When Things Get Back to Normal Read online

  Actually, I’m now so preoccupied with death that I’m getting to be as bad as my mother, who, after my father’s too-early death, wanted only to read the obituary notices in the newspaper. “Give me the section with the deaths,” she would say in her heavy Irish brogue. Now I, too, am searching that column for signs of others dying before their time. I think it gives me comfort when I find I’m not the only one who has had someone suddenly snatched away. Macabre, yes!

  DECEMBER 30 – Monday

  Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and I’ve decided to run away. Steve has gone back to work, and the house is like a tomb. Our friends F. & C. are insisting that I join them for our regular New Year’s party. How can I sing “Auld Lang Syne” without your arm around my waist? Besides, my presence would probably put a pall on the party. I’ve decided to visit my friend B. in Ottawa. Going away without you will be a traumatic first, but surely it won’t be as bad as staying here without you.

  New Year’s Eve – Ottawa

  It is 12:30, so it is really New Year’s Day. B. and I went to a movie – Out of Africa.

  A song in the movie was one that was played at our wedding reception, “Let the Rest of the World Go By.” I almost came unglued but kept my composure by devouring the economy-sized container of buttered popcorn B. bought in the lobby. She said it was to be our moment of decadence and the devil with spreading hips. We went to bed as soon as we returned to her apartment, neither of us wanting to wait for the New Year countdown on television or witness the rounds of merry kissing. We didn’t even wish each other Happy New Year. I guess we sensed they would be empty words for both of us.

  JANUARY 3, 1987 – Friday

  I’m still in Ottawa. Went shopping today to pass the time while B. was at work. The first window display I came upon had a mannequin dressed in an overcoat identical to the one I gave you for your birthday last February. I said it made you look European, and you wanted to know what was wrong with looking Canadian. When I saw that coat in the window, I, a hardcore shopper, caved in. I lost all interest in the stores. Will my world always be as flat and as joyless as it is now?

  JANUARY 5 – Sunday

  Home again, home again . . . I haven’t words to describe the loneliness of arriving at the airport last night without anyone to meet me and then having to come back to this house alone. I took a taxi from the airport, and anger at you got me inside the house. I was angry at you for dying and leaving me in such a mess.

  My fury pumped up such adrenalin that I got the courage to search the basement for intruders, all the while praying to God I wouldn’t find any. I blamed you for taking the joy out of returning to my well-ordered home. I always delighted in returning to this house after a hiatus. I especially loved my many-windowed kitchen. I could sit for hours and watch the sun filter in through the melon-coloured curtains and then slant across the green and white couches. Even in the midst of winter, there was a feeling of a hazy summer day.

  JANUARY 6 – Monday

  My friend A. came to visit me tonight. She chastized me for not letting her know when I was returning because she wanted to meet me at the airport. In a mellow mood after a couple of glasses of Bailey’s Irish Cream, I confided to her that I am considering becoming a missionary. I explained that I now have this overpowering need to immerse myself in a great cause. “A missionary?” she hooted, waving her empty glass in my direction. “You? A missionary?” She leaned close to me as though she were going to impart a great secret and said in a very earnest voice, “Jean, you are the god-damnedest most selfindulgent woman I have ever known,” and without further preamble she launched into the reasons why I am singularly unsuited to tracking down pagans in the bowels of Africa. She demanded to know how I am going to survive in the jungles and deserts without my foaming baths, my satin lingerie and my designer perfume. Then she, a confirmed atheist, asked how I could be so arrogant as to presume the Lord would choose me to do great deeds in far away places?

  She’s right, of course. I was being presumptuous. And I certainly do like my material comforts. Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of having a Popemobile shuttle me back to the Holiday Inn at the end of a hard day on the missionary hustings. I guess my spirit wants to minister to the needy in foreign lands, but my flesh wants pigskin gloves and wine in crystal goblets. A. said I should concentrate on what I do best – my writing.

  I wonder if she’s right. Will writing give me the centre I now crave?

  JANUARY 9 – Thursday

  My body, my heart and my soul ache for things to return to normal. I find peace nowhere. I find comfort nowhere. I find stability nowhere. I think of myself as walking endlessly on a winter plain, my feet and hands numbed from the frost, my heart searching for a shelter I know no longer exists. I want someone to be at the end of the journey to feed me warm soup and gently remove the boots from my swollen feet. But there is no one waiting at the journey’s end. Indeed, there is no journey’s end.

  A recent acquaintance, whom I met because of our mutual newly widowed state, said she needed her husband for an anchor. I need you for a harbour. Are we saying the same thing, or is there a difference?

  JANUARY 10 – Friday

  The bathroom leaked through the ceiling this morning, and the clothes dryer won’t heat. Worst of all, the lights in the driveway shorted last night on account of the heavy frost, and I’m told I can’t get them fixed until spring. How I hate the responsibility of keeping a house in running order! Did you hate it also? Say no. It would lessen my guilt if you would say it didn’t bother you at all.

