Between Octobers

October 5th

October 5th

I sort of always assumed a person would know death was coming. They’d have some sort of inkling, like a gut feeling, or a sense of finality when they said goodbye the last time they left home. Like in the movies, when the creepy score starts to play, you know something bad is about to happen. But in real life, there’s no foreboding music.  

I visualized that accident a thousand times. Dreamt about it. Solomon couldn’t have heard screeching tires; no one used their brakes. He couldn’t have seen it coming; the fog was too thick.

Loss: it’s too simple a word. Only four letters. Three alphabetic representations for such a broad term. The light tense, the singular syllable, they do it no justice. How can anyone understand what it means? Every letter of the alphabet should be used. Its implications touched every part of my life, so it makes sense that the word itself should carry every letter.

My life, for the last eleven months and three weeks, could be summed up in two words. Simple phrases: still breathing, keeping up, getting by. Holding on. I was barely holding on. To daily chores that didn’t get done unless I did them. Everything since the day Solomon died had been routine. I’d inhale to exhale and repeat. Eat, sleep, and breathe. Cooked to wash dishes. Got dirty to shower. Changed to wash clothes. It was all I could manage most days: inhale, exhale, repeat.

I know I should’ve been . . . not over it, but dealing well enough to put his clothes away. I couldn’t seem to let go of that part of my life. I was never sure if it was because I was holding onto it or if it was holding onto me.

There, in my big empty bed, inside my sleeping house, I took a deep breath and held it, straining to picture myself packing his things. Touching this shirt and that hat . . . I would have to remember where we were when he got them. I’d feel the stabbing pain, imagining the beautiful words he spoke when he wore them.

Aunt Rose said that God never gives us more than we’re able to handle. Solomon used to say that God may squeeze, but He doesn’t choke. Doctor Elena Williams, the grief counselor recommended to me by the pastor of the church I didn’t attend anymore, suggested I clean out the closet. She said by avoiding Sol’s things I was tying myself to his memory in an unhealthy way; and if I didn’t stop, it might affect our children. She called it pivoting—the illusion of movement while bound in one place. I didn’t quite agree with her analysis, but I knew something had to change. And come hell or high water, I had to wade through.

Words for tomorrow: new leaf, start moving.