All the pomp and circumstance is finished. Kathlyn is laid to rest forever and we have nothing else to plan. In a way it is a great relief, having nothing to dread that is. Through last week we had a wake and a funeral and then the final goodbyes at the crematorium today. I did not look forward to all these things. I guess if I did that would be a REAL problem. Having them behind me is a relief, but there is no relief from this loss, only from the burden of the emotionally draining events that surrounded it.
I cannot remember what he said to begin the conversation, but when I walked away from paying the Funeral home yesterday Nick said something to me about it. All I could come up with was "That sucked!" Nick replied by commenting along the lines that it was a short but decisive answer I gave. How else could one feel after paying someone to help bury your infant daughter. Not to say that the funeral home was anything short of amazingly empathetic, professional and accommodating. It's just that..... That sucked!
Family has come and gone for the most part. Left behind are Kathlyn's grandparents. They have the luxury of retirement. The rest of the family have been torn away by that never stopping, always pulling, never ending thing called LIFE. It only moves in one direction....FORWARD. Father time is a cruel bastard. Time never slows, never stops, and never cares. It just is. It just moves. All of us being drug along by its all encompassing net. Our brothers and sister and friends from out of town had to get back to their responsibilities; Jobs, Kids, Dogs, turtles, whatever. We are ants marching, but this is just how life is.
So me and Beth remain. The meals from the Church will cease, and to good measure as we have less mouths to feed. There are plenty of needy mouths out there and a lot of food would go to waste if it continued our way. We will soon be relegated to our "normal" existence. But the "norm" has changed.
Beth's mother cannot be here forever, nor can my parents. We will have to learn to cope without. This is not bad, it's not good, it is just reality. A part of life that all people who suffer loss face. I worry about her though. I will be back to work soon enough and she will have to face the quiet nights alone. Our friends and church family can't be here 24/7 and I work nights unfortunately.
A smart man I know mentioned that a mother gets a 9 month head start on a father (hint; he's very tall). If this is true (I have no doubt) then that must mean her grief is 9x mine. That is incomprehensible to me. I can then understand why she said she feels empty inside. I am not sure she means that purely figuratively either. I cannot fathom having surgery; being cut open, feeling the doctors push and pull to removed our angel that was born into Jesus' arms. That is what Beth so eloquently described Kathlyn as. Her words were the best way I have heard this MESS described. It conveyed the truth with delicate words. She's not usually as blunt as I am, but that is a perfect thought.
We will still have our friends at work and our church family. We will just be alone in this house, except for Dumb and Dumber (depends which one has done the dumber thing during the day to earn which rank). For the outsider those are our dogs nicknames from time to time. We also call them dummies (plural), Dummy heads (think that's Beth's primarily) and Spazasaurus Rex (Sgt. Pepper specifically).
I have found myself resorting back to what has always worked for me. I put a load(with a few letters in front) of songs on my phone and went running (crazy to me being from the times of Walkmans, the ones with tapes). I ran by my house several times in my loop. I ran until I was ready to stop. Exercise, working in the yard, hiking, looong motorcyle rides in the mountains and other activities have always been my coping strategy. My brain is always spinning and I am usually moving. That unforgiving mind thing again. I look outside and see places to plan a memorial garden with nice flowering plants. I think of what songs to put on my phone to give me energy to workout HARD, VERY HARD.
I only hope Beth can find something, some way to cope. She has been writing her own blog of sorts and keeps reaching out for help. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing. My coping strategies tend to take me away from her and she needs the company. So maybe that plan that that tall smart guy spoke about is still in gear. Beth reaches out as I reach inward, both coping in our own way and both receiving what we need.
Beth and I just had a conversation in which I was about to say we can only move on. That is not right. We will never move on. As Tim eloquently put it; we will someday be sitting at the table with our children having a that extra piece of cake every year on July 30th. So we move forward instead of moving on. Learning to cope as father time click click clicks away. We move forward but only day by day.
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