We arose the next morning rather late. It was Sunday, but it didn't feel like the Lord's Day. We did our own church service in our pjs.
We were still in shock, though I'm not sure as I write this almost three months later that that's still not the case. We were together, but each of us was encased in our own grief bubble, which we respected.
The girls went to the pool while I answered all the email and Facebook messages that were pouring in. They, too, were contacting their friends by phone while sitting around the pool.
We were still moving slowly, as if in a dream. I was pretty sure none of this was real. It just couldn't be happening.
Isn't it odd how the most important days of our lives seem like dreams? My wedding day was like floating on another plane of white-laced existence. I was overwhelmed by all the emotion, with all the family and friends, and then saying good-bye and moving 500 miles away. My ordination day I was so emotional I was numb, which doesn't make any sense. I remember the excellent sermon, the heavy weight of hands being laid upon me in a sea of shoes, and long reception lines. The days following each of the girls' birth were dream-like, too, as though I were moving on auto-pilot. I moved into another world wrapped in light and sleeplessness as I cuddled, rocked, and nursed my babies. I also recall stinky nightgowns I finally was able to shower out of, but the days are a haze of impressions, fuzzy like a Renoir painted in beauty filled with the smell of my babies' sweet heads and the sounds of their coos and sucking hunger and big eyes searching mine till I tumbled into eternity wondering about their preexistence and how I had come to be so blessed to be visited by such angels who'd chosen to abide with the likes of me. The days of my dissertation defense, I sailed with my sister down a southern backroad with my nephew in his car seat while French South African protest songs blasted on the radio as we went to have high tea in proleptic celebration. The next day I walked into the wood-paneled room outside the wall of windows looking out onto the magnolias in bloom, thinking, "This is it? Eight years of my life come down to talking with a handfull of people around a conference table?" Unreal.
The last day I visited my good friend in Hospice who was dying of lung cancer, I remember little except the way the light fell across the room in the blessing of that time together and her reassurances that it was all going to be ok as the big sister she was for me. When my father-in-law was dying, I remember glances between us in which I knew a full three months before he died that he knew he was dying. He was having body parts lopped off piece by piece, and it was too awful for any of us to deal with so we went into lala land even while we also knew he was dying. We played the game that he'd need a wheelchair ramp to get into the house and had it built knowing he'd never use it, but he let it be built because he knew it would help his wife. When my father died three months later, I retreated into a haze of poetry and took a week planning his memorial service. I couldn't come out of the world of words. When my mother-in-law fell onto her head at my father's funeral, reality was simply too much. Though I called 911, all I could do was float between the front and the back of the church waiting on the EMT's to arrive. I couldn't engage until she was bandaged with her diagnosis of a hematoma in the hospital later in the day. By the time my grandmother died in the next three months, I was completely numbed out and don't remember anything of her funeral. My grandmother was the single most important person in my childhood, and I can't even remember her funeral, though I was there. All I remember was that she didn't look right lying in the casket with make-up on her face. She never wore make-up, so she looked like a Hollywood corpse, an illusion, not reality. Three months later I found myself sitting in the dean's office mesmerized by the colors of the hard candies in the crystal candy dish as I heard I would not be getting tenure. All this loss simply couldn't be happening.
Yet another three months later I was sitting in another room with another two men talking about a job I had only dreamed about in seminary which I would be offered. And in another three months, I had bought a dream house in a dream location and was signing the papers on a full-price offer on our other house just three hours after we'd signed the contract with our realtor to sell the house. It was all a fabulous dream.
All the deaths and changes in 2007-2008, though, had taken their toll on our marriage. We were each dealing with our own griefs and weren't much consolation to the other. We were too overwhelmed and numb with grief. But I hadn't seen that at the time. We'd been walking around like the girls and I were the day after Bill's death--together but separate, each doing our own thing without much consideration of the other. Except the girls and I were kinder and more tender with one another.
We needed to get something to eat and buy a veggie tray to take back to the Interfaith House after viewing Bill. His family might be hungry. So after going to the store, we picnicked on Panera in the car. Then we made our way to the funeral home where we greeted our pastor friend Greg and filled him in on the situation. He looked nervous, but we sat and read through scripture until Bill's mother, sister, and brother-in-law arrived.
