The Blows Just Keep Coming

Warning, this is a bummer post.

I opened the file "Wedding List" to approximate how many invitations we would be sending and the first person on the list is, yup, you guessed it, Mom. No tears were shed, but it certainly reinforced the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach; like someone knocked the wind out of me; an elephant on my chest. Now I don't even feel like tallying up the number of invitations.

I can't bring myself to delete her from the list. Whelp, there's the tears. Great. Dad's cleaning the house and purging it of all her clothes and belongings, deactivated her cell phone, had Kim remove her Facebook. Isn't her loss enough, why do things have to radically change at the house? Why so fast? Hospice had their contracted company come within a few hours after she passed to take all the equipment. In less than half a day you couldn't even tell a sick person had been living there. In less than 2 weeks you can't tell a woman had lived at the condo for 8 years, the closets and drawers empty of her makeup, hair stuff, lotion, undergarments, sweaters, purses, jackets, shoes. Everything. All the craft stuff she was working on or kept around for when the grandkids visited, her sewing machine, tea, scarves. Next it will be all the little knickknacks women are known to collect and men are known to despise. I talked with her about how I was scared it wouldn't feel like home with her gone and now I feel like my fears are turning into reality. I guess it just won't be the home I am used to...

Even though it really makes me sad that he's getting rid of her stuff I stay quiet. She was his wife, it is his house, and he is there all the time. I suppose this is just how he is dealing with his grief, and so I pretend like it doesn't hurt when he fills another huge garbage bag to bring to Goodwill. For me, it feels like another loss every time he gets rid of something.

So tonight, I am not going to delete her from our wedding list. Tonight she still get's the number one spot.