Since she’s been gone. Though it feels like yesterday sometimes.
For the first couple of weeks I could go into her room, sit in the chair, and feel her essence all around me. It was comforting. Every morning I’d open the curtains and turn on the lights, like always. But then, the day came when I sat in the chair and didn’t feel her there. It was just like any empty hospital room you’ve ever seen.
About the same time I found myself in that circle of hell, the 'last time’s. Every object that ran through my hands a thousand times in a month, the next time I touched them, I realized, would be the last time. I’d pack them away and send them off to someone who could use them. They would disappear from my world forever. Still, it had to be. A friend came and drove me from women’s shelter to hospice to respite facility, I was in a foul mood when I got back, that day.
Then they came for the hospital equipment, we passed it on to some other family in need, and the room was all but empty. It broke my heart a little bit more.
My friends oftened asked after me. I would always answer that I was, ‘okay’, but sometimes I was not really okay. They are trying to lure me back out into the larger world, but it will take baby steps for now. If I go out, inevitably when I reach into my pocket I find a, now dry, tear soaked tissue. Which would only bring me to tears all over again! Hey, at least I always had a tissue.
The life I had before I took on being a caregiver is gone forever. The life I knew as a caregiver is also gone forever. I am just adrift it seems. Transitions are hard. It’s a fine line between adventure and anxiety. I have no idea what to do next, in my life. Adrift is actually a vast understatement.
I still don’t sleep well. I often wake up in the night certain I can hear something. But, of course, it’s my imagination. I sometimes worry about where she is now, is she well cared for, who is advocating for her, is she with her husband Jack? I know it’s foolishness, I do. But when you’re not sleeping this is what happens, you get a little goofy.
I even took a pill this night and it did nothing for me.
The weather, when it’s good does wonders for me, I get out in the yard and spring clean up, and am exhausted afterward and sleep well. But when the storms come, my mood is very prone to weather influence, I spiral a little.
I’d like to believe that in surviving the first month, I’ve made it through the worst.
Yep, I’ve made it through one month, and I’m, well, sorta, kinda, nearly, almost, on the ragged fringes of ‘okay’. I think.
Yeah for me! (Sorry I can’t yet muster a happy dance).
