November, Day Six

There is something wrong with a woman who comes in from work and exercise and eating out for dinner, runs to the dollar store to buy light bulbs because there are none in the house and the bulb is burnt out in the lamp beside her laptop, and then proceeds to play solitaire and watch FB and her email the rest of the evening.

 

Oh, yeah, the dress she wore to her son's funeral? Her youngest daughter borrowed it and tonight she took if back and tried it on and it is looser on her than it was nearly two years ago when she wore it for the first and only time and she really doesn't know how she feels about wearing it again anyway, but she still could for a little while, if she wanted to.

 

She bought the dress before she had the surgery, before her son died, because she liked a dress her youngest daughter bought and they went to the store to find it in the woman's size but that dress didn't do anything for the woman's figure. Her youngest daughter was tall and the woman is short so they looked at other dresses and the younger daughter assured her the other dress, which happened to be black, looked better on her than the dress she came looking for in the first place. So she bought it and the dress hung in her closet for a couple of months because the woman really didn't quite feel comfortable wearing the dress, or didn't have the right shoes, or something. And when her son died, and the funeral came, the woman was spared the agony of going shopping at the last minute for a suitable funeral dress. All she needed was a pair of stockings.

 

But that wasn't all she needed at all and my God, it's been nearly two years now since he's been gone and the dress is now loose on her shrinking body.

 

And now I take a breath and tell you this could be a piece of flash fiction, I wish it was a piece of flash fiction, but it's not. I have so much to be thankful for but tonight I feel my losses even though I have worked so hard to numb myself against the pain. 

Here are the things I am thankful for in the timing of all of this:

• I already had the dress.
• I was out of the hospital and recovered enough to go to the funeral. It would have been horrible had I been still in the hospital when he died.
• I had time off from work with my sick leave and the Christmas holiday to mourn and just sit with the loss. I could not have returned to work any sooner than I did.

In two days, on the 8th, it will be two years since I had my surgery. This is the beginning of my season of mourning. I don't know why this year seems to be so much harder than last year. I told a friend that there is a part of me that says, "Okay, haven't I been good enough? Can I have him back now?" It doesn't matter how good I am, it doesn't matter how bad I am. I'm not getting him back. Oh, I know, I carry his memory in my heart. But that is not near as satisfying as having him here in the flesh.

And yet, really, I do have things to be thankful for, I know I do.