Reaction

          Yesterday, I took off my wedding ring. It was time. No clap of thunder occasioned the event. No comments from a passersby. No external reaction at all. A quiet emptiness filled the ache in my heart. I was prompted to take off the ring by my own deed. I read a part of my blog, Sound the Alarm, “…my late husband, Paul…”and realized that I no longer had the identity of wife. After two and half years, I lightly hold the title of widow. I am not one half of a couple, part of a whole, flesh of one flesh. I am singularly alone.

            Today, after receiving a replacement charger cable from eBay, I managed to play the last tape in our video cam. The film started as a close up of Poindexter, the dog, sleeping on the couch. Zoom in. Zoom out. In the background, Paul spoke, “Dex. Cute dog. Dex.”

I found myself holding my breath. The scene stopped. Next in the film, I was walking outside with the camera in an unsuccessful attempt to film the dog. The scene switched to me playing with the water hose and Dex. Paul filmed me and stopped.

            The next bit started with Vlad hanging a wire creation of a dragon. He made it with his hands.

            “What are you going to name the dragon?” I said that. I held the camera.

            “Bob,” sounded Paul’s voice in the background.

            More video of Vlad, then a glimpse of Dan, Jennifer, Oscar, Brandy. I am leaning against the hospital bed that was provided by hospice. Paul rolls into the room, seated in his wheelchair, and leans forward to see the green-wire artwork hanging from the living room ceiling. It’s not the Paul in my head. Not the Paul that comes to me in my dreams. It’s reality Paul—in the last fourteen days of his life. I stopped the video.

            Tomorrow I get up, go to work, and pretend, as I do every week.

If you are one half of a whole that is gone from your today, then you understand that tomorrow is a fragment of yesterday. A ring, a video, or a piece of art, can trigger what is left of internal reaction in your heart.

Seven Husbands

Last Sunday’s sermon reminded me of a conversation I had with Mom not long after Paul died. I've been married several times before and engaged a lot. Actually my marital track record was beginning to look like Elizabeth Taylor or Zsa Zsa Gabor’s BP—before Paul. The problem—I said yes when I meant no then ran when awful got worse.

 In reality, all my previous relationships added together did not total three years. Pathetic considering I met Paul at age thirty-one and stayed with him twenty-nine years.

The conversation with Mom went like this…

“Do you think Paul will be my husband in heaven?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mom said flatly. “The rest of them won’t be there any way.”

Okay that was funny. Not true but funny. I laughed then felt a bit guilty.

We had both forgotten Luke 20:27-38—the passage Pastor Murphy sermonized last Sunday. The story was about the widow who married her husband’s brother who dies, then marries the next brother who dies and so on for a total of seven husbands. The Sadducees wanted to know whose wife would she be in the afterlife? Jesus said, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.” In heaven, we are made different. Human rules don’t apply. So this grief and longing will not last either.  

Till then I wake up, breathe, and move on. 

Another Widow

An acquaintance of mine became a widow last week. Her husband died on a Friday. The next day she was at work. I was amazed. I did approach her and offer my condolences. Eventually, I told her that I was awe-struck that she could handle going on with life as well as she did. Myself—pretty much a basket case for almost two years.

She said, “I lost three children and my first husband. I guess I am use to death…even if that is possible.”

I don’t know if you can be use to death. I do know that no two people ever handle loss in the same way. Your moccasins will not fit me well enough to walk a mile in them. 

Hawkeye

I am eating spoonfuls of It’s Soy Delicious non-dairy frozen dessert. It looks like ice cream and tastes like chocolate and nuts.  I am celebrating finding my earring or rather my dog Poindexter finding my earring.

A few days ago, I wore a pair of gold and onyx medallion-shaped earrings. My mother purchased them a few years back. I love the look but the onyx is too heavy and due to the price of gold these days the hooks are too light. They forever fell out of my lobes. Aware of the problem, I took extra care to remove the earrings as soon as I came into the house. Or so I thought.

That evening, I came into the bedroom to start my bedtime ritual only to find one earring missing. I retraced my steps. (Sure you have done this yourself.) First the car, perhaps it popped off when I unhooked the seatbelt.  The bathroom where I pulled off my I-know-you-cannot-tell-I-had-cancer-treatments wig. The hallway, the area rug, the bed, the shower, toilet, everywhere. The earring disappeared into Monday night.  It had value especially as it had been a gift from Mom but I just went through this last month with my diamond studs. I have one but lost the other.  

The expert finder of lost things was Paul, my husband. When we first dated, he earned the nickname—among others—of Hawkeye. I swear he could find a silver earring back in shag pile carpeting at eight paces. A true talent.  Without his help, my recovery rate for things is sadly low. I gave up on finding a quarter-sized gold disk anywhere in the house.

