What Makes You Stay

Something happened.  A flip was switched today, somehow.  As I stood there on line at Homeland, I felt it coming.  Just like labor, it came on slowly at first, but I was able to breathe myself through it.  Then, a surge of warm grief washed over me, and...1, 2, 3, push.  I couldn't hardly breathe deep enough.  At the very depths of the sobs, I felt the worst defeat I think I have ever felt as a wife. As an adult.  The grief at this point, it is palpable.  But tired of being punched down, instead it pulsated and came to life as those tears crawled down my face from behind baby blanket eyes.  I tasted my lips, salty-flavored with my own tears.  

There, there.  Sssshhhh...

Not sure how to feel, the checkout boy stood patiently as I fumbled for money, for my debit card, for answers.  Eyes averted, he was being polite.  A tall, slender gentleman next on line behind me and the twins held a kind smile and an 18-count of Eggland's Best.  He was there after work, I'm sure, picking up a little something that his own wife had asked him to.  He'd obviously obliged, even if he WAS tired after a long day at his work.   Looked to be 55, maybe 60.  His eyes crinkled at the corners, and I could tell he was in the habit of smiling, That Man.  What a good wife she must be, then.  

I apologized all over myself for not being able to see anything.  For being so slow.  Apologized silently for being so transparent that I had let my wounds show, and at the grocery store of all places.    The checkout boy just smiled.  There wasn't a thing he could do, anyhow.  Shoot, it wasn't anyone's fault.  

Of course, it is too late for another band-aid.  It is too late for help, and it is far too late for sorry. 

And, wouldn't you know it?  Just like a contraction, the interval at which the good days and the bad days were no longer grouped by a few weeks at a time but rather as groups of days of 2, were coming on too frequently now to just ignore anymore.  No longer good week/bad week, I have been fielding fabulous, glorious Monday after a tensed-up, miserable weekend spent with Todd at home.  Then a pretty-good Tuesday, the week was still young, you know?  Oops.  Wednesday's here, and we have only 2 days left to psych ourselves up for the weekends. You ready?  'Cuz the kids and I are not.  

The time to do something was NOW, so that is what today's lesson in grief did: It came on unexpected, hard, and fast.  Demanding, yes.  And I had no place to take it to help it transition to the outside world.   It just happened, splat, there it was for everybody to gawk at, at Homeland.  That is how it is sometimes with sadness.  It still lives inside of you, but it does not cooperate.  What do you do with that which is left?  Where do you put it after it comes out and puts on its ugly show?  Do you fold it back up and tuck it away to oxidize alone and become even more rusty and dangerous  for next time?  I am waiting for someone to give me an answer I have not yet tried.  But that moment of true clarity I felt as I calmly walked back to the  van, my hands locked with each twin on either side, that moment was sharp.  For when I looked into their eyes as I buckled each one safely into their life belt, it was their precious faces that gave me my answer.   I sure hope that man leaving with his eggs said a quick prayer for us, too.