A Painful Return to Your Second Home, 807
A Painful Return to Your Second Home, 807
I’m in blinding, walls-close-in,
Fetal-position pain.
Haven’t felt this since the first months.
There’s so much here to grieve,
To touch again,
To sit with, to move through and process.
Her entire life left fingerprints,
A residue here.
She’s part of the decor, the structure, the lore of this place.
Her memory screams at me,
Her ghost feels omnipresent.
As I sit on the balcony and feel the wind,
Hear the waves crash,
See the gulls soar,
I feel her,
I hear her,
I see her.
I hear her laugh in the condo
and out on the beach,
peels of joy playing with the boys, with me.
I see her swimming in the ocean
And lounging by the pool.
I blink and
She’s a little girl frolicking in tide pools, playing with her siblings.
I span the deck and
She’s a teenager reading by the pool.
I gaze into the condo and
She’s a college student talking with friends.
I peer down the beach and
She’s my new bride dreaming about a life together.
I glance toward the bedroom and
She’s crying through years of unexplained infertility.
I walk in the bathroom and
She’s joining her tears to mine, celebrating what would be our first viable pregnancy.
I sit at the kitchen table and
She’s expectant and filled with wonder as we share a weekend with friends.
I look down from the balcony and
She’s holding a baby in the pool and cheering on another son learning to swim.
I see the low tide beach and
She’s kicking a ball and creating a maze for the boys to decipher.
I turn from the fridge and
She’s smiling, making pancakes for all of us.
I settle on the sofa and
She’s eating homemade brownies and ice cream while laughing through a late night movie.
I sit on the porch and
She’s here fighting to process a terminal diagnosis.
I observe the boys playing on the floor and
She’s playing with laser intentionality and soaking up all the days have to offer.
I sit at the counter and
She’s here bald, weak, but happy.
She’s everywhere today,
She haunts me today.
I miss her terribly tonight.
I ache,
I hurt,
I viscerally shake,
And can’t breathe again.
The walls close in.
Pain steals my presence tonight,
I sink inward in terror.
Under the responsibility of caring for the boys this weekend, I feel fragile
And that I might crack again
Like I did in Orlando back in March.
I succumb to the pain.
I feel the squeeze in my chest,
The breathlessness in my gut,
The blurring of the eyes,
The contorting of my body,
The pressure between the temples,
The dizziness in my head.
I wear the grief again.
I despise this garment.
I hate this feeling,
It robs me of function.
Grief, absence, and loss scramble all sensibility.
I want to escape but I can’t.
Responsibility stays me
And constrains me to deal.
But the pain sits on me,
And I struggle to breathe.
I feel so opened up, so laid bare, so vulnerable.
Security is gone,
The comfort and safety is gone.
It’s just me again with this grim visitor, this thief of joy and personhood.
The demon returns and
It’s just the broken me again tonight.
And I hate it.
So I cry out to God, beg him to be my comfort yet again,
To be my Physician.
I wait on the Lord.
And I must work through this,
Through the pain.
This is the necessary work
To be opened up again that I may know more healing,
More of God’s balm,
More of God’s comfort.
This is the necessary work
That I must learn again to live where she lived,
To live without her,
To live as me.
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
Please give comfort yet again, Lord Jesus.
(July 7, 2023 (day 206). I brought the boys down to Ormond Beach, Florida, to the condo Lindsey spent the entirety of her life coming to every summer. The family simply refers to it as, “807,” the unit number. Aside from the kids’ preschool, nothing reminds me more of Lindsey than this place. I had no idea what to expect when heading down here last night. Honestly, I thought I’d be fine to be here as I’ve experienced and felt such little heaviness for months now. I thought most of the work would be rational and more of an intellectual exercise to process the memories, expecting some sadness and grief but not enough to take me to the mat. The realization that the wave was coming hit me gradually today as I worked remotely from the unit. I was here alone for most of the day. Late afternoon I realized I needed to get out and went for a long run, hoping it would help me process and deal with what I was starting to feel, to deal like my many long walks and runs have done for me in 2023. But, the wave kept coming and many more followed. By the time the evening came around, I started feeling the visceral and sympathetic response in my body and began to fear for the worst as it’s just me with the boys here this weekend. We were driving to dinner when I realized I needed to get this out and put this musing down on a note. So, while waiting for our table, in the bathroom, and during meal time, this flowed. And it was finished back at the condo after I gave the boys ice cream, got them ready for bed, and let them watch something. For my sanity, I needed to get this out and organized in some form. I know it’s raw and choppy but it’s truly a musing on grief. I hope to be able to sleep tonight as I do feel fragile and fear the return of the grief demons that haunted me many a sleepless and dark night back in January and February.
For the last few months, I’ve known an elasticity and resilience when I’ve had moments of sadness and grief. But, this weight tonight feels different, it feels heavier. And I think I have to sit with it, and through it. Like the musing posits, this is the necessary work, to work through the acute pain of loss and I think I have to do that tonight and this week and do it specifically here. This is the last physical place I can think of where Lindsey lived a lot of life that I’ve yet to visit, to spend time in and process. And, I think, like the musing says, I need to again learn to live where she lived, to live without her, to live as me. These pathways of grief are no fun, they’re hard and exhausting work).
