Turtling

Today’s theme is “Her Diamonds” by Rob Thomas.



It’s been an interesting month, and we’re only 8 days in. So much has happened in such a short period of time, some good, some bad, some scary but turned out alright in the end. It’s been an emotional roller coaster I was ill prepared for. Odd since little ever really takes me by surprise, let alone causes me to shut down in total, hiding myself away from the outside world as much as possible. This month has already accomplished that. Aside from work I’ve hidden away inside my own head as much as I can. Let me ‘splain…no there is too much, let me sum up.

My Aunt Irene passed away, leaving my Gram as the last of her generation. It was sudden, unexpected and there was much grief. She was spirited, somewhat wild in her youth, but lived and breathed for my Uncle Ralph. I was told innumerable times how much I was like her. She was the tough one, the one that could deal with anything, and keep a smooth façade. When my Uncle Ralph was dying of cancer I asked her how she was coping. She said she cried in the closet a lot, she didn’t want him to see. For him she offered smiles, hope, love and enthusiasm. Now she’s gone. Her loss cut deep, for the loss itself as well as for the immense pain my Gram is in. There’s little I can say to ease it, to help her or console her. I don’t know what to do to help her and that hurts just as much. She aches for her siblings, and at 91, she is the only one left.

My sister in law Amanda gave birth to her second daughter Evelyn on the 5th. This is the second girl she has created with her ex husband that she has reconciled with. They aren’t married currently or engaged or anything but they live in the same house. The birth was both joyous and yet a hint of bittersweet. It seems quite clear that Matt’s siblings can have multiple children by accident, sadly not one of them out of the dozen and a half were planned. We however cannot have any. Seven miscarriages have burned this lesson into my brain like a fired iron rod. While I celebrate the new addition to the family, I ache for the fact that it will never be us celebrating as the parents. While I try to accept that it’s part of whatever grand scheme there is in life, it still makes me grieve. I see the echo of my own thoughts in Matt’s eyes. I would love to give him a child, and yet, I cannot. I am inadequate in that facet, and it hurts.

So as of late I’ve been depressed, and feeling like half a woman. Working like a maniac lately despite my attempts to take time off haven’t helped, I’ve tried to take time off, but the overwhelming number of dogs we have at the moment due to the heat and the fact Matt is laid off is forcing my hand. So lately I’ve been working 6 or 7 days a week and I can’t seem to come up for air. I desperately need to get away, but the harder I try the more impossible it becomes.

So I’ve been burying myself in work, and when I get home in my garden until Matt calls me in because it’s dark out. Once I’m in the house I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t seem to find a direction. He keeps handing me books from my “would like to read but don’t have the time” pile. I read them; they help some, allow me an escape from the reality that I can’t get out from under. I feel frayed at both ends. He knows it, sees it, feels it, and there is nothing he can do to fix or solve it. All he can do is watch, wait, and be there when I come crashing into his chest sobbing, unable to explain, unable to communicate beyond my sobs. He doesn’t ask, he knows, more or less and that’s enough for him.

He’s always been a drug for me that soothes, calms, and heals. Since we were kids I could just be near him, and the weight upon me felt lighter. I don’t have to tell him what, or why, discuss it, belabor it, or even speak to him. It just…solves itself somehow. Time and having him near is all that’s required. When I fall asleep on the couch, which is beyond unusual for me he’ll wake me for supper, force me to eat something and after I’ve eaten hold me until I fall asleep again. He has yet to ask me about any of it, he knows I would likely be unable to truly communicate the jumbled mess of emotions currently inside me. Primarily it’s just overwhelming grief. Time doesn’t really heal all things I don’t think, it just allows for a thick enough scar so that you can stop the tide of blood.

In the midst of this something amusing happened. Wasn’t amusing at first mind you, it was rather terrifying. Patty, who was as much a resident of our house as any of the rest of us, though she had her own parents and home, just didn’t ever go there. She went to check on my Gram. She had flown in to Pennsylvania from Chicago, to visit, and went to the farmhouse. She knocked on the door about 9 am. No one answered the door, so she called the house phone, and my Gram didn’t pick up. Her car was in the carport, she tried her cell phone, and my Gram didn’t answer that either. Patty panicked, called my aunt Daria in California, and told her what had happened. Daria called me immediately, but being in Massachusetts there was little I could do here but try and call her as well. Daria and I began to call all of the kids trying to find out who had spoken to her last, trying to narrow down someone who knew something, anything. Patty started looking for unlocked windows to crawl in to find out if she was ok.

Someone called my mother, and she lives about 10 minutes from my Gram. She has a key as well, so she went down there. As she and Patty ran through the house calling for my Gram at the top of their lungs searching every room, closet, bathroom and space they saw nothing. The back door opened, and my Gram, carrying her hedge clippers walked into the house singing. Her iPod was on, headphones in her ears. She saw them racing towards her and took the headphones off wondering what all the fuss was about. It was at that moment I called her for the ninth time, begging her to pick up, praying she was ok. She picked up the phone while they explained the whole thing. She laughed, no one had bothered to look behind the house. Neither of them thought to look in the yard for the 91 year old woman, who would be doing yard work at 9 am. She was perfectly alright, and highly amused they both thought she would e watching television or some other “old lady” activity at that hour. I hadn’t thought to tell anyone to see if she was in her gardens, I thought that would be the first place they would have checked. She’s much more likely be outside on any day with warmth and sunshine. So my heart began to beat again as we laughed together on the phone and she told me about the new Rob Thomas cd she had just gotten on her iPod.

She’s the reason I downloaded it, and she told me to listen to this song. She knows my heart better than I know it myself, she reads between the lines of my understatement, and she knows all that’s been going on lately. I played it and Matt came into the office, sat down, and listened to the song with no prompting. He never does this we do not have the same taste in music at all. This song was one that caught his attention, likely because he’s been living it for the past week. He’s found me in the middle of the night sitting in the dark in the yard just staring into space looking for answers. Haven’t found any yet, but he sat with me, maybe trying to find some himself, maybe so I didn’t get eaten by coyotes, I’m not sure I didn’t ask. After an hour or so he asked if I was cold, I nodded so he led me in the house.

Maybe in time this too will scar over, heal enough to lift some of the weight that lingers about me. I just don’t know how, and I don’t know when. The only thing I’m sure of is that the only time I feel like I can breathe is when I’m in his arms, and the rest of the day I struggle for air.