Just in case Part 2

The depth of their fury surprised me.

Their tears and the anger and harsh words was quite literally shocking.

They felt betrayed they said...BETRAYED!!

How could you?! they asked. We told you NOT TO she yelled.

That is our personal private stuff and you let them go through it!

You gave no thought to our feelings and you did it anyway!!!

My daughter was visibly shaking with rage.

"I didn't do it to be mean" I said. I explained my Mountain analogy to her.

You had no right, It's my house, I can't trust you anymore,  were phrases tossed about.

Both of the kids were accusatory and hurt beyond fixing.

She was unable to talk to me for days and she didn't quite agree with me on the mountain thing. 

My son was just as mad going so far as to threaten me "Don't touch our closets" or there will be repercussions. I lied to him and told him that his closet had already been done.

The next week I had them clean out his closet.

When he found out I lied he wanted to know the reason why, saying I must have had a very profound reason for lying to him.

I didn't have a profound reason. I didn't even have a really good reason; only that I wanted the closets cleaned out, that I wanted to keep moving forward, that the heaviness was being removed from the house and I knew if we stopped it would never get finished.

In my own defense these women are not throwing anything out. They are simply organizing it into piles so the piles are easier to sort through, to know what to keep, what to throw out, donate, etc.

"How can you want to have all of these piles of boxes in the sitting room?" they asked.

That's the sorting room I told them. I think it will be fun to sort through these boxes together, you know? Kind of like reliving your childhood years and reminiscing.

"Why would I want to do that?" she replied.  I was speechless.

She and her husband took as many boxes as they could fit in to their car and left, both of them angry.

My son got angry that his papers had been gone through and that I had cleaned out his closet when he had expressly told me not to. 

Nothing was thrown away, only sorted I said again. And they didn't go through your papers.

Again he threatened me..."Don't touch Maddie's closet or dad's gun safe. You are gonna cause damage that can't be repaired."

The following week my daughter came and emptied her own closets. When I asked her if there was anything left she told me only prom dresses that she didn't want.

And here is the next story...

The ladies came back to finish up cleaning her room the next day.

Part of the ceiling had also collapsed in her closet and the prom dresses and my wedding dress were covered in dirt, When the ladies asked me to go through and see if there was anything I wanted to save before they finished, I saved 3 items.

A small pair of Lederhosen, a toddler sized traditional German dress and a purple dress that my other daughter had seen and wanted.

The rest could go, including the old prom dresses and my wedding dress.

My son was surprised that I would get rid of my wedding dress.

"Really Ma?! Your wedding dress?"

I'm never going to wear it again, nor would it fit me. His sisters are already married so they don't need it. It wasn't put away correctly 40 years ago, it was dirty and probably damaged beyond repair.

So off to the local donation store it all went. I had no second thoughts. I was relieved.

Until my other daughter saw the empty closet and asked where the peach prom dress was.

Gone I told her.   "BUT I wanted that one" she said.

Well shit.

I've been to that donation store every day for the last 3 days and the dress is not there. They were given a description of the dress and the day and time that it was dropped off but still no sighting.

I feel heart sick. Somehow I have ended up hurting all 3 of my grown children.

I wish I had never started this whole project.

All 3 of the kids are upset, heartbroken, betrayed.

Something irreparable has been damaged and I caused it.

I feel guilty. I'm sorry. And I am sorry that I ever touched their things.

*********************

I got a text from my son yesterday. 

He will be coming over next week Sunday to take his boxes and his dad's gun safe so "I no longer have to worry about those things."

*********************

I wish that they could understand that I never meant it to be painful. I never meant for it to feel like a betrayal.

I saw a huge mountain of stuff that needed to be moved. I felt that mountain resting heavily on my shoulders, and the weight was causing me more grief. 

I only wanted to move the mountain. I was worried about the size of that mountain while my kids were worried about what that mountain was made of and who saw it.

I am not sure where to go from here. I feel a tenseness from them all.  Like a door has been opened that shouldn't have been opened and now cannot be closed.

****************

The ladies wanted to start on my kitchen cabinets today and I told them not to come. I told them I needed some time. Plus the sorting room is still full of boxes that my kids have not gone through in the 4 weeks since this all started.  Sorta feels like a punishment if I'm honest.  You're ok with these boxes being left in this room? Fine. We will let them sit there then. They didn't say that but that is how it now feels. 

I miss my husband, I miss my old life, I miss the camaraderie I used to have with my children.

I miss the joy I imagined I would have sitting in my little nook staring out the windows at the trees.

Just in case you needed to know...

Grief is a long, lonely journey.

Make your changes gradually.

Love, Lolly

Just in case Part 1

 

I've hired two women to help me shovel out the Hoarders Nest that I call home.

