Sun in an Empty Room
Last night was really great. Two friends came over and we just hung out for several hours. It didn’t feel like I was hosting them, because I wasn’t—we were just spending time together. There wasn’t some assumption that I would be the gracious host, because my hosting abilities have very much degraded since losing Kellie. When I thanked them for the way their visit made me feel, they told me I don’t have to thank them for just being my friends. That’s meaningful, but also scary to think that people would want to be around me just because they like interacting with me, not because I’m a sad guy who had a tragic thing happen to him.
In the stick count for the song
Of knowing you’re gone
Glancing up at where you lived
When you lived here
I see you suddenly alive
And nearly smiling
Stop and hold my breath
And watch the way you used to be
The full moon makes our faces shine
Like over-ironed polyester
Then disappears behind the clouds
And leaves me under empty rows
Of night windows
—Weakerthans
It feels like some of the time I’ve gotten to spend with friends this month has given me a whole different kind of gift. Don’t hear me saying that everyone who has been here while I cried and has hugged me and offered real support on my worst days hasn’t been useful to my process. That’s been super valuable as well. But I have found that the interactions that I’ve come away from over the past week or so that have made me happiest have been the ones where it felt like we were just friends hanging out. The topic of Kellie has come up, of course, but she hasn’t been the primary focus.
In those interactions, it feels like maybe she’s just out of the room for a few minutes and might be back at some point. I’m starting to think that I need my friends to be my friends in addition to being shoulders to cry on. That signals to me that I’m entering a new phase of whatever this process is—some weird in-between phase where I am incredibly sad and also want to talk about a TV show or something.
I apologize if I navigate this transition weirdly or awkwardly with you, folks. I’m not moving on from my grief, and I’m not trying to ask anyone to pretend I’m not a widower who is having a really hard time just existing in the world. It’s just that I’m also a person in addition to being a widower, and so talking about whatever random thing is going to benefit my brain and heart as well.
I did some cleaning and organizing in my bedroom this afternoon, which was such a hard thing. It’s always been hard for me to work in there, since it happened, but I have come to accept the fact that it is so incredibly draining to do so that I’m going to have to just take it in one-hour chunks, not think about the tasks that need to be done. Maybe there’s something about the fact that our bedrooms are such an intimate part of who we are—we spend so much time there, and it’s where we’re most free to let down our guard.
Anyway, I can’t pick up stuff in there without smelling Kellie, or remembering Kellie, or missing Kellie so bad that my heart aches and aches. It is a whole new kind of exhaustion
Even though there are so many things that have gotten accomplished, there are still so many to go. It’s easy for me to get easily overwhelmed when I consider just how much I have to do without her (eventually, everything). When I run low on some kind of soap, I can’t assume she’s already got it in her cart—I have to buy it myself, now. When the water company gets mad because I haven’t paid, I can’t ask her to get online and do it while I’m getting another task done. (Well, I can’t pay the water bill at ALL, honestly, because they won’t let me into the account since I’m not Kellie. But that’s a whole other issue.)
When you have a partner, especially one you trust, there’s such a lovely division of labor that goes on. The parts of that machine snap together in a way that’s truly beautiful, when it works, and it amplifies your ability to get things done in a way that I hadn’t really thought deeply about in a very long time. You might think that you’re doing more of the household tasks than your partner, but you’re probably minimizing all kinds of things that they do do. But me? I literally have to do them all—or I will have to do them all when my parents leave. That’s pretty scary.
When I stop to consider the enormity of this loss, I need to take a step away mentally and emotionally and get a little distance from those feelings, because they are very big and very bleak.
Other than the bleakness, I had plenty of okay times in my day. Sure, the awful times sort of overshadowed the okay ones. But the okay ones existed as well, I just have to spend some energy consciously dwelling on them when things get particularly bad.
I’ve been wishing and wishing I could just have one last conversation with Kellie. I know that’s normal, and I know that’s not possible, and it doesn’t stop me from wishing for it to happen. Last night, I heard Kellie’s voice calling me at one point. It was clear and audible and very real, or at least it felt that way. As I told someone later on, I don’t know whether I imagined it or not. I don’t know if it was her or not. I don’t know anything except the fact that it gave me a moment of peace. I didn’t feel sad, not really, just wistful and like the completely wrong pieces of the puzzle that are my life snapped back into place again, just for a minute or two, just long enough to give me some respite. It was also a rare gift, whether I imagined it or not. I’m grateful for the way I felt, just for that moment.
Every time someone says I’m doing this so well, I’m overcome with doubt. I don’t know how I keep getting up and mostly doing stuff. I don’t have a plan, I’m not trying to do anything specific, and although I hope Kellie’s proud of me, I just don’t know if that’s true. The tears still come either way, and I still have to live with this whether I’m the best griever ever or the worst one.
I can’t say I’m ready to start the week. I hope you are, but I don’t have a lot to look forward to right now.
I wish she was here.
Matt