Voices In The Night

 

I’ve had a lot of trouble praying lately. I may have mentioned that I’ve been calling Him The God I’m Not Talking To. Kind of self-explanatory. Maybe it sounds like I’m a petty child who didn’t get what she wanted for Christmas. Maybe it seems blasphemous and disrespectful, or even ungrateful after all He’s done for me. It could be that it seems logical. I have just felt so betrayed, to be perfectly honest, that it seemed pointless to ask Him for anything else.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Several of us are struggling with the same feelings. But asking “why?” hasn’t resulted in any Heavenly explanations. Reminds me of a scene in the movie, Mary Poppins, when the children’s father demands to know why she does the things she does. She clenches her lips together, clicks her black heels into a first position ballet stance, and replies firmly, “I never explain anything.”

Oh, people have asked me to pray when needs come up, and I don’t want to disappoint them, so I do what I can. Last week, someone told me about a weather worry headed their way and texted me about it. I sighed deeply, promised to “pray”, and launched this Heavenward:

“So, God, my friend wants me to tell you she’s worried about the weather and wants you to do something about it. Amen.”

It was the best I could do. I figured He reads text messages anyway and knew the details before she finished writing. And, to His credit, no terrible weather appeared in her neck of the woods. I wasn’t sure why He cared more about weather than He did about healing Rob, but I let that go. I didn’t question Him about it because . . . I haven’t been talking to Him.

Not exactly. I told my son that, while I haven’t been praying, I have been lobbing comments at God. It’s not very friendly, what I’ve been saying to Him. My volume has been too high more than once. My language isn’t flattering even though it’s been honest. 

“Mom,” Lee said, “prayer is talking to God.” True. But it hasn’t sounded very spiritual around here lately. And because of that, I assumed God was not only offended, He had decided not to talk to me, either. Because I haven’t been able to hear Him say anything. And I used to. Often. It only added to my feelings of betrayal. Now I felt abandoned, too. I understood, though. I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me, either—not after the way I’d been treating Him for the last five weeks, four days, and twelve hours. Since Rob died.

Until I began to hear voices in the night.

The first time it happened was right after Rob passed and I was trying desperately to remember the name of a song he’d told me years earlier that he wanted played at his funeral—a subject I wasn’t interested in discussing at the time. I didn’t know who sang it, the name of it, or even what genre it was. I kind of remembered the gist of its meaning and that it made me cry when he played it for me, but that was it. We were stuck. So, I may have mentioned to The God I’m Not Speaking To that I was sure He knew the name of it and would He please help me find it. For Rob.

A few days later, sometime in the dark of night, I was awakened by a voice that said only, “When it’s all been said and done.” That was it. It startled me out of a deep sleep, but it wasn’t a dream. There were no weird colors or strange animals or odd settings. It was just a man’s voice and that’s all he said. I wrote it down and went back to sleep.

The next day I told Katy and Dan about it, thinking, if I was lucky, it might be a line from the song. Google revealed it was the title, and when Katy found it on Spotify and played it, one stanza in I began to cry. “That’s the song,” I told her.

The voice in the night got every word of the title perfect.

Last week, the nighttime communication happened again, this time after I’d gone to bed crying that I needed to hear God. I missed His voice. “Talk to me but don’t talk to me since I’m not talking to you,” must have been what that sounded like to Him. I was awaked by a man’s voice again, asking an odd question.

“Why is it called Christ – mas?” he asked. But he didn’t wait around for an answer. I didn’t have one anyway, so that worked out. It did make me curious, though, so I looked up the word “mas.” It turns out mas means “sending—that which sends us towards God,” and at the same time it dismisses the enmities which were once between us and God.

There’s been a lot of enmity on my end lately toward God. But that night I began to reach a point where I needed Him again, and since then the need has only gotten stronger. I think that’s because my grief has gotten deeper and harder and I’ve reached a point of exhaustion where I know I can’t get through this trauma without God’s love in my face, in my mind, in my consciousness. I knew He’d never left me, and it’s impossible to leave Him, but it was as though I’d been walking around all day long with my fingers in my ears refusing to listen.

At night, though—well, that’s a different reality.

There have been other interventions that can only be explained as me being sent toward God. Two mornings later a woman’s voice woke me up. “Hey,” she said. I gotta admit, that one still has me scratching my head, but she did get my attention, whoever she was. I got up and got going. You can ignore that one if you want to. But a couple of days later something else happened that spoke louder than any of the three voices.

I was in my truck, headed to a drive-thru when, out of the blue, I decided to try to make our radio work. I accidently unsynced my phone from the Tahoe’s Bluetooth weeks ago and can’t pick up Spotify or podcasts or phone calls. And our replacement radio from a couple of years ago was installed and explained to me by a kid so young he didn’t have any facial hair yet, so I have no idea how to operate the crazy thing. Still, I started pushing presets, looking for a country western station since I’ve decided to reinvent myself, go back to my roots, and become a Dixie Chick.

Suddenly, the song, “Fires,” began to play, right at the beginning. “The truck must have synced after all and picked up my phone’s playlist,” I muttered, tears beginning to fill my eyes. The song has been so significant to my daughter and me since Rob got sick, especially since he was a firefighter.

I know this is getting long now, but hang in here with me. These lyrics. I had to slow down in the drive-thru so I could soak in every note and word.

