TheBanyanTree: Spring Cleaning

[Margaret R. Kramer]

The snow pack our backyard is getting smaller and smaller.  Just in time for
a winter storm bearing down on us for tomorrow.  March came in like a lamb
and is leaving like a lion, but that’s OK.  It’s March, it’s Minnesota, and
we didn’t get much snow this year, so what’s a quick six inches?  It will
melt fast and help fill up the lakes.

It’s been a month since Ray passed away.  Am I getting better?  I don’t
know.  I wouldn’t wish these feelings on my worst enemy.  Our speaker at
yesterday’s grief group talked about how the process of grief is
re-inventing yourself.  That’s true.  I lost myself and I’m now on a journey
to find my new self.  And every step on this journey is difficult.

The first week after Ray died I was a zombie.  I would never in a million
years ever want to feel that way again.  Fortunately, it was just one week
for me.  I know other people struggle with the zombie feeling for a long
time.

I went back to work the next week.  Our speaker thought people go back to
work too soon, but in my case, work was excellent therapy.  I couldn’t
imagine staying home and staring at the four walls all day long.  Yes, I
have times at work where I shut down, but for the most part, I get support
from my colleagues and I can engage my mind in other stuff besides Ray, Ray,
and more Ray.

I also had the funeral to plan for and that helped keep major grief from
seeping in too much.  Once the memorial service was over and Ray’s
emotionally stunted children went back to Milwaukee, I could finally let
loose and begin to take care of the grieving business.

I added heading back to the gym and working out to the third week.  It does
help to work up a sweat.  I worked out very erratically when he was in the
hospital.  Then when he died, I stopped going for two weeks.  It’s amazing
how fast the muscles turn to flubber.  I feel my muscles building up again
and my endurance is picking up, too.

While I’m on the treadmill or the elliptical machine, I think of Ray.  And
as the sweat pours off of me, I think of our good times, bad times, and our
hopes and dreams.  He’s still here with me and while I’m exercising is when
I have the easiest time finding him.  Sometimes I start crying, but no one
notices, because when you’re in that mode, you’re really in your own world,
even with people all around you.

I still look for him.  Ray was involved in a minor car accident at the end
of January.  The insurance adjuster came to our house to assess the damage
to the Ray’s car.  Ray taped that conversation.  Like a dummy, I played a
bit of that tape one night last week, and of course, hearing his voice drove
me into a bitter depression.  I should know better, but I feel compelled to
do strange things like that every once in a while.  It’s like picking at a
scab, I guess.  I like to see the blood run.

But because it’s spring, I also feel compelled to do a little cleaning.  I
finally managed to take Ray’s electric shaver off of the toilet tank top and
put it in the medicine cabinet.  There are little gray hairs from Ray’s
beard in the case.  Wouldn’t it be great to take the DNA from them and clone
Ray?  And he would magically come back to me just the way he was when he
left?  But a healthier version, of course.  See how goofy I am?

I dumped out the sugar and washed his sugar bowl and put it in the cupboard.
I threw out the few prescription drugs he had.  I put his wooden cheese
slicer in the kitchen drawer.  I threw out food he had stashed in the
refrigerator.  The $5 plant his emotionally stunted children bought for the
service died.  I threw it on the compost pile yesterday.

Ray had a stainless steel coffee mug.  He filled it up with coffee every
morning, along with 5,000 spoons of sugar, and brought it to work.  At
night, he used the mug for a last shot of coffee, adding a bit of hot
chocolate powder to the mix.  I’d have to wrestle him to wash that darn mug.
It was always with him.  We kept it on the counter in the kitchen.  I took
that mug, crying while I did so, and put it in the cupboard, right next to
the hot chocolate mix.

But I’m not ready to go through his clothes or office or anything like that.
I still need to have his things around me.

I’m on a quest for Ray’s autopsy report.  I called the VA this week and
found out it hasn’t been released yet, because it hasn’t been “verified.”
Evidently, the attending physician or some physician is supposed to sign off
on it, but it hasn’t been done yet.  I did talk to his primary care
physician’s nurse, and the doctor will meet with me when the autopsy report
is released and go through it with me.

I got an email from one of Ray’s emotionally stunted children.  Her name is
Cindi, and she’s kind of like the spokesperson for this enmeshed family.  It
would be way too normal for her to send an email asking me how I was doing
and leave it at that.

No, she just wanted to let me know that she wanted a copy of Ray’s military
discharge papers.  Why she needs that, I don’t know.  She wanted me to send
any pictures or newspaper articles or anything that I would think is part of
their “heritage.”  What she really means is that she doesn’t want me to have
anything that is part of their father’s Wisconsin life.  Cindi also wrote
that didn’t want to rush me or anything.  Hmmmm, her dad’s been gone for
only a month.  I suppose she thinks that I can’t wait to start going through
his stuff.  Well, she can’t demand those things from me, because they are
mine, regardless if they’re part of their “heritage” or not, but she loves
to strongly suggest.  And meddle.  And try to stick her nose into things
that aren’t her business.

She sugar-coats her demands within meaningless compliments, but I can see
through that.  Unlike Ray, I don’t have to get along with them.  So, I wrote
a venomous email back to her, going over point by point of what I thought of
her and her emotionally stunted family, and didn’t send it.  While it felt
good writing that letter, my son convinced me that I am not like them, I can
’t hate like them, and I saved my response to this gruesome bunch on my
computer.

That’s what I’m doing.  Ignoring them.  If they’re halfway normal, after not
responding to phone calls or email, hopefully, they’ll “get it” and leave me
alone.

Finally, I have a boyfriend.  No, not really.  He’s a guy from the grief
group.  He lost his wife about a month before I lost Ray.  He’s a sweetie.
And lonely.  He calls from time to time.  Sometimes I answer the phone and
sometimes I don’t.  That’s the beauty of caller ID.    He tries to suggest a
“date,” but I’m keeping this little deal confined to the grief group only. I
’m too emotionally dead inside to try to make any kind of new friends right
now, male or female.  But it’s cute and it does my ego good.

And love blooms in the spring, right?  Well, I’ll skip it this year.

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

www.polarispublications.com

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in
truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
~Kahlil Gibran
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