Art saved SO MUCH SHIT!

Cardboard boxes from small appliances..."Just in case"

Old medicine...again..."Just in case"

Shoes he never wore or hated or that pinched

Miscellaneous keys, screws, hardware bits and bobs

The last two feet of unused vinyl flooring.

Upstairs in the kids rooms was worse.

They have all moved out and moved on but the second level of this house 

has remained their dumping ground and storage facility.

Art was a major contributor to this mess also.

He kept his hunting and camping gear in there along with TVs that no longer worked, old computers, and other things he had no place for in the rest of the house. 

If he didn't know what to do with it, it went upstairs.

Eventually the upstairs became unusable, with both bedrooms packed with crap.

All of the kids college boxes were up there unused and unopened since they came home.

Old college notebooks, textbooks, dorm room stuff, stereos from the 80's.

My wedding dress, the girls old Prom and Homecoming dresses hung in the closet too.

Parts of the ceiling in this 120 year old bedroom had started to come down.

Plaster and Lath and fermiculite rained down on any one who dared open the door and go in.

It was like this before Art got cancer. Before he got ill him and I both wanted to clean out the upstairs and turn one bedroom into a guest room for the grandkids sleepovers.

The second bedroom would become my little nest, my little holy place, my nook...

A place for me to light my candles, to read, to write poetry, to stare out the window at the trees.

To me it was/is/has the best view in the entire house and I've coveted this room for years.

But the thought of actually cleaning it always overwhelmed us too. It was a  mountain of stuff.

We'd close the door and say "We'll do it another day."

*********

I waited six months after Art died before I touched any of it. 

One day I went upstairs, opened the bedroom door and the sight that greeted me was no different than the sight that had greeted me for 10 years or more. Only this time I felt like I had had enough.

I was sick of the mess. I wanted to shovel out these rooms. I was living in a house full of trash.

It felt like I was suffocating under the weight of the stuff left upstairs. 

I couldn't breathe and I wanted this shit gone. 

I was the one living here, by myself, left with the trash, the memories and the grief.

I told the kids that I was going to hire these woman to help clean and sort the mess.

And the kids balked. Don't do it they said. We will do it. We are busy, give us time to do it.

Now before ya'll think I am as cruel as my kids now think I am-

They have been saying that they would "get to it" for years now but it never got done.

They all have lives, kids, jobs, houses of their own. There was never time to do it.

Sumertime it was way too hot upstairs. Spring, Summer and Fall raced by and before we knew it another year had gone by and it never got done.

So.

I called a friend of mine who is an interior designer to come over and give it a looksee. 

That's when she told me that she and her mother-in-law also did hoarders nest cleaning.

It felt like an answer to my problem especially when she told me they would do it for free. 

No charge for their services because I was her friend. I only had to pay for the new bedroom ceiling to be put in and for any knew furniture that I chose.

When my kids found out they were embarrassed that I would show a complete stranger the size of the trash mountain that was housed upstairs.

I told them that it was being done for free and that I trusted these women. I told them that nothing was being thrown away, only sorted into piles or boxes to be gone through at a later date, that it would all be organized and much easier to sort once the mountain was removed from the rooms.

We chose the sitting room on the first level as the sorting room because nobody ever used that room.

It was going along nicely, the boxes were coming downstairs, the trash was being thrown out, I could see progress being made. They worked for 10 hours that first day. And the difference I felt and saw was amazing. It felt like a weight was being lifted off of my shoulders. I was thrilled.

And then the kids found out. And all hell broke loose.

Was that You?

 

Yesterday I sat on the front step at dusk letting the gloaming surround me.

I let myself just sit there, unmoving, staring off into space.

I felt the breeze caress my face which made me come out of my reverie and look up.

The leaves in the new tree out front were fluttering and the branches were swaying.

For a moment I felt like that tree was trying to tell me something.

So I listened, very intently, for a few more minutes as those tree branches swayed

and those leaves ruffled and twirled.

No message came to me or filled my mind. 

But I did wonder....Was that you?

Then I watched as a  Hummingbird flew from flower to flower in the garden.

It was so immersed in its work that it didn't notice I was sitting there.

When it finished gathering nectar on the last bloom it directly flew towards me.

It stopped at the last second and hovered in front of my face for long seconds,

Staring at me as I stared back at it.

Again, no message came through but I wondered...Was that You?

On one of my evening walks around the block with the dog 

I glanced up and saw a wispy cloud in the form of an angel.

While the dog did her business my eyes stayed focused on that cloud

Because it's not often one sees an angel shaped cloud.

I even took a picture but it didn't look the same on my IPhone as it did in person.