I remember how You told me
I can trust You completely
So why am I doubting
When You proved that You'd fight for me

You've walked me through fires
Pulled me from flames
If You're in this with me
I won't be afraid
When the smoke billows higher, oh and higher
And it feels like I can barely breathe
I'll walk through thesе fires
'Cause You're walking with mе

The song ended and the DJ’s began talking to each other. It wasn’t my Spotify playlist. It was the dysfunctional radio, and the one song that has encapsulated our entire nightmare while pouring peace  into my soul began playing from the very beginning on a random radio station I accidently connected with.

I don’t know why Rob died. I don’t understand. But God keeps holding me and, when I can’t hear Him because the pain screams so loudly inside me, He puts my name on the hearts of others and they pray for me. For us. I need Him. Even more than I need Rob. I need that kind of love that doesn’t give up on wounded hearts who don’t understand. Perhaps can’t understand.

I just want you to know, if you’re one of the people who has been haunted by my name and can’t stop yourself from praying for me in this, the worst thing I’ve ever gone through, you are a hero to me.

Thank you. From the bottom of my shattered heart.

Outsmarted

I get so tired every night. My counselor reminds me often that grieving is exhausting—physically, emotionally, and mentally. At the end of every day I feel as if I’ve run another emotional 5K. The waves of sorrow have begun to shift, but that doesn’t mean they’ve lessened. The rhythm is just becoming less predictable. Yesterday, for example, I shed a few tears when I woke up, but nature called and I needed to move, and soon I was up and facing the day. For a little while there, I thought I’d pulled a fast one and Grief couldn’t find my heart to attack it.

But Grief is a lot more devious than I thought.

It found me later in the afternoon while I was sitting in the investment guy’s office, changing accounts and beneficiaries. I nodded in agreement as the man doublechecked Lee’s birthday and then that familiar knot rose up in my throat and I almost lost my composure. Ever since our son arrived on our fifth anniversary, the 25^th of September has been a shared day of celebrations. This year, we’ll be back to one again.

It’s things like that that hit me broadside and send me spinning. I never see them coming.

Driving is another favorite of that schemer, Grief. There I am, sailing down the road, enjoying the bright sunshine and cursing other drivers, when a memory of you surfaces. My stomach goes into a death roll, my eyes flood with tears, and keeping a firm grip on the steering wheel is all that keeps me from blindly sliding into another lane—or worse.

Today when that happened—grief, not an accident—I thought about the time you called me while I was panicking over a house we were buying. You got worried and told me to pull over until I stopped crying. I probably kept driving, cuz that’s what I do, but I did chuckle a little at the memory, figuring that where you’re watching me from your front row seat in Heaven, I’m probably giving you a heart attack. Only now you can’t say anything to me about it.

Maybe I outsmarted Grief with that one.

It’s so unexpected, the way a memory morphs into physical pain. I was helping my friend, Sue, make a few pans of Lemon Bars while we talked about sticking to recipes vs. winging it when we cook. I made a remark I’ve made for the last forty years, about how you always said I’m a good cook because I follow recipes, and suddenly my stomach knotted up and I couldn’t see or breathe or stop the tears. It was always a connection to you and us when I said it before. Now it’s a painful reminder that I’ll never cook for you again.

Friends don’t mind when you melt down on their watch—they’re here for me now, more than ever, and help me get through it. But it’s freaking embarrassing when it happens when I’m on the phone with an Amazon Customer Service rep who clearly hasn’t been schooled on how to deal with grief-stricken women. “Please don’t cry,” a lady said to me in broken English a few weeks ago, while I tried to hack into your account to look for fraudulent charges. I felt sorry for her, so I hung up. I also thought I should stop trying to hack into your accounts.

Don’t even get me started on that ridiculous password book you left behind. I told you that thing would drive me to drink.

I’m getting better at telling people on the phone that my husband passed away without dissolving into tears. Doing it in person is a different story, though. There are a lot of bite marks on the inside of my lip and fingernail grooves in the palms of my hands from trying to keep it together until I can get out of sight of whoever I’m talking to. Grief doesn’t care where I am when it lobs another reminder in my direction that you’re not coming back. It just wants to be sure it hits its mark. Unfortunately, it’s far more experienced at this game than I am.

It’s winning this unwelcome competition about three million to one, last count.

Yesterday afternoon while I sat out on Katy’s front porch in a rocking chair, hiding in the shade and enjoying a reluctant breeze, somebody on a skateboard sailed up the road in front of her house, waving at me and yelling, “I have your mail! I have your mail!” It seemed odd for a postman to act that excited about his job and I squinted in the sun to see whether maybe I’d won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. I didn’t. A neighbor boy skidded up the driveway and handed over a fat envelope, addressed to me, opened by mistake. I thanked him and sat back down to read whatever was left inside.

It was from the Hospice Center whose staff member stepped into your hospital room on your last day. I almost fell apart right there in full view of the skateboarder and all the neighbors. Why does Grief keep hunting me down like this? Twisting my heart into a limp rag while it wrings out all my tears?  I looked at the sympathy card signed by two dozen people I’ve never met, read over the notice that I’m invited to join a grief support group in the mountain town of Lakeside via Zoom, and then a little booklet fell out into my lap, entitled appropriately, “Grief.”

Boy, that miserable emotion is really a narcissist.

I threw it all on my bed and forgot about it until later when I finally flipped through the little booklet with its “reminders for healing.” Somebody’s been tattle tale-ing about my pain. It spoke to almost every point of sorrow that has kept me drowning in guilt or trauma or expectations.

