The End of the Beginning

 

    I lost the most significant part of my adult life almost six weeks ago. David was an actual force of love, support, and kindness for me and so many other people. He was the very best human in so many ways. I have never known anyone to care so much about everything he did and all the people around him. He really put a lot of pressure on himself to be so many things to so many people. Because of this, he was not always the easiest to live with. Then again, is anyone? I know I’m not! It could be said that his most serious transgression in our marriage was caring way too much about so many people and (in my opinion) too many things. 

     These past weeks have felt as if they were unending and, yet I also feel like they passed in the blink of an eye. I can lose almost entire days feeling frozen in a moment sometimes. Conversely, I can also shower, dress, and join the living world as if I actually belong there. Even if I feel like I can pull it off, it’s really physically and emotionally draining. I am most comfortable in my home, surrounded by my small circle of people. Or even totally alone. That is when I feel like I can be my truest self, laughing or crying as I feel I need to. 

     A week or two ago, I had my first dream about David. Well, one that I remembered anyway. It was late in the morning. When I can, I go back to sleep after I initially wake up each morning. It was during one of those morning naps when I dreamt of David. In the dream, I somehow just knew he was out in the garage, even though I also knew he was gone. But in this dream, I didn't tell anyone that I knew he was there. Instead, I sneaked out the door leading to the garage and there he was. I don’t remember either of us speaking, but he just held me while I cried. The peace and comfort that dream brought me was more than I had felt since he left this world, but those feelings faded quickly as I slowly regained consciousness. 

     Up until this past year, I had been relatively fortunate to not have experienced the loss of an immediate family member or close friend. Looking back, I can confirm that my ignorance truly was bliss. The loss I had experienced prior to this past year really did hurt, but none of those people I lost were a really big part of my everyday life, past or present. Unexpectedly, we lost my mom in March of 2022. Losing the mother that raised you, even as an adult, it changes you as a person. She was this huge link to my past, one of my best confidants, someone who could find the humor in just about any situation, and the one who adored my girls as much as David and I do. But as much as it hurt and changed me as a person to lose my mom, she wasn’t a large part of my everyday life. She was a huge part of every holiday and all the usual milestones like birthdays, awards ceremonies, and the sports played by my girls. It was at all those events where we usually knew we would be spending with her in some capacity that the loss was felt the greatest. It still does. This past Christmas Eve was just five days before I lost my husband, and I remember crying in the car on the way to a celebration because she should be here for this. My mom loved Christmas music, pretty lights, admiring decorations, and spoiling her granddaughters (and new great grandson) to the best of her abilities. It was all so exciting to her and that excitement created its own special joy about the holiday season that was felt by all she touched. David and I shared a family, a bed, a home, a bank account. . . our life.

     David was my rock through all of the ‘firsts’ I had to get through after losing my mom. I tend to keep a lot of my feelings to myself, but this past year I had actually let David into those scary, unpredictable places inside my head and my heart. . . and he was fantastic. I could tell him about all those anxious, insecure, or weepy moments that I usually kept inside, and he gave me more love and support than I felt like I deserved. It highlighted that our relationship could have been so much better if I had just shared all the parts of me, even the ones that didn’t feel so endearing. All relationships have ups and downs, and ours was no exception. We had just gone through one of the down periods, but with counseling (and hormone therapy on my part) we were in this amazing upswing, and it almost felt like we were dating again. With the kids being older, date nights and cuddling on the couch were more common than they had been since the beginning of our relationship. We had joked about figuring out what to do with ourselves and each other when all the kids were gone and he retired, which was could have been as soon as a year or two from now. It’s an adjustment learning to let go of the life where the kids are young and need so much from you to a life where they don’t need you and you find yourself staring at your partner like, “Who even are we without all that?” The prospect of our empty nest began to feel full of excitement rather than uncertainty. 

     And then he was gone. 

     Monday night very well could have been the first *normal* Monday night we’d had since the holidays. My middle was home, and The Bachelor was on television. I was sprawled across the loveseat for most of the program, making my usual jokes about the intensity or catty remarks of the contestants. When it ended, the next show came on and the girls set off to their rooms. I glanced over to the couch where David had always resided during this exact same Monday night routine we’d had for the past few years, but he wasn’t there. It hit me, once again, that he’s not going to be there in that capacity ever again, and I don’t need any more proof than the container of his ashes that currently resides on a shelf in the corner of this very living room. Even without the ashes, he will always be here in some way. He’s in the stories and laughter we share, the tools and gadgets he collected (seriously David, four chainsaws?!?), and the many things he built with his own two hands and often a dash of redneck ingenuity. I’m not sure there was any project or tool he couldn’t repair or improve with his outside-the-box thinking and understanding of how things work. His dad once told me that many of David’s favorite toys as a child were the broken ones, since those gave him the opportunity to take them apart and see how they work, with the added challenge of making them work once again. He often worked the same magic with people by helping them with their own broken things or even just giving them a friendly smile and compassionate ear when they were feeling a bit broken themselves. He worked so hard to be so many things to so many people. And I would say his is a success story, especially when I think about the turnout for his celebration of life. 

     My middle created a video that we shared at his celebration and it’s such a good glimpse into the kind of friend, husband, father, grandfather, son, and UPS guy he truly was. He wore a lot of hats in his way-too-short life, but he wore them well.