Today, I dug through more boxes of Paul’s things for the storeroom, setting aside photos for uncle John, toys for nephew Kodie, and worthless correspondence to the recycle bin. For a long time I held his high school yearbook. Opened one page and then another later in the day. What does one do with a yearbook? We have no children or grandchildren to pass things along. His parents are dead. His friends own the same album. This question bugged me all day.

Netflix provided me with a diversion for a couple hours. I discovered a Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright series, House of Cards. Well acted and produced, I lost myself and my memories in a political drama which was not too intellectually challenging. 

My dog put up with the drama for as long as he could. The sun set and the temperature dropped below ninety degrees. Dex wanted to play. After some whimpering and herding on his part, I tossed his Frisbee in the dusky eve. He leaped and spun for joy.

I thought. It is not so terrible to keep a yearbook mixed in with the photo albums. It is as unlikely it would be opened in the next ten years as it had been in the last. I do not need to give away or toss everything to move on with my life…it’s just a book.

Dex flipped the ignored Frisbee on my foot which caused drool to spill off the edges onto my naked foot. I bent down to retrieve the toy and saw the glisten of gold next to my heel. Without seeing the object itself, I knew I found the earring—the onyx one not the diamond—in the grass. Perhaps Monday, we had played Frisbee before I changed from my work clothes. Unlikely, but possible.

I had my earring. I properly thanked Poindexter with a “good boy” and a pat on the back.

Today’s Menu:

Breakfast: Watermelon.  Coffee with agave syrup and almond milk.

Snack: Watermelon.

Lunch: One soy corn dog and salad.

Snack: Watermelon.

Dinner: Vegetarian pot stickers, mung bean sprouts.

Snack: It’s Soy Delicious non-dairy frozen dessert Chocolate and Almonds.

Master Bedroom Suite

I’m picking up a headboard and two end tables which will be utilized as night stands. I did some shopping on eBay to find the perfect mid-century furniture that matches the teak & cane high-boy inherited from my father-in-law, Connie. This will change our master bedroom into my bedroom, two years after Paul died in that room.

I never thought I would be one of those women. The lady that sits in the same pew every Sunday. Pale blue suit purchased in the previous century.  Life dances in her eyes and every song sung without a hymnal as each is memorized from a lifetime of worship. Her wedding band still on her left ring finger.

A woman like Grandma Dwyer that attended church, kept her house, praised God and the good man who died decades ago. Did not drink, fool around, date, swear, or be anything other than a lady.  Grandma passed away in her nineties with her husband still in her heart and on her lips.

No. I never thought I would be one of those—a widow that remained true to a memory.   

Today’s Menu:

Breakfast: ½ c Rasin Bran w/ blackberries and almond milk.  Coffee with agave syrup and almond milk.

Snack: Homemade trail mix with tons of raw nuts, dried cranberries, and candied ginger.

Lunch: Wonderful Portabella mushroom sandwich at Cornerstone Restaurant, J Street Sacramento.

Snack: Fresh blackberries and peanut butter.

Dinner: Pho noodles with left over Tofu skin, sprouted mung beans & flax seeds 

Paul's Stuff

Saturday I started the epic task of going through my-dearly-departed husband’s stuff. A good chunk went to family and friends already. Clothes donated to the Salvation Army. The remaining stuff consisted of things he squirreled away over his lifetime. Most of it I had packed and repacked in our five moves and not yet unpacked from the last.

Two boxes hold every stuffed animal he received since birth to high school graduation. The collection of plush Moose (his nickname) decorates the bookcases in the outbuilding called the dungeon. Five Christmas ornament boxes hold every plastic model airplane, he ever glued. Books, model kits, magazines, thousands of photographs mostly of race cars, souvenirs, every letter anyone ever sent him, disks—computer and music, machine oil, craft paints, brushes drafting pens, slide rules, helmet, sunglasses, and stuff.

The room also holds my books, Champagne glasses from our wedding, and his father’s stuff. I open a letter and read Paul’s moment in time. Hold a book and remember he read aloud a paragraph to me. Many things came from his pre-Pam past but that was only eighteen years. The rest represents our life together.

This is the reason it took me two years to start this process.

There are little piles of stuff all over my kitchen. A pile for his brother, one for his sister, his uncle, my nephew, charity, and a category I like to call I-just-don’t-know. The two recycle bins are full as well as the garbage can.

Mom stopped by and was forced to take a load of books.

Today’s Menu:

Sunday I went to church then took Mom to her Art Reception in Placerville. On the way back, we ate diner food that is not on my diet. Lemon Meringue Pie finished the calorie orgy.  

I should feel bad about the splurge but I don’t.  There are no calories on Sunday. That’s the truth. It’s in the Bible—Genesis, I think.

Widowed

I float inside my

Grief-colored bubble

I read Mark 10

Cannot pray

Sing Dante’s Prayer

And remember you

Bubble grows small

Will not weep

This night you come back

Your fingers touch mine

With God all is

At last—sleep

This poem was published in 2012 in Inspire Christian Writers Anthology.