TheBanyanTree: I'm a Big Girl Now

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Yes, I'm back.  The goddess of grief.  I made it past the six week mark.  I
don't feel any better.  In fact, in a way, I feel worse.  I think it's
because the initial shock and denial are wearing off and I have more moments
of relative clarity when I realize that Ray is gone and he's not coming
back.  I still ask him, "Why didn't you take me with you?"  But I get no
answer.  I'm stuck here.  I have to wait for my turn.  Whenever that it is.
Sad to say, I hope it's soon.

Winter returned this week with a vengeance.  We just missed a major winter
storm that slid north of us.  We got mostly rain and snow mixed together and
wind gusts that rattled my unrattleable house.  It's still cold today, but
we're being promised warmer weather next week.  This is a normal winter,
beginning early and ending late.

I called about Ray's autopsy and found out that it was verified and was
released.  So I went to the scene of Ray's death, the VA Medical Center, to
pick it up.  Even though it was a Wednesday, as usual it was a major
adventure to find a parking spot.

I went immediately to the basement and found the records area.  I brought
our marriage certificate with me, along with my driver's license, was the ID
they needed to give me the report.  While I was waiting for them to print it
out, I chatted with another widow, widowed about the same time I was, who
was waiting for her husband's medical records.  Her husband died from Agent
Orange, the pesticide the USA sprayed in Vietnam in order to remove plant
growth, but it ended up causing serious lung diseases in our soldiers.  He
had been in a nursing home for a year before his death.

After I got the report, I decided to go up to the primary care physician
office where Ray's doctor worked.  I wanted to meet with him so he could
help me go through the autopsy report.  As I was waiting to talk to the desk
clerk, I looked around.  This was where I waited with Ray before they
admitted him to the hospital.  I could see inside the room where we met with
the doctor back on that cold February day.  This was where Ray made his last
stand.

By the time I got to talk to the clerk, I was in tears.  He probably thought
I was crazy, trying to explain what I wanted through gasps of non-stop
weeping.  He went and talked to the doctor's nurse.  I sat down in the
waiting room and waited.  While I was waiting, I read through the report.  I
don't really understand 90% of it, but from what I could understand, there
were no surprises.

The nurse came and told me the doctor could meet with me after he saw two
patients.  He is only at the VA on Wednesdays.  And they couldn't put me on
their computerized schedule, because meeting with him isn't really an
"appointment."  I couldn't stay, because I needed to get back to work, but
the nurse assured me she would call when she could find an opening in his
schedule.  I gave her my business card and cell phone number, because the VA
has a tendency to call me at home while I'm at work, even though they have
my work number.

So far, no call.  I'll call her on Monday, and if I don't get an
"appointment," then I'll escalate it.  I don't think I'm asking for anything
that shouldn't have been provided anyway.  How can a patient die and I don't
even get a call, just a bunch of form letters offering the VA's sympathy.  I
believe his primary care physician, whom Ray saw for 10 years, should call
at the very least.

I started to go through the autopsy line by line, looking up anything I
didn't understand on the internet.  Again, I get depressed, because I feel I
should have known what was going on in Ray's body, and been more assertive
in getting it taken care of.  How could I let him down like I did?

I continued to remove or move some of Ray’s items from circulation.  It’s
just little things.  I’m still not ready yet to deal with the big stuff.  I
threw out a lot of Ray’s freezer food.  He liked salty and high carbohydrate
stuff to eat, along with lots of sugar.  I gave Susan and the boys his
microwave popcorn.  I still have a 24 pack and a half of Pepsi sitting in
his office.  Does anyone want or need Ensure?

I took his obituary off of the kitchen bulletin board and placed it in our
photo album.

We each had our own alarm clocks, since we got up at different times.  I had
a cheap, small one and Ray had the clock/radio one.  I put away my cheap,
small one and moved Ray’s clock/radio one over to my side of the bed.  I
re-set the alarm to my wake time.

Small, but significant steps, I suppose.

One evening last week, I let the dogs out when I got home.  They didn’t come
back to the door after a while, so I wondered what was going on.  I slipped
on some shoes and walked out into the dark yard.  To my horror, I found they
were feasting on a rabbit.  Ick!  I suppose Shadow ran it down and killed
it.

I went into the house and got some treats to lure them inside while I picked
up the rabbit.  Shadow took his treats and went into the house, but Axel was
undecided.  He went back and forth between me with the tasty treats and the
tasty raw rabbit laying in the yard.  The treats finally won out and I got
him into the house.

Now Ray was always the dead animal picker upper.  Oh, sure, I picked up dead
birds and mice and stuff, leftovers from our mighty hunter cat, but the big
dead animals were Ray’s responsibility.

But this was the first time since Ray died that it was up to me to put on my
big girl underpants and deal with a Ray responsibility.  It was after 9:00
pm.  It would be silly for me to call my son and have him come over to pick
up the rabbit.  I couldn’t leave it there, as the dogs would pick at it
every time they would go out into the yard.

I went into the garage and got a small wastebasket.  I lined it with a
garbage bag and then I used my pooper scooper to pick up the very large and
very heavy rabbit and plopped it into the wastebasket.  I tied up the
garbage bag and then dumped the rabbit into the garbage.

I did it!

Axel kept at me all night to let him outside so he could get back to the
rabbit.  He even woke me up at midnight, which he never does, so he could
get a little more of that rabbit meat.  I’m sure he was very disappointed
when he went outside the next morning and found that the rabbit was gone.

Shadow didn’t seem to mind.  Out of sight, out of mind for him.

That was week six.  As I’m approaching week seven, I’m realizing I have no
social life.  I’m not sure if I want a social life right now, as the effort
in making friends seems overwhelming, but I know it’s something I have to
keep in mind, because I don’t want to get too dependent on my son and family
for my social needs.

I know I spend way too much time worrying about weird things.  I keep
telling myself, let it be, things will work out.  I sure hope so, because
nothings sucks like this.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

www.polarispublications.com

There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we
don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but
have to let go.
~Unknown
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