Little Things

Two sheets of paper covered with Greg’s handwriting. A gospel song he wrote. Nothing complex but it was from his heart. A heart that was tender and loving. A heart that was mine. A heart that I will never hear beat again.

Little things hit hard. Those two sheets of paper. A guitar pick on his desk. A golf ball found under a table.

So many little things that made up our life together. The keys to Greg’s truck that have I have carried in my pocket for twenty-seven years. The Doublemint gum in the Explorer’s glove box. A credit card receipt for gas Greg bought at Sherman Burton’s.

Little things. I will keep these little things. Pieces of my life. Reminders of what I have lost and will never find again.

Little things that only I will cherish. Little things that made up the fabric of our day-to-day life together. Little things that bring tears, for they tell our story.

Big things don’t always matter. We talked about some big things, and did a few big things, but in the end only the little things matter.

Little things like our love.

Getting Used to Grief

I read a lot. One to two hundred books a year. I also read magazines, newspapers, articles on-line, just about anything I can lay my hands on.

This past week I read a murder mystery and one of the characters was talking about grief. “You don’t get used to grief,” he said, and went on to say his therapist said the best you could do was adapt to grief as a permanent presence in your life. (I’m sure I haven’t stated this anywhere close to how it was phrased in the book, but I think I’ve put in the essence.)

Adapt. One year, eleven months and seven days.

Adapt. An unwanted way of life.

Adapt. Realize just how alone I am.

Adapt. Greg’s laughter no longer in my life.

Adapt.

Am I? Or merely drifting through life? Existing, futilely missing what can never return nor be replaced.

I know I need to move ahead; Greg wanted me to. I cannot determine how to do that when I know Greg’s love for me is something so precious that there is no substitute for it, no equivalent love to be found. 

About all I feel I can do right now is adapt to grief; I am sure not getting used to it.

The Rating Game

 “On a scale of . . .”

I’m sure most everyone has heard or read that through the years. Rating customer service. Food quality. A person’s looks. Satisfaction with a product. Pain.

The number of choices on the rating scales vary. I have seen them as low as three and as high as fifteen. Some will utilize columns with headings such as “Very Dissatisfied” to “No Opinion” to “Very Satisfied” and/or “Would Recommend to Friends.”

I thought I would rate my grief for the past week. Using a scale of one to ten, my week overall has been around seven. I have cried several times. I miss Greg constantly. Everything I see or do reminds me of Greg. Yet I have not been in the tight clutches of grief as I have been many times since the first of the year. That is a relief and at the same time a worry.

A worry that grief will crush me again, clutch me in its fist and squeeze until I abandon hope of any better days ahead. I hope and pray that doesn’t happen, even though I am sure that I am not free of further onslaughts of grief. This is a respite that may last the rest of the month or the rest of the year, or maybe just until tomorrow morning.

How will I deal with another attack by grief? I do not know. Some days a pleasant mood is so fragile that grief requires little effort to send me reeling. Other days, grief’s attacks may bring tears, but I am strong enough to endure them without sorrow lingering for several hours or days.

Right now, I would rate my day as a six. I have cried several times, wished Greg was still at my side so we could ride around wherever struck our fancy, and sadness is the footing my mood is built upon. 

I will visit Greg’s grave when the sun is down a little farther, thank God for the wildflowers blooming in the pasture and the birds singing in nearby trees, and talk to Greg about my day. Yes, I will probably cry, hopefully not much, but I will strive to keep grief at bay so it does not color my night with sadness.

I am strong enough to survive whatever grief throws at me.

Jealous of the Angels

Once in a while, the lines of some song will drift into my mind and stay with me. I look up the lyrics and listen to those songs, then see other songs listed down the side of the page. Sometimes I also listen to those songs.

Wednesday the song with the title above was listed. I pulled up the lyrics, then listened to the song. It tells of there being another angel around the throne and the only hero the singer knows being with the angels. I should not have listened to that song. I probably should not have even read the lyrics.

