Memorial Day is fast approaching and I need to plan a trip
to the cemetery to tend my husband’s gravesite which isn’t really a gravesite
since he isn’t actually buried there. Part of his ashes are there and a stone
that shows both our names and his birth and expiration dates. Expiration date, yup, if you have read
the very first post I wrote in this blog you’d know why I’m using that word instead of saying the date he died. I can use it tongue-in-cheek now but back when he died this is what I wrote:
“Widowhood: Day one after the funeral. I made some calls
today to notify people about Don’s passing. One was to the medical supply
company that rented us his oxygen machine and the backup oxygen tanks to use
during power outages that never happened. And the woman on the phone says, ‘And
when was your husband’s expiration date?’
“Expiration date?
I thought. We’re not boxes of cereal with
expiration dates stamped on our bottoms! If that were true we could have planned our lives better!
And that thought got me to laughing and visualizing poor Don's bare butt with an
expiration date tattooed on one cheek. No doubt Ms. Medical Supply Lady thought
I was entirely too happy, given the nature of my call. I wasn't happy, of
course, but I'd already used up my daily crying quota by noon and it was 2:00
in the afternoon.”
I have since come to understand that no matter how a person
talks to a newly minted widow they can’t win the wordage war. “When did
you husband die?” “When was your husband’s expiration date?” Tomato tomahto.
Emotions are raw. Tears are close at hand and we’re on the lookout for targets
to aim our pain and anger. My target came in the form of an old friend who
wrote in a condolence card words to the effect that now I was free to go have
fun. Say what? She was lucky she
didn’t say that to me in person and I’m proud of myself that I didn’t write
that in a condolence card to her five years later when her husband died. I’m
not proud to admit, however, that I thought about doing it but tit-for-tat is
for children I finally decided. And I’m not proud of how much space that single
sentence took up in my head. It festered and grew until I finally came to the
conclusion that as inept as her words were she looked at my 12 ½ years of
caregiving my husband as a long suffering burden---which wasn't the way I defined that period of my life---and
in my new widow's shoes she’d want to go on a Caribbean cruise as soon as the ink
dried on the life insurance check. Did I mention that’s exactly what she did after her
husband died?
If we did come with expiration dates tattooed on butts, what
date would I pick? I’m not a proponent of the Death with Dignity Movement by
any stretch of the imagination. It’s too draconian for my tastes and ripe for
misuse and murder. Nope, I’m not going under that bus with a little push from
God knows who including someone with selfish reasons to want to me out of the way. Also not going to ride an iceberg off into an icy sea in a noble
gesture to save the tribe from caring for the elderly. Who goes next, the
disabled? The unemployed? But if I could whisper a hint in ear of the universe I’d pick my expiration
date to be the day after my 100th birthday. How’s that for having a
lofty goal for a Septuagenarian?
Speaking of lofty goals, ohmygod I just did the math and if
I’m going to finish reading War and Peace
before I die I’ll need to read 73 words a day for the next twenty-two years!
That’s so do-able if I could just get past the fact that I don’t care about
Russian society or Napoleon’s invasion. If the main theme of Tolstoy’s tome is
supposed to be that “family happiness is the ultimate reward for spiritual
suffering” as one summary states why couldn't Leo have gotten that point
across in less than 587,287 words? What I’m beginning to question why I'm still
holding on to that grueling reading goal when another long-time, fun-filled goal gets
overlooked. That one involves balancing an ice cream cone on the end of my
nose before it drops on my chest and ends up on the sidewalk. (I was thirty going on twelve so don’t
judge, but I still think I can do it even if I failed my first time out.) I’ve had the War and Peace
goal for so long that I don’t remember how it came about but I’m guessing it
has something to do with my dyslexia and coming to the doors of the library
later than most---figuratively speaking. I should get real, admit that it’s a
futile goal and model myself after a character in one of Pippa Grant’s romantic
comedies who chants to herself: “Accept it and let it go. You are a river,
constantly in motion, leave the past behind.” Never let it be said that you can’t
find nudges of inspirational thought in trashy fiction. ©
