Cleaning yesterday I found the last birthday card that I gave Jim. I had forgotten all about it. It was his 53rd birthday. 2006. He had started his job with the USPS and was very happy and looking forward to the changes that job would bring.
I looked at the card. It was a Gary Larson card with a postman on it and a dog waiting in the bushes for him.
You know the cartoons with the animals looking like people. This dog was a samurai dog. Appropriate because of the USPS connection and also Jim and I used to work for a company that sold cutlery and knives. Some of them were swords. Anyway inside I wrote out Happy Birthday - and then I had written "53 and still going strong! I am so Proud and happy for you!".
Reading that really hurt. It really made me MAD. It made all the thoughts I have had about how the job may have stressed him just so much that it caused his death. All the what ifs came rushing back. Was it the worry of succeeding so we could get to that point where things changed and all his effort to make it happen that pushed the envelope. He was so excited and yet so stressed.
I put my head back and moaned because my insides were opening up again. I cried, I sat and looked at the card. I thought of how happy he was to get the job, to be in a job with a future and how proud he was of himself. And how proud I was of him. The card said it all.
I put set the card down and walked away, wiped my eyes, sat outside with the dogs and got myself together. The pain of loss can hit and immobilize me for a little while. However I suppose I have now learned how to get up and keep on going. It is still there, the grief and wonderment of why, but it is controlled.
To use an analogy, I feel sometimes like the Hulk. Big green guy in purple pants. I feel the emotion, rage, pain, grief come boiling to the top and burst, explode and rush out of me. It takes over my thinking and makes me yell, cry and beat up things in my frustration of wondering why and how. Why isn't Jim here and how can I keep going without him.
Then it settles down and I pull on the mild mannered bruce banner mask and go on about my work. That is how I can cope. By pulling on the mask and making each day go on by. You know, that analogy fits pretty well actually and Jim would have loved it.
1 comment:
It's a long row to hoe, isn't it, Betsy? You are doing a wonderful job of honoring Jim and his memory and sharing him with us. Thank you. I wish the memories weren't so painful, and know you are so often in my thoughts and on my heart.
Big HUGS!
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