Tonight, I hate my home. Everywhere I look, he is staring back at me. Fred, the little yellow stuffed dog he gave me when I was pregnant with Hope. The clock/picture frame, with his picture in it, on my desk. A pair of his pants I always meant to sew, turned into a bed for the new kittens three weeks ago. His Ragu Alfredo sauce, in the kitchen pantry. The plastic alligator I gave him as a stocking stuffer, and told him he was my Crocodile Hunter. (That meant a lot to him, he thought I was in love with Steve Irwin. As if! Chris was plenty crazy for me.)
My notes, on the cost of an obituary, and what I want to say, and if I can afford to say it.
Though every item is a stab in the heart, if someone came and tried to take the least thing of his, I would find the strength to toss them from my balcony, and watch them bounce. And then I would collapse into lethargy and agony again. And wish I had the strength to get the hell up and go on.
What does this have to do with going to bed? Simple. My bed is our bed. It’s where he made me seasick, tossing in his restless dreams. It’s where I couldn’t drag him out of, when the sadness was too much. It’s where I didn’t want to leave, too many mornings to count. Where I didn’t lay beside him as often as I could have, since the meds made him sleepy so early, and I always had “things I needed to do.” It’s the bed he bounced me out of, jumping on it of a Saturday morning after I’d stayed up too late, and couldn’t drag myself out by seven. (It’s a waterbed.) It’s the site of Sunday Morning Tickle Torture. Of Naptime with Daddy. Of “hey, she’s watching a movie, you wanna?”
It’s where he called me from, when he woke up and I wasn’t there. Where he brought me coffee, and woke me with a kiss nearly every morning since I got a real job.
I will probably move from this home we loved so much. But that won’t be anytime soon. In the meantime, I don’t think it’s healthy to hide from my own bedroom. Even if I wouldn’t be a pretzel soon, if I kept sleeping on the couch. So I have to go up there. And I have to sleep.
I’m not sure the two can coincide. But I have to try.