·         Remember that you are still alive. Your place is here, on this earth, with those who remain and love you.
·         Know that their pain has passed, except for how it lives in your memory. You are the one in pain now. It is best to lovingly care for your wounds.
·         Denying sadness denies healing. By letting your heart break, you let your heart heal.
·         You may feel guilt, yet you did the best you could have possibly done. Few of us know exactly what to do in the face of the pain and death of a loved one.
·         You may never resolve all the issues surrounding their death.
·         You may be disoriented, depressed, and forgetful. These things are normal with grief and will pass.
·         You will forget they are gone and then remember again, and your heart will break one more time.
·         This is a time of intense and mixed emotions. At times you may be surprised by what you feel.
·         Grieving takes just as long as it takes . . . this is a process. It may never truly end, but it will always change.
·         Some moments you may feel intensely alive. Remember that life springs from death.

And the one that sold Grief out completely:

·         The remedies for grief are time, courage and love—all applied with tenderness.

There’s a remedy for Grief. Its days are numbered, even more than mine. All that courage that people keep telling me I have, all the love our friends and family keep pouring out, multiplied by the second worst enemy in all this loss, time—that’s how Grief gets outsmarted in the end. I’ve been told that Someday—remember, Baby? our word of hope during that first separation we endured while you were overseas?—Someday, all the memories of our life together will stop hurting and will instead become a sweet balm to my wounded soul.

I’m not there yet. I’m sobbing while I write this. But I’m hoping against hope that it’s true. Healing will come. Grief will fade. And I will discover how to go on without you in my world.

Take that, Grief.

Superpower

I got a flat tire today. I was almost back to town when the dashboard lit up, telling me to check the tire pressure. I’m not much of a mechanic, but I was pretty sure “12” on the left front tire wasn’t a good thing at fifty miles an hour. I slowed down, made it to the Target parking lot in Queen Creek, and pulled into a large empty section just as the pressure fell to “5.” It was the warmest day this year, I was wearing a black t-shirt, I needed a bathroom, and I was stranded. The tire looked like it had expired. I wanted to join it.

Just another typical day without you.

I had AAA, but they take forever to arrive anywhere. Fortunately, our son-in-law with the heart of gold came to my rescue. It was a dirty, hot, tiring job, but he had the screw-pierced tire in the Tahoe’s back end and the original spare tire bolted onto my truck in record time. I limped the Tahoe over to Discount Tire, got two new tires ordered, and drove home.

No biggie. I’ve done this before. It wasn’t my first rodeo.

I’ve got a lot of experience at handling minor catastrophes without you, Babe. Your work schedule and my bad luck seemed to always coincide with each other. Like the time I was driving home after dark from church with the two littles and the muffler fell off our Toyota Cressida. Dragging it out of the road, I waited—pre-cellphone era—for some Good, Trustworthy, Samaritan to stop and render aid. Somebody did and soon I made it home with the kiddos to put them to bed and curse used cars and Fire Department shift work.

Any time the kids got hurt, with the exception of one kid’s broken arm, you were always at work and I was always driving our suburbanite ambulance to the doctor’s office. When the vehicles needed tire rotations and oil changes, I’m the one (until you retired) who drove them to the sacred male strongholds known as Discount Tire and Walmart’s Auto Zone where they’d try to talk me, the wife, into new air filters and expensive oil and new windshield wiper blades, and I wished with all my heart you would handle the guy things so I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.

Looks like I’m back to wishing that again.

You often told me I can handle stuff like this. “You’re completely capable,” you said, flinging the compliment at me like a dead fish.

“Yep,” I agreed. “I’m nothing if not capable. It’s my Superpower.”

I know you always had complete confidence in me, except when it came to my sense of direction. And I’m sure when you left this world to enjoy the one we all will be much happier living in someday that you knew I’d rise to the occasion, put on my big girl pants, and carry on. Like the good little McLeod that I am.

But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do any of the things I have to do now without you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter one iota what I want anymore.

I wanted to call you today and have you come rescue me from the heat and the misshapen tire. Put your arms around me and tell me it was okay and you’d take care of it. I wanted you to meet with the investment guy whose office I’d just left where I had to close out the IRA’s owned by you and open a new one in my name, because I’m your beneficiary and I have no choice but to benefish. I didn’t want to deposit the check I got for selling your truck last weekend, either, but it had to be done. What I wanted was for you to drive up in that truck like you did for five years, grin at me, shake your head, and save the day. But we don’t own that quadcab anymore. I sold it along with your Gator stickers on the back window and the Fire Department logo and the bent tailgate that you created when you backed into a tree on a hunting trip. Because there’s only one of me now and I don’t need two trucks.

I keep having to make decisions about my life without you that I used to make with you and every time I have to do it . . . you die all over again. I couldn’t even watch when the happy new truck owners—soon-to-be newlyweds—drove off in the Dodge Dakota you loved. I just stayed in the house and . . . you know.

I’m sure I’ll be fine. Someday. Everyone says so. I’m braver than I think and all that. And I’m experienced at doing the guy stuff even if I hate it. All those years you spent working, I was the one with the time to take cars to shops, call insurance companies, handle bank statements, and take the dog to the groomer. I can do it. I have no choice.

I’ll just dust off my experience, put it back to work, and pick up where I left off. It’s no biggie.

After all, I’m nothing if not capable. It’s my Superpower.

The End

 I’m writing again.

This isn’t the kind of writing I thought I’d be doing. I have two novels in the oven, another blog with an ongoing story I haven’t finished, and files of blog ideas I thought I’d be immersed in while I stared out at our forested backyard hoping for a glimpse of a skittish deer. Instead, I’m journaling the pain of living without you in my life anymore. I’m crushed by the good memories of adventures and loving and laughing that will always be all I have left of you. And I suffer at the thought that I took you for granted and wasted too many opportunities to make you feel loved and cherished because I was distracted by things like writing books and blogs.

