Today was a day I wanted to ramble the roads. I decided to drive Greg’s truck because it was a beautiful day. I headed for Somerset, taking my time, driving under the speed limit, admiring God’s handiwork in the trees donning their fall colors.
The drive was pleasant, the onion rings at Reno’s done nicely, I did some writing, and overall was having a good day.
As I was leaving, a gentleman driving a Ford truck stopped and asked me what year Greg’s truck is. I told him, and he was even more interested in the truck when I told him that, yes, it is a stick. I believe he would’ve taken the truck with him right then as he told me several times that the trailer he was pulling would hold the truck; it would’ve.
Then he asked the question. The question for which I have only one answer: A time machine so that I can spend another forty-two years with Greg. Forty-two years that went past much too quickly.
The past two weeks have been mostly leveled-out for me. I’ve had a few days with tears frequently throughout the day, but the tears were more from an overall sadness than grief. The tears this afternoon are those of the bone-deep grief that will leave me emotionally exhausted.
I know grief isn’t ever going away. I know I will shed more tears in the years to come. I did not expect that anything, good or bad, could so quickly plunge me into the depths of grief at any moment, no matter what is going on nor how good my mood.
Going from a day running pleasantly, with thoughts of Greg always with me, to feeling grief so strongly is jarring. It keeps my emotions off-balance, making me wonder if anything is worth the effort, if the future worth thinking about.
I don’t know the answer. If there is one. Perhaps someday I will find a semblance of an answer.
I must be strong until then.
Recently someone noted that the hardest day for them was the anniversary of the death of their spouse. That made me wonder how they see all the other days of the year.
Yes, the anniversary of Greg’s death is a hard day for me to face. But the rest of the days aren’t any better, knowing when I wake up each morning that I will never see Greg smile again, hear him laugh, be enveloped in one of his strong, warm hugs. Never again attend a concert, go to a movie, fuss and fight at work, or spend a Saturday just doing nothing with Greg. My Greg.
The hardest day . . . How would I ever determine that? Greg’s birthday? Christmas? Our anniversary? They are all hard days, from the day of Greg’s death until today – two years, one month, eleven days and twelve hours later.
Some days tears don’t come but linger nearby. Other days, like today, tears are a near constant through everything I do. From town to town. Down every highway. In sunshine and rain.
No matter which memories come to mind – even the happiest ones – the tears come unbidden for I no longer have my Greg in my life. That makes every day a hard day.
The hardest day? Today, tomorrow, the rest of my life.
Over the weekend, any time I thought of Greg, I cried. Just his name was all it took to bring me to tears. I didn’t have to think about anything we’d done together, nor the love and warmth in his strong hugs. Just “Greg.”
Yesterday I drove three hours to Sharpsburg to attend a Travis Tritt concert. I was in tears so much of the drive, that by the time I got to Mt. Vernon I was ready to turn around and drive back home. But I didn’t. I stayed the course.
Then it got to the point that if I thought about Travis’ music I cried, for Greg loved Travis’ music.
The gentleman at Holiday Inn asked whose concert I was attending, and the tears came when I said, “Travis Tritt.” The little waitress at Waffle House said, “Oh! Travis Tritt!” when I told her I was going to a concert last night. Again, tears. I told her why I was tearful, and she replied, “It never gets any easier, does it?” She must know someone who has grieved over the loss of a spouse; she might be twenty-five, if that old.
I drove to The Barnyard after lunch, just to get the lay of the land before time for the concert. Tears accompanied me there and back, and were with me most of the afternoon. If I concentrated really hard, I could stop the tears, but the merest thought of Greg brought them back.
Last Saturday was also an extremely tearful day for me, and playing Travis’ “Something Stronger Than Me” over and over for two hours slowed the tears some. I didn’t have that song with me on a CD yesterday, or I would have played it constantly while driving. And this morning on the return trip.
While the tears the past few days have not progressed into uncontrollable sobbing, they are still tiring. They leave me feeling lost in an abyss of weakness that I cannot remedy.
Even though sometimes I feel I lack the strength to battle grief and tears for the rest of my life, I do know one thing for certain – God is the something stronger I need every day of my life. I know He is all that has gotten me through the past two years, one month and six days since Greg’s death. He’s with me, no matter how a day is going, and He is the something stronger I will rely on forever.
God – always stronger than me.
Punkin Cat wanted me to operate on her schedule this morning, so she started merowing around five a.m. I got tired of listening to her complaints and got out of bed at seven.
After getting dressed and letting the herd of cats in for their breakfast, putting them out one at a time when they finished eating, I was ready to fix my own breakfast. I heard a tiny peck at the door, and opened it for Trapper Cat who hadn’t come in with the rest of the cats.
When I looked up after closing the door behind Trapper, I saw a doe in the driveway, nibbling at fescue. She was frequently looking behind her so I knew her fawn was somewhere close and a minute or so later, it came through the fence behind the Explorer. They walked into the yard, nibbling at grass here and there. The doe went into the garden to eat clover, while the fawn looked around the yard more than it was having breakfast.
I turned to tell Greg about the deer . . . only he wasn’t there. And the tears started. And will probably continue off and on for the rest of the day.
So many times we stood at the front door or the kitchen window and watched deer in the yard. So many times we shared quiet moments like this, at peace with each other and the world. So many things that I will never have again . . .
I listened to Raleigh Keegan’s “Handyman” this morning. Greg was my handyman, fixing a bad day with a hug and a kiss. Hugs and kisses I no longer have in my life. And “I can’t fix myself . . .”
There is no “fix” for grief. While the intense pain may lessen with the passage of time, grief never goes away, but lingers, catching us unawares at quiet moments, bringing sorrow to the surface even on this beautiful Sunday morning that God has provided.
I am lost in a wilderness that has no landmarks, no trails to follow. I have no compass to show me how to navigate through this trackless land that is now my life.
I have seen no signposts. If I have expected one to appear, this wilderness shifts its axis, relocating me in new areas of loneliness and confusion, positioning memories to lead me further into uncharted territory.
I knew there was no easy path through grief. No GPS. No guide book listing points of egress. No sherpa to lead me to the top of a high mountain where I can see tomorrow and a way out of grief.
I did not expect this wilderness that has no logic, no rhythm, no rhyme. Nor did I expect a turnpike of four lanes, with some slight curves and a few steep grades that I could easily travel.
I did expect tears and sadness, and to grieve from losing Greg until the end of my days.
I did not expect to be thrown into this wilderness of grief by the simplest of things. A “How are you doing?” yesterday afternoon had me crying off and on the rest of the day. Tuesday afternoon, tales about Greg had me laughing.
I receive clues on moving ahead. Some kind . . . Don’t sit home alone. Do something different. Get out and talk to people. Go shopping. Take a trip. Some blunt . . . Move somewhere else. Get Greg’s belongings out of the house. You can’t live in the past. And one that I consider hateful . . . He’s dead; get over him.
