Still Grieving

Of course.

When someone very dear to you dies, you don’t just ‘get over’ it. It’s been 10 days. For the most part, I am pretty functional. For the most part.

We had 10 inches of wet snow Tuesday night. It fell on trees that still had all of their leaves so branches and wires were down all over town.  When I looked out my front door yesterday morning, I saw the entire yard, sidewalk, front walk – everything -- covered by a four-foot high briar patch of fallen limbs. My huge maple was severely wounded – in part, by a huge branch that had fallen from my neighbor’s walnut tree. The red bud tree in my back yard lost only one 6-foot branch. Dealing with that (finding someone to haul away the enormous pile of debris) entertaining two afternoon visitors, changing litter boxes, and writing letters filled my day. I did pretty well.

Then I awoke about 2:30 a.m. and could not go back to sleep. I was obsessed with a need to find the name of the church where Jayne’s memorial service would be held. [It was not a good time to call anyone.] I knew (or hoped) I had saved a document with the name in one of the largely neglected but incredibly stuffed drawers in a study desk. So at 2:30 in the morning I went through three drawers, amassing a pile of things to be recycled and things to go in the garbage. I found the document and went back to bed about 4:30. I must have slept for a while. The next time I looked at the clock it was 7:30 – time to get up.

This is crazy.

I seem to do crazy things, say crazy things – every once in a while. The rest of the time, I am fine – except for the times waves of grief sweep over me.

So that’s how it is. And it will get better. My beautiful, severely wounded, maple will survive and so will I.

Eventually, my heart will heal.