Chairs

I find that the passage of time is skewed and I've lost track of days. Nights are still the hardest. I have a difficult time making myself go to bed. This still feels like some horrible dream and if I could just wake up everything would be okay again. Each morning when I open my eyes the first thought I have is that he is still gone. I get up. I feed the parrots, feed the dogs, feed the cats and try to feed myself. The last one hadn't been going all that well. Some people are stress eaters. I would be the opposite. I've lost 7 pounds. Most of that in the first 7 days, so I have been doing better lately.

I went to the store today. I had been dreading the small talk that I expected the cashier to make, "How are you today?" or some variation of it. It's not like they want a real answer. You are just supposed to say "fine" then talk about the weather or some other innocuous subject. Except I wasn't fine and didn't want to say that I was, but instead I got a checker with laryngitis and found that amusing. She could barely squeak out the total of the sale.

A new neighbor just moved in recently from Connecticut I think. He is older. His wife and he broke up after close to 30 years of marriage. Tom had talked to him and gotten his life story. We talked about inviting him over for dinner. Shortly after the obituary has run in the paper, he rings the doorbell. I assume the visit is in regards to Tom's death. It wasn't. He was looking for his 13 year-old cat who was on medication and had disappeared. This is actually the first time I had met him. I hadn't seen the cat, just 5 other cats that didn't belong to me. Two of which ambled through the yard as we stood on the porch. Then I go and blindside him with Tom's death. I had planned to go over and tell him and that I might need help with heavy things. Maybe that was cruel of me. He was visibly shaken and repeated what I said like he couldn't have heard me correctly the first time. I felt bad. He came back the next day to see if I needed anything and gave me his card in case I heard noises at night and got scared.

Today I did ask for help with the large water bottles for the cooler and loaned him some mineral spirits. He was building and staining Adirondack chairs in his driveway when I interrupted him. He said he hated the staining. This made me smile. Tom had built two of these same chairs when we first got together and made the same comment. Tom hated the staining, so we did it together.

Remembering Tom and talking about him is not as painful as I thought it should be. It's the moments when I realized that I heard or saw something that I thought was cool, interesting or funny and normally would run and tell him. Those are the moments that I suddenly freeze and realize that I have no one to share these things with. Not who would really get it. We had a shared history, inside jokes. I am sad for the things he will miss out on. I am sad that I won't have him to share in my art.

Maybe I am afraid for the day to end because I know that one day I am going to wake up and the first thing I think about is not going to be Tom. Right now that is a day I dread just as much as each new morning now.

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The painting: "Quiet Room." I had to practically drag Tom on a honeymoon. He always fought me on vacation plans. It's too much money. There is too much going on at work right now. I finally learned that if I wanted a vacation I'd have to plan the entire trip and finally demand we set a date. Then he has a great time once we are actually gone. About 2 years after we were married, we finally took a real vacation-a much belated honeymoon. We went to several cities in New Mexico. This chair was in a casita I rented us in Santa Fe within walking distance of most of the art galleries.