Numb, then not numb, then numb

I was listening to a podcast of a Fresh Air interview with Dr. Atul Gawande today - his article on end of life care and hospice in this week's New Yorker has gotten some attention on a widow bulletin board I visit - and when he got to this -

And what's sort of terrifying about it is that these were people who came into the hospital thinking that, well, maybe we'd be able to get through this, and yes, I think I could get home this time. And then the care escalated to the point that they never got to say goodbye or I love you or I'm sorry, and, you know, they've got their husband or wife or other family sitting with them, and they will pass on from this world without ever having realized that, you know what? This was the moment. This was it. And is this way you'd really want it to have happened?

- I lost it.  I'd been feeling mostly numb for a while, but this, plus a comment someone had made on the bulletin board about her husband unable to eat anything at the end of his life but sherbet and ginger ale, gave me flashbacks to Jerry's last day in the hospital, and to that time in general, and all that my honey suffered, and God, it's so hard, it was hard then and it's so hard now, remembering, and I feel so angry and helpless that there was nothing I could do to make him feel better, nothing I could do to make it all go away and make him whole again, nothing I could do just to get them to stop giving him drugs that made him so totally not himself, not until it was too late.  Nothing I could do to save him.  I don't suppose anyone deserves what he went through, but Jerry especially didn't - no one in the world had a better heart than he did, I've never met anyone kinder, I never had much conviction that this world is a good place, but with Jerry in it I knew it was all worth it - but a world in which Jerry could suffer the way he did, a world that now doesn't have him in it, is not a world I have any use for.  And yet, there's the title of this blog to mock at me - the world ended, but it didn't, and I'm still slogging through it, but why?

It's hard enough just missing him every moment of every day that I'm awake, but on top of that to be remembering what he went through - it's doing very bad things to what feels like a huge gaping cavity in my chest.  I just want those bad memories to recede, let me remember better times.  It won't stop me missing him, but maybe it'll stop me wanting to spend my time curled into a fetal position, howling.

Anyway.

Went to drop off the Corolla and pick up the Sienna after work today, and of course they were behind schedule, so I waited a while, finally got the car, got in, went to lock the doors (force of habit - first thing I do when I get in a car is lock the doors - safety thing, I guess) and discovered the lock button didn't work.  So back I went into the dealership, and they had someone immediately fix it (something was loose inside a door panel they'd opened to work on the window motor).  Fingers crossed it's now good to go for the foreseeable future.

I had a letter today from the Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association (thanks, Jeannette) listing a number of people who've donated to the Association in Jerry's memory - thank you, guys.  I've had a few notifications from the other charities I listed back in June about donations there as well, plus I think some have gone without notification - thank you all - I appreciate it.

I may have run out of Sacred Harp DVDs to rip footage of Jerry from - the rest of the recordings I have are on VCR tapes, so for now I won't be able to upload from them.  One year I got Jerry equipment for recording video from VCR tapes onto DVDs, but he never really had time to play with it, and it requires a PC - and, as I've mentioned, Jerry's PC doesn't want to go on these days.  Someday I'll work on getting stuff off the VCR tapes and onto the computer.

I miss my honey.