The Anatomy of Loss

Somebody told me once that divorce is trading one set of problems for another. As much as I’d like it to be a melodramatic overgeneralization, it’s true. It’s up to the individual to make the determination about which set of problems he or she would like to have, but the statement holds true nonetheless. 

I was prepared for what came with the set of problems I chose - the emotional angst, the attorney bills, the process of buying a house on my own, the act of furnishing said house, readjusting to a new, less comfortable (in some ways but not others) normal. 

I was not prepared to face the first stomach bug alone. 

I knew it was coming. Last Monday, I even mentioned to a co-worker that I thought I’d be called by daycare before the end of the day because something seemed “off” with Eli’s tummy - nothing to keep him home yet, but mother’s intuition had me on alert.

Despite my misgivings, Monday’s school day passed like any other. I got the kids home, fed, bathed, and put to bed on schedule, and yet something told me not to turn in early despite the fact that everyone and everything seemed beautifully normal. 

If anyone out there wants me to start forecasting your horoscope or something, just let me know because the kids fell like dominoes that night - no, that’s not the best analogy. Hang on. The kids fell like a group of college freshmen after their first kegger. Yes, that’s the one. You know what I mean, just one right after the other in the most epically horrendous way. 

Emmett came to my room around 11:00 saying he needed to use the bathroom. Before I could even get to him, he’d already vomited on his lap, the toilet, and my bathroom floor. I shoved the bathroom trash can under his chin and coached him through the rest of it, something you never really imagine yourself doing pre-kids. I threw a towel on the floor and had him take off his sick-soaked jammies while running a bath for him. I put my shaking seven-year-old in my tub and told him it was okay, the worst was probably over. I brought him fresh jammies and made him a pallet on the floor next to my bed, with newly cleaned bathroom trash can placed strategically beside him. 

I had just gotten in bed after bleach-cleaning my bathroom and starting a load of vomity laundry when Lucy came shaking and crying to my door just after midnight. I immediately grabbed the trusty ol’ bathroom trash can and shoved it under her chin before she even spoke. 

“What’s wrong?”

“My stomach really, really hurts.”

“You need to throw up.”

“No, No I don’t. I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Fine, go to the bathroom, but keep the trash can with you.” 

Always listen to your mother, people. She is seldom wrong, as Lucy found out. I said a silent prayer of thanksgiving for bathroom trash cans as I coached yet another child through the process. All the prime floor real estate in my bedroom was being taken up by a sleeping blonde boy, so Lucy settled for a pallet on the living room floor - bathroom trash can next to her head, of course.

Admittedly, I was panicking a bit at this point. One sick kid? Fine. Two sick kids? Borderline not fine.

I called Patrick to see if he could come over to help me only to find out that he was also down for the count with the stomach virus. 

Then I did what any 38-year-old woman (Oh yeah, last Monday was my birthday, by the way. CHEF’S KISS.) would do in this situation and called my parents. They didn’t answer, but, to be fair, it was midnight. 

“It’s okay. You’ve got this; you’ve GOT this,” I repeated as I coached myself through the process. 

Around 1:00 AM, all was calm, everyone was asleep, so I decided to try to do the same...like a fool. Fifteen minutes later, scream cries from Eli’s room jolted me out of bed. I already knew. I sprinted across the (admittedly tiny) house and flung open his door to be hit with a wall of stench so undeniable that I can almost smell it as I type this. I flipped on the lights to see Eli, his bed, the rug around his bed, and the dresser (???) absolutely decimated. Think of the word or phrase you use to describe the grossest things humanly possible. It was that. It was absolutely that. 

The screams of my toddler, the stench of his sick, and the panic of what to do first started to get to me. I could feel the acute anxiety start to crush my chest and neck as the overwhelm began to fill my throat and lungs with every rapid breath I drew. 

As I pulled my screaming, vomit-soaked baby out of his crib, there was a distinct moment where I remember thinking, “This is it, Christy. No one is coming to help you. You are alone. You have to do this yourself. You are the adult in this situation. If you lose your s***, they’ll lose their s***. Stay calm and get it done. They need you. Keep it together.” 

And with that, I bathed my toddler, settled him down, and managed not to be overcome by exhaustion and anxiety. 

I was alone.

But…I chose this alone. 

There are many who don’t get the choice.

I thought of one of my best friends who is a military spouse in that moment. “If Katie can do this for months while her husband is deployed, I can do this.” We’d even texted each other earlier that evening (it being my birthday and all) and ended our conversation on a note of solidarity as we were both wrestling toddlers into bed. 

