Day by day

My dear friend wrote me again today and she describes exactly how I feel.

"you don't know how numb you are at first until the numbness fades, the calling and writing subside, daily life resumes, but the person who filled your personal sky is gone. The immensity of it really strikes home then."

Yes, indeed.

I picked some green leaves and red berries in our yard today and took them to Arlington to leave a bit from home for Jim's grave for Thanksgiving. Some chide me for going out there every week - but they just don't understand. Its comforting to me to be there close to Jim's resting place.

Today as I sat in the car on Roosevelt Drive near Jim's grave I played the 50s on 5 station on Sirius radio. The familiar tunes of that decade brought back images of those days when Jim and I first met, fell in love and married. I felt warm tears run down my cheeks but they were glad as well as sad. I am grateful for memories of those days when we were two young people in love.
It was a sweet time.

The pain is in the daily missing of Jim. As my friend knows and says its the loss of the person who was the everything of your life.

For me it is in having to face the days and the whims of the days alone without Jim to share in the decisions, to talk with, and to love.

For example - yesterday I had to have an unexpected medical test. Things turned out all right, thank God, but the process was scary and I missed Jim's large, warm and comforting hand on mine and his encouragement in facing it.

It did not help that the attending nurse, when she heard my husband died of Bladder Cancer, described how she had hated watching her father die of Lung Cancer.  Sometimes people leave you breathless. Fortunately the Fentanyl kicked in about then and I went to sleep. Unfortunately is was before the Versid so I remember it.

Today I hit a curb when parking the car on busy Connecticut Avenue and when I came back the right front tire on my precious new-to-me car was flat. My first reaction was a kind of panic. Once I would have called Jim - if not to do anything - at least to laugh at the situation. With no one to call I had to suck it up and figure it out...which I can do.  I called the dealership for starters and then Toyota road service sent a flat bed tow truck.  Now I know why I paid for the warranty which included that service. The most aggravating thing about it is - - it was operator i.e. MY error .

This is the getting used to daily real world stuff being changed. Its all mine now. As I wake-up from the fog of grief I am more able to handle it   - - - -  even through the numbness.

But each incident brings home the reality of the truth. Jim is gone. 

And as my friend says, recognizing that "is immense."