I often contemplated, while my wife was sick, what my life was going to be like after she was gone. As I write this, it’s the first week after her funeral. The pain and grief are still as bad as ever, but there does seem to be an uneasy realization taking place. Maybe the week before, with all of the things going on, was just too busy to really grieve. Maybe I just finally got the finality of it all through my thick head. Today, the house seems so quiet, and I find myself walking around it—touching things of hers I never paid much attention to before. So many questions come to mind. What do I do with all of the sympathy cards once I’ve answered them? Is it all right to throw them away? What about her jewelry, her clothes, the bath salts by the bathtub and that little bottle of perfume on her dresser? There’s a bottle of red fingernail polish on the bathroom vanity, and a half-finished crossword puzzle on her nightstand. I can’t stand to open the drawers in her dresser, even though I know what’s in there. Her purse, she kept so private, now invites me to look in it—but I put it on the top shelf of the closet out of sight. It must remain private for now. Our dog paces around the house, so confused and sad, looking for her.
I have, on my dining room wall, a picture called “Peace.” Many of you have seen it over the years. You know the one—the old man praying over his meager meal of soup and bread. When she was alive, I interpreted it as a humble old man who had little to eat, but was still thanking God for it. Today, it has a whole new meaning for me, because I now sense his loneliness, more than what I had perceived then, as his destitute state. He’s alone in the picture and now, as I sit down to eat, so am I. We always talked at suppertime while we ate. We always thought that was so important. The television was off and it was just the two of us. A time set aside to share our meal, yes—but more important, a time set aside to share our thoughts and concerns.
The empty nest syndrome seems to come at you in stages. First, it’s the kids moving out one by one. The house, that was once almost chaotic, had a strange quietness about it back then. Yet you still had each other, and so you reverted back to the way it was before the babies came. Now, with her gone, you want to think you could just revert back to where it was before she came into your life—but your mind and your memories won’t let that happen. It seems almost sacrilegious to think of doing that. She means too much, even in death, to just wish away those reminisces and start anew. This is a painful process, but a necessary one, and I can’t try to rush it. Maybe I’ll never get over it, but that’s okay, I need to learn to coexist with it.
I used to have a small picture of her on my desk, but I seldom looked at it. I didn’t have to, she was right across the room from me and all I had to do was turn around. I now have an eight by ten of her on the desktop and today, for the first time, I talked to it and asked her how she was and told her how sad I was. It helped me to talk to her. “But if the while I think of you, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.” Shakespeare, I believe.
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