Regret is a terrible substitute for being with the one you love.

You were my person. My confidant. My muse. You drove me from one side of America to the other, helping me search out records of my ancestors so I could weave all their facts together into a book. Partially written, ignored in a box, it sits patiently now, waiting for editing and completion. But you’re not here to help me figure out the ending.

It sounds a lot like us.

I don’t understand our ending either. I’ve tried, but you’re not here to help me make sense out of it. Every time I got stuck in a scene in one of my novels, I ran the problem by you, and you and that creative brain of yours offered up solutions. You may have felt neglected by my writing passion, but you were always ready to be a sounding board when I needed you. Of course, I promised to give you full credit on the dedication page, but I don’t think that flimsy shot at fame was your motivation. We had fun together figuring things out. Talking them through. Coming up with solutions.

I’m not having fun anymore. I have no solutions. I don’t know what I’m doing.

My birthday will be here in a few weeks, the first I’ll have ever celebrated without you here beside me. I’ll have other family around me, but I’ve already warned them I’m not much fun right now. There’s not much to celebrate. Katy’s had a couple of rough birthdays in her life, too—once because they could only schedule your heart surgery on that date, and now because she’s in mourning for her dad. She joked this month that she was moving her birthday to some other place on the calendar, and I’m considering doing the same thing.

I was thinking I’d move it to 2045. I might be more fun by then.

I’ve journaled some hard things lately on the autobiography I casually call my blog. I’ve made people cry with this walk through grief, maybe because we’re all grieving over you. I’m not trying to cause tears. It’s just that putting my soul on paper so I can see it is one way I can look at what’s going on inside me and sort it all out. My heart feels scrambled up right now, with every conceivable emotion churning around inside. Angry feelings, hopeless thoughts, shocked disbelief, and crippling explanations are interwoven with sorrow, hurt, and confusion.

But even though I write it down, when I lay it all out in front of me, it makes as much sense as a table full of puzzle pieces without the box. I have no idea how this deconstructed picture will ever come together again or what it will look like when it finally does. You were always better at jigsaw puzzles than me, too. And now you live in a unique place where you know what this one represents but you can’t tell me what you’ve discovered. That’s not fair.

Nothing about this is fair.

It’s not logical. Or merciful. Or better for anyone but you. I’m sorry. That sounds horrible. But I’ve read about heaven. No one who gets a glimpse of it ever wants to come back here. I don’t blame you for preferring it there. I’m just still upset that you didn’t take me with you—like you had any say in that.

Oh, I’m probably just having a pity party, which isn’t as much fun as it sounds. Like I said, I’m not having fun right now. I’m just typing a lot. Crying a lot. Missing you—a lot. A lot a lot. Remember how you used to say that? I miss all the things you used to say. And do. And share with me. I miss sharing life with you, Baby, even when we shared it imperfectly.

But, hey, at least I’m writing again. Tearing up the keyboard with questions that have no answers, plots that have no endings, and memories that make us all cry. I have the whole confusing story written down, interspersed with vivid word pictures and emotional connections. What I don’t have is an ending that makes sense.

Because, right now, life without you in it doesn’t make any sense.

Together

“Til death do us part,” I echoed, my flowers shaking as I took this forever step into the unknown. All those vows are all about being “together.” For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. We vowed not to give up. Neither of us went into marriage thinking there was a backdoor, like divorce, if things got tough. And they did. There were scary times. Lots of moments when we knew we were in over our heads in life. “We’re a good team,” we often reassured each other. And when it was hard to see eye to eye, “We’re worth fighting for,” was the point we agreed on.

We always kept our promises.

I was eighteen. We’d been in love since I was sixteen and you were twenty-one. But I had school to finish, and you had orders for Germany, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. I couldn’t go. Actually, you wouldn’t take me with you. So, you went overseas, promising to come back for me. Sixteen months later you did, stood beside me in that church, made identical vows with me, and we headed down a road that wouldn’t end for forty-four years.

Til death did us part.

Does anyone ever think what that will look like? I guess that’s a dumb question. That part of the ceremony is the scariest. It could end a million ways. I just hoped we’d go out the same way we began—together. “I don’t want to be a rich widow,” I warned, but you only laughed. “You won’t be rich,” you quipped. It was the “together” part I wanted guaranteed.

You’ve always loved to give me cards out of the blue. I saved most of them. “A cord of three strands . . . We’ll make it together, Babe!” you wrote in one. I still have that card. “I’m your greatest fan! I’m with you all the way,” you wrote in another. “I’ll be lovin’ you through whatever may come! Let’s do it together!” you penned. And, “No matter what .. or how long . . . we’ll get through it together, my precious darlin’! I promise!”

Together, you said. Until now. Because before you penned those promises to me, we made this promise to each other—til death do us part. It’s the law of first mention. There’s no “together” when death does its part.

I’ve been agonizing over how it happened. Separated for five weeks, both in and out of the hospital while we each suffered from covid. No communication. Dependent on phone call updates and the hope that our text messages were being read to you. I’ve worried that you felt abandoned, left to fight alone. Others remind me you knew hospitals were keeping people apart and that we’d have been there if we could. Knocking down the hospital doors would only have guaranteed I’d never get even one last chance to see you again.

