JUNE 23 – Monday
More vultures circling.
I had a call from a person who had heard I was going to sell the house and move into an apartment. He wanted to have first crack at buying my excess furniture. I told him it was a vicious rumour that I was selling any of my belongings – house or furniture. In truth, I would make a bonfire of the furniture before I would sell it garage-sale style. I couldn’t bear to have strangers haggle over our precious memories. If push comes to shove, I’ll give the stuff up for adoption to family and friends.
After that phone call, I went to the store and bought a double-decker box of Laura Secord French Mints and ate the whole thing. If I don’t get such unbridled decadence under control, I’ll need a new wardrobe, and I don’t have any spare energy to devote to shopping.
JUNE 24 – Tuesday
My father’s birthday. He was fifty-two when he died. I wish I had understood my mother’s pain then. Tennyson said, ’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise. The only trouble is that wisdom comes too late and at too great a price.
JUNE 27 – Friday Morning
I’ve decided that what I need is a full day of crying. It will relieve me of the jitters. I’m setting aside tomorrow. I’m going to lock the doors, turn off the phone, close the drapes and let the tears flow. I’ll weep myself dry. Maybe then my eyes won’t fill up and my voice crack when someone asks how I’m doing without you.
JUNE 27 – Evening
Just had a call from Roge and family. They are arriving from Montreal tomorrow to spend Canada Day weekend with me. I guess that scuttles my plans for the crying binge.
JUNE 28 – Saturday
When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, Roge and family are coming this afternoon. My second thought was that you had died, and the third was wondering how I would get through their visit without your presence. Who, for instance, would do the barbecuing? Still, you were my second thought. In January I said that before spring arrived I’d wake up to a thought other than your death. So I missed my deadline by a season, but who’s counting?
JULY 4 – Friday
Steve saved the day yesterday by coming home unexpectedly. He did the barbecuing. When we sat down to eat, everyone talked louder and faster than usual. We rapidly filled in all the silent spaces, fiercely pretending we didn’t notice the empty saddle.
JULY 5 – Saturday
It is thundering and lightning and there’s a savage wind. And the house is so silent. So empty. The branches from the lilac tree are scraping against the window panes and making intruder noises. What if the lights go out?
I think the candle stubs went out in the cleaning purge. I need you tonight. I really need you. I need to be hugged. I need to be loved. I need to feel safe.
I’m so terribly afraid of the night, especially of the night in this house. The boogeyman skulks in the basement waiting for the lights to go out. But I fool him. I keep all lights burning. The place looks like the Titanic just before it hit the iceberg. Yesterday I stocked up on fuses, and as soon as I returned from the store, I decided to try my hand at fuse replacement before the need actually arose. But I couldn’t find the fuse box. I called our neighbour and asked him if he knew where it was.
He was silent for several seconds, and when he finally spoke, he sounded as though he were talking to a small child who had lost her way. “Jean, my dear,” he said, “when you had the new furnace put in last year, you also replaced the fuse box with a circuit breaker. You no longer need fuses. You just flick a switch.”
Slightly nonplussed, I replied, “In that case, do you know of anyone who can use two dozen fuses of varying amps?”
JULY 10 – Thursday
Went to the bank today and had my credit cards reinstated. When you died I had an overpowering urge to simplify my life. When I cancelled your credit cards, I cancelled my own as well. I even cancelled the newspaper because I couldn’t cope with the burden of having to remember to pay the carrier.
But my penchant for simplicity still hasn’t totally deserted me. Today I made one final culling of drawers and closets. With the zeal of an evangelist ridding a village of devils, I cast out threadbare towels, mismatched dishes, leaky vases and pots with burnt bottoms. Without a backward glance I threw out lamps without sockets, empty jam jars, dozens of plastic ice cream containers.
I didn’t even have a tear in my eye when I dumped the placemats with the wobbly-stitched hems Susan had given me for Christmas – a grade one project. With equal callousness I dumped the plaster cast of Steven’s hand, his kindergarten birthday present for me.
JULY 11 – Friday
Earlier tonight an acquaintance dropped in because she happened to be in the neighbourhood. I think she dropped in because she wanted to inquire about the house. In the course of conversation, she said I should really try to get on with my life because “sooner or later it happens to all of us.” It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “I would have preferred if it had happened to you sooner and me later,” but my tongue isn’t that sharp yet. In the next breath, she said she had to go home because her husband was there alone watching television. What were you doing about that time?
JULY 15 – Tuesday
Your brother and family visited today. Frank did the barbecuing, and when I saw him doing what you should be doing, I got a pain in my heart so piercing I could barely breathe. He looks so much like you, but he isn’t you.
JULY 16 – Wednesday
A black letter day! I put the house on the market this afternoon. When I woke up this morning I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had to sell. My friend A. said the day would come when I would have an answer to the house question. She also added there would be no joy in the answer. How prophetic she was.
