“How am I going to get through this?” my friend asked, as
quiet tears slid down her weary-eyed face. There was no easy answer for her
question, so I just reached across the table and held her hand.
The odd thing was that she was the fourth person lately who
asked that same question. My guess is that each of us has asked it before,
probably more than once. Between the grief of a husband’s sudden death, the
loss of a miscarriage, a terrifying health diagnosis, and unexpected marital
separations, it seems I know a lot of people who are struggling. I have been
thinking about how I survived when Neil died. Here’s some thoughts.
Although we lived on a lake in my early childhood and I knew
how to ice skate, I never learned then how to swim. I loved the water; I just
didn’t feel any overwhelming desire to be under it.
Then came third grade swimming lessons at the community pool. I tried to love the lessons, really, I did, but there was nothing fun about being cold and wet. My tense paper-weight-like body refused to float and instead I reliably sank. While the other beginner students jumped in and out with joyful abandon, I gently lowered myself inch by chilly inch into the water. Instead of graceful arms and fluttering feet my strokes looked like a flapping chicken hit the water. So, when the day came for everyone to jump off the diving board, I was not enthusiastic.
My mom wisely stayed home that day, and my dad came instead. I had no intention of going off the board, but he gradually talked me into it. After watching everyone else have their turn, and noting no near-death experiences, I decided I could at least try. Here is a key detail though: I still couldn’t really swim. Everyone thought that as soon as I jumped into the deep end, weeks of lessons would suddenly click, and I would paddle proudly over to the edge and climb out. That most definitely did not happen.
Last summer I babysat my best friend’s ten-week-old German
Shepherd. I had forgotten how hard it is
to take care of a puppy, and if you have too, let me remind you.
He was not yet housebroken, so I was careful not to trip in
any wayward puddles. At any sign of an impending squat I quickly snatched him
up and raced outside to the grass. His
sharp little puppy teeth innocently found their way to every single drawer knob
and rocker bottom in my house, despite my attempts to guide them to things less
dangerous to chew. He raced like a victorious bull through the screen door that
eventually fell in surrender around him. He shredded not only the newspaper
that was supposed to help him learn housetraining, but every single toy that his
owner sent with him. My floors looked like cotton fields with all the white
fluff scattered across them.
And yet, he was so darn cute. My voice was strong in the
moments when I scolded him, “No!” but he was quickly forgiven as he breathed
puppy breath into my face and licked me with his happy tongue. He chewed my
flip flop then looked at me with soulful apologetic eyes that melted my heart.
Who cares about flip flops? I thought to myself. His clumsy paws got tangled in
my feet, and before I could even reprimand him, I laughed as we ended up on the
floor. And when he finally fell asleep and snuggled at the foot of the bed, I
smiled at the sound of gentle snoring and little legs prancing in happy puppy
dreams. I fell in love with this dog –
and he wasn’t even mine. Imagine how I’d feel if I was the one who chose him
out of the litter to call my own.
Jackie was only four days old. She was a crier, and she wasn’t the playful baby sister that Gina had anticipated. Her bald little head and pale eyebrows were delightful to me but looked like an alien face to Gina. And at 6 years old, having to share mom and dad with a baby who looks like a creature from outer space is a challenge.
I was still in the same clothes I wore home from the hospital (a baby who never sleeps can do that to even a normally sane person), but when I realized it was Valentine’s Day and Gina was bringing a friend home from school in a few hours, I knew I had to do something. Neil had helped Gina write out her cards for the first-grade mailbox, but this year, we needed more. I left baby Jackie sleeping with Neil and praying no one would see me, headed off to the local drug store.
Its was one of the worst winters we ever had. Snow was three feet deep on our hilly, gravel road. It was also a time when I worked in the emergency department at the local hospital. ERs don’t shut down no matter the weather, ever.
Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get to work otherwise, the
hospital sent the national guard to collect me for the night shift. The snow
was too deep for the even Humvee to travel the ¾ mile from the main road, so
the soldiers called ahead to say they would walk to my house and carry me back
to the vehicle. Mortified, I left home long before they were scheduled to
arrive. The snow was literally up to my hips and I made it less than half way
before I met two guardsman.
“You were supposed to stay put so we could carry you,” one sweet young man admonished.
“There is no way anyone is going to carry me,” I retorted.
