JUNE 7, 2023
When asked what triggers me most, I believe it is often transactional events. Picking up Ed’s ashes. Ordering an urn. Receiving the urn. Going to the act of sale on the Bagstill property. Buying a vault in the cemetery. Getting our last taxes done as “married”, filing “jointly”. Signing the succession papers. Bringing the ashes back to the funeral home to have them placed in the new urn. Selling the trike. Picking up the title to the vault. It never seems to end, and with each transaction, I’m reminded of a future without him.
Today, I am released from the home health care I have been receiving since February 26 on a wound that prohibited us from taking the planned “last” vacation to San Antonio. Because of the hospital stay and the subsequent daily wound care, Ed and I remained home. I couldn’t believe that God would place this unanticipated event into our lives just when we were looking forward to this potentially last trip. Later, I came to realize that because of it, I was forced to slow down, stay home, spend the remainder of Ed’s days just with him. This was the “quality” time God had in mind. But, today I will be discharged from the recurring care, and cleared from the remnant of the event that provided us with that time. Another “transactional” event. Another trigger.
Each transaction has its own story. Each event is accompanied by tiny splinters and shards of memories that connect me with our past. With each deliberate action comes unconscious and conscious feelings of grief cloaked in a sense of finality. It was the “last” time kind of events that now join with the lifetime of memories.
Now, I brace myself with a series of “first” times without Ed - events that will cement this phase of my life. The first Easter, Father’s Day, 4th of July, our anniversary, Emily’s birthday, Ed’s birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and on and on throughout the calendar year.
As my widowed friends tell me, it never really ends – the grief follows you around like a nagging beast waiting to be fed but is never satisfied. We may not have the power to starve this vexing creature named Grief, but we do have the power to choose his diet. Today, he will feast on knowledge. Knowledge that there are friends who pray for his departure; a God who clothes me in strength to face Grief without fear; a memory of a summer day when Ed danced with me to the “oldies”. And for dessert, my Grief will savor the big, red cardinal that sits on the swinging feeder outside my kitchen window and glances my way.
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