I chose this alone. 

That thought reframed my entire mindset. As I scooped the chunks out of the crib, off the floor, and off the dresser (again…what the???) while Eli ran all over the house as if he were having the time of his life and it wasn't 1:30 A.M., I just kept telling myself that I had to do it alone because that’s what I chose. This is the set of problems that I chose for myself. 

I rolled the pack-and-play into the last square footage of free space on my bedroom floor and prayed that Eli had no more sick to give since I was out of bathroom trash cans, and he probably wouldn’t know what to do with one anyway. I started yet another load of repugnant laundry, washed my hands for the 468th time, and winced as I felt the first pangs of the agony to come in my own GI tract. 

The night played out as you would expect it to. The bathroom trash cans came in clutch, and each time I heard them being put into use, I dutifully arose from bed to empty and replace the trash bags and to check on the one who necessitated the emptying, all while I felt myself getting closer and closer to the official stomach bug realm. Welcome to year thirty-eight, right!? Is there, like, an exchange policy or something? Can I get thirty-seven back if this is how thirty-eight starts? Geez.  

Once daylight appeared, and it was clear that the worst was over for the kids, I called Patrick. He felt well enough to take the boys for the day while I took my turn in the gastrointestinal thunderdome. 

I’d done it. 

I’d survived the single most stressful night. Alone. 

…

I agonized for a long time over what to do. I knew I had to be sure because there was no undoing it once the decision was made. I worried about the kids, finances, comfort, spirituality, failure: you name it, I worried about it. For years. 

I’ll not speak ill of anyone, so I won’t say anything about why I made my decision. The only thing that matters is that I made it. 

I knew that I would have to be okay with being alone. I’d felt very alone for a long time, but I knew that I would truly be alone once I left. And I know that I will most likely be alone for the rest of my life. I did not choose this with the thought that someone would come along one day and complete me or fix all my problems. And so I told myself that I had better well be prepared to be alone for the foreseeable future in all realms of life. 

But it still surprises me sometimes - the being alone. 

Like when it’s not my week, and I come home to a silent, empty house. Or when it is my week, and everyone is being insane and melting down at the same time. Or when I’ve had an eventful day at work, and there’s no one to regale with the details. Or when everyone catches the stomach bug within hours of each other on my birthday. (Overkill on that last one, I know, but the point still stands.) Or even when the evening light coming in the window is beautiful and there is no one to point it out to. 

It feels like for every thing I don’t miss, there’s one thing that I do miss. 

I miss my house. God, do I miss my big, beautiful house in my big, beautiful neighborhood with the big, beautiful community pool and playground and walking trails. The kids miss it too and tell me so often, which only makes the crushing mom guilt worse. 

I miss having a garden tub. I know it sounds stupid, but I’d always wanted one and never had one until we built our house. I used it all the time. After I had been so, so sick this last week and my body ached, all I wanted to do was get in the bathtub. I hadn’t had a chance to clorox the kids’ tub after bathing the yuck off Eli, so I had to settle for my tub. The faucet doesn’t work in my bathtub, and I can’t afford to have the plumbing fixed (because this is the life I chose), so water only comes out of my showerhead. I was so tired and so sore that I plugged the drain, turned on the showerhead, and lay underneath the stream while the tub filled up with water. In that moment, as I was pelted in the face by water because I was too exhausted and achy to move, I longed for a garden tub…or at least a working faucet.

I miss my plants. I currently live in my fourth house, and in every home I’ve previously owned, I’ve planted my grandmother’s hostas. I’ve planted my nana’s roses and lilies and peonies. I’ve planted hydrangea bushes because they’re my favorite. I’ve planted vegetable and herb gardens. I’ve filled the empty spaces with the things that I love. At our last house, you know - the big, beautiful one, I let the kids pick out all sorts of flowers. We’d planted them together, up front, in back, anywhere there was a space. Emmett in particular would become ecstatic when they would bloom or when a hummingbird appeared at the window where the Gladioli were growing wildly. I could romanticize it and say that I’ve left pieces of myself in each of these homes, but I’m tired of leaving pieces of myself behind. I really am. I want them back. 

