Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Day Three
I thought about that this morning. How many days has it been? And I had to do the math. I know (because of what I saw written on the death certificate) she died on the fourth. Today’s the seventh. So that means this is day three. Really? Day three? Time is crawling.
Sleep has been the big issue. I didn’t sleep at all the night she got sick, of course, and I got only six hours of sleep the next night. Night after that I got three hours of sleep. I saw our group’s psychiatrist yesterday and she got me something for sleep. Last night . . . I woke up, looked at the clock, and it said 6 AM. Great. That meant I’d had about seven hours of sleep, which was an improvement. But I felt terrible — lightheaded, heart racing, presumably from the medication. Brushed my teeth, took a shower, came back out, and the clocks all read 3 AM. What the hell! I had misread the clock as 6 AM when it was probably 2 AM. So, another night with three hours’ sleep. Fortunately, I was able to get back to sleep and get another three hours. So, we’re up to six. Six isn’t so bad.
Jake’s doing better than I am. I guess that’s only natural. Karen was my whole world. Well, there is work, too, and I know that’s important to me. It’ll be even more important to me now, and I have every intention of going back to work tomorrow. I just hope I can keep myself from blabbing my grief to every single patient. Karen was intensely private and I know she wouldn’t want me to do that. As it is, yesterday when I picked up my prescription, I saw the parents of one of my pediatric patients, and when they talked to me and heard my voice and asked if I had a cold I said, “No, my wife died two days ago.” And I could hear Karen in the back of my head saying, “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
I’ve been trying to foster this sense of her there, inside me, able to talk to me. It helps. I don’t know if this is a healthy thing to do or not. I’m not sure if I even have control over it. When I broke up with my high school girlfriend (whom I had been with for three years), I had her voice in my head, sort of an extra conscience, for years. Karen and I were a couple for nearly 32 years. I have no doubt she’ll be with me forever.
Goals for today: eat. Fold the laundry. Try to figure out Quickbooks and pay some bills.
Trying to internalize the Samuel Beckett quote: “I must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” I was looking at Beckett quotes on Goodreads. Another good one: “The end is the beginning and yet you go on.”
D.
This all sounds about right ….
No fun at all, just natural and expected.
Thanks, Liam. I ate three meals today, paid the bills, did the laundry, and took Jake out to a movie (The Book of Life. Fell asleep during. I don’t recommend it — if you’re in the mood for a kid’s movie, see Big Hero Six instead).