for his help?
Of course not. I would not have thanked Jon for helping me out when he was alive. (Who thanks their spouse for every little thing?)
And I did not do it on that summer day, when Jon wasn’t there any more. Because if I thanked him, I’d cry. I’d fall apart, and I had one more lane change to make.
More about that garden, before its transformation, at “This Summer I’d Like to Travel to the Ends of — My Back Yard.” A peek at some California wildflowers in the wild at “At Pt. Reyes, Wild Flowers and . . . Animals, Wild and Tame.”
I never talked to Jesse, but he left so early that all I could come up with was: Please come back. (My son died when he was 9 1/2.) I have a friend whose husband died exactly 10 years ago – my age. Two children like you. She writes to her husband in a journal. I did do a journal, of all the things I wanted to remember, and jokes he told Leah. Hugs, Ellen
A journal of the things you want to remember sounds like a great idea. I worry that I will forget Jon, all the little quirks… Patricia Hampl addresses her recently deceased husband in her book “The Art of the Wasted Day.” Right in the middle of talking about something else she’ll say something to her husband. Very calmly!
Well, you just have to keep pushing on,however you can do it.
Right! There is a lot in my life to enjoy. I think maybe it just takes a little self-discipline to turn my attention in that direction.
Talking to Jon? You’re probably not ready for that just yet. Maybe later after the rawness heals.
Thank you, Jeanie.