dealing with loss

#9

Lisa Lienemann grief Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday turned out to be such a hard day and a harbinger of hard days to come. And I wanted to hide from the world. Crumble. Go back to bed and pull the covers over my head and pretend I could make all the hatefulness in my email box go away. But, it just isn’t in my nature to lie down and give up. To not deal. And sometimes I hate that about myself.

I don’t know what you’re thinking about all of this. I want to talk to you about it so much it physically hurts to not be able to. I just know that we are so different in how we approach things like this. And I know how you would want it handled with your kids. But I don’t know if I can be the person you were… I don’t know if I can turn the other cheek. To let her walk all over me. To treat me so abominably in the worst moment of my life and get away with it.

So, I’m just here to say that I’m trying to find my way. To honor you and your memory. To do what’s right by your kids and still somehow hold in tact my own sanity and self-respect. Please help me, honey.  I need you here to help me with this…which is so irrational because if you were here I wouldn’t be dealing with it.

I miss you

Luce

#8

Lisa Lienemann grief Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I moved out of the rental in Maryland yesterday. Packed up the car, the dog, and the huge peace lily your Aunt Jane gave me along with all the other detritus from my life up there and started the long, slow, journey back to the lake.

I’ve never dreaded coming home like I do. Maybe it’s not dread, really. It’s a feeling I don’t think there’s a word for. A simultaneous feeling of wanting to go but not wanting to get there. An irresistible pull toward this place while feeling the knot in my stomach about my arrival. And it was every bit a hollow and lonely as I expected. The loneliness is physically painful and ever present.

When I finally crawled into bed, bone-tired from all the work of moving out and cleaning today, I hugged your pillow and breathed you in. Your essence still here but your you so frustratingly and unbearably far away and unreachable.

I miss you

Luce

#5

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I’m trying to put your things away – some of the things I washed yesterday- so I’m emptying out your dresser, so I can put my things in there. We never had enough closet space in this house, but we never had all our clothes here so it didn’t matter much. But now I’ve brought most of my stuff from the place in MD, and I have your side of the bed full of clothes that need put away.

I knew if I started touching your things- folding them, placing them in piles, it would make it feel more real. I was right. I know I need to do it and to feel it, but it hurts so much. I pulled out the outfit you wore at our beach wedding and just laid my head down on the pile of your clothes and cried.

I’m just going to put the piles on the shelves in the downstairs closet for now. I’ll let Ryan and Grace go through them to see if they want anything. But then what? What do people do with their spouse’s old underwear??? I had to laugh when I pulled out that one pair… you had them the entire time I knew you… just couldn’t bear to part with them, I guess.

I realized this morning that our first date was on December 13th, 2008 and you died on May 13th, 2017. Exactly 8 1/2 years together. So does that make the 13th lucky or unlucky? I’m not sure. I just know…

I miss you

Luce

#4

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I’m sitting here next to a pile of your clean laundry, neatly folded, and no longer smelling like you. The knots are in my stomach again- feels like all the time, really. I just feel lost, sidelined, and apart from the world. Not quite in it and not quite out of it. All things being equal, I’d rather be with you in either place, but just together. It takes a lot of energy to be here without you.

It’s an absolutely stunning day on the lake- hot & sunny. And all I could think was how we’d have been out there early. Stocked up with w/a Yeti full of ice and cocktails, beers, and snacks with a plan for swimming up the dog and getting him back to the house if it got too hot for him. You’d pack the drinks, and I’d go behind you and add more because I never felt like you packed enough. We’d make a plan to meet up with our Lake Friends after they did their yard work and household chores- things we’d left undone. We’d have a whole day on the lake to ourselves before we met up with anyone and I always liked that. How we knew to focus on the fun first and get the living in- chores will always be there, but we took advantage of the sun and smooth waters when they presented themselves. I’m glad for that. Thank you.

I’m trying to stay focused on the things I know need to be done, but it’s hard. I need to call the credit card companies and tell them you’re dead. I need to find the marriage certificate so I can process the life insurance policy. I need to clean off your side of the bed- since I just keep adding clean laundry to it. I keep to my side at night and wake up wishing your leg would come over and touch mine as you stretch out. But it doesn’t. Never will again.

I miss you

Luce

#3

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I came back to the lake house today. I had knots in my stomach the whole way. I came back because I had to, but knew it would make it harder. And it did. Work left your golf clubs and lunch box on the front porch. That didn’t help much. Thinking about you telling me about the last time you got to use those clubs- with your new boss who took you to the fancy country club in Richmond where, for the first time in your life, you had a caddy. It was fun hearing you tell me about how you were ahead in the first 9 and what it was like to have a caddy. I remember thinking that you were one of those people who was so good at adapting to any situation. You made everyone believe you were in your element even when you weren’t. That caddy probably thought you had golfed with a caddy a thousand times. I’m sure Ryan will want your clubs- at least I hope so.

The house felt so empty without you. No hug. No kiss. No call ten minutes out to ask what I wanted to drink when I got here. No slumping on the couch to watch an episode of Scandal or House Hunters International. Just the nearly dead flowers you got me for Mother’s Day the day you died still sitting in the vase where I left them. And my unsigned Mother’s Day and birthday cards sitting on the counter. So many missing things replaced by one massive feeling of loneliness. Joylessness. I feel like white noise. Like blank space. An animate void- walking, talking, going through the motions of life without really feeling anything.

I don’t want to go downstairs. That image of you lying there lifeless. Not you anymore. Not us. Of taking off your ring and your hand slowly falling down by your side, so much like you were alive that I suddenly asked you if you could just wake up. I watched and waited, hoping insanely that you might take a big cleansing gasp and say it was all a mistake and you were ok.

But you didn’t. And tomorrow I have to start to deal with it for real. Until now, it’s been a holding pattern, but now I’m here. In our house, that’s now my house. And I have to take the first tiny step to making it real that you’re not here.

I miss you

Luce