  Speaking of guilt. The two saddest words in the English dictionary have to be “if only.” If only . . . if only . . . you’ve no idea how often in the course of a day, or, more aptly, in the course of a night, I whisper these words. If only I had been more insistent that you quit hockey, get a physical, take life easier. If only I had more fully appreciated your contribution to the quality and quantity of my life.

  Still, I have a lot for which to be grateful. We truly were each other’s best friend. The other day, someone commenting on our closeness said we were two halves joined as one. Actually, I’d say we were two wholes joined together to make a larger whole.

  My mother and father were married friends. I remember a day when my father was out of work and job hunting. My mother and I were looking out the window, awaiting his return. Finally we saw him come trudging up the laneway. His jacket was slung over his shoulder, and he was gripping the neck of it as though that were the only thing keeping him upright. My mother sighed and whispered, more to herself than to me, “The poor devil, I hope he found work. For his sake.” I’m certain I never managed that much selflessness.

  JANUARY 11 – Saturday

  Last night I couldn’t sleep, but that in itself is nothing new. I walked the floor as usual and then about three a.m. I went into Steven’s clothes closet. (He still hoards some of your clothes – but in his room at our house. There isn’t enough space in his small apartment.) I took out a brown linen sports jacket of yours. I wrapped it around myself and curled up in fetal position on your side of the bed. When I woke up, the sun was high in the sky, or as high as it gets here at this time of year.

  JANUARY 12 – Sunday

  Another Sunday. They pile one upon another relentlessly. I’m just recovering from the loneliness of one when it’s Friday night all over again. I often think of the old woman who came to the funeral parlour to pay her respects, although she had never met you – or, for that matter, us. “I didn’t know the mister,” she apologized. “It’s just that I live near here and Sundays are so long.” Her empty eyes still haunt me. Will I ever become so lonely I’ll take to browsing in funeral parlours to while away a long Sunday afternoon?

  A bit of good news. A female graduate student is going to move in with me for the winter. The cheap lodging will help her, and her company will make this big house less terrifying. By the time May rolls around, I should be able to come to a decision regarding whether to sell or not
to sell.

  What do I do with the rest of my life? Who will care about me or for me if I get sick? Who will find me if I trip on the stairs and kill myself? I certainly don’t want the children to unlock the front door some day, annoyed because I won’t answer my phone, and there on the carpet at the foot of the stairs they’ll find me, sprawled out as though I’ve been dropped from a helicopter. How ignominious! Especially if I’m naked. Especially if several days have elapsed.

  Yesterday, a recent divorcee told me that she missed the institution of marriage more than she missed him. How I envied her. If I just missed marriage, I’d be putting my name in the personals for a husband replacement.

  I’m having phantom sightings of you. I hear your steps on the stairs as you come to bed, having stayed up late to watch a hockey game. The steps creak under your weight. At the end of the working day, I hear you coming up my office corridor to collect me for the ride home. Sometimes I actually pull my chair back from my desk, making ready to leave. When it hits me that my mind is playing games, my stomach sinks.

  JANUARY 13 – Monday

  Bittersweet news. The Corrigan Women is going to be published. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. I sure hope He (She) doesn’t believe that your death in exchange for the publication of my novel is a fair exchange. What is the good of happy news if I can’t share it with you? Still, I do feel a flicker of something akin to delight or excitement. Maybe I’m not totally dead inside.

  JANUARY 19 – Sunday

  I’m really sad this morning. Really sad. It seems as though all of the progress I’ve made so far has disappeared.

  Maybe, though, this dip into melancholy is the result of emotional growth. I’m beginning to accept your death – or accept the fact of your death. I no longer get jolted by the unrumpled pillow, and I no longer look for your car in the driveway when I come home from work. But there are aspects I can’t accept. Will you never again rub your beard over my cheek, hug my body, ruffle my hair, hold my hand or warm my feet?

  I’m still furious with God for snatching you from me, but I’m making moves toward reconciliation. I don’t want you being held responsible for the sins of your wife. Still, every time I see a couple, even if they are engaged in something as mundane as picking up groceries, I have to stifle an inner rage. But in the beginning, I didn’t stifle it. I would go home and storm through the house belligerently, asking, “Why! Why! Why!”

  JANUARY 20 – Monday

  Will January ever end?

  My housemate has moved in, and while she’s considerably younger than me, the age difference disappears over a cup of coffee and an exchange of hurts. She, too, is working her way through a sorrow.

  I walked to work today. It was thirty below zero. That’s taking the wind chill factor into account. All the way there I cried behind my big woollen scarf. By the time I arrived, my eyelids were dripping icicles. I closed my door and cried and cried and cried. I cried for the frustration and inconvenience of my life and for my cowardice in not driving the car.

  I picked up groceries this evening. I dread this chore because I’m embarrassed by the few items in my cart.