I have done the kind clues, without anyone mentioning them to me; they don’t lead me out of this wilderness. Our home is where I’m staying. I have given away some of Greg’s things; other things will stay with me.
Get over Greg. There is no way that is possible. I will always love him and miss him, no matter what may happen in the future. Greg was my rock, my strength, my love.
All I can do right now is to gather my strength and utilize it to wander this wilderness alone.
I will survive.
A line from a Dwight Yoakam song, about a breakup, but the lyrics apply to me as well . . . I have a broken heart from losing Greg to cancer two years and nine days ago.
I’ve not cried for two days. That doesn’t mean that I’m not missing Greg with every fibre of my being. I will always miss him. Millions of memories ensure that.
Apparently the hurt wasn’t showing today as one gentleman told me I looked like I was getting younger. I don’t feel any younger although two days of being alone with my thoughts, memories of Greg and a shot of Maker’s eased the tears away today and yesterday. I could do without tears for a while, even though I know there will be more days of tears to come.
Greg didn’t like to see me cry. I don’t know why it bothered him so much. Maybe it’s a male thing . . . if they can’t fix it, it frustrates them.
For forty-two years I buried pain from all sorts of things, held back tears, substituted anger until one friend told me I was angry all the time for no reason. I told her it was either be angry all the time or be crying all the time. Apparently that burial failed as I have cried more since the first of this year than I have from 14 August 2019 until then. Some days the tears are from sadness and don’t leave lingering pain; other days grief has cut to the bone – I can only hope there aren’t any more of those days in the future.
“The only time I feel the pain is in the sunshine or the rain . . . ” sums up grief. I will always feel the pain of losing Greg. Hiding the pain – sometimes I can; other times pain is so close to the surface that a simple “How are you doing?” brings tears unbidden and sometimes unexpected.
I will live with the pain, the sadness, the grief. I will continue my life, doing things alone that Greg and I did together, avoiding some places because they were so much “our” places that I can no longer stand to set foot there, do new things, learn new things, but . . . “I tell the truth except when I lie . . .” for the “Alright” I answer to the question “How are you doing?” is not alright . . . it is an avoidance of the truth.
I am strong enough to be alone. I will survive.
Two years and a day without my Greg. My rock. My strength. My love. My all.
Driving was all I knew to do yesterday and had intended to drive all day. A lifelong friend called me before I hit the road, so she joined me. We did some shopping, ate lunch in one town, had dessert in another town, and took a roundabout way back to town. Along the way we talked about our husbands, the gaps in our lives without them, and the emptiness – for lack of a better word at the moment – we felt without them.
When I said emptiness would be something I could deal with, my friend said there was no way to really describe the feeling. Grief is one thing. So are sorrow and sadness, and the wanting things to be the way they were before our husbands died.
But this lacking that can’t be identified, this something indescribable, is haunting. A feeling of being unsettled, lost in a wilderness that has no end, no maps, no paths, no markers, no guides to let me know where I am going nor who I am at this point in my life, is about the best way I can describe this feeling my friend and I talked about yesterday.
I know I’m sad and doubt that the sadness that underlies everything I do since Greg’s death will ever go away. Grief will always be with me; today I’m grieving, but without the intense pain that has accompanied grief many times. Though I don’t really feel lonely, some of the feeling of being unsettled may be loneliness – I don’t know.
Today I have cried. I have done housework. I have listened to music. Nothing suits. Nothing appeals. Nothing helps. I have tried driving, but couldn’t manage that today. I can’t get interested in reading which, for me, is as unusual as pigs growing wings. I don’t want to interact with anyone in any way.
So . . . I’ll return home. Have a light supper. Go to Greg’s grave and talk to Greg and God. Shed tears of grief and longing that today will be tinged with frustration. Wonder what my life will be like tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, ten years from now.
Pray that God’s peace will settle my mood and provide a night of restful sleep to enable me to face another tomorrow without Greg.
And I still won’t be able to describe this feeling.
I probably should quit telling people that I miss Greg when they ask how I am doing. Responses range from “I bet you do” to “You need to let him go” to “You need to move on with your life” to “What you need to do is find a man and have some fun.” (I toned that last one down but I’m sure you get the drift.) I have been told to sell our home, to do something different, to get out and do things, to get Greg’s belongings out of the house, that I don’t need to live in the past and to not let guilt cause me to cling to the past.
I have been told these things by people who have never lost a spouse and by people who have lost a spouse and remarried. I don’t know if they don’t understand grief or have buried it deeper than I have been able to, or if their emotional connection to their spouse didn’t go to the bone. Most likely they don’t comprehend the bond that Greg and I shared.
In six days it will be two years since Greg left this life. Some days it feels like it’s been an eternity. Other days it feels like it was five seconds ago.
Grief has been my constant companion since 14 August 2019. While I have shed countless tears since then, I have not become a recluse, never getting out and doing things that interest me. I dine out – alone and with friends. I have attended concerts – once in another state. I go shopping when the mood strikes. I do printing jobs for long-time customers.
While I miss Greg so badly at times that I wonder if this really is my life now, I will not sell our home. I will not remove all of Greg’s belongings from the house. I will not actively seek another love to be in my life.
‘Cause I’ve been a fool too long.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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 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.
Early Sunday evening
I’ve had a lonely and sad weekend. Even though I interacted with a few people this weekend – the gentleman who gave me a quote on tree trimming, the barkeep at Reno’s when I gave her my order, and my friend and her husband during lunch today – overall I have been sad and lonely.
I awoke that way Saturday morning. Even though the conversations I had with other people were pleasant, the sadness and loneliness didn’t subside. The heat hasn’t helped; it’s added crankiness.
Right now I’m sitting in a shaded pull-off on 704. Crickets and birds are making music, and a lone tree frog is blending his voice with their melodies. White clover in bloom scents the air. Daisies and blackberry blooms add splashes of white amid the fescue and other grasses. Red clover and wildflowers are scattered through the grass. Trees are fully leafed out, providing cooling shade.
A beautiful place. A peaceful place. God’s grace in abundance.
I came here hoping to elude the sadness and loneliness. God’s peace is with me but the sadness and loneliness linger. While they aren’t as wrenching as when grief waltzes in with torture on its mind, they are tiring, leaving me exhausted mentally and emotionally.
I will return home and visit Greg’s grave as I have done both morning and evening several days this past week. I will talk to Greg and talk to God, watch the broom sedge sway in the slightest of breezes, and listen to the birds talk as they are settling into their nests for the night.
Maybe a second dose of God’s creation will lift my spirits and the sadness and loneliness will be gone by morning.
Saturday afternoon
This morning I gave directions to a gentleman on driving from Walmart to some trees I need trimmed.
Six right turns.
