Tasnowma

We had a snowfall that rivaled any since Paul and I moved to Tacoma. It started on Friday at noon, and practically didn’t stop until Monday night. It was beautiful. It made me giddy and high with the feeling that we should all stay up all night and play in the snow. I spent more time outside than I ever do at this time of year, meeting neighbors and taking Emmet out to bound about in the fluffy stuff. Alison and I went swimming twice while the snow fell, and we even found a Monkeyshine that was left with our clothes.

But underneath it all, I felt and still feel profoundly sad. These are the adventures and giddy feelings I was supposed to experience with Paul; he loved this sort of thing. I did my best to honor him by shoveling the sidewalk, front walk, and driveway every day, since proper snow management and civic duty were both high on his priority list. But the snow just reminded me that I miss him. And it’s not just that I miss when he was able to take care of the shoveling…

I’ve been noticing lately how layers of emotions coexist. I can be going along with my day, getting work done and making plans, not even really thinking about Paul, and then the taste of grapefruit La Croix will make me lose it because I suddenly think of the Saturday night before he died when he asked for grapefruit at 2:00am. The two pamphlets about death that I was subtly handed by nurses (in lieu of telling me directly that the end was near) mentioned that the person will often ask for a favorite food, despite not having eaten anything for days. How funny, that this is a common sign of being close to the end. And funnier still, that it was grapefruit. That was the end of his last “good” day, when he was talkative and joking, and we got to curl up on the real bed for twenty minutes. Anyway, it’s like those thoughts and painful memories are always so close to the surface and I just have to stay above them or I fall “in.”  Luckily I’m a strong swimmer.