Honey, I always believed you’d recover. We all did. Everyone except the doctors, who didn’t pass that on to us until twenty-four hours before you died. We’re still not over the shock of it. The decision you made that you’d had enough. The decision I made to support you and whatever you needed. I guess we did that together even though discussing it was out of the question. All you could do was nod yes and no in answer to us.

Twenty-four hours. I know, some couples don’t get that much notice. All they get is a phone call or a knock at the door with no chance of saying “I love you” or “good-bye.” I know I should be grateful that we were able to drive up to Show Low to be with you finally. Sit at your bedside for a few hours and tell you how much you mean to us while you still had the ability to hear us. Katy and me. Lee by phone. Your sister, Risa, late in the night when she took my turn at your bedside.

But I have regrets. Sorrow. Too many questions. No one explains to you in the brief moments before you walk that aisle to the sound of the Wedding March that, when death finally parts the two of you, it’s full of trauma. And confusion. Frightening. Sometimes made up of rapid decisions while you do the best you can based on the information you have at the time. Guilt and condemnation are unwelcome companions when the dust settles.

I guess I keep writing the same things here over and over again. It ended too fast. I never saw it coming. I wouldn’t let myself think that you might die. You were fighting so hard, so many people were praying, and between the phone call updates every day, we held our breath and listened for hope and believed you’d make it. You always made it before. It was out of the question to think it would be different this time. No matter what, we’d get through this together.

I don’t understand—none of us do. We’re just trying to make sense out of something that is senseless and painful and traumatic. It’s hard to realize that even if we had answers, they wouldn’t fill the void left in our lives by losing you. That even if we’d been able to do anything different, you still may not have made it.

This is grief. This is what it looks like. This is the risk we took forty-four years ago while my flowers shook and the vows were made and we tried to forget that death comes for everyone eventually. That someday, despite our best efforts and heartfelt promises, we might not be together.

For a while.

I will be with you again. And when I am, there won’t be any need for vows that talk about sickness or poverty or death. You know it and I know it. “Together” will be forever.

That’s the promise I’m holding on to now.

Courage Under Fire

 

I am not courageous. Or brave. Or doing great. You only think that because you haven’t heard me screaming at God at the top of my voice when I’m here alone,

“Why!!!”

It seems to me that courageous people don’t scream at the Almighty. They bow their humble heads and submit to the “will of God” when tragedies happen. They don’t demand answers and call Him names like The God I’m Not Talking To. They praise the Lord and thank Him for the forty-four wonderful years they had together and gush about how happy they are to know their husband isn’t suffering anymore and is happy now in the arms of Jesus.

That’s what I’ve been told. To tell you the truth, though, I’m not buying it. I don’t think they’re being honest.

So, no, I don’t feel courageous. I’m fragile and raw and numb, but I’m not courageous. I don’t feel brave either. I’m shellshocked and weary and sleep deprived and dehydrated, but definitely not brave. It’s just that I have no choice. I’m here. I’m alive. And I feel alone. I hurt like hell and, with every cell in my being, I miss Rob every second of every hour of every day. But that’s not courage. Or bravery. Or even remarkable.

That’s just the crappy hand I got dealt.

Doesn’t sound very spiritual, does it? It doesn’t to me either. It does sound honest, though. Authentic. And it probably makes people uncomfortable. What do you do with a woman who sits at your bank counter crying because she has to remove her husband’s name from their joint checking account? And when she bursts into tears in a department store because she glanced at his photo on her phone, should you ask her if she’s okay or pretend you didn’t notice? If her tears splash all over the bananas in the grocery store because she realizes she’ll never buy them again for her dead husband, should you bring it to the attention of the store manager? After all, that’s not very covid-friendly of her. “Clean up in Produce!” the loudspeaker squawks.

So, let’s recap. I’m not courageous or brave. I’m not living my best spiritual life right now. And I’m dripping snot in literally every public place I go in a dismal effort to pick up the shattered pieces of my life and get back to the business of living. At this point, I don’t think I’m succeeding at much of anything—except crying.

I am honest, though. And I ask honest questions. I always have. Whether I politely question God like the good Southern-style woman I am or scream “Why?!” like a banshee in the jungle, throwing it out there now is as straightforward as the day eight years ago when I found out I had cancer and stood alone in the backyard, staring up at the sky, daring to ask the Creator of the universe, “Where are You?”

I felt pretty alone that day, too, and Rob was standing right behind me.

I can ask God anything I want to ask Him. He can handle it. I know a few people who can’t, but God seems up to the challenge. He’s a fan of honesty. He knows what I’m thinking anyway, so why shouldn’t I ask? I want to know why He didn’t heal my darling’s lungs when hundreds of people prayed thousands of prayers asking Him to. He healed lots of other people, many of whom never even saw a doctor when they caught the virus. He healed me in the same hospital where Rob lost his life. We had the same diagnosis on the same day. Why did He leave me here alone asking questions Rob would never have asked if the tables had been turned?

I think He got our rooms mixed up.

I want to know why my grandchildren lost their Chief. Why my son didn’t get the chance to tell his father goodbye in person when he hadn’t seen him for nearly two years because of covid. Tell me why my daughter had to lose the father she adores, holding his hand for nearly twenty-four hours until he took his last breath? And our friends who’ve wept over the loss of a man who was like a brother to some and a hero to many. Why is that, God?

I should be clear here, since some people never question the way life turns out and others have all the answers so they never need to ask questions. I don’t believe in pat answers. That hasn’t stopped people from offering them, but their consolation cards wind up in my circular file when they do. Pat answers are easy when it isn’t the love of your life who has suddenly died. Religious explanations are even worse. They blame God but make Him look heroic while they do it. It makes me wonder if those people even know God.

