Random Thoughts 02/02/2011
Yesterday marked one year since my beloved husband died.
So that day has come and gone...it was a day full of memories and honor...honoring a man I loved with my life not just my heart. I did all the things I hoped to do.
I got up, showered and went to the 8AM mass at St. Bernard's...the church where Bob's funeral was held. While I am not Catholic, I love the quietness and solemn stillness of a mass. It is respectful and subdued, the atmosphere I craved. The priest spoke about of all things...the past...not living in the past but living in the now...for if we live in the past we miss so much of the present...did this guy know I was coming? Did he look out and see something written on my forehead saying...this one needs to hear this...or was it simply I am starting to listen to this kind of thing...oh well, another one of those unanswered questions plopped in my lap...either push it away or listen...I chose to listen.
After I left church, I went to the cemetery with flowers for Bob...after placing them in front of the stone...I simply sat there for so long...what else did I have to do...where else did I have to go? This is where I wanted to be...for one year to the day this is the only place I have wanted to be...with Bob...I would have been happy to have my dead body next to him beneath the frozen soil...my soul soaring with him...yet one year to the day I sat next to this granite stone...waiting...just waiting. For well over a year I have waited...for test and biopsy results. Waiting for good news but only getting bad news which keep getting worse every time someone opened their mouth. Waiting in offices, chemo infusion centers, radiation offices, CT scan rooms, bloodwork labs...waiting for the chemo to work...waiting for Bob to get better but he didn't...I have waited in a line at his wake for everyone to pass by and offer their condolences, I have waited next to his coffin to walk down the church aisle for his funeral and I have waited by his grave as the final words were spoken into the icy air as he was laid to rest...I have waited for one solid year to die...so I could see him again...now I sat next to his grave and I am alive and some strange man in a robe explained to me earlier yesterday morning I am missing out on life...a life I am responsible to cobble back together. No one to make it with...a solitary life I never wanted to live...but there are no signs that I am going to join Bob yet...my blood work is always fantastic, the mammogram came back normal, no new symptoms that may indicate trouble is on the horizon...healthy...how could my other half have been so sick, so gravely ill and his other half be so healthy...I mean really how does that happen?
So after leaving the cemetery...I bought one glazed doughnut...oh how Bob loved a glazed doughnut with a small coffee. After leaving the coffee shop, he would reach into that brown paper bag, extract that sugary treat wrapped in a piece of waxed paper and extend that strong arm over to me placing his beloved doughnut to my mouth for the first bite...I always got the first bite...I could have had my own but never did...but the first bite of his belonged to me. I would take a little bite because I didn't want him to lose too much of his treat! So yesterday I took one bite for me and right next to that I took a bite for him...it was delicious, I had forgotten how good it was. I did this In front of his old shop...which stands empty right now...oh how I loved going in there to see him...standing behind the counter, always smiling when I walked in...I honestly couldn't tell you where anything was in that shop because all I ever saw was him...I can not remember a thing about the interior but him standing there...since the shop is locked and empty I could not go in...so I placed that glazed doughnut with two bites out of it at the door...I wonder what people thought when they walked by and saw it...did they know how many memories they were looking at, did they for a moment realize that that doughnut was filled with sadness, loss, grief and despair...how many grief laden things have I passed by not realizing their significance?
I went to Ryan's Park and went to the bridge where we always threw pennies...three pennies. We initially threw them one for his son, one for a personal wish and one for us....I must confess...my one for us penny wish was always the same...I always wished for a long, happy, healthy life together...always...as time passed we changed our reasons for throwing the first penny but two pennies always remained the same...our personal penny and the "our"penny...the last time we stood on that bridge together was after we found out on that fateful afternoon that Bob had cancer and he was being admitted into the hospital that same evening...we raced to that bridge and threw pennies for his life and for our life...we would have thrown every penny we had if it meant saving his life...yesterday I threw three pennies...one for Bob and other for my Dad...wishing and hoping that they are together, that they have found peace and the much needed rest they both deserve...and the last penny was for me...and I wished for what the priest spoke of in the morning...that I always find comfort in the past but that now I have the strength to live in the present so I do not miss out on something wonderful that may be right in front of me.
Elizabeth
