LIFE WITHOUT DAVID, Chapter 5

I planted some fruits and vegetables in hanging containers this past week.  Another new thing for me to try.  Sometimes the new things I do are so satisfying and full of promise; other times, depressing; and many times, both sensations all at once.   Growing things have always had erratic results for me.  If these are successful, I think it will give me a great sense of accomplishment, something that this new Carol did well.  If not, I'll just have to chalk it up to a slightly brown thumb.  My mother could stick something in the ground, and it would grow.  I don't know what her garden in Hawaii looked like, but here, she had pots and pots of all kinds of things growing everywhere.  David and I had tried two or three times to plant a garden, and all that each of them produced were lots of memories that we looked back on and laughed about.
     My sister told me about someone who had lost her husband five years ago, that the first year was full of "firsts."  That is just. so. true.  Nothing can ever be the same again.  I think that might be the most hurtful, the hardest to accept.  That everything we had and did together is over, cannot be brought back, cannot be reconstructed, just can never be again in this world.  So everything has to be done anew.  Without David.
     Sometimes I feel very lonely.  But not the alone type of lonely.  I don't ever feel alone.  And I have always enjoyed being by myself, enjoyed my own company...still do.  It's a being without David lonely, a hole that no one else can fill.  We were a joined-at-the-hip couple...definitely a case of two becoming one.  Even when he was driving over the road, or when I had to travel for my work, we always had a sense of the other being right there, wherever we were.  Now, the David part of me has been severed.  And I feel that loss constantly.  Is this how a twin feels when the other dies?  Like a chunk has been taken out of one's being?
     It's still difficult for me to realize that my time is totally my own.  Some friends asked me to go to lunch with them the other day, and my initial reaction was that no, I want/need to get back home (which I usually did because David was here).  I rarely did anything at the spur of the moment, only when it was planned.  But the realization came to me that I am free to do whatever I want at the moment.  There is no one waiting at home for me, except my dog and cat.  This just feels so strange.  So not only did I enjoy the lunch, but I signed up for some short-term volunteer work at the local art gallery, a once-a-week acrylics class, an 8-week sumi-e course, an 8-week watercolor class, and started back with my 3-times a week water aerobics group.  Never let it be said that I do something half-heartedly.  What did I learn after my first full week of being gone every day?  That I also dearly loved just being home; that I missed the peace of puttering around the house; that I was too worn out to get lost in my painting here at home; and that I missed spending down-time on the couch (my girl-cave) with my dog.  And that the tears still trickle down my face when they darn well please, no matter who I am with or what I am doing.   Rather awkward. 
     It also occurred to me that my living arrangements can be changed to suit me, no matter if it looks funny.  The first floor is completely open, and the furniture creates the kitchen/living room/dining room/studio/small office boundaries.   So I rearranged to make a smaller living room area and expand my studio.   I think I may even have enough room to stretch out my Total Gym that we bought a few years ago.  We were so excited about getting that...we were going to use it everyday and maybe look like Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley!  First problem:  it took up so much space when it was opened up that we had to step over it to get to our TV chairs and couch (no easy feat).  Second problem:  after I had used it a couple of times, I was showing David how to get on it, do some exercises, and get off (that's how we did things---I did something or tasted something first, then he felt okay to try it.  My big wuss).  He got on okay, did a few exercises okay, but wouldn't get off in the way that I told him and ended up getting tossed off onto the floor.  He swore he'd never get on that thing again. Okay, he just thoroughly swore.  It has been folded up against the wall all this time.  Maybe another first for me will be actually using that piece of equipment.  David would have been pleased with the living room arrangement and my bigger, neater studio.  He used to come to the walking-in part of my studio, pretend he was knocking on a door, ask permission to come in and look at what I was painting...no matter that my painting table faced his TV chair so that we were only about 15 feet apart.  Yes, he would definitely like my larger studio.  But there is no way he would appreciate that dangerous Total Gym being open again.  I know that I will smile each time I pass that spread-out monster.
     Those memories are so very special to me.  It keeps part of David with me.  I baked a loaf of bread today and cut the end -- my favorite part-- to eat.  It reminded me of the times we would go out to eat and, no matter who might be with us, he would grab the little loaf of bread as soon as it was put on the table, slice and butter the end, and hand it to me.  If someone else ate the other end, he would ask the server for another loaf of bread just so he could give me another end piece.  How precious is that?  Although nobody ever said anything, they possibly thought he was a little greedy.  Well, I guess he was....greedy on my behalf.  Did I ever tell him how much that meant to me?  I thanked him, of course, but I don't think I ever said anything more about it.  I wish I could put all of those things I never said to him, all the ways I silently appreciated him, and some extra back scratches and leg rubs in a container and send them to him.
     And yet, as warming as the memories are, I still cannot go back to doing something with David's clothes.  I touch them and, instead of those keep-David-close-to-me memories, I get heart-hurt and missing and tears.  I know it's only been a little over three months, but it feels like forever.  I'm just tired of crying.  The tears don't take the pain, the missing, away.  They don't fill the empty hole in my heart.  They don't give me relief.  What good are they?

