This title might be a little misleading. Grief might not really subside, but it might stop rising to the surface at every.little.opportunity.
I realized a couple of nights ago that I am sleeping on my husband’s side of the bed. I am also sitting in his place at the kitchen counter. I am wearing his socks around the house.
Our loved ones are still with us. They are part of us, but we can’t just reach out and touch them. So maybe we touch the things that they touched.
I still have the last bottle of his own mixed vinaigrette in the fridge. His ginger candy. I am feeding his sunflower seeds to the birds, little by little, and his peanuts to the squirrels or the possums or whatever critters come by. He loved critters.
The last big box of oatmeal we bought is empty, the oatmeal in my stomach and the box in the recycling. I can’t help but cry at such landmarks. He will never be here for another trip to Costco.
How is it, that somewhere along the way, I am able to get through the days, and his death is somehow something I can process, most of the time?
I think it is by facing things, little by little, and dealing with them. Curling up in a ball when I have to. That is becoming less frequent.
I send some of his brand new shoes to a cousin with the same shoe size. I have sorted through his tools, with countless screwdriver heads. Most of the #2 Phillips heads are gone…he always bought things in sets. I will keep an essential number of tools and send the rest to the farmers I know.
His guitar is at the music shop being restrung and reconditioned. Maybe I will learn to play better.
I miss his teasing. Sometimes he was merciless. I have laughed so much that my abdomen felt like I had done hundreds of situps. Then the hiccups.
And those looks we would give each other…like when we both decided we wanted to move to San Francisco, or Chonquing, or Como, at the exact moment.
Or sometimes when I was cornered by a conversation, and I would give him the “Help me!” look…and he would just laugh and shake his head. Get yourself out of it, you got yourself into it.
I miss him cutting up fruit for me because I am bad about eating it on my own.
Yeah, the grief hasn’t exactly subsided. It has taken a different form, more acceptance and happy memories than helplessness and anguish. Part of that is because of the person he was. He made me a better person, I think.