I know God is weeping with me. That He is saving my tears in a bottle. I don’t know what He plans to do with them, but somehow the image of Him caring that much is comforting. I know He carries me when I don’t have the emotional strength to even get out of bed, which has been happening a lot for the last five weeks. There’s more I know about God, but so far I haven’t forgiven Him enough to give Him credit for those things. I also know He won’t hold that against me even though I’m holding the loss of my darling against Him.

Oh, I know, some of you are so shocked your socks have flown off. I’ve ruined the good Christian perception you had of me. Good. If we can’t ask God hard questions in hard times without worrying about the way we package it, then He’s not the God we thought He was. Don’t worry. If lightning strikes from heaven in the next ten minutes because I just wrote that, you won’t get hit by Eula shrapnel. You’re a safe distance away, reading my last words and wondering where I found the courage to shake my finger in the face of God and question His motives.

I got it from Him. The Author and the Finisher of my faith. God’s not afraid of my honesty. His favorite people were never Pharisees, remember? He’s always loved a desperate heart. He’s the One Who asked Adam and Eve the same thing I asked Him in my backyard eight years ago and at Rob’s bedside five weeks ago,

“Where are you?”

It takes courage to be honest. Maybe I’m braver than I think.

Dear Roby

 

Dear Roby,

One of your love notes made its way into my hands last night. Allie came across it in a calligraphy book you’d been practicing in and told me about it while she and I were driving to Chick Fil A to pick up some chocolate milkshakes.

“I think it will make you cry, YaYa,” she began, but I was already crying before she could finish the sentence. “I’m sure you’ll love it, though.”

She’s very intuitive for thirteen.

We got the shakes and brought them home where I asked Allie for the promised page. Which made me cry again.

“Eula,” your practice sheet was titled. “My Love. My Life. My All.” That’s all it said. It was more than enough. I placed it beside the photo of us standing arm in arm along Oak Creek in 1986—remember that itchy year when the worst thing I’d ever experienced were those chronic hives?

Perspective is a tardy teacher. But your love note arrived on time.

Yesterday was a hard day, darlin’. On a scale of 1-10 it ranked at about 97. I woke up crying, like I do every morning. Paralyzed in bed, I cried out to The God I’m Not Speaking To for help. “I have to get up,” I wept. “I have to move but I can’t do it. Please help.” He’s always listening, The God I’m Not Speaking To. I’m fairly sure He still loves me, but I can’t hear His voice most of the time because I’m having trouble trusting Him. Actually, I’ve always had that problem but it’s a lot worse now that I feel so betrayed by His decision to take you Home.

I sat up and checked my phone for texts, reached for the Kleenex because I couldn’t breathe or get up, when suddenly my phone rang. It was Sue. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was on another line when you called.”

“When did I call?” I asked, confused and stuffy-nosed.

“Just now.”

“I did?” I questioned, blowing my nose again. “I didn’t call,” I said. My memory is as full of holes as fishnet right now—a major side effect of grief, my counselor explained last week—but I knew I hadn’t called her this morning.

“I can tell you’re crying,” she said carefully. “What triggered it?” she asked, ready as always to listen to her grieving friend process her painful loss again.

“Waking up,” I told her, and began crying once more. Every morning is like that. I wake up. I remember. I see your photo across the room. I begin to sob and stop breathing until I can reach the Kleenex again, begging for help to face another day without you. Usually, The God I’m Not Talking To will inspire someone to send me a text or mysteriously guide my feet to the shower, but this morning He made my cellphone call Sue’s phone so Sue would call me back and comfort me.

I wish The God I’m Not Speaking To would let you call me. I guess Verizon’s coverage doesn’t extend that far.

Sue’s call helped. I got up, drove to the west side of town to spend the day with Robin who’s here for a few days. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive round trip, part of it on a newer stretch of the 202 that I don’t remember being on before. Maybe you and I drove it and, as usual, I wasn’t paying attention because you were the driver and I was along for the ride. But yesterday I was the driver and nobody came along for the ride. It was really quiet, and I discovered that makes me an easy target for triggers. Thoughts like, “Rob would love this mountain view,” led straight to sobbing and a frantic search for Kleenex at seventy miles per hour. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ached, trying to ward off the sorrow that threatened to blind me with tears. Blurry eyed, weeping drivers account for nearly thirty per cent of all highway traffic accidents, you know. If you were here, you’d give me that face you make and demand proof of my statistics.

But you’re not here. So, my statistics stand.

Robin and I spent a precious day together, and then I drove that same tear-filled route back home with a couple of wrong turns because you weren’t there to remind me to take the correct exits and you know I have a terrible sense of direction, especially when I get turned around. I’m pretty turned around right now without you here, Baby. I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do every morning except cry and beg The God I’m Not Speaking To to push me out of bed.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

It was so good to get back to Katy’s house where the kiddos all gave me big squeezy hugs and Dan and Katy had supper ready for me. And even though the traffic was awful—which Robin had predicted but I shrugged off since Phoenix traffic is always terrible—I invited Allie to get in the truck with me and we drove to Chick Fil A. That was treat enough all on its own—chocolate shakes with grandbabies—especially at the end of a long, steering wheel gripping drive, wishing with all my heart that you and I were on another road trip and that I won’t be the permanent driver from now on.

I loved road trips with you.