LIFE WITHOUT DAVID, Chapter 4

What a weepy week this was.  I feel like I've gone backwards in this grieving process.  I've felt like crying every few minutes.  I have to keep finding things to do to keep my mind active so that it doesn't have time to think about David.  Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that I am working on our clothes.  Getting mine altogether so that I can get rid of everything except those things I really want to keep...there is only so much closet space in the motorhome.  But also getting David's clothes together, taking them out of drawers and closets, trying to decide what to do with them.  And crying and crying the whole time, remembering when I bought them for him, remembering which were his favorites, where he wore them.  The sorting process is so painful.  I know I could just put them all in a bag and take them to the senior center, but I'd rather share the better things with family and friends, if they want anything.  No, that's not correct.  I'd rather just put them all back and keep them.  Take them out sometimes just to look at them and remember.  Maybe they might still smell like him.  But that is just not practical or healthy.  I need to move on.
     Yesterday, I made the mistake of opening and smelling his favorite aftershave.  It smelled so like him that I could almost feel his face, right there, ready to kiss.  More crying.
     Another part of the problem was Easter.   He really enjoyed holidays, even if it was just the two of us celebrating.  Holiday eating was something he would look forward to for days.  I would always prepare something special for him.  So I thought if I would cook a meal that he would have enjoyed, I would feel better about today.  Wrong thought.  The food was great, the company was pathetic.  I learned some new things today.  (1) One cannot cry and eat at the same time.  It may not be physiologically impossible, but it was not something I could accomplish.  (2) Fixing and eating a full dinner for oneself is depressing.   (3) I need to find new things to do on those days that David loved to celebrate.
     Today brought back so many memories.  Memories of the Easters when the kids were little, when we had to stay up so late after they went to bed, fixing baskets, stuffing plastic eggs.  We would sit on the bed, I would put the grass in all of the baskets and dump each bag of candy and all the chocolate bunnies in their own piles.  They had to be kept separated so that David could fill the baskets (five of them) a piece of candy at a time, so that each one had exactly the same amount...even the jelly beans.  My OCD man.  Then he got the change jar and filled each plastic egg with different amounts of money, not one egg could have the same amount as the other, so he could hide it all in the morning.  It took forever to do all of that, and I was always so tired and wanted to hurry up.  But that would have spoiled it.   I'm glad now that I didn't try to get him to hurry. 
      Memories of all the special meals we had by ourselves and those with family.  Today I could hear him say, "You fix a pretty plate, momma.  Thank you for doing this."  He always thanked me for fixing his meals, even if it was just a sandwich.  And when we had family together, how he loved for me to fix these huge meals, and how he loved for everybody to eat lots and lots of food.  It would actually disappoint him if someone didn't eat as much as he thought they should.  Even these past couple of years when he felt so bad, when he spent most of his day in bed, he would always come downstairs to eat with all of us.   And if there was something in the meal that wasn't one of  his favorites, he would say, "Oh no, no, I can't eat that, I'm not allowed to eat that, it will make me fat."  That would be, of course, right before he had a huge helping of desert.
     Oh, how I need for him to hold me.  I need his big hugs so much.  I need to hear his voice.  I just need him to be here again.   
     Some days ago, I had the weirdest dream about David...he was back with me, looking much healthier.  But, in the dream, I kept wondering how he could be back again, he died.  And I felt bad because I didn't want to tell him he had died, I didn't want to tell him I had taken his "mad money" out of his money clip and counted it.  I wish that, in my dream, I would have just held him.
     Writing in this blog is supposed to be cathartic.  I've cried through the whole thing.  I'm sick of this crying.  I sure hope next week is better.