6 Years, 9 Months - Wishing

I hear our wedding song and smile. I wish you were here to dance with me in the living room.

2 Years, 1 Month - The Widow's Vacation

I am sitting on Wailaa beach with my old roommate from Maui who has just arrived. One of my oldest friends has been here for a week and is leaving tomorrow. I have been here thirteen days. I have barely been to the beach three times. We hiked the bamboo forest in Hana to two waterfalls with a mutual friend who moved to Maui. We brought one of my husband’s rubber ducks and let it go. Wish I remembered their names. He had three travel ducks, one female and two males, all named. Though they appeared identical at first, they all had a little marking that allowed him to identify them, a color misprint on the bill or a stain from traveling. When we packed for vacation, he would stand in the hallway at his disorganized bathroom shelf, and line up the ducks. He would hold each one and ask himself who would go on the trip. He asked himself aloud and with me nearby. Then he would choose one to pack in his backpack. We were so immature. Nevertheless, those childlike ways made us laugh, and maybe not feel so old among the approaching death, commutes, overtime, mortgage, and ex-wife.
I took one of the ducks and put it in the river by the waterfall. My long time friend took pictures. The duck took off, floating sideways, and we turned to hike back. We passed a break in the bamboo and the friend that lived on Maui said, ‘There he is!” I missed the rubber duck as he floated downstream. We searched for him when we had to cross the river but he was either upstream or had passed us.
I fell into depression for three days after his birthday and the anniversary of his memorial service. My girlfriend headed to the beach alone. I stayed home on the computer. We did go to the beach with our Hawaii friend. She chose some music to play in the car. The one song, one that was on the radio a lot when he died, one about love and loss and wanting to go back. The tears streamed. I was silent. My head turned towards the rolled down window, watching Hawaii roll by. The Hawaii I loved and where I had lived twice. The place we had tickets to go finally with my brother and his family. The tickets we cancelled but did not request a refund in hopes we would go when all the cancer was over, the chemo, the radiation, doctor appointments, the pain, sleeping, the social security forms.
How could I be so foolish? Why was I so hopeful? How could I have been so naïve? In retrospect, I see my husband knew and accepted his death. He protected me by leaving my hope. I thought I was protecting him by not giving up, not losing hope, staying strong, crying alone in the car. All we did is hurt ourselves by grieving and suffering alone. We tried to protect each other and only left each other alone in the worst part of our lives, our marriage.
I am jealous of the widow who cried with her husband, of the ones who could crawl in bed with them and hold them. I am jealous of the wives whose dieing husbands wrote letters to their children or made recordings. Oh, I wish I had his voice, his movements, to view again. I do not even remember his laugh. I know the details of his face will fade from memory as time disintegrates our time together and I slowly replace the framed photos with newer ones. Will I remember his flat jean pockets, his hairless chest, the sight of his bull legs, and the memory of the first time I saw him standing at the foot of the bed? Will I forget his kisses with the mixed smell of Right Guard deodorant, T-gel, sweat, cologne, and Lubriderm?
I know this will happen. I can only remember another love’s face if I think about it and the face shifts and is blurry, finally settling on a face from a photo, a one-dimensional memory.
Why do I have to let him go? Why do I have to move on? Would he have moved forward? I think he would only work and fall asleep in front of the TV. He would work so he was exhausted, could sleep, and had no free time to be alone, time to fill-up with things he would have rather done with his wife. Would he have moved? Would he have dated by now? Would he have purposely died too?
He used to apologize for leaving me, for leaving me alone in grief and not being able to be there when I was old and sick. I told him not to be sorry. He was the one dieing, the one that lost the stick draw. He knew. He knew because he faced the truth I was ignoring.
Couples surround me here in Maui, newlyweds, old couples. All of those happy and in love couples walking by me. The old couples make me the saddest and jealous. Maybe they hate each other back home. Perhaps they cheat, stay late at work to avoid coming home, fight, bicker, sigh of the boredom and routine. The life path that finds them standing in a kitchen, maybe one they can not afford, one that needs remodeling, one in a neighborhood they hate, one that constantly needs cleaning or plumbing repairs. Nevertheless, here for that week or two of their lives they escape, are relatively happy, and have glimpses of the one they used to love. I sit alone with just grief and some old friends.

