Life's Not A Paragraph, And Death I Think Is No Parenthesis

You know when you've put something off because it's unpleasant, and then it becomes harder and harder to bring yourself to do it, and then it snowballs into such an overwhelming task that you throw your hands up like "to heck with this!" and proceed to re-watch The Great British Baking Show every night instead of writing?

It's been four weeks since Paul died. And while I'm not ready to write about his death just yet, I can say that it was mostly peaceful, and we were with him the moment he drew his last breath.

Saturday would have been our sixth wedding anniversary. Six good years, but not enough of them.

People keep asking how I'm doing and my response is usually something along the lines of "I'm okay. That is—at this exact moment in time, I'm okay. Ask me again in five minutes and I'll possibly be bawling into a bag of Doritos."

I guess that's grief? This is all new terrain. I've never grieved over anyone's death before. I've been sad about death, yes. I've cried at funerals, sure. But this palpable sorrow that washes over me without warning? Uncharted waters, folks. 

The sadness feels like repeatedly getting the wind knocked out of you. Normally it strikes at night, after Ingrid is asleep and the world and my mind are finally hushed. But there are also times when it hits unexpectedly, fast and hard.

Last week, for instance, I had an appointment with my oncologist. She's in a new clinic because, um, the oncology clinic I've been going to for the past year and a half went bankrupt. (You can't make this stuff up, people.) Anyway, I was a new patient at this facility, so I had to fill out new patient paperwork.

I sat down with my clipboard and there it was. A blank box next to the label I still haven't quite come to terms with: WIDOW. Right alongside "single" and "married" it stood, aloof and biting. My eyes misted over as I left blank the lines I would normally fill in with Paul's contact info. 

I was startled by how much this bothered me. And a little bit embarrassed. Such a small thing, in the grand scheme of things. But here we are. 

Ingrid, by the way, is doing wonderfully. At three, death is still too abstract a concept for her to grasp, and maybe that makes things easier. She'll drop it into conversation intermittently and casually, like she's discussing the plot of Frozen or her favorite cake flavor. 

The other day, while waiting at the DMV, Ingrid struck up a conversation with the couple next to us. Thrilled to have an audience, she chirped happily about her cousins and her cat and her toys, and then she hit them with this doozy of a remark:

"My Dad is dead. He was sick. We buried him. My favorite color is pink, but my mom likes green."

So you see, she knows he's dead, but she doesn't understand what that really means.

I desperately want Ingrid to have some memories of Paul, but I don't know if she will. As a member of Paul's Hospice team pointed out, most of us don't have many clear memories of our lives at three years old. What we can remember, though, is the unmistakable feeling of being loved.

That, my friends, she has in abundance.