Managing Christmas

 It's 6:50 a.m. I was awake at 3:30, got out of bed at 4:30.

I'm a little high. The movie musical Scrooge is playing on my 65 inch TV.  This is one of my top Christmas movies.

Alec Guinness as Jacob Marley in Scrooge (1970)

I don't have to be a coherent human being until about 8:30.  Church service isn't until 10 and I plan to go in and check everything at 9:00.  I'm soloing on altar guild this morning.

Yesterday I did altar guild set up for the "regular" 8:00 am service.  I also read the epistle.  I planned to attend an evening church service at a friend's church because I like the preacher there.  Unfortunately, the tears started rolling shortly after I sat down.  They didn't have Kleenex in the pews and I hadn't carried in a handkerchief because I wasn't expecting to cry. So I left.

I started howling in the car. When I got home I had a good, long cry then fell asleep in front of the tv.

What set me off? I don't know.  Maybe it was the same reason I left a theatre presentation last week -- because the presence of so many happy strangers triggered tears.  Or maybe it was because the lovely church I was visiting had a screen.  Suddenly Will's voice was in my head commenting on the screen in a church. Then I remembered his voice was gone forever.

Last year I was in the middle of the magnets and ketamine therapies at this time so Christmas had a cushion. 

This year, the memory of the last 10 days has returned full force.  And of course Will's death brings up my future dying and my own great fear of those coming days, whether soon or in decades. Like gazillions of humans before me, I struggle with fear of dying, especially dying alone with only paid help around me. I tell myself that a lot of people have this fear.  Well, that helps me feel normal, but doesn't erase the fear.

 

Dear Will.

My mind keeps remembering putting my hand on your cold, dead face as Kevin pulled back the soft reeds of the woven coffin. They'd already filled you with preservative because there were too many winter deaths to freeze you.  When I told the medium that I was remembering this he asked me why I needed to touch your face.  I had to think about that.  Eventually I said, "to prove to myself that he was dead."  But I don't think that was the reason. I think I was having trouble then, as I am now, letting you go. I think I just needed to be in touch with the body of my love one more time.

Will in his final days, December 16, 2021

Love forever,

Kake