I’m upstairs. In our new house. In my master suite. In my California King bed that we never had enough room for anywhere else.
Scott is downstairs; Mikey is fighting with him over something and it isn’t very pleasant background noise. Scott sent me upstairs when he could tell I was pretty far from my usual self.
There isn’t much reason to be upset today. (There never is — I have a great family and a wonderful life, all things considering — ) but I still feel the blahs.
All sorts of little things were really getting to me. So much beige. So much deflation. So much can’t understand why.
I take at least one bath every day. Sometimes two. And, oh, do I love that soaker tub. It’s everything I’ve always wanted and never expected to have. It would be great to not really need that many baths, but I just… always feel cold. So I called up Dr. Cameron and got my blood draw taken care of last week. So perhaps soon I’ll be back on Nature Throid and can feel a little warmer, have a little more oomph, and feel a little more lively.
Today was the first day that Grandpa’s passing started to feel a little more real to me. It shoudln’t have taken 3 days — it’s been expected for so very long. But the weight of it was there for the first time. I mean, I’ve had moments of sorrow, but this felt so heavy. Some of it felt vicarious — I’m awfully good at carrying other people’s burdens — but weight is weight and even if I didn’t need to experience that specific kind of pain, it still definitely got to me.
I can’t imagine the quiet in her house. There’s been so much activity — almost more than usual, as the end got closer, and hospice was needed more often, and her children came for last visits — that it must make the silence especially stark.
It almost reminds me of the rush and busy-ness of those last couple of weeks and days before a baby arrives: so many doctor visits, so many details, so many phone calls and visits. By the time I was told how bad things were, I knew that they mostly wanted to be left just the two of them. Cheryl hinted at it and the spirit just kinda helped me know it, too.
The image of her tending to him, all alone — leaving the phone unanswered, asking family to go, and just birthing him from this world back into the next again is the sharpest, sweetest tenderest ache. My California King’s got nothing on how big her bed must feel now, all quiet and lonely.
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Well, I just got off the phone with Grandma. There’s actually still a tumult of activity. Aunt Susie is redecorating everything in sight (Buying stuff has been her love language all her life and she does it beautifully!) and Dave and Susanne had just stopped by with dinner. I’m sure the quiet days will indeed come, but with Thanksgiving this week, the funeral isn’t until Tuesday, so she’s got plenty to keep her busy right now. What a blessing.
She said the most touching thing in her typical matter-of-fact kind of way. She said that earlier on Saturday, before he passed, he was busy giving her directions about what she’d need to do: calling hospice, calling the mortuary… “and I can’t remember any of the other things. I hope I haven’t forgotten any.” I can just see Scott giving me my list on his way out, too.
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