Yet again I did wonder.....Was that You?

On that same walk, as the sun was setting, a stray sunbeam peered through the trees and caught me in the eye making it water at the intensity and the brightness.

As I stopped and blinked for a moment to clear the tear from my eye, I realized 

that I was at the corner of Maple and Ash...the corner where I always cry.

Were You that light beam seeking me out on that street corner??  Was that You? 

The other night as I was waiting for sleep I could have sworn I heard someone say  "Hello?" 

The house was dark, the dog didn't even bark but still I wondered...Was that You?

Once I woke in the middle of the night and felt for sure that you were lying next to me.

It ended up being the cat but it felt so real at the time...Was that You??

Driving to my chiropractor appointment a truck passed me at the stop sign.

I did a double, triple take. Because the man driving that truck was the spitting image of you.

WAS that You???

Was THAT You??

Was that YOU?

Was it?

The journey through grief is ongoing.

I am surviving.

Love, Lolly

What smell reminds you of them?

He always smelled like heaven to me.

It's one of the first things I noticed about him.

Not once in the 41 years that I knew him did I ever think

Geez! You need a shower pal.

Fresh off of a fire call when he was sweating and covered in soot

I'd smell the smoke in his hair and the pheromones coming off of his body

 and it would bring me to my knees in lust. I could smell him for hours.

It's one of the things that I miss most about his absence...his smell is gone.

Below are the things that remind me the most of his very essence, his presence.

Brut Cologne

Old Spice deodorant Sport scent

BBQ Ribs

Charcoal grills

Snowmobile exhaust

Firefighter turnout gear

Leather

Coffee

The new smell of the camper

Tires

Bonfires

Hot asphalt on a summer day

Clean sheets

Lake Water

The scent of snow

Garlic mustard weeds

Pine Tree Groves

A field of strawberries

Cherry Bombs

Smoke.

I miss the smell of him. I miss the hell out of him.

What smell reminds you of your person?

Lolly

:(

It's 10pm on a Sunday night and I need someone to talk to.

I'm so damn sad and lonely.

I checked Google for grief counseling in my area and it only made me cry harder.

Listen to me.

I am not suicidal. I am sad.

I miss my husband. 

I miss having him to talk to.

I don't like being alone.

It's been 5 months since I've seen him.

And at this moment I don't know how to go on.

A conversation with you in my head

I don't believe you are in heaven looking down on me.

I don't believe that you are watching out for me nor do I believe 

that you are a red cardinal at the feeder or a butterfly in the garden.

Your absence is heavier than I ever thought it would be.

I so badly want to lay eyes on you again. I want to kiss you and hold hands.

I want to smell you and feel you scooch close to me as we sleep together.

I want to ride our Harley on a sunny day with your hand resting on my thigh.

I want to walk the dog around the block without crying at the corner of Maple and Ash because for some odd reason that is where I miss you the most.....on a street corner.

I went grocery shopping and saw all of your favorite things you liked to eat on the shelves and I froze in the aisle deciding if I wanted to buy them anyway.

Our boy drives your truck now, that huge ginormous Ford F-250.

For a split second me and the dog both forget as it pulls in the driveway who is actually driving it.

We are getting ready to sell the boats and I realized that I will never get to sit in the middle of the lake with you and watch you fish anymore.

I can still smell that water and I remember how I always told you that it felt like silk as I dragged my hands through the water as you trolled around the west end searching for "Walter" the big Pike.

I've cried a lot as I wrote this and I'm tired now so I'm gonna go take a nap.

Love you Hon.

Things I have discovered about grief

I'm gonna grow old without him. I'm sad that we won't get to see each other get old and gray.

I've forgotten where and why and how to find gratitude. And at the moment I don't care.

I no longer find joy in reading, in fact I can't concentrate long enough to even begin a book.

I need to sell the RV.  It was our dream to travel together after retirement-

I am not going by myself.

I hate all of the clutter we've accumulated over the years and I want it gone...

all of it.

He has hidden cash all over this house. I keep finding wads of it everywhere. WTH?  Bless him.

I read somewhere that widowhood year two is worse than year one and I cannot imagine how.

Jesus doesn't answer prayer, even when you beg. I knew this 36 years ago but overtime I forgot.

Loneliness can feel physically painful and there is no medicine for this type of pain.

It's hard learning how to grocery shop and cook for just one. 

It's ok to sleep in on a day when you don't have anything to do.

Sleeping too much and not enough are both exhausting in their own way.

I was surprised at how quickly the rest of the world moved on without him.

Most people have no idea how acutely painful grief is. And there is no way to explain it to them.

Grief is lonely and lonesome and makes you feel alone.

I hate it with every fiber of my being.

Lolly