The lightbulb in one of the two lamps in the bedroom has burnt out, I just discovered. It's a CFL. I've never even seen a CFL burn out before. Does the universe think this is funny?
I got more papers out of the basement today and went through them - fairly damp, most of them, so it's a good thing I've got those dehumidifiers going. I also found a silver necklace that had belonged to a great aunt - I was absolutely convinced I'd lost it / it had been stolen out of a hotel room in Alabama years and years ago. It was in a little ring box in a carton in the basement, for some reason, separate from my other jewelry. I immediately wanted to tell Jerry about finding it. Of course. I know some people actually do talk to those they love after they're dead - but I guess those people have some sense, belief or feeling that their loved ones are still around in some way or other, in some form or other. I wish I believed that. I keep thinking of those lines of Heathcliff's, which I just googled again to get them right: "Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad, only DO not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!... I CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!" I would have to add, myself, I cannot make myself believe what I don't believe. But I wish I could. I want so much to think that Jerry is still here - I know he's not, I know he's dead, but I wish I believed in spirits, in ghosts, in souls that stayed connected to the people they left behind. I wish I was one of those people on the bulletin boards who think psychics aren't cynical frauds and are actually delivering messages from their dead husbands, I wish I was someone who thought a dream about a dead husband was a message from him, I wish I was someone who thought that all I had to do was live out my life and then die, and I'd be reunited with Jerry and be with him forever. And that in the meantime he's somehow still here, watching over me, taking care of me, loving me.
But I don't, and I can't. I can't make myself believe what I don't believe. I don't feel his presence at all, I don't think he's sending me messages, I don't feel like, as long as people remember him, he "hasn't really died." Because he has. I was there. I saw it.
Prove me wrong, universe. Make a fool of me, show me how wrong I've been. Please. Give him back to me.
My apologies if I confused you in an earlier comment. I could try to translate what I meant into language that doesn't bring up psychics, and whatever it is they do, in your mind, but I suspect that you will probably be better off anyway listening to what's inside of you, rather than listening to my external attempts to explain my own perceptions in language that makes sense to me. I would rather communicate my general encouragement: I admire your strength and appreciate your letting people listen in on your experience of grieving -- it has helped me.
ReplyDeleteAni, I'm not sure which earlier comment you're referring to - this last post was a reaction to things I've been reading on a bulletin board on another website. I'm grateful for your comments and always happy to see them.
ReplyDeleteI'm a firm non-believer in signs and psychics and other such bullsh*t. I'm so stubborn about it, that it would probably take a 2x4 between the eyes to convince me otherwise -- and I'd probably just say, "Oh, look! I found a 2x4!"
ReplyDeleteI do believe in God and the teachings of my church, but still ... he's dead dammit. And believing in being somehow reunited in the hereafter doesn't help much with the overarching aching empty loneliness in the here-and-now.
May you draw comfort from the knowledge of Love, that you loved and were loved by a man of integrity and honor.
-- Wishing you a measure of peace
I was thinking back to my first comment to your blog, a comment to "First Day on My Own" from June 17th. But I am glad to have been mistaken. As one of Gilda Radner's characters on SNL used to say, "Never mind." Thanks.
ReplyDelete