Life

It has been 6 days since my husband Norm died, but it feels like it was yesterday.  I can see that I am going through the reactions to grief:  according to On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.  But I seem to be stuck in the first stage, denial . "Denial is the first of the five stages of grief. It helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle."

I keep feeling that Norm will return from a business trip.  Yesterday I looked everywhere for a certain photo of him, and I stumbled upon a sketch, a baby pencil drawing of him and his sister, that I had searched for years ago.  My immediate thought was, Norm is going to be so pleased that this turned up, and then I felt the jolt as I thought, Norm won't ever return, and will never enjoy this or anything else.  In a way I wish I could be a believer in God, but that ship sailed long ago.  I must cope.  There is so much to be done, and I keep finding more tasks as I go.  I will be finding things to do for months.  For instance, the cable bill is more than $200 a month, who would have thought this?  And his Prime status for Amazon.  And the balance of the car loan.  And on and on.

I still cry when I have to inform a caller on the phone that there isn't any reason to take a message, and I am so glad the local newspaper got his obit  in on the 13th (Friday!) so some of his contacts need not call.  The actual informal gathering at the funeral home will be on the 23rd, to give his sister time to get here.  Come to think about it, his sister may want the sketch...

I don't want this to be too maudlin of a post, so I will stop here.

Accchhh  I'm losing it.



Addendum:  My hit counter has disappeared once again, and I am too sad?  Preoccupied?  Depressed?  Whatever, to hunt up the problem or get another, so I'll just tell you, it is 38,000 or there about.