  I hurt all over when I see full carts. A full cart, a full life. Right? I go to great lengths to hide my singleness from the store clerks. For example, I buy more meat than I need because I don’t want the man at the meat counter to detect my solitary existence. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me and patronize me like I’ve often heard butchers patronize their customers: “Here you are, dear, a quarter pound of hamburger and four sausages.” I also dread meeting acquaintances in the aisles. I notice them glancing in my cart to see what I’m eating these days. I think they expect to find toast and tea – the staples of the lonely.

  JANUARY 22 – Wednesday

  I met an old acquaintance yesterday. He’s in the radio business – program director, I think he said. He told me he will help me get on Morningside when my book comes out.

  How I ached to rush back and tell you this news.

  My friend L. came over last night. We talked about new beginnings – hers, not mine. She wondered whether she will ever again trust a man. I guess it isn’t easy to move beyond betrayal.

  There was a beautiful sunset this evening, but without you it meant only the end of a lonely day and the beginning of a lonely night.

  JANUARY 23 – Thursday

  I have made a pact with myself. Before spring arrives, I’m going to wake up one morning and my second thought will be, He’s dead. I can’t imagine what my first thought will be, but it will have to be something very special.

  JANUARY 28 – Tuesday

  The house adjoining our lot at the back always has a light burning in the hall window. A widow’s house. Over the years, when I would notice this light I always whispered, “Please God, don’t make it necessary for me to light up a room to keep the dark at bay.” Now at this very moment my hall light is casting a yellow shadow over the concrete slabs in our driveway.

  FEBRUARY – Groundhog Day

  The children phoned. We talked about inconsequential things. Perhaps next year we’ll be able to say, “This is Dad’s birthday.”

  Several people from your department have asked me to supper, but I have always declined. I’m bone weary, emotionally and physically, and I don’t have any energy to expend on conversation, particularly on conversation which studiously avoids the subject of you. Besides, it is very draining to be around couples with whom we used to socialize.

  FEBRUARY 7 – Friday

  A. and I went to a restaurant. We go every Friday night. We talk and talk and talk. I don’t think I could get through the week without this night in the offing.

  Several pieces of mail arrived for you today. What pain it causes me when I have to readdress an envelope and check off “deceased” in the box marked “reason for return.” Another pain-filled piece of mail is the letter that is addressed to “the estate of. . . .” Death isn’t buried in the cemetery on the day of the funeral. You have to keep burying it over and over again.

  My energy level is still batting zero. I rarely clean the house. I, a typical Virgo, organized and neat to the point of fault, have become almost slovenly. Sometimes when I go to my office and see the piles of assignments lying ungraded, I want to pick them up and in a frenzy scatter them helter skelter around the room like a mad scientist.

  Lately I’ve been flirting with the idea of taking flight from reality. I’m so tired. All of my energy goes into staving off pain, and sometimes I feel it’s not worth the emotional effort. But how do I go about escaping from reality? Will it take energy? If it does, I’ll have to stay sane.

  FEBRUARY 12 – Wednesday

  I dreamt about you last night. This is the first dream I have had since November 22. Since your death I have completely stopped dreaming. Why, I wonder, when I was wont to dream almost every night?

  Last night I dreamed you were being buried, and I had forgotten to turn up for the funeral. I was so ashamed of myself and so worried my forgetfulness would be interpreted as uncaring. I wanted to tell everyone that I had forgotten because I’m so tired and strung out. But I didn’t have the energy to explain and decided it was easier to let them think the worst of me.

  Valentine’s Day

  I tortured myself today by browsing through the cards at the university bookstore. I kept reading the ones “for my husband.”

  My sensibilities are so red raw that I lie awake worrying about stray cats freezing to death and deer floundering in snow drifts. I cry when I hear about the dead and dying in places as distant as El Salvador, and my heart aches for the homeless, the unloved and the lonely. Why should I, a wounded person, want to absorb the pain of the world?

  FEBRUARY 15 – Saturday

  Dreamed about you again last night. This time you weren’t dead, but I was losing you in a crowd. You went through a turnstile, thinking I was right behind you. Only I couldn’t get the turnstile to work, and I watched, helpless, as you disappeared into the crowd a
nd left me alone in some strange town. I didn’t even know where you had parked the car.

  FEBRUARY 27 – Thursday

  My lack of will is really becoming a problem. The school term is moving on, and I’m concerned it will come and go and I won’t have any grades to turn in. It’s a nightmare situation. I know the work has to be done, but I can’t seem to drum up the motivation to get at it. My department head is so very kind and encouraging. He assures me my work will get done on time, and if it doesn’t, we’ll find a way around it. He has more faith in my resilience than I have.

  My ulcers have flared up. I walk the floor at night drinking warm milk and eating crackers, and I wonder as I wander. Who will take care of me if I get sick? Will I end up in a downtown rooming house? Logic tells me I have enough financial resources to prevent this, but logic and I are not very compatible these days. I’m operating strictly on emotions.

  And speaking of finances, I can’t bring myself to cash your pension checks. It would be like accepting blood money. Someday soon I’m going to have to get this squeamishness behind me, and I know I’m fortunate that I can put it off for a few more months. Some widows don’t have this option.