Then the news of Allie’s discovery. And my memory of begging The God I’m Not Speaking To for help yesterday morning. And knowing I never was all alone on the long drive going to and from the west side of Phoenix even though it feels like I’m alone all the time. Grief does that to you. You were my person, Baby, and now half of me has been ripped away. I’m the only one who knows how I feel. Which makes me feel alone.

Until you send a love note unexpectedly. Or I find your voice in a long-deleted voice mail telling me you love me, which happened last week. What I’d really like tonight is a lengthy dream where you hold me in your arms, smile at me with that expression you’ve had in your eyes for the last forty-six years, and tell me it’s going to be all right. Somehow. Some way. When The God I’m Not Speaking To dries all our tears, undoes all the sadness, and turns what the enemy meant for evil into good.

I have more to say, but I’ll save it for another letter on another night. I just want you to know how much I love you. How much I miss you. And that your love note was a miraculous gift.

You are my love. My life. My all.

Eula

Friendly Fire

 

We talk almost every night, my son and I, usually for two hours or more. Ever since his father, my husband, died a month ago. It’s been a long time since we’ve had this much conversation. Heart connection isn’t easy with the distance between us as it is—nearly two thousand miles as the interstate rolls between the deserts of Arizona and Kentucky. But this nightmare has shown us how much we need each other. We’ve been shattered. The wounds are raw. Our chats are punctuated by frequent silences and the sound of someone’s breath blowing out—a last ditch attempt to avert tears.

This loss has changed everything.

“We got hit by a semi,” I whisper, my voice choking on emotion. “That’s what it feels like. We never saw it coming.” He agrees, and another sigh escapes. He tells me of a local pastor who offered his point of view recently on how he’s never known of anyone who died of covid. The man had chosen the wrong moment to sound ignorant. A few sentences later, he realizes his error, hopefully a bit wiser for the discovery.

“I know,” I say, strangely conflicted by the account. Though I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, last week I went back in to see if there were any messages of sympathy from friends that I might want to respond to. There may have been some four weeks ago, but if so I couldn’t find any. Instead, I found my feed strangled by posts I once subscribed to from the suspicious side of the novel virus fence. I don't stand there anymore—not that I have switched loyalties. Rather, I have experienced both sides of the covid issue and have reached this conclusion:

I no longer care who’s right and who’s wrong.

I don’t believe I was entirely incorrect about my point of view for the majority of 2020. Nor do I believe I was entirely right, as I once did. What I have learned in the last two months is that no one—not even doctors and researchers—have a definitive answer as to how the virus is contracted or why some survive while others perish. And because no one knows that most basic of facts, no one on social media or network media or printed media or even sidewalk preachers have any right to deny its danger or point fingers at those of us who have contracted this mysterious illness. They are not qualified to have an opinion.

Believe me, they don’t want to be. Because the only way you’re qualified to have an opinion is if you’ve watched someone you desperately love suffer and die from complications of covid.

So, here’s my opinion, since I qualify. Sprinkled with a few facts.

It has become a divisive topic that generates a lot of money for every kind of media outlet. Covid was politicized by opportunists in an election year and because of that I will probably never vote again. It is a heart wrenching arena where exhausted nurses cry with sobbing family members who must tell their loved ones goodbye too soon. As a result of overwork and stress, nurses are quitting to look for some other way of making a living. I know—they told me themselves while I was hospitalized.

But most of all, covid is a topic that has been foolishly debated on the cowardly platform of Facebook and Parler and other internet sites. Bows drawn on both sides of the topic are cruelly aimed at innocent bystanders and opponents alike. People feel protected launching their arrows from the supposed safety of their personalized platforms, taking no thought as to whose heart it will penetrate, caring only that they make their point even though no one is listening.

I searched for sympathy on my silenced Facebook page and instead read the following meme as it scrolled by. “Those of you who have remained hidden in your homes for the last year out of fear have wasted a year of your life.” And I wept. If Rob and I had done that, maybe my darling would still be alive.

Covid is the enemy. I believe that. But it has some surprising allies. Our careless words, whether written or spoken, make it clear this virus is not the only thing creating casualties.

That’s just my qualified opinion.

Rights and Wrongs

I never thought it was covid.

Not once did it cross my mind that the cause of our fevers and congestion was the feared virus of 2020. We were busy moving into a cabin in the woods, isolated from the media, unpacking dusty boxes, overseeing home improvements, and miles away from the nearest sneeze 95% of the time. We’d survived an entire year of social hysteria, lockdowns, mandates, and all the rest without even a case of the sniffles and rarely the use of a hated mask—something some people considered unintelligent, and others considered our right to choose.

But in the Age of Covid, no one has the right to anything.

There is always an abundance of judgers around when the time comes to die. Popular philosophies perpetuated by the media center around the idea that if we take care of ourselves, we will live forever or at least to the ripe old age of whatever your oldest dying relative was when they passed, but probably at least ninety. You’re not supposed to die at the age of sixty-seven, especially when you’re strong and active and love life. If you take your vitamins and exercise regularly, don’t smoke or drink too much, and get a flu shot, you, too, can avoid the grim reaper and cheat death. Anything else is unacceptable.

It must be someone’s fault when you go against the grain and die anyway. I presumed it to be mine.

I am the wife. The homemaker. Nurturer. The woman behind the man who doesn’t go to the doctor just because he has congestion and a cough. Therefore, it was my responsibility to get medical attention on time. But I am also afraid of doctors and painful tests and blunt remarks, which doctors are notoriously well known for. So, when we both began with the same symptoms, both of us believing we had allergies, and then a bug, and later maybe an infection, we treated our ills the same way we always did which was usually effective—fourteen days at home or two weeks if you see a doctor. We preferred the fourteen-day plan.