My darling Greg is with the angels, singing God’s praises for eternity. I can no longer hear his voice lifted in song. I can no longer see his smile, hear his laughter, nor feel his arms around me. 

Yes, I am jealous of the angels around the throne tonight.

No Rocks

Fifty-one years without my first rock. Nearly two years without my second one.

Enough said.

Foundation of Sadness

Since Memorial Day week, grief has given me a reprieve of sorts. I have cried several times, most often just a few tears when something reminds me strongly of Greg, and a few times I’ve cried for an hour or longer.

Even with the tears appearing the past two and a half weeks, grief hasn’t dragged me into the intense sorrow that I have endured several times this year. Instead, there is an underlying sadness that permeates all my days, no matter what I am doing. Listening to music. Petting the cats. Mowing the yard. Driving. Eating a meal. Doing laundry.

Even during pleasurable activities such as attending a Travis Tritt concert last week, sadness lingers just under the surface of my life, coloring my thoughts with ‘I wishes” and ‘whys.’

Perhaps this is the foundation for the rest of my life. I will do things that I enjoy, things that make me laugh, things that are pleasant, but each and every thing that I do will be touched with sadness, sadness that persistently reminds me of what is no longer in my life and that I can never have again.

This is not a pleasant foundation but right now it is what is there. The sadness is more bearable than the heart-wrenching grief that I have experienced often this year. I can tolerate this foundation of sadness. 

Like it, no. But I can tolerate it.

Grief Bides Its Time

Grief is patient. It plots and plans, watches and waits for its perfect moment. The moment that I won’t be expecting a frontal attack, much less a flanking maneuver, then swoops in with all its forces, trampling my defenses, and defeating any countermeasures I may bring into play.

While last weekend was sad and lonely, I drifted through on a fairly even keel. I cried some but not much at a time. I enjoyed the beauty God has presented this Spring, and by Sunday evening was doing better than I had been the rest of the weekend.

Monday and Tuesday were good days. Oh, I missed Greg at every turn; that I will do until the end of my days. I did things that needed to be done for customers and worked on putting together flower arrangements for tombstones.

I visited Greg’s grave Monday and Tuesday mornings and late afternoons. On Monday afternoon I was at peace while sitting there, the weather suited me, and everything was so beautiful in the pasture that I could have sat at Greg’s grave all night. Both Monday and Tuesday I talked to Greg about the day’s events and about things we had done in our life together, laughing frequently. Tuesday evening, in the moonlight, I walked back to Greg’s grave and sat and listened to crickets and tree frogs, and the buzzing of some large insect as it wandered around the hill.

Wednesday morning I wasn’t in a rush and the morning was sweet, so I walked to Greg’s grave and sat there for a half hour or so, listening to songbirds and crickets, and seeing what wildflowers had bloomed during the night.

I got in the new truck and started to town. Grief launched its attack before I got out of the driveway and by the time I got to town I was an emotional mess. Every time I got in the truck on Wednesday, I cried, and have no idea why, for Greg hasn’t even seen the new truck, much less ridden in it. By lunch I had had to do a half dozen things around town that required driving so about the time one bout of crying was easing up, I’d need to do something else and the crying started again.

A friend chauffeured me around hither and yon Wednesday afternoon, getting the new truck home, Greg’s truck to the mechanic and me back to the body shop to pick up the Explorer. By the time this was finished, I was exhausted and starting to hurt from tension. I was hurting so badly by the time I got home that I went to bed at six p.m. but the pain didn’t stop enough for me to get any restful sleep. Thursday and Thursday night, Friday and Friday night, I hurt all day and all night. I know I’ve said before that grief causes pain clear to the bone, but up until around two p.m. today, even my bones have been hurting. I’m still tense but most of the pain has subsided.

While I don’t know what brought on such an overwhelming bout with grief, I do know that I do not want to go through another three days like the past three. The emotional pain itself undermines my desire to do anything; with the physical pain added, simply breathing seems like too much effort to expend.

Grief apparently wants me as its prisoner of war.