That got me to counting turns I make while driving. Five rights and a left to the shop – five right turns and a left to get back home. Seven right turns and a left to Reno’s bar.
And wondering if I have made enough right turns in my life since Greg’s death.
Without Greg at my side I follow roads I am unaccustomed to traveling. All I can do is strive to make right turns for my life until the end of my days.
I woke up this morning with just one thing on my agenda: meeting someone to get an estimate on tree trimming. Other than that, I could do whatever struck my fancy.
Drive to Louisville. Shop for a new wardrobe. Go to a movie. Rent a houseboat for the night. Dine in the fanciest restaurant around. Spend hours in a bookstore. Walk through a state park.
Whatever I wanted to do.
I don’t have to answer to anyone about anything I might or might not decide to do. No one is expecting a phone call from me. No one is making plans that include me. No one is waiting for me to come home.
No one. But I am not free.
Grief is taunting me today. Telling me all the things I might have been doing with Greg today instead of rambling alone.
Driving down back roads. Sharing a Pepsi and M&M’s. Watching Crocus Creek flow. Listening to Travis Tritt’s music. Gun trading.
Oh, I could do any of those alone. But I could not face them today as Greg is not here to share these things with me.
My only responsibility right now is to myself and my cats. I can do most anything I choose. But I am not free. Memories and grief tie my days in fetters of sorrow, sometimes making me unwilling to do anything without Greg at my side.
Freedom is illusive.
Rainy days don’t get me down. Sundays . . . an entirely different story.
Since Greg died, most days feel like they are either a Friday or a Sunday, sometimes the two entwined. Many Friday evenings we left work and went to a movie. Sunday afternoons we ate out or rode around, sometimes both. Those times were our relaxing times together, nothing we had to do but be with each other.
This Sunday has been particularly rough. The rain this morning didn’t dampen my mood; getting up and knowing Greg was not in the house with me had already done that. I’ve done some housework, driven a hundred miles, bought some things I needed, listened to some Travis, read a little, admired God’s handiwork . . . and cried.
Even though I’ve cried most of the day, grief hasn’t had me in the depths of despair as it has done many times before. Today, I’m missing Greg desperately, wanting his presence and knowing I can never have him in my life again. All my thoughts of Greg bring tears, no matter how pleasant those thoughts may be.
My Sundays are sad. I can sit in the yard and enjoy seeing all that God has made that surrounds me. But sadness lingers, seeming to be a tangible part of the landscape, as if our farm is also grieving over Greg’s loss.
I can’t skip Sundays. I can only hope they eventually become less sad.
. . . Words from a song that have been running through my head most of the day . . . now I’m going to have to look up the lyrics to see what the rest of the song says.
All by myself on a glorious Saturday afternoon with the temperature above my comfort zone of sixty to sixty-five degrees. All by myself. Driving. Dining out. Shopping.
No matter what I do, nor where I go, I will return home all by myself.
All by myself. For the rest of my life. All I can do is endure the next thirty years without my Greg and his love for me.
Strength to endure. God is supplying all my day-to-day needs so I’m sure He’ll supply the strength also as He is all I can rely on each and every moment.
All by myself on this physical plane. Supported and loved by God on the spiritual plane.
I am not as all by myself as I feel at times.
Through the years, I’ve read many books that would have a couple mentioning “their song.” I was listening to some random music this afternoon and “our song” was in the lyrics of one song. And that set me to thinking . . .
Greg and I never had a song that could be called “our song.” The closest thing we had to “our song” was Conway Twitty’s “I’d Love to Lay You Down.” Greg would occasionally sing that to me.
If repetition counted, George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today” would definitely in the running for “our song” as Greg sang that song -- and ONLY that song -- for at least a year after it came out. I heard it so much that I was at the point of hunting down George Jones and strangling him.
However, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” could be “my song” as that is when I will stop loving Greg . . . when the wreath is on my door and they are carrying me away . . . for “I Stopped Loving Greg Today” whenever that day may come.
Mostly.
Sunday morning I was in a fairly good spot emotionally until I talked to Greg’s “daughter” in Walmart for a few minutes. So many memories appeared -- of Greg, her and me at work, times she rode with us to deliver work, times she and Greg would argue about something -- usually reaching an agreement without too much bickering.
Tears followed, through my shopping, through driving to the shop and checking email and feeding the cat. The tears dried up around noon but the rest of the day was saddened.
I’ve shed some tears the past few days, but not as many nor with the intensity there has been the past few months. I don’t know if this is an indication that grief has decided to ignore me for a bit or is plotting a comeback that will devastate me.
I hope there is no comeback. The occasional tears I expect and can usually chase them away with pleasant thoughts of Greg. Lasting through a full-fledged attack by grief is rough and recovery time is lengthy.
So far this week I have done daily routines, sat at Greg’s grave and talked to him and talked to God, petted the cats, mowed the yard, listened to some music. I have thanked God for all He does for me, and started writing a blessings journal. I’m still writing about things that bother me, and letters that I cannot send, and burning them.
Maybe the accumulation of all that I’ve done has helped me have an easier week emotionally.
Oh, I miss Greg -- constantly, with ever fibre of my being. My life will never return to what I consider “normal” for Greg isn’t here to share it with.
My mood may have leveled out but my life never will.
There seem to be a zillion things that I need to do, at the house and at the shop. Cleaning, of course. Sorting. Trashing. Filing. Giving away.
I start one thing, work on it for a few minutes and stop. I start something else, work on it for a few minutes and stop. I’ve repeated this starting and stopping before I finish something for months. There is plenty for my hands to do. Plenty of necessary things. Plenty of things that need to be dealt with. Plenty of work to keep my hands from being idle.
Occasionally, I finish something because a customer needs it.
I have finally realized that my hands aren’t wanting to work. They are wanting Greg. Wanting to massage tension out of his shoulders and neck. Wanting to feel the texture of his hair and beard. Wanting to feel the warmth of his hands.
Wanting something neither they nor I will ever have again.
The anger of last week faded away in the night. My mood was leveled out this morning, and while I didn’t have what could be called a happy day, it was calm.
I did a few odds and ends. I finished reading a book I’d been reading on all week. I did a little shopping. And I went to Greg’s grave to sit and talk to him a while.
Then grief crept in, starting with a few tears as I talked to Greg about things we had done, and my telling him that I miss him and will never stop loving him. The tears occasionally running down my cheeks I could deal with.
But grief wasn’t satisfied with a few tears. It wanted wrenching sobs and painful heartache to remind me of what I have lost and can never have again. I endured them, for what else could I do, and right now am feeling washed-out and exhausted.
And wanting to drive and drive and drive and drive until there is no road, no place to go, nothing in sight but emptiness. What I would do when I got to such a place I have no idea. I most likely would have no choice but to turn around and drive back home.
Home. A house filled memories. Memories of Greg. My Greg. Who will never again be there when I get home, no matter how many miles I may drive.
