Grief

 My husband was a very private man, and he did not want me to blog our grief as he died of lung cancer. And so I stopped writing on my blog post just before we found out that the immunotherapy trial in which he was participating had not kept the cancer from spreading. Tom was admitted to MD Anderson Cancer Center hospital with a blocked colon, and he was in and out of hospital from April to the end of May, dealing with serious issues associated with a blocked colon. During that time, I learned to change sterile dressings and took copious notes and asked lots of questions of medical personnel. I was his advocate. 

These were difficult months as Tom was discharged from MD Anderson Cancer Center with the prediction that he would live only weeks. He lived five months beyond that prediction.

And now I am alone, a widow, and the months and years of managing my grief have taught me how lonely grief is. I have moved beyond being "a woman of a certain age" (as Barbara Pym, the English novelist would describe it), into my sixties, alone with two cats in a home to which I moved perhaps too soon across the country....in the middle of a pandemic.

How are people coping with grief during a pandemic when social isolation is paramount to prevent the spread of disease? Are they like me, every day getting up to feed the cats and then to scroll for an hour through Twitter for all the latest posts from journalists and political junkies that I follow? Do they then get out of bed, dress for the day, make the bed, and prepare breakfast, sometimes a bowl of Greek yogurt with two teaspoons of the last apple butter that Tom canned from our apple trees in Arizona and perhaps some walnuts or banana? Do they then mentally review the list of things that must be done and choose one or two to be sure to complete? Another day, another check on a list that doesn't seem to get shorter?

Do they find themselves at times wondering if anyone would really miss them if they were gone? 

It's difficult to find a purpose in this grief that grapples not only with losing a lifetime partner and friend but also with losing a father (my dad died in January of this year)--and all in the middle of an isolating pandemic. In the last few months I have tried to capture that grief in words, and one morning I woke up with a phrase running over and over in my head. Later I sat down to write this poem in which I finally capture the best I can the grief I am experiencing from Tom's death.

TODAY I WILL

Today I will arise late

from a bed barely warm with slumber

and count the pills for the morning and evening ritual,

the metered medicine snug in its cages of plastic, 

with lids that snap with precision,

the sound of responsibility, of safety,

of nothing as soft as hope

but rather a hard steely defiance of death.

Today I will unload the dishwasher

and stack in it last night's remains,

the wine glass with its round red stain,

the skillet with its crusty ring of a listless meal.

I will dole out to the cats their own portion

and turn on the kettle for tea and caffeine.

I will wipe cat puke from the crumpled quilt

and vacuum the cat hair on the sofa.

Today I will pour my tea and sit in the sun,

listening to the angry wren scolding at the suet feeder,

warning me away so she can peck in peace.

I will identify familiar songs of birds waking up to spring,

the downy woodpecker, the titmouse, the brown-headed nuthatch

waiting out my presence for their turn at the feeder.

If I sit still and silent long enough,

they will fly from the trees and nervously approach.

Today I will remember to be kind

to those who suggest courage and gratitude

for this day with its promise of spring and renewal,

for the flight of birds and the musical chimes in the breeze.

Today, as every day, I will see stretching ahead

the flickering mirages of weeks that recede

into a future that still, still, forever still,

remains without you.

Anita Dugat-Greene 2021