Spoiler Alert
Just because your husband is dying, the world doesn’t stop. Some days, it is literally just about getting through the day. Breathing in. Breathing out. Other days have more of a purpose, but perhaps not as much purpose as you would imagine. You compartmentalize, because if you don’t, if you allow yourself to think about what’s coming, you are just a raw, open wound of a mess, crying the ugly cry, and getting tears and snot all over everything, and making people uncomfortable.
Five Things
I tell myself to just bring five items of clean laundry up from the laundry room. Just five things. Because this feels manageable. And today, I am all about manageable. I have done this three times so far today and I am amazed at my productivity. Once when I finished folding the clothes; once when I went back down to the laundry room to retrieve my phone; and once just because I needed to get up to move around. I pick up a sweatshirt, grab what I believe to be a single pair of underwear, and discover I have actually grabbed three pairs. “That’s four,” my brain exclaims. “Only one more.” “Oh, come on!” another part of my brain argues. “Don’t be lazy.” (Apparently, there is more than one little girl in my head.) These squabblers eventually agree to settle on seven. Seven things that round.
An Unexpected Pushback
I let the dog out. Being halfway to the laundry room already, I tell myself to go downstairs and get five things. I don’t take any time to sort or choose, I just grab the first five things in the laundry basket. Upstairs, I find my dresser drawers are full. I know that if I just spent a small amount of time folding (and maybe purging), the rest of my clothes would fit. “Five things!!” my brain revolts. “You said I only had to bring up five things.” Fair enough. “Let’s not make a federal case out of this.” I stack the folded clothes on top of the dresser and give myself permission to call it good enough.
I let the dogs out again. “Five things,” my brain whispers. Like this is something we do now. “Fuck you,” I fire back. And I turn defiantly and go back up the stairs.
Five More Things
I went to let the dogs in. “Five things,” my brain said. “Fuck you!” someone in my brain replies. “Now you’re being childish” someone else in my brain scolds me. “Fine.” I went down and grabbed five things. Somehow, when I got back upstairs, I only had four. I felt no need to return to the basement for one more. Because then the squabblers in my brain would start to argue about whether I could only retrieve the missing one thing, or whether I was ethically and/or morally obligated to grab ANOTHER five things. Too complicated by half.
And There She Is, A Reminder that He’s Dying
I let the dogs out for what I can only hope is the last time for the night. “Five things,” my brain says, matter-of-factly. I oblige, heading down to the laundry room. I grab a towel, a shirt, and just like that the only things left in the basket are a collection of socks. Contrary me says, “Three socks it is.” Other contrary me says, “For fuck’s sake, just grab them all and go upstairs.”
As I reach into the basket, I notice a lone black men’s dress sock. Something Mr. J will never wear again. Nonetheless, it didn’t occur to me to throw it away. Instead, I dutifully took it out of the basket and put it in Mr. J’s sock bin. I thought about how, unless Mr. J’s parents want him buried, he wouldn’t even “need” them for the funeral. Kept it anyway.
Took the rest of the socks and went back upstairs.
Beautifully written, I was gripped throughout. I too have the squabbling voices, they can be a right pain at times 😆 Thank you for writing ✍️
That feeling of when your world ends and nothings stops ! I haven’t experienced it in the same situation of course, but when my dad was dying I couldn’t wrap my head around the world still continuing when our world had come grinding to a halt.
And towards the end of your first paragraph you highlight beautifully how we haven’t made space for this. In this thing we call life. We haven’t made space for the rawness and reality of our human lived experience. No one can hold the space for it (generally speaking) so we have had to learn to adapt and compartmentalise it so as not to make anyone else feel uncomfortable with the horror of our own lived experience.