After this past week, I have decided that fighting grief is an exercise in futility. No matter how much I try to keep it at bay, it overcomes all my resistance and frequently brings me to tears.
The most innocuous things bring tears. I ordered some cement sealer and stain today from a company in Connecticut. I told the nice gentleman on the phone that I wanted to stain a deer statue to use as part of Greg’s tombstone. We discussed differences in concrete finishes, the chemicals that might be in concrete and affect the stain -- then, near the end of the conversation, he offered condolences.
And the tears came. Just thinking about it hours later brings tears.
This has been my life for nearly two years.
I have fought grief. I have let the tears fall at times I probably should not have. I have tried to force myself to have -- if not happy -- pleasant and peaceful days.
Nothing works.
Embracing grief and all the upheavals it brings seems to be my only choice. If I allow myself to let grief wrap me in its darkness as often as it likes, will it become bored with me and dissipate sooner? Or will I sink deeper into its clutches, never to resurface?
Grief is not easy to live with. I am tired of experiencing sudden tears, the pain that arises when I least expect it, the loss of stability in my moods throughout a day.
So, I will embrace grief. If this means long nights of tears, so be it.
Something has to give and I don’t intend for it to be me.
This past week my emotions have run the gamut from grieving over Greg to mad as hell for no reason to being at peace while appreciating God’s handiwork to laughing at something silly a friend said. The overriding emotion is anger; I have no idea why it is here nor what brought it on.
I have thanked God for the beauty He provides daily. I have sat at Greg’s grave and talked to him. I have done yard work and odds and ends of other things. I have done things I normally do.
Except for listening to music while driving. Only one day have I listened to any music while driving and that was on a fast trip to town and back. I was in an angry mood and the music playing on the Explorer’s stereo could be considered rebellious -- you know, aimless wandering, doing things my way, confrontational.
(I did listen to Travis Tritt’s new album -- Set in Stone -- at the house. The acoustical version is good whiskey-sipping music. I also listened to Travis’s music while sitting in Reno’s bar this afternoon.)
Mostly I have listened to the silence of the road. The wind flowing around the cab of the truck. The radio antenna singing. The song of a bird sitting on a fence post.
The sound of rubber meeting the road has brought the anger down to a slow simmer, though I feel it could become a full rolling boil at the slightest provocation. So . . . I am avoiding people and music while driving.
I have no idea why I am avoiding music. Perhaps the memories of Greg it brings and the following tears. Perhaps the sorrow and frustration I feel knowing Greg never accomplished what I know he was capable of doing with his music. Perhaps . . . perhaps . . . I don’t know.
I will return home and absorb the silence echoing there. Songbirds. Tree frogs. Owls. Breezes in the trees.
I will sit at Greg’s grave and watch the sun go down. I will talk to Greg and talk to God. Watch broom sedge sway in a breeze wandering across the hill. Hope another dragonfly blesses me with a visit as one did Tuesday afternoon, brushing its wings against my arm.
Will God’s silence calm my chaotic emotions? I hope so. I need some stable and consistent peace.
Since the tenth of February, I have put five thousand miles on one vehicle. I don’t know how many miles I have put on my other two. Other than a trip to Pikeville in February, I have not been to a town farther than fifty miles from home.
I have mostly driven aimlessly, though sometimes I had a particular restaurant as my destination. I have driven on two-lane and four-lane roads. I have driven through rain and fog, some snow, dreary days like today and days of cloudless skies. I have watched Spring arrive in all its glory.
I am driven by grief, unsettled in my bones, wanting what I know I can never have again.
So I drive. To nowhere. For nothing. Aimless and lost, knowing the way back home but not the way back to me.
I will drive until my spirit finds peace.
I awoke to see a glorious morning outside my bedroom window. Light fog drifting across the pasture. Fairy wash clinging to seedpods of taller plants. Grass and flowers glistening in their coating of morning dew. Sunrise visible beyond the trees and hills surrounding the pasture. Small clouds glowing with reflected sunlight.
On my way to town I was thanking God for the wonderful morning scenery along the way, and my thoughts turned to Greg. His smile. His touch. His laughter. His everything. My everything.
Tears have been my companion since.
I felt lighthearted for the first morning this week when I got out of bed. I was enjoying the morning’s peace and charm. I wish I knew why pleasant thoughts of Greg hit me so hard. I know I will always love him and miss him, that will be a constant in my life. But this?
How can grief be so inexplicable? I know grief will never go away, that is a given. I am having trouble understanding the suddenness of its arrival in the midst of a morning with so much beauty, a beauty that lifted my spirits more than they were when I first awoke.
Is grief inexplicable? Is its sole intent and purpose to keep me from having happy days, where pleasant thoughts of Greg bring smiles instead of tears? It seems that way to me. Makes me feel as if grief has a personal vendetta against me and desires to keep me in tears instead of smiles for as long as it possibly can.
If this morning is any indicator of how my weekend will be, I have a long three days ahead of me. I will get out and do something somewhere else tomorrow and Sunday. Today I need to mow the yard so driving aimlessly this afternoon isn’t an option I can utilize today as I have so many times this year.
All I can do at the moment is endure and hope for fewer grief-riddled days in the years to come.
I may be sad. I may cry. I must be strong.
God’s silence.
Songbirds are singing merrily. A lone cricket chirps in high grass. Tree branches and wildflowers sway in the light breeze but the trees nearby haven’t leafed out enough for the leaves to rustle in the breeze. I can occasionally hear the roar of the wind at higher altitudes.
The fine mist is accumulating on the new leaves and there are sporadic plonks on the roof of the Explorer when a leaf tilts downward and releases a drop of rain.
A lone Ford pickup truck breaks the silence but the hiss of its tires on wet pavement is soon gone.
I am sitting in a pull-off near Crocus Creek, but not close enough to the creek to hear the music of running water. I come here frequently because of the silence. No traffic noise. No voices to be heard. No radios or sirens disrupting the peace. God’s peace.
Today I need this peace. Cleaning, sorting, finding memories of Greg -- notes he had written, his work clipboard holding samples of some of the last things he printed, a tedious printed piece he had been proud of -- all combined to bring tears.
Tears that dampened the day as much as the intermittent rain outside the shop. I am not in the depths of grief that I have endured in the past few months, but felt that it wouldn’t take much to push me over that edge. So I drove to this silent spot.
I am sad, for my darling Greg is no longer in my life. The silent peace has leveled out my emotions so that the threat of tears isn’t as imminent as it was an hour ago.
The greens of Spring, the touch of the breeze, even the cawing of distant crows contribute to my peace.
I miss Greg more than I can ever say, my heart aches from his loss, and I know there will be many more times that I will experience grief so wrenching that I won’t know if I will survive it.
Today God’s silence has restored peace to my day, brought me away from tears for the moment, while I listen to the patter of a lively Spring rain that just now started.
