What did I do to deserve this?

That's the title of today's devotion in one of my books about grief that a friend gave me.
 
When I read the title, it immediately resonated in me.  The thing is, as I read the devotion I realized that I was coming at that question from a totally different angle than the writer.  The writer was talking about folks who question why their loved one is taken from them. Now I'm not saying that I don't wonder at the timing of it, that I don't rail against the thought of living without him, but my thoughts have been less question and more statement. 


 There is not one thing I could have ever ever done to have earned the chance to love and be loved for 20 years by someone who saw me for what I am, broken and flawed.  There is not one thing in me worthy of the kind of friendships that I have, the family that I have, the co-workers that I have who have carried my big old sorry self through these awful days. As hard as these days have been, every single day has been crammed full of tender mercies. 
 
I have in my heart a strong and unrelenting certainty that in spite of all of the sadness I feel right now, I am held.  I could not have earned the life I have- it is so rich and so full, even in great sadness.  I walk the balance of feeling unworthy and of feeling so very very blessed. 


 I have been thinking of a song my son used to sing called "Who Am I?"

"Who Am I"

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth

Would care to know my name,

Would care to feel my hurt?

Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star

Would choose to light the way

For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am

But because of what You've done.

Not because of what I've done

But because of who You are.

I am a flower quickly fading,

Here today and gone tomorrow.

A wave tossed in the ocean.

A vapor in the wind.

Still You hear me when I'm calling.

Lord, You catch me when I'm falling.

And You've told me who I am.

I am Yours, I am Yours.

What did I do to deserve this?  Not enough.

There's a first time for everything....

Every day, it seems, is a "first" for something.  First time I made the green chili soup he loved, and he was not here to eat it.  First time I went to the accountant's and had the taxes done on my own.  First time I went to the Grief Support Group and talked to strangers about my sadness. Tomorrow will be the first chili cook-off that he won't have sent money to vote for our friends. Every day seems to have a "first".
Today was my first Valentines Day without him.  I didn't expect it to be a real big deal.  We had stopped spending money on each other on Valentines Day years ago.  It was, however, the first Valentines Day in years that he wasn't the first to wish me a happy Valentines Day.  In fact, there will be many days ahead- birthdays, Christmas, New Years- when he won't be calling me at midnight to be the first to celebrate with me. 
 I was so well loved today by friends and family- a way bigger fuss made over me than usual.  But I was no one's sweetheart, and never will be again.  It was my first year to write in our little Valentines book "Things We Love About Shawn" without laying it at his place to see when he got home. 
I am longing for some other firsts.  The first night that I won't be slammed at some point during the evening by the crushing weight of missing him, in spite of my best efforts to keep my mind and heart occupied.  The first time I can say that my husband passed away without having a full breakdown.  The first time I finally have a day when I don't wonder how on earth I can keep breathing without him.  I have every confidence that there will be those firsts.   Probably not real soon.

The weeks are short but the days are long

It has been a month.  As a good friend used to say, isn't it all so fast and so slow?  I feel like my life went into slow motion as I watched his condition worsening and then his death.  I get up every day and dress and show up wherever I'm supposed to be, but I spend most of the day feeling like more of an observer than a participant in life, as though I am stuck. Everyone else is moving along in life,   I continue to feel adrift.  In some perverse way, sadness has become my anchor. I have these attacks of something akin to vertigo, this spinning of things I can't control.  I am disoriented.  I am in a bit of a panic.  I am stunned. Scared.  So, I reach for my sadness. It is, for now, my touchstone.

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?