Food

Tam had Thanksgiving dinner for us tonight. It was because of her work schedule and her pay schedule and all the complicated stuff like that.
I think it was also to get something of this landmark day behind us. It's not the type of landmark anyone wants to remember and one that will never be forgotten.  Thanksgiving without Rex, without Dad, with no Pappaw.

Thanksgiving has a history for us, doesn't it, Rex? It's been THE family holiday since the girls have been grown. David cooking us up a feast, and you enjoying it, even if your plate would feed you for a week.When the girls grew up and left home, there we were, just you and I, with food we enjoyed and the company we most wanted most of the time. One of our private Thanksgiving days started me on my first blog. ( http://www.otherdissed.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-day.html )
Recent years, you couldn't/wouldn't leave home and I might go to Tam's and bring you home a plate. I told Tam last night to not even offer me a plate to take home, because that was always for you. Last year, Tracy was the one who brought us plates.

You've always been picky about food, although you griped about that in the kids. I would run all over the place trying to find the things you would eat. Potted meat and Vienna sausage, only they had to be Armour, not Libby's, not store brands. You would eat Spam, but not Treet. Your chicken noodle soup had to be Campbell's, and it had to be the kind with skinny noodles and no vegetables.

I had the house full of food for you, Rex.
Food you wouldn't/couldn't eat.

How we begged you to eat!
How we tried to argue you into eating, until you had no breath for eating or arguing!

How you tried, when we pressed you.
You did try, more than we can know, I think. Because we have never had to choose, day after day, meal after meal, between eating and breathing.

I open the cabinets or the refrigerator, and there it is -- the food I bought for you. Eggs. Cottage Cheese. Hot sausage. Gatorade. I don't know what to do with the refrigerator stuff. Can't donate that. Tam has got most of it -- I made what was left of your eggs into your devilled eggs (well, Tam and Tracy put them together; I just cooked them.) for our Thanksgiving Dinner.
The other stuff has gone into donation boxes (that I haven't yet donated. Haven't seen any bins.) Your potted meat and teeny wienies have gone to school as Hailey's contribution to the food drive.
Someone will benefit from what couldn't benefit you.

Maybe I will soon be able to open the cabinets without being gut-punched.
And I will also lose one more connection to you and the used-to-be.

Good thing I can always buy a can of potted meat to remember you, huh?
As if I will ever need that!

Maybe I can remember to be thankful that you are not struggling for breath and dying before my eyes because you have finally accomplished that.
Maybe I can someday be grateful that you lasted as long as you did, all things considered.

But I would so much rather be being thankful with you.

And the Pain Sets In

Everything is done -- except living on.

Only once did I forget, that day coming home from arranging your funeral, when I stopped for gas and reached for the cell phone to call and tell you that I was on my way. That is the only rime that I have forgotten you are no longer here.

I haven't turned to look at your chair and tell you about the silliness of the news story. I haven't made your morning coffee and tried to bring it to you. I haven't wondered if I could get you to sip some soup today.
I know you are not here.
I know you will never be here.

But I have been working for you, busy for you.
And now it is done, save one task; which has to wait.

And in the long dreary days; through the long dark nights; you are NOT and you never will be again, and it hurts.
It hurts, Rex.
A real aching agonizing physical hurt that is bored into my bones and oozes from my pores.

When I wake early and you haven't taken your medicine.
When I go to the store and it no longer matters what you might like, or eat.
When it's time to come home from the library or the gas station , and there is no one to call and say I'm coming home.
When I come home, and there's no one waiting and watching for my return.
When I sit alone in your front room.
When I close the door and turn out the lights to that same room.
When I go to bed and know that tomorrow will be yet another day of No you.
It hurts.

In a way, I am glad to feel the pain. It should hurt when going-on-thirty years isn't going to make it.
It should hurt when someone isn't there and never will be again.
It should hurt when no one loves you like that Other Person did.

I was getting worried that it wasn't hurting. I was wondering if I truly loved you the way I thought I did. I was wondering if you were a habit. Or something less complete and less important.

Now I know.
I did love you.
I DO love you.
There may be habit in the way we were together, but it was the doing that was the habit; not you.

Never you.

So, the pain begins.
It will dull, or I will get used to it.
It will change, because life's about changes.
But it will never go away.

Some things have to hurt -- surgery to cure is better than peritonitis; childbirth.
Some things have to hurt, and some things just do hurt.


I miss you so.