I will seek this silent peace many times in the years to come.
Throughout our lives, we acquire habits that we sometimes don’t realize we have until there is a drastic change in our lives. Since Greg’s death, I have discovered I have several old habits, all tied to Greg.
Perhaps the one I notice most often is catching myself listening for the sound of Greg’s truck coming down the driveway on a Saturday afternoon. When Greg returned home on a Saturday afternoon after golfing or gun trading, we usually went out to eat or riding around, most likely both.
I didn’t realize how many times a day I was in and out the back door at the shop and didn’t have to unlock it each time because Greg was at work, waiting for me to return with lunch or snacks, or just so he could leave for the day.
“Give me a hug,” one of us would say in the midst of a rough day. A hug to relieve our burdens and make them disappear for a few moments.
“Leave me alone,” I would tell Greg in the mornings when he got out of the shower, wide awake and ready to take on the day. I am NOT a morning person.
There are dozens of other habits. Tuesday afternoon I sat at Greg’s grave and talked to him about these habits, including the ones of his that I am taking on myself, like checking the doors at work three or four times before I leave for the day.
Old habits. Good and bad. They are threaded through the days of our lives.
One habit I will never give up -- loving Greg.
On the corner of the desk in the office is a #10 envelope box. It is approximately 9.75”x12”x4.25”. In the box are business records for 2020. The box is perhaps three-fourths filled.
Greg and I officially closed the business in May of 2019 when he was diagnosed with cancer. I still do odds and ends of small jobs for long-time customers. That envelope box brings memories of busier times when a year’s business records barely fit into a 11”x17”x10” box; sometimes the records required a larger box.
Business records aren’t the only things I have boxed since August 2019. I have boxed up shotgun shells, books, coon hunting trophies, knives, dishes, photographs, and many other items. Some things were easy to box. Others brought tears and it was all I could do to place those items in a box and seal it. Some of the things I gave away, most are still in my possession.
In the process of boxing up our life, I wondered . . . is this what we all come to? Items in a box that our descendants may discard without realizing what memories reside within those boxes.
There are still hundreds of things that I should box. I will at some point. Right now there are many items I cannot bear to stow away. Wildlife prints. Shot glasses. Golf instruction videos. A&W mugs, Carhartt T-shirts.
I have boxes. I have time. I do not have the desire to box away all the memories of the life I shared with Greg. They are too precious to me.
The empty boxes can wait.
I’ve always liked music, just about any genre. Although music has always affected my emotions, it hadn’t had a huge impact on them until after Greg’s death. Now, the least bit of any music, sad or joyful, can bring me to tears.
Yesterday, for some inexplicable reason, I was thinking about Air Supply’s “I Can Wait Forever.” I looked up the lyrics and listened to the song. At the side of the screen was a listing of other Air Supply songs. One was “Here I Am.” I’m not familiar with their music so I looked at those lyrics also.
Two very different songs -- one of love that could be consummated tomorrow, one of a love from yesterday.
Both songs made me melancholy, caused me to think about my yesterdays and tomorrows.
All my yesterdays that will be there through all my tomorrows. All my yesterdays that will shape how I view all my tomorrows.
All my yesterdays. All my tomorrows. Can I wait forever to see my tomorrows move away from grief? Can I see my tomorrows without viewing them through my yesterdays? Can I live my tomorrows without feeling I am betraying my yesterdays?
Questions I cannot answer. I don’t know if there are answers.
Here I am. Memories aplenty. Missing Greg. Grief at bay for the day.
I will wait for new tomorrows. Hopefully not forever.
I shouldn’t tell this on myself but anyone who knows me knows that on a list of a million things I might like to do, housekeeping is at the very bottom. I despise doing housework.
Today, I’ve done what needed done the worst because it was getting on my nerves. In the process, I looked out the kitchen window several times, admiring the dogwoods still in bloom and the new leaves on the trees in the woods behind the house. I thanked God several times throughout the day for the beautiful day He sent.
And I looked at the kitchen curtains. They are in desperate need of replacement. The hems are unraveling as are the rod pockets so instead of the curtains hanging on the rods straight, they are at an angle because I have draped them over the rods. There are rips and holes caused by cats attacking the curtains through the years. This is not something new -- the curtains have been this way for at least twenty years.
I had bought a red-checked tablecloth that Greg liked. We were in Kmart not long afterward and I saw some white curtains with a little red vine embroidered in the corners. I put the appropriate pieces in the cart and when Greg saw them he threw a fit, saying he didn’t want any damn vines in the house.
So, I put the curtains back and have never replaced what I bought from Greg’s cousin when we bought our double-wide trailer in 1987. She had had the curtains for a few years before she sold them to me.
Even though Greg throwing a fit hurt my feelings at the time, later I got peeved and my stubbornness took over. While I have looked for new curtains a few times since, none have suited me like the ones with the red vines. Once in a while Greg would say something about the curtains needing to be replaced. I either ignored him or said, “I know it.”
I miss times like that, even though they aren’t what could be called happy memories. Greg and I were together, sharing a life and all the ups and downs that occur. One more day with Greg, even if we spent half of it fussing with each other, would be welcome.
Tomorrow is my birthday. Will I gift myself new kitchen curtains? Probably not.
Ragged memories are better than no memories.
A plunk. A plonk. A rat-a-tat-tat. A roar.
I sit in the Explorer and listen to the different rhythms, the different melodies, sorting through the different emotions rain brings to the surface. I watch raindrops land on the windshield, watch them pause, descend, combine into rivulets striping the glass. Some hold their positions, awaiting fresh drops to nudge them downward.
My emotions are as varied as the irregularity of the rain’s descent. At this moment they are calm. I have no idea how they will be ten minutes from now.
Travis Tritt is on the stereo, singing “I Can’t Seem to Get Over You.” For me, it is “I will never get over you,” for Greg is so much a part of me that I don’t believe I will ever get over him. Next on my mix is “Nothing Short of Dying.” I don’t know if Travis realized just how correct “that’s worse than being left alone” really is.
I threw some Bocephus in this mix -- “Old Habits.” Habits that have been with me for two-thirds of my life, embedded in my heart, may never disappear. Habits like listening for Greg’s truck coming down the driveway mid-afternoon on a Saturday. Awaiting his arrival home after a day of deer hunting, worrying if he’s not home soon after dark falls. Millions of little habits. Millions of memories that I will always have deep in my spirit.
The rain has become a light mist, making it easier to see what is around me, and I sit quietly, letting God’s handiwork soothe my soul. If the temperature was a few degrees warmer, I would enjoy walking in this mist until it soaked through my clothing.
That is something that Greg did not enjoy -- walking in the rain. I wonder if there is anyone who would enjoy walking in the rain with me.
Perchance, some rainy day, I may know.
