Saturday, July 11, 2009

There He Was, But Not Enough

Tonight I finally had the courage to clean off my husband's desk and I'm not going to apologize or beat myself up for taking so long. It was the heart of his world and next to mine. 22 months isn't too long to wait to clean a desk!

After he died, I left it alone and then my children went through the drawers and took things that reminded them of their dad. I wanted them to take the desk, but I wanted find a part of him in the desk. I looked through it quickly and then I had to stop. No more desk. It was his world, where he almost lived, clawing his way through life, one hour at a time.

I left it alone for months and I mean alone. Dust settled and the sexy lady-computerized voice on the thermometer died. I guess she grieved harder than I did and her battery just couldn't handle it. I couldn't get her to quit crying out the temperature every night. I expected him to croon an answer her back to her some how, but no way did it happen. So one night, she just died.

I started to cover desk with my stuff and move things around. the dust bunnies reared their ugly heads. That didn't work.

I tried to pretend that it wasn't there and apologize every time someone came into my office by saying that I had just had a death in the family and had just had a yard sale. That worked in my head for a while, but then I guessed that no one believed me.

I tried convincing myself that I just couldn't clean it because it hurt too much, but after a while I realized I was getting more and more frustrated with that son of a bithchin' desk every day. So, I ignored the desk even more. Approach, avoidance. It didn't exist. It was the last great hurdle, or so I thought.

Last Saturday I woke up with thoughts of cleaning it all off and making it mine. It's crazy. I couldn't do it. Every time I got near the desk by chest would start to hurt and I would cry. Every day since then, I have tried to say to myself, you can do it. You have to do it. Now!! Don't delay!! You know it's for your own good!! Just get it over with. You're such a coward!! It's only a desk with a lot of junk all over it, and what's with the junk on the sofa. Just do it. NOW!

On Friday, I thought about that desk every hour and how tomorrow I was going to clean it! Please, near God give me the strength to just do it! I had resurrected the thermometer babe and so she gave her usual five renditions of the outside-inside temperature at 9:06pm and 30 minutes later I got one more report. Goodnight I said, looked at the desk and got really, really mad, like someone had just crapped in the middle of the desk and left it for me to clean up. I swore to myself that tomorrow I would clean. I was exhausted and went to bed, slept for 11 hours and then it was Saturday.

Today, or should I say this afternoon, I started clean off the desk. No mercy! If I wasn't using it, then it was gone, except for the chords and cables and Cds and a few other things that I put in a small plastic bag. There are times in your life when reality hits you between the eyes like nothing before. It's doubly hard when you don't expect it. There he was right in front of me, that little piece of his fingernail that came off right before he sank into the damnable "Coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs" world, as he would have said. I thought he was gone and buried except for the little bag of ashes that I will plan to scatter in Scotland next summer.

There he was, so real. Just one tiny piece of him, just as real as the day I met him. It was if he reached out his hand to me. There he was, but not enough. But I can't go back there....

I cant go back there anymore
You know my keys won't fit the door
You know my thoughts don't fit the man
They never can they never can.


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