Yesterday should have been a very happy day. Relatives were here. Steve dropped in unexpectedly. A group of Steven’s friends came by. But all the company did for me was to make me aware that this house will never be my house. It was our house, and the joy it gave us will never be transferred to me alone.
JULY 17 – Thursday
Your funeral has been on my mind all evening. I recall how I was convinced you were just visiting the funeral parlour, and at any minute you would return to the house and join the party at our place. I think the Valium I had been encouraged to swallow helped detach me from reality, or maybe it was my unwillingness to face reality that made me resort to the Valium. Will I be able to cope with the actuality of losing this house? Will I have to resort to Valium? Alcohol? All of the above?
JULY 20 – Sunday
No buyer for the house as yet, but I have convinced myself that I will be well rid of it.
My friend A. left this morning for Toronto. She is relocating there. She stayed with me overnight, and when she drove out of the driveway I couldn’t watch her departure. I came in the house, and an Irish jig was playing on the radio. Guess what I did?
I step-danced. Yes! Step-danced! Tears streamed down my face. What a madwoman!
Later, in the afternoon, I painted the lampposts in the driveway and the veranda railing. I even replaced a broken back step. I’m so tired tonight I may even sleep.
AUGUST 1 – Friday
M.J. – niece and godchild – came to visit. The two of us took off for Maine. It was a sentimental journey because we visited all of the places you and I frequented. Went to our favourite restaurant and were seated at a table for three! I could almost reach over and touch your hand. But all in all, it was the most pleasant few days I have had since November 22.
AUGUST 2 – Saturday
The first thing I do every morning when I wake up is to determine whether it is a weekday, a weekend or a civic holiday. Civic holidays are positively the worst, closely followed by the weekends.
A nice surprise! A package arrived from Toronto. Giorgio perfume from A. Extravagant woman! I’m having lunch today with another friend – the one who gave me this journal. As I said earlier, how fortunate I am to have friends.
AU
GUST 10 – Sunday
Have had several prospective buyers for the house. I can’t deal with their coming, so I make an exit well in advance of their arrival.
AUGUST 12 – Tuesday
Summer is ending. I dread the beginning of the university year. I still fantasize about things being “back to normal.” In actual fact, from time to time I find myself thinking, I’ll do this or that when things get back to normal. And I still can’t find solace anywhere. Everyone should have a place where they can feel safe and secure and at peace. I used to be able to find all of these in this house.
AUGUST 14 – Thursday
Finally cleaned out the garage. I even painted the concrete floor. It looks so great, I envy the new owner.
AUGUST 16 – Saturday
I went to the market today. It was the first time since November. The new produce was piled high in the different stalls. A couple I knew spoke to me, and because this was the first time I had seen them since your death, they offered their condolences. Later I saw them buying cut flowers, smugly sure of their togetherness – at least it appeared so to me. That hurt! It seems everywhere I turn I run into pain.
Neighbours had a party. They didn’t ask me, although last year we both were asked. They reasoned that I wouldn’t have wanted to go. I wouldn’t have, but I still would have liked to be asked.
AUGUST 27 – Wednesday
Lately I’ve been flirting with death, or, more aptly, death has been flirting with me. Yesterday I drove up along the St. John River. The water had that soft summer-evening calm you see in late August when the wind has died down and dusk is just beginning to drift in. As I drove along, glancing from time to time from the road to the river, I idly wondered whether there was as much quiet and peace at the bottom of the river as there seemed to be at the top. In the midst of my wondering, a seductive, siren-like voice – the voice Circe must have used to lure sailors to their death – whispered in my ear. “No need to keep wondering about the river, Jean. Find out for yourself. Just ease your grip on the steering wheel.” Obediently, but ever so gingerly, I loosened my grip.
The soothing voice coaxed, “Loosen up a little more. A tiny bit more.” Just as I was uncurling my fingers, a commanding voice ordered, “Don’t do it! What if you bungle the job? Think of the consequences!” Afterwards I wondered whether it was your voice that gave the command. It did have that reasoned and reasonable tone of an engineer. But no matter who spoke the words, they were good words. What if I did indeed botch the job? I thought about the two women I know who recently, but for different reasons, tried to abort their stay here, each unsuccessfully, and now their lives are worse than before. I jerked the wheel to the left and made a quick U-turn and headed back home, hugging the far edge of the road all the way.
But the temptress returned again today. I was walking to work, and just before I was to cross the main street of the campus – the one between the bookstore and the forestry building – an indescribable sadness enveloped me. The weight of it shackled me to the spot. I stood there unable to go forwards or backwards, like the Ancient Mariner with that damn albatross on his neck. The paralysis panicked me, and I snapped an order at myself to think of something, anything, that could bring a little joy into my life, and it didn’t matter how ridiculous or outrageous it might be.
