TheBanyanTree: It only hurts if I think about it

[Monique Colver]

So I don't, for the most part. I disregard it, and I hope time makes
it easier, and I try to remember what really matters, but sometimes it
just hurts anyway. I can keep it at a distance for only so long. And
then I wonder if I did enough, or could I have done more? And then I
wonder why.

There is no why. There is often no why. There is only the fact of it,
and the rest we must live with.

I've been busy. I think of quitting my job, because it's a bit out of
control these days. I think, "No, I can't quit my job!" I think I'm
inadequate for the task, the daily necessities seeming too much for
me. The combination of this year's events have left me a bit fragile,
and some days when the stress is heavy and I'm so tired and I can't
clearly see the day when I won't be tired and worn out, I feel on the
slightest edge of hysteria. Just the very edge, and I think of how
close it could be, how easy it would be to tip over that edge. And
what does it matter how much I do, or try to do, if people are just
going to die on me anyway?

Keeping busy has been good for keeping the demons at bay, but
eventually they will come out. Grief insists on its own way, whether
we like it or not. I can pretend it's gone all I want, but that
doesn't mean anything. It's reality that's the problem.

I have no answers. I'm full of questions, but I can't ask them. I want
to create, but some days I'm not sure there's anything there anymore.
Perhaps it's all gone, and I'm empty. But Jake and I are going to work
on the annotated Stew, that's what we're calling it right now, and how
can I do that if I 1) don't make any time for it because I'm avoiding
it, and 2) can't create? I want to find some meaning, and while I have
an idea of where this might lie I'm not sure I'm up to it. The best
way, I think is to dive in and get the hard stuff over with. Easy for
me to say, here from my back deck, laptop in my lap, watching sleeping
dogs lie. Sometimes it's easier to just let sleeping dogs lie, at
least in the short term, and let dead friends rest. I worry that he'll
be forgotten, and that just isn't right.

Ash is laying by the fence, and he's looking at me, his eyes so dark
he's all black, one motionless sleeping dog who will lie still just
until I move, and then he'll be up, on his feet, wanting to know what
I'm doing and can he come along too? Honey is by the fence, laying
down, protecting us from the dogs next door in case they should get
any ideas about barging in over here. She'll get up when i do too,
probably, though maybe not. She may stay there, and wait to see if
it's worth getting up.

This morning I let them out, and as soon as I went back upstairs to my
desk to start work they joined me, which is unusual for them. Usually
Honey will stay outside, and Ash will go back to bed with Andrew until
he gets up. But this morning they were both at my side, Honey
underneath my desk, Ash next to it, as if they knew how much I dreaded
going to work today. They weren't there to comfort me, however, but to
tell me to please fix the cell phone that was beeping. It drives Honey
over the edge. So I went back downstairs, found the errant phone,
plugged it in, and went back upstairs.

Beep.

It's an annoying beep. I can see how it would greatly agitate a dog.
By this time Andrew's stirring, and I say, "What is with your phone? I
plugged it in."

"Oh," he says, "you have to turn on that plug at the switch." Great.
I've been here since October and I still can't remember what switches
do what around here. So he got up and went downstairs and made the
beeping stop, making him a hero. But the dogs stayed with me for
awhile longer, the trauma apparently being long lasting. Eventually
Honey got over it and they moved on, and they went outside to play,
and sleep.

I could let sleeping dogs lie, and tiptoe around the issue and hope I
don't wake it up, hope it doesn't notice that I'm awake and here, but
if it's like my dogs, it won't stay sleeping, and the tiptoeing will
work only as long as I can do it without making the slightest sound
because grief, like dogs, can hear the slightest movement, can sense
fear and agitation, and it'll be all over me, jumping up and down in
its excitement, saying, "Come play with me! Come play!" It can lay
dormant, one eye half open, until it sees me slow down long enough for
it to seep in. Why not let it out now?

I can see what I need to do, but I'm not able to do it, not yet. Not
today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today I'll just take a little step, and
see what tomorrow brings.



M