General Observations: Chapter Two

Janice said “let people help you.” For, possibly, the first time (or, at least, one of the very few times) in my long life, I did/I am. I'm havin' no fuckin’ prob with it at all, in fact. Why’zat? I’ve been so astronomically out of it, so poleaxed with grief. I’ve been unable to voice my usual “No, that’s OK. I’ve got this covered.” This is good. And ya know, I’m not feeling my usual guilt about having others do for me either. Mostly.
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It occurred to me this morning that TAB won’t be here for my birthday next month. He won’t be here on Thanksgiving or Christmas either. Christmas might be the hardest. We always celebrated that day, just him and me, with loads of Chinese food and a bunch of movies. No spending the day socializing with family we’d normally cross the street to avoid. No forced gaiety. No orgies of gift buying and giving. We’d sleep late, feed and cosset our herd of cat, open the little prezzies we’d bought or made for each other, order fud and fire up the DVD player. We’d always start with Scrooged. GREAT flick!

I know, I know…..I can always spend the day with Helen’s family or Jen’s famiglia or Gary and Dawn or Cindy and Giovanni or other chums. I have options BUT I want to spend these special days with TAB. Like always.

And again, I know, I know – new traditions will evolve and I don’t need to push this. I shouldn’t push this.
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TAB and I were never the matching outfits type of couple. Yeah, that’s not a shocker for anyone. BUT over the last, mebbe, ten years, I was forever seeing T-shirts that I just had to have and, yes, so did TAB.

• Cookie Monster over the world – Bob was most def the Cookie Monster. Me? I’m Mrs. Cookie Monster.
• Shakespeare or Willy the Shake as TAB always called him. TAB's most fave author.
• An old typewriter with Control Z – TAB hated computers. He liked his old, faithful Smith-Corona and that was that.
• Peace dove with weed leaf versus olive branch because…OF COURSE!
• and the Quincy Animal Shelter

In our matching T-shirts, holding hands as we walked through the halls of MGH, we really were the KA-UUUTEST couple!
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I wonder:

• will I ever laugh again?
• will my sense of humor return?
• will I ever feel joy again?
• will I ever stop walking around in a fog of sorrow?
• will TAB return next week and this death thing will turn out to have been a horrible miscommunication/misunderstanding? Mebbe I missed something? One of the 700 docs attending my man, mebbe, said that TAB needed to go away to some special restorative clinic for a week and I just didn’t hear it because, ya know, deaf and shit. Yes, I have a vast and fantastical imagination.

I know I’ll survive this. Survival’s one of my superpowers. I want TAB back NOW though.