We were still in shock, though I'm not sure as I write this almost three months later that that's still not the case. We were together, but each of us was encased in our own grief bubble, which we respected.
The girls went to the pool while I answered all the email and Facebook messages that were pouring in. They, too, were contacting their friends by phone while sitting around the pool.
We were still moving slowly, as if in a dream. I was pretty sure none of this was real. It just couldn't be happening.
Isn't it odd how the most important days of our lives seem like dreams? My wedding day was like floating on another plane of white-laced existence. I was overwhelmed by all the emotion, with all the family and friends, and then saying good-bye and moving 500 miles away. My ordination day I was so emotional I was numb, which doesn't make any sense. I remember the excellent sermon, the heavy weight of hands being laid upon me in a sea of shoes, and long reception lines. The days following each of the girls' birth were dream-like, too, as though I were moving on auto-pilot. I moved into another world wrapped in light and sleeplessness as I cuddled, rocked, and nursed my babies. I also recall stinky nightgowns I finally was able to shower out of, but the days are a haze of impressions, fuzzy like a Renoir painted in beauty filled with the smell of my babies' sweet heads and the sounds of their coos and sucking hunger and big eyes searching mine till I tumbled into eternity wondering about their preexistence and how I had come to be so blessed to be visited by such angels who'd chosen to abide with the likes of me. The days of my dissertation defense, I sailed with my sister down a southern backroad with my nephew in his car seat while French South African protest songs blasted on the radio as we went to have high tea in proleptic celebration. The next day I walked into the wood-paneled room outside the wall of windows looking out onto the magnolias in bloom, thinking, "This is it? Eight years of my life come down to talking with a handfull of people around a conference table?" Unreal.
The last day I visited my good friend in Hospice who was dying of lung cancer, I remember little except the way the light fell across the room in the blessing of that time together and her reassurances that it was all going to be ok as the big sister she was for me. When my father-in-law was dying, I remember glances between us in which I knew a full three months before he died that he knew he was dying. He was having body parts lopped off piece by piece, and it was too awful for any of us to deal with so we went into lala land even while we also knew he was dying. We played the game that he'd need a wheelchair ramp to get into the house and had it built knowing he'd never use it, but he let it be built because he knew it would help his wife. When my father died three months later, I retreated into a haze of poetry and took a week planning his memorial service. I couldn't come out of the world of words. When my mother-in-law fell onto her head at my father's funeral, reality was simply too much. Though I called 911, all I could do was float between the front and the back of the church waiting on the EMT's to arrive. I couldn't engage until she was bandaged with her diagnosis of a hematoma in the hospital later in the day. By the time my grandmother died in the next three months, I was completely numbed out and don't remember anything of her funeral. My grandmother was the single most important person in my childhood, and I can't even remember her funeral, though I was there. All I remember was that she didn't look right lying in the casket with make-up on her face. She never wore make-up, so she looked like a Hollywood corpse, an illusion, not reality. Three months later I found myself sitting in the dean's office mesmerized by the colors of the hard candies in the crystal candy dish as I heard I would not be getting tenure. All this loss simply couldn't be happening.
Yet another three months later I was sitting in another room with another two men talking about a job I had only dreamed about in seminary which I would be offered. And in another three months, I had bought a dream house in a dream location and was signing the papers on a full-price offer on our other house just three hours after we'd signed the contract with our realtor to sell the house. It was all a fabulous dream.
All the deaths and changes in 2007-2008, though, had taken their toll on our marriage. We were each dealing with our own griefs and weren't much consolation to the other. We were too overwhelmed and numb with grief. But I hadn't seen that at the time. We'd been walking around like the girls and I were the day after Bill's death--together but separate, each doing our own thing without much consideration of the other. Except the girls and I were kinder and more tender with one another.
We needed to get something to eat and buy a veggie tray to take back to the Interfaith House after viewing Bill. His family might be hungry. So after going to the store, we picnicked on Panera in the car. Then we made our way to the funeral home where we greeted our pastor friend Greg and filled him in on the situation. He looked nervous, but we sat and read through scripture until Bill's mother, sister, and brother-in-law arrived.
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