Enough

Last night as I was preparing dinner, I pulled a bowl down to use.  This bowl was made by my husband, the potter.  His name and Louisville, KY are carved into the bottom of each of his bowls.  I asked him several years ago to make a bowl that said "Enough".  As our family grew, it was my prayer that we would always have enough.  And we did.  Enough food to go around.  Enough of his patience and my creativity to mold three young kids into the fine adults they have become.  Enough to pay the bills.  Enough love to cover for our shortcomings.  Enough laughter to make life tolerable.  Enough sense to stick together.  Enough health to think we were going to live to old age. Enough in a world of excess.  Enough.  When I first pulled the bowl from the cabinet and saw his sweet engraving in the bowl, I crumbled and could only think that I did NOT get enough.  Not enough time to grow old and get that Winnebago together.  Not enough medical intervention to stop his rapid decline.  Not enough  But then I realized we did get enough.  Not as much as we might have wanted, but we got enough.  Enough time and love and resources to fill a lifetime, in 20 short years.
And we didn't just have enough.  I had asked him recently to make me another bowl that said Plenty. We not only had enough, we had plenty.  Plenty to share, plenty to enjoy, plenty of mercy and grace to make up for our shortcomings, plenty of love no matter what.  We thought we had plenty of time. 
Tonight I have just ached and moaned and cried and told him to get back here right now.  I am setting out my bowl- it's a little prayer for enough comfort and care to limp on. 

The enormity of the rest of my life

It isn't just the loneliness of this day, or the worry about finances, or a house that is way too quiet.  It is the dawning upon me that I could live for years. There is a huge weight in knowing that I will be eating my solitary dinners, taking the dog for all of his late night walks (well, all walks), making ends meet, missing my sweetheart for possibly years and years and years. 
  I am trying really hard to just be present in today, just putting one foot in front of the other.  Well intentioned folks have said to me over and over that, "it will get better with time", but how on earth could it?  Every day that passes is a day longer since I last touched his face, had a conversation with him, since I  kissed him good-bye as he left for work. 
I fell into a full panic last week thinking that I couldn't remember how his voice sounded.  Of all times in the world, I had just recently cleaned all of the saved messages off of my voicemail.  I made a sad and desperate visit to the Verizon store hoping that they could work some magic and bring back old deleted messages. They could not.  I went back through albums and albums of photos and finally found a tiny video clip where he is talking in the background. I have listened a thousand times or more to it.
The weight of it all is enormous.

Trying to make some order......

I awoke on the day of my husband's funeral with a burning need to clean out my pantry.  Or a drawer, something/anything.  I could recognize why- my desperate need to control something, to bring something back into order in my totally out of order life, to fill places that were feeling empty, to still what feels like violent chaos.
Mostly I have ended up shuffling stacks of papers and moving things around and back and then back again.  I couldn't bear his empty drawers, so I moved my nightclothes into them.  But then it felt like I was crowding him out.  But then I didn't want them to be empty.  Back and forth.   Seeing his empty closet was so horrible that I just threw things in there as quick as I could.  Then I put that stuff back and moved my summer clothes there, to rest against his wedding suit.  
Papers are everywhere. A list of people I need to write thank you notes to, and lists of things that need to be dealt with by phone or mail or in person, and the stack of things that can't be settled until we get the death certificate.  I got out file folders, I got out manila envelopes. And in the end I just keep stuffing it all in a bag.  The gift bag of death. 
I did have success though with the pantry last week. I chose the pantry because I really thought it would be the safest place in the house- strictly my domain.  But every jar and can was an ingredient to something he loved.  Our sturdy larder was a testimony to his wonderful provision for his family and his love of feeling that we had things "put by" in the face of some impending crisis.  It was bittersweet and tender and it felt good to bring it under submission.  It is a still life of us. 
And now, two weeks into this, I am coming to terms with chaos, with things that don't make sense and are out of place, with empty drawers and gaping closets.  When I start to feel a vertigo attack from it all, I just run to the pantry.

In looking for a way to try to navigate the waters, I am turning to this blog to help myself order my thoughts, and to post a watermark that I can go back to along the way to see where I am.  On Friday January 10, 2014, I was able to hold the fragile shell of my husband's earthly body as he breathed his last and as his spirit slipped away.  He was only 60 years old.  He was only sick for a week. 
I have said the last two sentences out loud to myself and any who were there to listen about a thousand times in these days that have followed.  He was only 60 years old, sick for only a week.  How can this be?