I dredged up decadent and deliciously sinful acts deigned to send the blood coursing through my veins. A half gallon of butter pecan ice cream with a can of extra sauce. My stomach lurched. I’ve binged once too often this year.
An affair! A short but blazing affair. I tried to come up with names for my little tryst, but none would come to mind. Besides, where would I get the energy to go out and buy new lingerie?
I dropped down on the grass. Nothing or no one could help me. Despair flooded my being. Then a picture blasted into my brain. It was a neon sign, and the word DEATH beckoned tantalizingly in an array of colours. Peace replaced the despair. No more worrying whether I was doing the right thing by selling the house. No more phantom footsteps on the staircase. No more higgledypiggledy cheque book. No more student assignments. No more searching for umbrellas, gloves, credit cards and other belongings that won’t stay close to me. And no more missing you.
I stood up and, without a thought for the traffic, walked out into the street. Cars careened around me. Brakes squealed. Drivers shouted. I walked across that crowded street as unperturbed as a cat strolling across a window ledge.
Later in my office I chastized myself severely. Enough of this nonsense! Enough already! I ordered. There’s a season for everything, and life is not yours to arrange or rearrange.
SEPTEMBER 1 – Monday
I went for a long walk today on the outskirts of town. It was a golden autumn day, and it brought to mind words from D.H. Lawrence. Autumn always gets me badly as it breaks into colours.
Are you aware that by dying in November you spoiled my very special season? I’ll never again be able to look at October without thinking that November is not far behind. Until November 22, only good things happened to me in the fall: my first job, meeting you, marrying you, entering university.
Fall is now a season of endings. I wonder whether when university opens, I’ll be able to take delight in the smell of new books and the taste of chalk dust. Will I still enjoy meeting new students and reuniting with old ones?
SEPTEMBER 9 – Tuesday
Today I made it through the university gates. I’ve been having more anxiety attacks lately, and when I met with my first class I could feel the shortness of breath beginning.
I prayed as I walked along the corridor to my classroom. Dear God, let me get through this class. Don’t let my heart start pounding. Don’t let me feel as if the walls are folding around me, choking me to death. Don’t let me make a spectacle of myself by pulling a panic attack. I had the bad humour to end with, God you owe me that much!
All during class I had a difficult time concentrating on my subject matter. All I could think about was coming home to an empty house, a house with a silent voice, and not being able to share my day with you, and how pointless and useless everything is. But I made it through the period, so perhaps the next time won’t be so difficult. And perhaps God does remember that I was left bereft a few months ago and that He (or She) really does owe me one.
SEPTEMBER 14 – Sunday
Just returned from an evening out with very dull people – widows all. Friends refer widows to me now as if I’m a collector of them, as if I no longer want to be discriminating in my friendships. The only thing I had in common with tonight’s dinner companions was that death had also snatched their spouses. As the time dragged on, I kept saying to myself, For this I’m missing Sixty Minutes and Murder She Wrote.
In the beginning, when acquaintances sent widows to me, it didn’t matter that the only bond between us was our dead husbands. We talked only about them anyway. But now things are changing. I want to choose my own friends again. Does this mean I’m healing? Or does it only mean I don’t want to go around in a gaggle of widows simply because I am one myself?
Shortly after you died, I joined a widows’ group. I thought anything was worth a try. But some of the women there had been widowed ten, twelve and fifteen years. I thought, God forbid. I don’t want to make a career out of widowhood. I never went back.
SEPTEMBER 15 – Monday
Took the car in for its annual rust inspection today and for a heavy waxing to combat the wear and tear of the salty roads to come. This time last year I had never heard of a rust inspection check. See what a fast learner I am?
P.S. It’s my birthday.
P.P.S. I need a hug.
SEPTEMBER 16 – Tuesday
I walk late at night because I don’t want the neighbours to feel sorry for me, but then when I’m out on the lonely streets I start feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes I’m so blinded by tears I stumble off the sidewalk. I often scold myself for my self-indulgence, but then I ask, Why not feel sorry for myself? “You’d feel sor
ry for a stranger,” I say, “if you knew he was hurting, so why not spare some sympathy for the person you love best?”
I envy widows who wish they’d find a new relationship. They have hope. At this point, I only wish for you. How barren and hopeless my life is.
SEPTEMBER 18 – Thursday
Depression is settling in for a long siege unless I can find a way to master it. I come home from work, and I just sit and stare. Sometimes I just sit. I have a buyer for the house, and he is pressing for an answer. I won’t dicker on the price. Perhaps I’m hoping he’ll get tired of waiting. I think that holding onto the house is my way of holding onto the last remnants of you and me.
OCTOBER 1 – Wednesday
When Things Get Back to Normal Page 6