I didn't think it had been a difficult day until I took a nap in the car coming home from a funeral and when I woke up my husband was driving into Sam's parking lot. I pulled my groggy self out of the car because I thought maybe I would buy some flowers.
I walked slowly as if my mind and body were not one. My husband had a short list of things he wanted to get but since we hadn't discussed stopping I hadn't really thought about anything I might need except for flowers.
I looked at the bouquets of chrysanthemums and their dark fall colors. They were so much like the flowers at the funeral we had just attended that I changed my mind about buying any. I walked by the cakes and cupcakes and thought about how much I love that stuff, but I passed it all by.
My husband picked up cheese and took a sample of something a lady was handing out. I didn't want any of that either. I was starting to feel a depression creeping through my body. I headed toward the magazines, an obsession of mine, but nothing there caught my interest. Then I saw an Eddie Bauer display of long sleeved shirts and I chose a red one and a purple one, not thinking too much about what I needed.
We checked out and I suddenly felt like crying. My husband talked to me but I could not find any words worth speaking. We unloaded the car when we got home and I went upstairs to put my pajamas on. I felt totally exhausted so I crawled into the bed in our spare bedroom and pulled the covers up around me. The sheets were clean and I had put a down comforter on the bed for the weather I knew was coming. A cozy quilt rested on top of that.
The covers made me feel safe and secure and then I saw Pat's face in the coffin. Pat had been a friend since childhood of my husband and his siblings. She grew up down the road from them and attended the one room school house and church that they did. She had spent her career teaching elementary school and had married later in life. Her husband had died several years ago and she was approaching her 76th birthday when the pneumonia she had not gotten treated turned into a death sentence. Her lively spirit was what I remembered of her. Seeing her look like her illness never really happened, as her face was calm and beautiful, made me think she might still be breathing and just sleeping. It was a child's thought.
Beyond that I felt a sadness for friends and family who are dealing with difficulties in their lives. The covers were a comfort, but I knew it is not possible in life to just go to bed and try to smother out the sadness. However it is never wrong to cry and experience the sadness of death. We wouldn't be human if we couldn't feel the pain of others and our own as well.
My husband said little to me about how I was feeling, but soothed me with homemade tomato soup. The sadness will pass until the next time. Death is ever present and troubles as well. But between the dark periods, there must be light and life. The tomato soup was a beginning.
The gravestone of a child in a country church cemetery in Norway. Ole wasn't quite
eight when he died. His gravestone says Hoyt loved - deeply missed. Hoyt, from what I
could research, was probably his nickname.
I walked slowly as if my mind and body were not one. My husband had a short list of things he wanted to get but since we hadn't discussed stopping I hadn't really thought about anything I might need except for flowers.
I looked at the bouquets of chrysanthemums and their dark fall colors. They were so much like the flowers at the funeral we had just attended that I changed my mind about buying any. I walked by the cakes and cupcakes and thought about how much I love that stuff, but I passed it all by.
My husband picked up cheese and took a sample of something a lady was handing out. I didn't want any of that either. I was starting to feel a depression creeping through my body. I headed toward the magazines, an obsession of mine, but nothing there caught my interest. Then I saw an Eddie Bauer display of long sleeved shirts and I chose a red one and a purple one, not thinking too much about what I needed.
We checked out and I suddenly felt like crying. My husband talked to me but I could not find any words worth speaking. We unloaded the car when we got home and I went upstairs to put my pajamas on. I felt totally exhausted so I crawled into the bed in our spare bedroom and pulled the covers up around me. The sheets were clean and I had put a down comforter on the bed for the weather I knew was coming. A cozy quilt rested on top of that.
The covers made me feel safe and secure and then I saw Pat's face in the coffin. Pat had been a friend since childhood of my husband and his siblings. She grew up down the road from them and attended the one room school house and church that they did. She had spent her career teaching elementary school and had married later in life. Her husband had died several years ago and she was approaching her 76th birthday when the pneumonia she had not gotten treated turned into a death sentence. Her lively spirit was what I remembered of her. Seeing her look like her illness never really happened, as her face was calm and beautiful, made me think she might still be breathing and just sleeping. It was a child's thought.
Beyond that I felt a sadness for friends and family who are dealing with difficulties in their lives. The covers were a comfort, but I knew it is not possible in life to just go to bed and try to smother out the sadness. However it is never wrong to cry and experience the sadness of death. We wouldn't be human if we couldn't feel the pain of others and our own as well.
My husband said little to me about how I was feeling, but soothed me with homemade tomato soup. The sadness will pass until the next time. Death is ever present and troubles as well. But between the dark periods, there must be light and life. The tomato soup was a beginning.
eight when he died. His gravestone says Hoyt loved - deeply missed. Hoyt, from what I
could research, was probably his nickname.
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