I’ve lived in this house since July, and I unpacked a box today. I assure you, most things are unpacked, but there are still boxes of things that I couldn’t bear to part with scattered across various storage spaces. I detailed some of the divorce-moving-triage process in a previous post, but it was painful, to say the least. I gave away or sold half of my half (my third, if I’m being honest) because I simply didn’t have room for it all, but I held onto the things that my heart couldn’t bear to part with - truly, incredibly, maddeningly useless things like a long-dead distant relative’s entire set of china, or mismatched, badly tarnished silver serving pieces that my grandmother had and never used. That box I unpacked today? Art books. Photography collections from Mathew Brady, Annie Liebowitz, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, mixed with books my art professors used as our texts from almost twenty years ago. I knew that one day, eventually, I’d have the perfect spot to display my beloved art books. So I held onto that piece of myself for almost a year. And I was right. I was right to keep the books even though that damn box weighed at least thirty pounds and was a nightmare to keep moving from place to place when I needed to look for something and inevitably found it in the way.

I was right, but…

But it is exhausting, the waiting. I’m tired of having my life scattered around basements, attics, garages, storage units just waiting to be unpacked when there is space…somewhere…one day. 

What if one day never comes? Was it worth clinging to a piece of myself if it’s something I never open up again? 

I don’t know.

…

For a very long time, I felt numb. I think a lot of us feel that way eventually. We settle into life because that’s just what you do. A routine is created, a life is built, the pattern is set, and it’s  easier to maintain the status quo than to shift things around to alleviate the numbness. 

Now, I feel everything all the time. 

At first, it was overwhelming. I must admit, I did not and do not feel sadness about the loss of the relationship, but I do feel so much else. The incontrovertible stress of starting life over was staggering. The emotional toll of processing what I’d had to do was expansive. The immense guilt of the havoc I’d wreaked on my children’s lives was crushing. It was all so very very, for lack of a better term. 

Much like on the night of stomach virus apocalypse, I knew I’d never make it through alive if I didn’t keep things in perspective. 

I’ll tell you what I’ve learned in the process.

Sometimes when you grieve, you’re the ghost. 

You may be grieving a person, a relationship, a reality, but the fact remains - you’re the ghost. 

 

I’ve grieved all of the above, and each grief is markedly different in divers aspects, but no matter what one may be grieving, at its core, grief is a longing for something or someone we can never have again (or maybe never even had at all). 

Grief involves memory, fantasy, logic. We know what once was can no longer be, but we long for it nonetheless. 

What we really long for, though, is who we were and/or what we experienced in that version of reality. 

We’re haunting ourselves. 

We’re the ghosts. No one else. 

…

There are times that I miss my old life desperately. I miss living under the same roof with my children every day. I miss being able to look into their rooms and see them sleeping every night. I miss my five minute commute to work. I miss my old house. I miss things like the financial stability of a two-income household. I miss garden tubs. I miss being able to buy something simply because I want it. I miss the life I worked so very hard to build.

That life is gone.

For some time, I felt like I had no right to grieve for what I’d lost because I chose to leave it behind, but I don’t believe that anymore. 

I’ve learned that it’s okay to make a seemingly impossible decision and grieve the circumstances that necessitated it. 

I chose this alone, yes, but I am allowed both to celebrate the choice and to grieve having ever to have made it. 

…

One year ago, I fantasized about where I am now: living in my own home, working in a position where I can support myself, (I’m trying to think of an -ing word to continue the parallel structure in this list, but…thriving feels disingenuous…surviving feels melodramatic. I’m somewhere between surviving and thriving) in a new normal. Everything was so unsettled, so raw this time last year. Facing a triple stomach bug alone almost pales in comparison. 

I keep reminding myself of that fact, though - I fantasized about being where I am now. Who’s to say what progress, what successes, what rewards another year may bring? The thought is both comforting and terrifying, as anything worth having in life is, I suppose. 

I’ve been honest in disclosing my struggles in this post, so this is by no means the idealized life I imagined living at almost forty, but there is still richness in the life I’m piecing together. 

I’ve learned much about myself, about life this year. I’ve lost some pieces of myself, true, but I’ve certainly rediscovered so many parts of myself that I thought I’d lost to time, to the numbness, to minutiae. 

If you know anything about me, you know I love poetry, and the poets - oh, the poets - they say what I want to say so much better than I ever could. 

So I’ll close with a poem by Andrea Gibson that perfectly encapsulates what I feel, what I’ve feebly attempted to convey to you above. 

A difficult life is not less

worth living than a gentle one.

Joy is simply easier to carry

than sorrow. And your heart

could lift a city from how long

you’ve spent holding what’s been

nearly impossible to hold. 

This world needs those

who know how to do that.

Those who could find a tunnel

that has no light at the end of it,

and hold it up like a telescope

to know the darkness

also contains truth that could 

bring the light to its knees.

Grief astronomer, adjust the lens,

look close, tell us what you see.