I’ve worked off and on this past week cleaning out the filing cabinets in the office. Some things I have shredded, some I have trashed, and some I have kept. In the process, I have accumulated at least two hundred empty file folders. Perhaps twenty-five to thirty of these I have refilled with personal information.
As I leafed through the contents of these folders, I remembered the customers, their printing needs, and how Greg and I dealt with each. Most of our customers we really liked to deal with, but there were a few, that if we saw them coming, we headed out the back door, leaving our executive secretary to deal with them on her own. She would ask me later, “You saw them coming, didn’t you?”
I also remembered the long hours at work, the frequent fights Greg and I had because of stress, the lengthy drives made delivering work out-of-state, and many miles driven in-state when delivering printed items. Greg and I traveled roughly a million miles during our time together, rain and shine, on snowy roads and dry pavement, sometimes talking the entire way, other times nothing would be said except, “Where do you want to eat?”
We shared it all, endured it all, all the way to the end.
Today on my travels, the passenger seat was empty, as empty as those file folders I have boxed away. The memories of all the good times, the bad times, the happy times and the sad times are filed away in my heart, enclosed in folders made of love that will endure through the ages. I will dip into those folders many times in the years to come, remembering all that Greg and I shared, weeping over some memories, smiling and laughing at others.
No matter if I laugh or cry, Greg will never be in my life again. I feel his loss daily. I don’t think I will ever stop missing his presence, his love for me.
Will I ever add new file folders to my heart? Most likely not, as those folders of love in my heart have no expiration date, no room for updated versions.
File me under “Loving Greg.”
Almost. There is one other customer. He’s at the bar and I’m at a table. I did learn that he is a Travis Tritt fan.
I’ve had an enigmatic week. While overall I’ve felt at peace, I’ve cried nearly every day, off and on during the day. I can’t determine how many of the tears are caused by grief, how many are caused by missing Greg so much, nor how many are caused by loneliness.
Most likely, the awareness of just how alone I am has caught up with me. I’ve never had a lot of friends nor socialized a lot. I’m an only child. None of my relatives live nearby so I’m not close to family members.
Greg was also an only child, but he enjoyed socializing much more than I do. After we were married a few years, we basically stopped socializing. We wrapped ourselves in our love and became Greg and Joyce, united and inseparable.
Perhaps that was an error on my part. If I hadn’t avoided socializing as if it was a contagious disease, maybe I wouldn’t be so alone at this point in my life.
I’ve been thinking this week about how many people are gone from my life, never to return. Of my few friends, some do not live nearby. Others have so much to deal with in their lives on a daily basis that I feel I am disrupting their busy schedules if I call to chat for a few minutes.
So, I sit alone in a bar. I will be alone on my drive home. I will be alone when I arrive home.
Without my Greg. Without my anchor.
Alone in my life.
Yesterday, while I was waiting to see my opthamologist, I was about to the end of a book that I’d been reading a bit at a time during the week. It’s a fun book, Gators and Garters, with plenty of funny scenes and some serious scenes. When I got to the part about a wedding, grief struck again with the title of a song.
I don’t remember ever hearing the song before -- “The Dance” by Garth Brooks -- except maybe in bits and pieces if it was playing in a store where I was shopping. I didn’t know the words, but looked them up when I got back to the shop. It is not a song that I would consider playing at a wedding.
I knew that music would allow grief to overwhelm me at times but I never expected that just seeing the title of a song in print would do the same, especially a song I was not familiar with.
Once again I mourned the loss of Greg. Once again I wondered if the grief will ever ease. Once again I wondered why 2021 has hit me so hard.
Why this year? Is it the way we say it? Twenty twenty-one, the numbers in the correct sequence. This happens only once in a century. Was that the trigger on January 1, 2021, of the many days and nights of unrelenting grief I have had since? Is the calendar letting me know that there is no next step for me?
No tomorrows with Greg. No next weeks. No next months. No next years.
No more hearing Greg sing. No more seeing his smile. No more of his wonderful hugs.
No more love in my life. No more hope for there ever being love in my life again.
I don’t know what this year will bring into my life. I do know that days like yesterday, that leave me exhausted emotionally and physically, are not days I wish to repeat.
I am ready for a step away from grief.
It’s a nice day today. Sunny, warm, bright with blossoms of Spring.
Blossoms that remind me of Greg. Oh, he wasn’t a fan of flowers, but there are two he did like – violets and wild strawberries.
Greg liked the dark purple blooms of the violets. I’m not sure why he liked the yellow blooms of the strawberries, other than the plants do not get very tall. When I would mow areas of the yard that had wild strawberries in bloom, he would ask if the blooms were still there when I finished. The strawberries were usually short enough that the mower left the yellow blossoms to brighten the yard.
Our yard is liberally dotted with violet and wild strawberry blooms today. It appears that the two plants are vying for dominance. In spots the violets are winning, in other spots the strawberries.
A stiff breeze that is more related to March than April jostles the blossoms. A breeze that would have given Greg an earache, and caused him to stay indoors.
Reminders, more reminders of what I have lost and will never have again. A good man and his love, neither of which can be replaced, no matter what I do.
I am alone with grief.
The temperature outdoors is in my comfort zone -- sixty to sixty-five degrees. It’s been raining since this morning so I’ve been outside only to check the mail.
I’ve cried through washing a load of clothes, cooking breakfast, baking brownies, listening to Travis Tritt’s Homegrown album, petting the cats . . . it’s been a rough day. Since the rain hasn’t decided to stop, I’ve been driving most of the afternoon, watching the wipers clear the windshield.
Memories surround me. Some good, some bad, some happy, some sad. I’ve got a tight grip on my emotions so haven’t cried for an hour or so, but feel it would take very little to break that grip. What then? Tears for the rest of the day and night and tomorrow?
A friend said it was from missing Greg, from feeling empty. I know I’m missing Greg -- that is likely a permanent condition. The feeling of emptiness -- I feel past that -- empty would be an improvement.
I feel nonexistent, as though nothing I do will bring me back into existence. Will this feeling pass? Can I defeat it? Right now, I doubt it. Tomorrow? Will there be rain bringing more memories to remind me of what I no longer have? Memories of what I can never have again? Memories . . . memories that reside in my bones.
Another road to follow in the rain. Another hundred miles on the odometer. Another two hours of tears matching the rain. Another day grief has me firmly in its clutches.
Will another million miles in the rain dilute the memories?
Grief is relentless. Over the past couple of weeks, I felt as though some of the worst was on its way out. This morning grief told me in no uncertain terms just how wrong I am.
It told me there is no hope, no relief, no way to move forward, no reason – good nor bad – to think anything will ever change, that it is a permanent resident in my life and has no intention of ever moving out.
The pain and tears today lack the intensity of what I’ve endured the past several months. Instead, they contain a bone-deep despondency that I fear will loiter for the rest of my days. How do I cope with this?
