Through this process, I've found that we can be irrational at times. Certain places we can't go or songs we refuse to listen to or food we don't want to cook because it all reminds us so heavily of Catherine. We ate at Red Robin tonight and I looked over at a booth that Josh, Catherine, Henry, and myself all sat at a year ago. The memories are hard.
We save everything associated with her. Pill bottles with her name on them are in the "too hard" box under the bed. School papers are tucked into drawers. Handwritten cards and notes are still on the fridge. We save everything. Most of it ends up in the "too hard" box and I'm starting to wonder if everything is too hard or do we need a bigger box because it is filled to the brim. We don't dare throw anything away that has anything to do with Catherine.
Josh refused to shave or cut his hair. It has been over three months and my husband looked pretty hairy. His beard was bushy and long and his hair stuck out of his hat. I nagged him the first two months and he blew me off. As we headed into month three, he told me that with everything changing around him with Catherine's death, his hair was the one thing he had control over. He called it is mourning beard. I let it go. It didn't make sense to me at the time but I respect the hell out of my husband. We also agreed in the very beginning, day one, that we would not judge or disrespect how the other one grieved. So my husband got very bushy and hairy. Until today. He finally got his hair cut and his beard trimmed. He didn't want to but he did it for me. My company Christmas party is coming up and he wanted to look nice for me. I realized how much I had missed his face. It has been buried under all that beard. He said he felt lighter and he was glad he did it.
Josh's beard didn't make sense to me until tonight. This is fairly gross, but we haven't changed our sheets since Catherine died. I wasn't sure why but something prevented us from doing that simple task. We ordered new bedding this week and bought new sheets tonight as the old bedding was looking dingy and the 4 year old flannel sheets were threadbare. As we were setting it all up tonight, it hit me why we hadn't changed them. This bed and bedding was one of the last places we had a long conversation with Catherine. It wasn't a good conversation either. Her grades were slipping and I was trying to remind her that grades meant everything if she was going to go away to college. I was asking her to try harder. That was Monday night. She died Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I couldn't change the sheets. That last conversation happened in our room, on our bed, with that damn bedding. My regrets about that conversation run deep. The guilt is strong. It makes me so sad to think that Catherine died possibly thinking that we weren't proud of her and mad about her grades. But it all happened on our bed. My original plan tonight was to throw away the sheets. Again, they are threadbare and dingy. But I couldn't do it.
Catherine's room remains untouched as well. So does her car. After she died, my dad took her car through emissions as it was due in September. Neither one of us could bring ourselves to drive the car. After my dad did the emissions, we covered it and have left it to sit in the driveway, completely untouched. Her stuff is still in there. We realized this week that if we didn't get her tags, the emissions slip would expire. I had a moment of panic that I was going to have to go in her car to get the registration. Luckily, they took the emissions slip. If I do go into her room, which isn't very often these days, I look at something and put it back where she left it. Her friends and siblings go up there and lay in her bed and visit or cry. They are welcome, as long as they don't disturb anything. A part of me expects her to walk in the door and be pissed we messed with her stuff. Irrational, I know. Even Henry is expecting her to show up. He needed his diaper changed as we were driving to the store and he demanded that Titi do it. I said she wasn't here, she was gone. He then told us she was in the car.
There are so many sides of grief. I would take any of them over the irrational side. The irrational side makes me feel like I'm losing my mind. Like someone is going to come in and realize I'm insane and commit me. I'm not sure when we will be able to start letting some stuff of hers go, but for now the "too hard" box will suffice.
We save everything associated with her. Pill bottles with her name on them are in the "too hard" box under the bed. School papers are tucked into drawers. Handwritten cards and notes are still on the fridge. We save everything. Most of it ends up in the "too hard" box and I'm starting to wonder if everything is too hard or do we need a bigger box because it is filled to the brim. We don't dare throw anything away that has anything to do with Catherine.
Josh refused to shave or cut his hair. It has been over three months and my husband looked pretty hairy. His beard was bushy and long and his hair stuck out of his hat. I nagged him the first two months and he blew me off. As we headed into month three, he told me that with everything changing around him with Catherine's death, his hair was the one thing he had control over. He called it is mourning beard. I let it go. It didn't make sense to me at the time but I respect the hell out of my husband. We also agreed in the very beginning, day one, that we would not judge or disrespect how the other one grieved. So my husband got very bushy and hairy. Until today. He finally got his hair cut and his beard trimmed. He didn't want to but he did it for me. My company Christmas party is coming up and he wanted to look nice for me. I realized how much I had missed his face. It has been buried under all that beard. He said he felt lighter and he was glad he did it.
Josh's beard didn't make sense to me until tonight. This is fairly gross, but we haven't changed our sheets since Catherine died. I wasn't sure why but something prevented us from doing that simple task. We ordered new bedding this week and bought new sheets tonight as the old bedding was looking dingy and the 4 year old flannel sheets were threadbare. As we were setting it all up tonight, it hit me why we hadn't changed them. This bed and bedding was one of the last places we had a long conversation with Catherine. It wasn't a good conversation either. Her grades were slipping and I was trying to remind her that grades meant everything if she was going to go away to college. I was asking her to try harder. That was Monday night. She died Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I couldn't change the sheets. That last conversation happened in our room, on our bed, with that damn bedding. My regrets about that conversation run deep. The guilt is strong. It makes me so sad to think that Catherine died possibly thinking that we weren't proud of her and mad about her grades. But it all happened on our bed. My original plan tonight was to throw away the sheets. Again, they are threadbare and dingy. But I couldn't do it.
Catherine's room remains untouched as well. So does her car. After she died, my dad took her car through emissions as it was due in September. Neither one of us could bring ourselves to drive the car. After my dad did the emissions, we covered it and have left it to sit in the driveway, completely untouched. Her stuff is still in there. We realized this week that if we didn't get her tags, the emissions slip would expire. I had a moment of panic that I was going to have to go in her car to get the registration. Luckily, they took the emissions slip. If I do go into her room, which isn't very often these days, I look at something and put it back where she left it. Her friends and siblings go up there and lay in her bed and visit or cry. They are welcome, as long as they don't disturb anything. A part of me expects her to walk in the door and be pissed we messed with her stuff. Irrational, I know. Even Henry is expecting her to show up. He needed his diaper changed as we were driving to the store and he demanded that Titi do it. I said she wasn't here, she was gone. He then told us she was in the car.
There are so many sides of grief. I would take any of them over the irrational side. The irrational side makes me feel like I'm losing my mind. Like someone is going to come in and realize I'm insane and commit me. I'm not sure when we will be able to start letting some stuff of hers go, but for now the "too hard" box will suffice.
Do what you have to do.
ReplyDeleteAs for Titi in the car... When Ellie was about 18 months to 2 years old, she told me she missed Hannah. Remember, Hannah died three years before she was born. I asked why. She said, "Because I don't see her anymore."
"Where did you see her?"
"In the car next to me. In my bed with me."
Oh. Okay.
A sign from your girl through your baby.
Keep hanging in there and know we're all praying for you.