Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Who Dies First?
My husband and I agreed that if the other one died, we’ll get up the next morning and take the dogs to the dog park.
“The dogs will still need to run, right?” And the survivor, whichever one of us it was, will still need to be outside, hopefully in the sunshine, but at least where there are trees and birds and the occasional squirrel.
I told my husband that if he died, I might drive across country. A Thelma and Louise kind of thing except with no Louise. He said he’d thought of doing the same thing. “Just putting the dogs in the van and taking off.”
“I don’t want to be pitiful,” I said as we walked into the gym. “I don’t want to think my life is over because you died.” This seems an odd statement coming from someone married forty years. But it’s true.
We talked about this some more. It is the kind of thinking out loud conversation one has with a spouse where everything you say you might contradict the next day. A friend of mine whose husband died told me once that the word confetti that is married conversation was what she missed most. Picking up a verb left lying on the floor to use on a completely different topic and having one’s partner not notice or care. When the unevenness becomes the flow. There is so much of that here with us. Stops and starts. Topic changes in mid-sentence. A hundred threads trailing us as we walk.
Who dies first? Does the survivor go to the dog park or immediately hit the road? What will keep us from becoming pitiful in our grief?
How deeply are we kidding ourselves?
5 Comments on “Who Dies First?”
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
In my experience, (twice) the fear of the pitiful part is more just imagining that is what people’s perception of you is. Grief is not pitiful it is universal and unpredictable. One day we might want to hit the road and another burrow beneath the covers for a week. (Ah – but bless the dogs!) I think that’s why it’s hard to know what to do when a dear one loses their spouse. Other than bring food and an open offer of a shoulder or a walk or a drink when they’re ready, all we can do is circle lovingly and wait to see what is needed. At least that’s what I think and kind of remember – and hope is true as yet another dear friend has lost her beloved so it’s the dance I am doing.
Yes, it is good to talk about it.
4 decades – wow! Amazing and enviable!
Did you watch the remake of One Day, Jan? Spoiler Alert. It prompted a similar conversation here. I understand that couples in Belgium are increasingly choosing to drop off their perches together. That appeals to me.
I have been through it twice. It’s good to talk about it before it happens
It is just me, but I know that I don’t want my kids wallowing.
Funny how Garry and I are having this same conversation, except neither of us expects to hit the road. Neither of us loves the open road because it’s not open, not free, and we couldn’t afford it. We planned to die simultaneously in a golden cloud, but we had trouble making the arrangements so we’ve settled on finally writing a (new) will and carrying on to the best of our ability. Not very romantic, but it’s the best we could come up with.