A beautiful drive lacked the power to lift grief’s grip on my day. Redbuds spoke of the soft sweetness of Spring. Wild mustard glowed in the gentle sunlight. Broom sedge held the color of Fall as a reminder of the cycles of life. God’s beauty brought some peace to my heart but grief prodded my memory, bringing to the forefront Greg’s appreciation of God’s handiwork, and that I’ll never again share a beautiful Spring drive with Greg. Forcing me to acknowledge that I know I will never again share any part of my life with Greg.
So, I’ll back off on hope for a bit. Back off on doing things that strongly remind me of Greg, like a drive down scenic roads on a pleasant Spring day. Back off on considering the remote possibility of ever having another relationship. Regroup and start over on a life by myself.
I can survive this. I may not be happy. I may be lonely. I will yearn for all the little things that made up our life together.
In the end, I will survive, for I am strong enough.
Thoughts on Hope
Some days, when submerged in the abyss of grief, wanting my past, I wonder if hope exists at a higher depth. Hope for a new tomorrow where I can skim the surface of grief, knowing that it will always be an undercurrent in my life, hoping that I will not encounter a strong undertow that drowns today in relentless sorrow.
If I do encounter hope, what do I hope for? Financial security to enable me to indulge in some nearly-forgotten dreams? Good health and mental acuity for the rest of my life? (That is always hoped for.) A new love?
And that makes me wonder even more about hope. If I hope for a new love, am I truly wanting a new love or a distraction from my grief? If the chance for a new love appears, will I recognize it and move away from the life I shared with Greg?
Questions. Always questions. My life is filled with questions, even if I never disclose them. My expressed questions have caused some people to tell me I have no confidence in myself, in my capabilities, or in the possibilities of my life changing. Maybe I do lack the confidence I need, but even if I had it, I would still question everything.
Today, sitting outside on a glorious Easter Sunday that God has provided, I see no possibility of a new love in my life. The odds are against it, the opportunities too few.
While I am sad today, grief hasn’t overtaken my emotions and wrecked my mood. I can hear turkeys gobbling, birds singing their happy songs, and the buzzing of wood borers. The grass is green, an assortment of flowers and trees are blooming, and a clear sky is a pleasing backdrop for the woodland in front of me.
Even though I am sad, I am at peace.
From Writing to Ashes
A friend has told me several times through the years that if something is bothering me to write about it, then burn what I write. Since grief has had a stranglehold on my emotions since the first of this year, a couple of weeks ago I decided to try her suggestion.
I have written about grief, heartache, frustration, anger, grief, happy times and sad times, beliefs, grief, love, sorrow and how I may feel tomorrow. I have written letters to people to whom I cannot divulge my feelings, and I have written letters to God.
Some of the thoughts were difficult to put down on paper. Some of the thoughts flowed freely, and even though I frequently mangled sentence structure, I did get on paper how I felt about many things that I could never mention to anyone.
Apparently, this is helping me deal with grief, as after burning the third or fourth set of letters, I arose the next morning feeling lighter in spirit and mood.
Since starting writing and burning what I have written, there have been a few times I have cried, like Friday, which would have been Greg’s sixty-third birthday. I was singing “We’ve Had It All” and there is so much in that song that relates to the life Greg and I shared, that the tears came unexpectedly. However, songs that a month ago brought me to tears every time I listened to them I can now listen to and sing along, and smile about happy times with Greg.
I will write more letters tonight, and for many nights to come. I need to get past the grief and let a new day dawn in my life.
In the past eight to ten months, I’ve done a lot of driving and listening to music -- 2,500 miles just since February 12. Most of the music I’ve listened to is Travis Tritt’s as Greg thoroughly enjoyed Travis’s music. I have interspersed this with a variety of other music -- from Clint Black to Waylon to soundtracks from Forrest Gump to Ghostbusters.
Invariably, there will be at least one song, no matter the genre nor singer, that brings me to tears with memories of Greg. Maybe because he sang the song frequently. Maybe because he particularly liked the instrumentals in one part of the song. Maybe because he didn’t like the song. With songs that remind me intensely of Greg, I find myself changing the lyrics to make the song about Greg.
“Honky-tonk angel . . .” becomes “Honky-tonk redneck . . . Greg, warm and strong, that’s who I’m longing for.” Every “you” in a heartsick song is changed to “Greg.” “She’s going home with me” morphs into “I’m going home with Greg.”
Does this help the grief? Sometimes. Sometimes the unrelenting grief is already there. Sometimes it waltzes in with the song. Sometimes . . . sometimes I smile at the memory of Greg complaining about my off-key singing.
Some songs I have rewritten nearly the entire song to reflect my life with Greg, the song resonates so strongly with my emotions. Others, I just sing along, changing the lyrics so they are about Greg.
One song, however, needs no rewriting . . . George Strait’s “A Fire I Can’t Put Out.”
Yesterday morning started off pleasantly. I listened to the squeaking of two small creatures (judging from the sound and volume of the squeaks) travel from the sycamores up the hill toward the road. A squirrel fussed at me while I was feeding the cats; I assume I disturbed its morning rest. By the time I was walking to the truck, birds were filling the air with their morning songs. March flowers were blooming merrily by the driveway, while others scattered around the yard were preparing to bloom.
I did the few things I needed to do on a Friday morning, and after the mailman delivered the day’s mail, I decided to go to Somerset and have Reno’s onion rings for lunch.
It was raining, not heavily but steadily. I didn’t mind. I put on some Travis Tritt music, drove slower than usual because of the rain, and was enjoying the drive. Then grief snuck in on the squeak of a guitar string, wrapped barbed wire around my heart and pulled until the pain was beyond tears.
Oh, I cried, and cried, and cried. Until the tears dried up and sorrow remained, tiring me to the bone, and haunting my night with eerie dreams of dogs, eyeglasses and strangers.
Eating a quiet meal, listening to random music, writing some poetry and texting a friend while in Reno’s bar eased the grief somewhat. However, the desolation remained and has lingered through today, through another trip to Reno’s bar, through a drive without rain, and through the sun emerging from behind the clouds.
Melancholy is hanging on, relentless in its stubbornness, like patches of melting snow awaiting fresh snowfall.
Grief doesn’t want to let go of my emotions. It stealthily creeps into a day, like a cat burglar sneaking into a mansion to steal jewels. The jewels grief steals are my moment of cheerfulness, tainting the day with sorrow and tears, leaving me bereft and alone, wishing for a time machine but not sure at what point in my life I want to start over. Perhaps birth?
Grief is sneaky.
Remember the movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir? Currently, I’m Mrs. Muir.
Greg doesn’t manifest himself to me. He doesn’t need to. Forty-two years of memories, good and bad, have their own spirits that manifest daily.
This past weekend was the roughest time I’ve had since Greg died. Even abandoning Travis Tritt’s music for a day, and listening to other music like The Grass Roots and Steppenwolf, among others, didn’t help. There would be some snippet of a line in any song that reminded me so much of Greg that tears were quick to follow. So I returned to Travis’s music.