It was a fatal mistake.

And now it feels like there is shame in the two of us having contracted covid, especially since one of us died of complications of the experience. I have a box filled with sympathy cards from friends and family who lived through the same treacherous year as Rob and I yet did not succumb to a novel virus from China. Clearly, I reason, they did a better job of taking care of themselves than we did. Left alive as my husband’s widow, I now have the unique experience of noticing how many people around me have not died of covid. After all, the odds are against it, 99.9%. It leaves me feeling like there’s a crimson “C” branded on my forehead. Unclean, I want to shout, warning people away from the woman behind the tardy mask.

I realize that’s not really logical. I know a lot of people who have contracted the same virus as we did, survived to give thanks for the goodness of God, and do not seem to blame themselves for being so careless as to get sick. At the height of a pandemic. It’s what we do—we live in a risky world where no matter how careful or carefree you are, you may or may not become ill and perish. It’s a crap shoot. And it’s nobody’s fault if you find yourself counted among the .1% who run out of luck.

But it still feels like the fault should lie somewhere. All the “what if’s” and “if only’s” are precursors to the perceived “I told you so’s” I suspect people are thinking. My son said this stage of grief where I blame myself for my husband’s death is simply a way of trying to make sense out of a tragedy. Out of the trauma we have suffered. Which we must try to heal from or find a way to live with.

But there’s no making sense of it. “I don’t understand” is my mantra as the tears fall down my face and I relive the horrible last two months, suffering its fallout. We’d gone to a doctor the day before we were admitted to the hospital, were given a covid test with a 3-day turnaround, told that we were very sick, and sent home with medicine. Would that one day have made a difference? Who knows. The questions are nothing short of endless torment. I’ll never know how we contracted it. I’ll never know why I recovered from it. And I’ll never know why it took the life of my best friend.

I wish I could go back. I wish I could wake up. I wish I knew what happened.

But I’m just a person. A person who recovered for unknown reasons from a virus that has proven deadly for many. After all, one tenth of one per cent of half a million Americans equals a lot of broken hearts. I don’t have the privilege of knowing the answers to the why’s, and I don’t have the power to prevent death. We’ve cheated it many times, Rob and I. Until now.

Sadly, the answer to why this was the time is one more thing I don’t have the right to know.

That may be the hardest thing of all to live with.

Fallen

 

I fell flat on my face in Petsmart today. Our giant white panda bear of a dog tripped me right out in front of God and everybody.

“Did you hurt anything?” Katy asked me in concern when I told her what happened.

“My knee. And my pride,” I said. But the other thing that hurt is that I couldn’t tell you about it. There are so many things I’ve been saving up to tell you, but short of writing you letters here or making people think I’m crazy by talking to you in an empty room, I can’t really talk to you about anything, good or bad. You were usually the one to take Brody to get groomed, you know. Because we both know he’s a bruiser with big clumsy feet and no sense of direction. You could handle him. I fall on my face.

I checked my emotions while the store manager appeared along with a cashier and two other customers, all wanting to know if I was all right. I laughed it off and held my breath until I got outside where no one could see me. “Why aren’t you here?” I accused, tears running down my face as I let go of the frustration. All these things I have to do on my own now. Why aren’t you here?

It was another rough day. Days are like that now. I cry every morning, which is as normal as brushing my teeth, and then I get dressed, open the blinds to let in the sun, and some days I actually function almost normally. Today wasn’t one of those days. Today I was in the toilet. All day. It started the moment I woke up with a text message asking my opinion on your headstone. At noon, I spent an hour listening and watching via zoom to tributes given by all your friends at Toasties who love and miss you. There were plenty of tears mixed in with the kind words. After that, I had two emails to deal with—one requiring a death certificate and the other wanting information about the military honor guard for your funeral.

Your death certificate. That one triggers every nerve in my disconsolate body. To see your name on something like that. Your occupation—firefighter. It’s you. It’s not supposed to be you, but I guess it is. I can’t get my mind around it yet. Still, with the painful precision of an ice pick, truth keeps stabbing at the numbness that encircles my heart. With every piece of ice that falls away, a little more reality sneaks in, forcing me to face the fact that you died last month. A month ago today. It’s been four weeks and, while I am still Rob’s wife, I am also your widow.

But mostly I am heartbroken. Who needs a heart anyway, I ask myself. Anything that can cause this kind of pain is, in my opinion, highly overrated. Maybe we’d all be better off if they were optional equipment. If I had the option right now, I’d disconnect my heart so it could never make me suffer this way again.

It would be pointless. I’m already infected by sorrow. Grief, which must be second cousin to the chicken pox, will never go away. That’s what they tell me. Like the virus, it changes form, but it will always be there. So, it doesn’t take time, does it? It’s not the great healer of all wounds after all. No matter how much of that tick tocking stuff flows under my crumbling bridge, I will always miss you. Always ache for you. Always wish I’d had more of that fleeting time to hold you close and tell you again how much I love you.

My knee is sore and my back is withholding judgment, probably until I wake up tomorrow, but my heart? Even an accident like the one in Petsmart today couldn’t make it any more shattered than it already is. My poor, lonely heart will never be the same.

I’ve fallen again, Baby, and just like this morning, you aren’t here to pick me up. It’s not the hard ground that hurts, though.

It’s the truth.