2 Years, 2 Weeks - Conditioned Responses

I was watching a movie and I heard the keys jingling together. The force of hitting the key in the lock, turning it to open the door without pause, without slowing down from work, and I thought ‘He's home’. Inside I was happy, hopeful, and ready to stand up and go hug him. Years of training, knowing right when to stand, turn, and walk to the door to meet him. Just as he pulled the key from the lock and stepped inside and before he closed the door. To hug him, kiss him lightly, but not carelessly, or fleetingly, or abruptly, as he reached behind him with his right hand and swung the door closed. I was conditioned. My mind forgot the movie, the day, the year and turned to the ‘greet him home from work status‘. Just as my body set in motion, a slight turn to the right, the momentum to lift and stand, then my mind broke in. It shut down the Pavlov response and shouted, washing through every cell. My mind replaced the weight, the suit of grieving I wore invisibly like a tight wetsuit over my clothes day and night. I remembered.

Then my niece walked in the door.

I could not reply to her hello. I could not even look. The tears just fell in a stream from the outer corners of my eyes. I finally lifted myself, pushing as if a leg press was blocking me, and headed to my room. I needed to run, to hide. I wanted to scream, yet to curl up tightly holding myself hidden in a dark corner. I quickened my step. I reached behind me and closed the bedroom door. I skipped the last two steps and flew forward onto the bed, curling up arms full of pillows, putting my face deep within them. I let myself cry. Yet, it was only for about a minute because I have already grieved losing him. It was just the shock. It has been so long since I expected him to come home, since I have expected him at all. So long, since he snuck up and surprised me in the laundry room. So long, since he was there to tell me it is time to go to bed, to hold me before I go to sleep, to kiss me on the forehead as I sleep and he leaves for work. So long, since I expected him to cook me dinner, drive me, to provide the mortgage, or to comfort me when my family hurts me or saddens me. It has been so long since I expected that rush of hope to be satisfied.

2 years, 16 days, 12 hours

1 Year, 6 Months - Other Widows

Last night I went to a friend’s house for dinner. There were four of the women from the Hospice Grief Counseling for Young Widows and a new widow, a religious widow.
The baby of the widows still thinks he may come back. Perhaps it is a conspiracy. She is contemplating anti-depressants. Our host went to a singles group at church. Se opened the door and then turn and ran.

You have been sending me messages in songs. When I doubt it is you sending me songs the next song is by Elton John. I have never heard so much Elton John in my life. I sang the song for you, loud, with a smile knowing you are there and tears because you are gone.
One of the women says I am a riot. I was hyperactive and interrupted and talked too much, talked too much about me. You were always there to help moderate me. I was a better person with you.

5 years, 7 months, 1 day - Bittersweet Memories

I listen to music that reminds me of you. There is a smile on my face. There are tears crossing my eyelashes in multiple rivulets across the width and length of my cheeks. I sing. I want to dance. Wanting to dance puts a vision of you in my mind. I would be walking out of the kitchen. You would be on the sofa. A song would start my body swaying. You would tell me to ‘do it’. The recollection brings back that same full stretch smile. Slowly I would twist with my arms in front of me, elbows tucked against my sides, my hands curled in balls, a slow dip of the alternating knee as my arms chugged to the left and then slowly to the right. Excitedly you would say again to do it. However, it was a slow dance. Each dip to the side was a little lower and then my heel opposite would rise and lift my foot up on my toes. There were a few more twists to go. You anticipated the dip that finally lifted my foot a few inches off the floor. Caddyshack was nearly a religion. Boys and men would quote the movie in impersonated voices. I did the dance, the gopher dance. He loved my gopher dance.