Housework didn’t help; I am not a housekeeper and Greg often fussed about that. Driving didn’t help; Greg and I did so much riding around together that the sight of blacktop nearly brought me to tears.
Sunshine, clouds, a glorious sunset, the cats -- even the ones Greg never met, Ford pick-up trucks, cattle, trees, rocks -- anything around me wreaked havoc on my emotions.
I should’ve known something was coming as starting Thursday afternoon I have not been wanting to be at home. Nothing seems “off” or out of place, not in the house, nor the garage or other buildings, nor any of the outdoors. Maybe loneliness has accumulated, though I’m not really wanting to be around other people -- at least not to communicate with them. I do not know what the problem is.
I do know that I had a rough weekend. I didn’t sit alone and mourn. I dined out -- Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. I chatted with a few people and looked at mobile homes. But the sorrow was there, lurking under my skin, waiting to break loose and bring me to tears.
I live with the ghosts of the life I shared with Greg. Reminders are always there. Even if all the things that Greg and I had, and all the places we frequented together, quietly disappeared in the middle of some dark and stormy night, the memories will remain.
Not only am I living with the ghost of Greg, I’m surrounded by hundreds of ghosts -- called memories.
I was told this past week that I need to find closure to my grief from losing Greg. It upsets this person that I cry as they see crying as a weakness, where I do not. I am strong; I have to be. Tears do not change that, especially tears of grief.
I have come to despise the word “closure.” All of what I consider to be nothing but psychobabble about closure the past several years has caused me to start considering “closure” a curse word. At the very least, a catchword used by people whom I doubt have ever had any extreme trials and tribulations in their lives, and if they have had, they have numbed themselves with some type of medication, legal or otherwise.
There is no closure for grief, even though I have been told that I need to get on with my life and that finding closure will help. I’m not sitting home alone, mourning in darkness, never venturing out. I do most everything by myself that Greg and I did together – come to work, talk to people, shop, drive around, dine out, listen to music. I am just doing all those things without Greg at my side. Yes, I grieve for him and likely always will.
Grief has its own course. Grief does not have a stopping point, like the final payment on a mortgage. Grief does not have an on/off switch like a flashlight. Grief has mood swings, like the weather, from mild days to days of unleashed fury that leave their mark as clear as the path of a tornado.
Other people may not see these marks on my spirit, as I try to keep the worst of them hidden. A few people, who were close to Greg in many ways, understand the way I feel. I cannot simply get up one morning, let’s say next Friday, and declare that I have “closure” to my grief from losing Greg and that I will never cry nor feel sad or lonesome ever again.
Grief has no closure. I can only learn to deal with it in different ways as time passes.
I had heard snatches of a song about “driving you home” a couple of times while shopping and had been wanting to hear the entire song. I finally did hear the entire song, while dining out alone. The line I remember best, and probably the title of the song, is “Who’s gonna drive you home tonight.”
For the past year and a half, no one has been driving me home. Without Greg there is no one to drive me home. No one to drive me to the movies. No one to drive me to a nice restaurant. No one to drive me to a concert. No one to drive me down back roads in the wee hours of the morning.
No one to drive me through life.
I’m driving myself these days. To the places mentioned above. Then I drive myself home, where I sit in the truck and wonder why I even have a good vehicle, for I have no one with whom I can share the open road and busy city streets, and glorious scenery along the way.
Friends sometimes travel with me, but it’s not the same as having Greg accompanying me, for they return to their homes, leaving me missing Greg and our travels through life.
No one is driving me home tonight.
Greg and I were together for forty-two years. In those years, probably ninety-five percent of our meals were eaten in restaurants or as take-out meals. Our work schedules weren’t conducive to meal preparation at home. Add in our propensity to decide at the last minute what we’d like for supper, and meal planning became an impossibility. So, we were familiar with what restaurants in several towns served our favorite foods, available at a moment’s notice.
Most of the time we were together at meal time. Since Greg’s death I have eaten out by myself several times, in different towns and in different types of restaurants. When I mention this to other widows, most of them say they either can’t face eating out alone, or it took a few years before they were comfortable eating out alone.
I was mulling this over recently and remembered that even before Greg’s death, I dined out alone several times a month. Sometimes Greg was in another town on business or golfing. Other times he’d be finished with his work for the day and go home before I was ready for an evening meal.
(Don’t misinterpret that previous statement. Greg worked hard and worked long hours. My part of the business was time-consuming. A job it might take me a week to get ready to print, Greg could print in a couple of hours – just the nature of the beast.)
So, I often dined out alone. At McDonald’s. At Betty’s OK Country Cooking. At Tray’s Garden. At Taco Bell. At Wendy’s. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. I never thought anything about it; it was just the way a particular day happened to go.
Yes, I would prefer dining out with Greg sitting at the table with me. We might discuss the events of the day or what we’d like to do on the weekend. If we had had a hard day of tiring and tedious work we might sit quietly, lost in our thoughts but still together, letting the stress of the day dissipate and our moods lighten.
I do spur of the moment dining out, lock the door at work and by the time I get the truck started I am wanting to eat supper in a restaurant instead of at home. Yes, it is sad to eat alone, without Greg’s presence, but I do dine out alone.
I am a winter person. Cool temperatures suit me much better than the heat of summer. Snow coming down lifts my mood like very few other things do.
When I was a child, snow on the ground meant that I spent the entire day outside, sledding or just walking through snow-covered fields. One moonlit night, Momma made the neighbor boy go home at eleven-thirty because she was ready to go to bed; we had been sledding since seven that morning.
My darling Greg and I liked to drive around when it was snowing, especially when it was one of those snowfalls without wind, and large fluffy flakes looked like feathers gently floating down. We had many pleasant drives on snowy days, a couple of harrowing drives, and a magical drive one winter night when the snow was sparkling in the headlights and each flake seemed to bounce a few times before settling to the ground.
This week, however, even though the snowfall has been pretty and the pasture is beautiful, with snow clinging to tree trunks and branches, I cannot enjoy my time of year for Greg is not here to share it with. I miss our drives, his appreciation of the beauty God sent, and the pleasure we had enjoying a beautiful day and each other’s presence.
I went to Greg’s grave Friday afternoon, looked out over the snow-covered bottom and talked to Greg for a few minutes, then walked to the branch and followed a deer trail back to the house. While I appreciated the quiet and beauty of the snowy scenery, my heart was heavy with grief and I could not bring myself to stay outside on that wonderful winter afternoon as I used to do.
Looking at the snow blanketing the front yard, I have a sadness in my heart that I doubt will ever lift. Grief is tied to so many things, some to be expected, like holidays; other things, like the show, are unexpected and hit me with more strength than I ever thought possible.
Grief trumps everything.
