perspective on grief

Grief takes on different faces for different people. Oh, I am way familiar with the basic stages, and until recently thought I was well equipped to handle them all. On the way back to Texas from Kennesaw Jim was talking about Mom, and the rest of the family, and reliving all the trauma and tribulation of his teenage angst-filled years. I just let him talk, and from time to time murmured something non-committal, just so he’d know I was still listening. Dad had given him an envelope, as I drove through western AL and he sat shotgun and reviewed the contents, I heard his voice change. Had thought I knew pretty much everything about him, but discovered there is a whole previously undiscovered side to hubby. He broke down once, reading a stupid bad final grade on a report card, for gosh sakes, and then, mercifully, slept, waking only when we stopped for gas in LA. Usually we swap drivers with each fill-up, but I should have known better. From the time we left the welcome station just east of Marshall, it was a wild ride. He kept to the speed limit, yes, but had set the cruise control and it seemed he was hell bent that nothing deter him from maintaining that chosen velocity. You know how when our soldiers first come back from a combat zone the FRG tells us not to let them drive for 48 hours? Well, that same edict should apply to the first 48 hours after a parent’s memorial services, too. He talked and he talked and he talked, mostly about nothing, but then he started talking about how we should sell everything we own and run away to Australia. I just held on for dear life and let him rant, praying silently that if this was my time, then, so be it, Lord, just take me home to Glory and don’t let me suffer too much on the way. We made it here, oh dark thirty, and then he couldn’t decide what he wanted to eat, he had talked about twelve different things on the way, and when I offered to fix his desire he didn’t want what we had but something not in the kitchen and totally unavailable at that hour in our tiny Texas town. He was up for what seemed like forever, just couldn’t settle, and of course he wanted me to be up, too, so he’d have a focus for his anger, but by dawn on Sunday I’m going on no sleep for way too many hours and it was all I could do to stick with him. He finally just collapsed in his made-for-two great room chair, and I crept off to bed. When I got up three hours later, thanks to kitty’s insistence, Jim was sleeping restlessly in our bed. And in the kitchen to fill the empty treat bowl, discovered all sorts of food wrappers on the table and counter. Seems hubby went on a feeding frenzy, not being able to decide on any one thing, he had nuked everything he could find in both freezers. He slept until time for work on Monday. The anger is still there, just under the surface, ready to bubble up and explode with no notice, as it has for three days now. The woulda-coulda-shoulda-mightabeens are sometimes almost more than I can take. And I’m still holding on, but I wonder how he would have handled it if there had been no one to hear and mutely accept his tirades. He’s still eating everything he can find, and every time he walks in the kitchen kitty decides it’s time for him to eat, too, so I’m spending an uncommon amount of time fixing for the two of them. If in the future I EVER say I’m adding another male to my household, somebody please shoot me.