The first cut is the deepest.
I could find a song lyric for any occasion.
The first of any thing that I do since 4 PM on Friday brings me to the brink of tears. The first time I made coffee I had real trouble bringing myself to pour Friday morning’s dregs down the drain. Somehow cooking, driving, making coffee or even sitting in certain chairs for the first time really tore me up. It deeply saddens me that every minute thing I do takes me a tiny step farther away from remembering what her fat, furry belly felt like, or what she looked like when I left her – do I really remember that, or is it a picture that I looked at recently just stuck in short term memory?
This week I resumed doing a whole bunch of things that were exceptionally normal – mostly because of necessity with a side of didn’t have a choice. I made Sami’s lunch – first time since I shredded the bowl of stale challah to give to Alex after the Friday lunch prep. I made matzo balls, and finished her last box. I did laundry, ran the dishwasher, set the table, made a real dinner (now with guests!) Got mail from the mail man who usually asks where the dog is, since she would bark pretty ferociously at his shadowy face through the safety door. (He didn’t ask today.)
Somewhere among all this business, this busy-ness, I forgot for a little while to be present in my pain, and when I realized it I felt incredibly guilty. How can I leave her memory so soon? This is not a real concern. I can summon a memory of her from almost any object or place in our house and in our neighborhood; I could still walk around and tell you any place she had a dog fight, or where she lay down huffing when I started walking her out of shape butt to get her trimmed down.
Today during a bike ride with Laura I was blindsided. We stopped in our bike shop to have the gearshift on Ben’s bike adjusted as it was slighty out of sorts. There was a leash attached to a piece of furniture – someone brings their dog to work – and it reminded me of the day Ben and I stopped in to talk to the shop owner and brought a much friendlier, happier Alex in with us. She had a great time, close quarters notwithstanding, and it brought me nearly to the brink of tears again just thinking about how much she’d changed since then.
I started getting Alex’s crate together, putting the things inside it that I was willing to let go of. I cried almost the whole time. Managed to get everything contained. Couldn’t be in the kitchen nook for the rest of that day.
At this point I’ve done a lot of firsts. Uncountable firsts since I left Alex six days ago. I wanted this post to be so much more than it turns out to be, and it’s been a few days so I just have to let it go. 2009 so far has been a poignant reminder that life will not always be what I want it to be. Lessons in how to let go, I guess.
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I come up with songs for everything too. All my major life events have songs. So do every boy I ever dated (or even just kissed.) And a lot of really good friends. It’s nice to have a song that reminds you of something or someone even if it was sad. It guarantees that you will never forget, since the song will always remind you of what happened.