Nineteen months without Michelle (#1406)

Topics/tags: Michelle

Michelle passed away a bit more than nineteen months ago. Time flies when you’re having fun. Or grieving. Or trying to recover. I guess time flies no matter what you do.

I had hoped to write this musing on the nineteenth-month anniversary. However, that wasn’t in the cards, as they say. In part, it was the other things going on in my life. The end of the semester brings a correspondingly large workload. I’d also decided to make the house presentable enough to invite students over, and that took both time and mental effort. But the main reason I didn’t muse last week was that I wasn’t emotionally up to it. It took me a bit to figure out why I was in such bad shape. It should have been easy: Nineteen months was on a Friday. Mother’s Day was two days later, on Sunday. And the day after that was the 47th anniversary of my father’s death. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that I didn’t have the mental or emotional energy to figure that out.

I’d like to say that I’m doing better now. I suppose I am doing better than that weekend, but not much. And I’m not doing better than a month ago. I thought things were supposed to get easier. They’re not.

A friend says that it’s not that the grief shrinks, it’s that we grow. However, I’ve found that there are times when the grief temporarily expands enough that it completely envelops me. Strangely enough, the most common time is when I park the car. I’m never completely sure why. Perhaps it’s that I drive her car, park in her spot, and park the way she preferred (facing out). I don’t know. All I know is that I sit in the front seat, think about her, and sob. I’ve sat for a few minutes. I’ve sat for half an hour. Grief takes time.

I spent time with her on Mother’s Day. Well, I spent time at her grave. It’s not quite the same thing. But the gravestone (grave bench?) is in place, so I can sit and cry. Next time, I’ll remember to bring tissues so that I don’t leak all over the place. I’m pretty sure the boys coped with Mother’s Day by ignoring the holiday.

Today may have been worse. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. Let’s start with some backstory: When we had our addition built, the builder skimped on the painting. We think he used the all-in-one painter and primer. That failed. The paint started peeling within a few years. We’ve had it scraped and repainted way too many times, most recently three years ago. But without primer in places, it eventually starts to peel in those places. So it’s peeling again. Badly. I talked to our painter today, and he said that the best thing to do would be to sand it all down to the bare boards and reprime. That sounds expensive. So I asked for two estimates, one for what one normally does (scrape, prime, and repaint) and one for what we should do (scrape, sand to bare wood, prime, and repaint). Then I realized that I wouldn’t have her to help make the decision. More precisely, I wouldn’t have her here to make the decision. And I lost it. I’ve been crying and sobbing off and on for over an hour. She’s the one who could make the big decisions in our house. She’s also the one who remembered. We’ve had a lot of people attempt to repaint. Didn’t any of them sand it down? I guess I’ll never know. I do know that you should not paint a house like ours by taping off things and then spray painting; it’s too hard and too time consuming. Use brushes and rollers! But the choice of what to do? I don’t know. I guess the boys will have to help me figure things out.

It didn’t help that when I picked up drive-through for Eldest, the clerk at the window asked, How’s Michelle? It appears she didn’t know. I’m not sure what I said back to her, other than Dead. I know I broke down again. Sometimes I lack the energy for social graces.

Last week, I was struck by something minor. Perhaps it was thinking about what food we don’t use now that she’s gone. Perhaps it was a reflection on some kitchen utensil. All I recall is that it was in the kitchen, that it was a relatively small memory, and that all I could think was Wow, that’s a huge gaping wound. I suppose I also thought, I should include that in the next monthly musing. My physical wounds heal slowly; I suppose it’s only natural that some of my psychic wounds also heal slowly and even open up again from time to time.

One of my goals for this year was to figure out how I’d manage to live without her. I’m not sure that I’ve come up with a completely satisfactory answer. A week ago, I thought I had one that would work, at least for the time being: I’ll make it one day at a time.

That perspective failed me today. I promised her that I’d make it without her. I thought I could. Today, it feels like I can’t. I realize that there’s not really an option other than to make it without her, but I’m struggling to envision how. I need her love and companionship, her advice. I need her to run our lives.

I so wanted to grow old together. Perhaps we did. I certainly feel surprisingly old. But she wasn’t.

Yeah, that’s all I can write today. Perhaps things will be better in another month. I’ve been told that things sometimes need to get worse before they get better. Right?

Postscript: Upon reflection, I suppose that parts of this could be read as suggesting that I don’t want to continue to live. Don’t worry; I’m doing my best to keep myself alive, not only for my kids, but also for myself.

Version 1.0 of 2026-05-14.