I was in the shower washing all the bits, pieces, and parts when I felt my right ear lobe and noticed that the earring Jake had made for me… which was a gift I had received from Kateri not too many days after we learned of her diagnosis… was gone. It took one more slippy squeeze of the ear with the brain thinking, “Maybe I missed it…?… just wasn’t paying attention…?”, before it turned to me envisioning the mini version of myself, the one who resides in my skull… and has a full head of hair, clenching his fists and screaming, “Muuuutherrr…. FUCKER!!”.
In reality, I just stood there staring at the subway tile as the hot water massaged the top of my shaved head, shoulders, and back (…I don’t shave my shoulders… or my back). The steam cushioned my naked body from the cold sitting just on the other side of the curtain waiting for its chance to insert a little shiver to the tail end of my shower. I thought about where I might’ve lost it and when. Then I thought about how I had spent all day outside snow blowing, chain sawing, burning stuff, and running through the woods and realized it could be anywhere on my little piece of Vermont. Heck, it could’ve been shot to the property across the road after taking a ride through the snowblower!
My mind wanted to make a run for it, but I was able to calm it down. I took a deep breath and simply stood there in the shower… the outside world silenced by the white noise of water pelting the shower curtain and ceramic… thinking about my life. I knew that if I wore those earrings day in and day out, one day one or both of them may go missing. And on Monday… one did. Of course, that didn’t stop me from slowly walking around the property with my headlamp cranked up to full brightness as it beamed straight down scanning the snow, dirt, twigs, and sawdust for any sign of a silverish three-quarter hoop the size of a dime. FYI… I live on 6.5 acres and haven’t found it… yet.
This post wasn’t gonna have anything to do about an earring, I just happened to lose it as I am going through a Widower Moment brought on by the passing of someone who resided in the periphery of my world. I have been thinking quite a bit about my life as of late, of my widowhood and my relationship with it, but it was an email at work which reminded me that after 5 Years, 7 Months, and 9 Days we have the ability to remember things, people, and moments with such vividness that we could swear it just happened, we just saw them, and/or we just experienced this or that as if it was yesterday. The harder part for me was not the fact that I could remember the last Doctor’s Appointment, the last “I Love You.”, or even the Last Breath… it was the fact that the feelings I had in each of those memories… those moments… bubbled up from wherever they were hiding and decided to go back on tour. Well, maybe just a three-day engagement… or guest appearance… either way, they were annoyingly loud and played songs that I simply don’t care for anymore.
This recent experience brought up mainly some of the crappy stuff in life… cancer, loss, death and such. It was hard to go through the last few days where the memories that fill my head were mainly of when Kateri was sick, when we watched cancer wear down her body in a matter of months, when I sat next to her holding her shark bite listening to her breath, and waking up to a world where I would never get to hold her again. It took one sentence in a work email to remind me that Loss does not have an expiration date. Loss doesn’t stop existing even if you haven’t felt the pain, sorrow, and bitterness of it in a while. Loss doesn’t disappear because you’ve moved to a new apartment, house, town, or country. After 5 Years, 7 Months, and 9 Days… I was reminded that Loss doesn’t just go away because “X” number of Days, Months, or Years have passed by. But after 5 Years, 7 Months, and 9 Days I was also reminded that neither does… Love.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
- The passing of someone you love will always come sooner than expected.
- I’d probably lump dogs, cats, horses, gerbils n shit into that, as well.
- “One more trip to the ocean. We’ll take one more trip so that Kateri can see the ocean one more time.” That’s what I thought about at the last Doctor’s Appointment………. There wasn’t enough time.
- I’d probably lump dogs, cats, horses, gerbils n shit into that, as well.
- My last post had to do with Poop Chutes… well, my Poop Chute. Don’t worry, the Poop Chute is fine…. all fine… everything’s great… Poop Chute.
- It’s the Holiday Season!… Happy Holidays!!… don’t be a jerkhole.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 