Her shoulders heaved with the exertion. Exhausted, she moved to the king-size bed they’d once shared and sank onto the side of the mattress until her breathing slowed and her heart rate returned to normal. Tears filled her eyes, and she furiously swept them away, angry that she was so weak as to give in to the emotion. Edison sat at her feet, and she lifted him up, holding him beneath her chin, needing his warmth and his comfort. The puppy licked the moisture from her face as if he understood what she needed.
“I have shed my last tear for you, Jared Sample.” There, she’d said it aloud, and she meant it.
Once her anger cooled, Joan’s shoulders sagged, and she felt the need to weep all over again. She’d created a huge mess, one she’d need to deal with sooner or later.
She decided on later.
* * *
—
With Maggie at work, the house felt empty. It had rained for two days straight without a break, and now the sun was out. She’d basically ignored the holiday. Because she was dealing with the raw emotions with the grief group, journaling, and reading through the workbook, she’d done nothing to decorate Jared’s gravesite. With the fury of her anger spent after clearing out his belongings, she felt she needed to visit her husband and get her frustration out. Vent if she needed to, release him once and for all.
Filled with purpose now, she cut a few purple rhododendrons from the bush in the backyard. While there, she tenderly looked over the two azalea bushes she’d recently planted. She’d loved working in her yard again, planting and weeding. Such simple tasks that had brought her back to herself, nurturing her soul.
Once inside the house, she arranged the rhododendrons in a vase and headed to the cemetery.
It’d been a while since her last visit, more than a year. Needless to say, she hadn’t forgotten him. It was hard to equate that the man buried in the ground had been her husband, and visiting the cemetery only confirmed a reality she hadn’t been ready to face.
It took a few minutes for her to locate his gravesite. She noticed a ragged-looking bouquet had been placed at his headstone. Steve. He hadn’t forgotten his father when he’d been in Seattle for the conference.
“Jared,” she whispered. It always felt awkward to be talking to a stone marker. Not that she was expecting a reply. “I am so upset with you. I want to blame you even though I know dying wasn’t your fault. I’m alone now, and I don’t like it. I’d hoped to grow old with you, to travel, spoil our grandchildren, all the things we’d once talked about. We had such wonderful dreams for the future. Now all those plans are as dead as you. I thought we would always be together, but then you had to go and ruin it.”
The sprinklers had run their course, and the sun shone down and glistened off the freshly watered lawn. Joan would rather have had it rain. The bright sunlight was ruining her sour mood.
“You’ve upset everything. Did you even once consider how your death would affect our family? The boys need their father, and where are you?”
Joan lifted her face to the heavens and closed her eyes. She thought about Steve, living in Arizona. Something had happened with Zoe, and he refused to talk about it. And Nick, he was so skeptical and distrusting. That, too, could easily be attributed to her reaction to losing Jared.
She set the vase down at the top of the headstone next to the one Steve had left and stepped back. “This is it, Jared. I’ve come to my senses and I’m letting you go. I can’t hang on to you any longer because it’s killing me. Killing me,” she shouted, her anger echoing through the cemetery.
She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. Shocked at her outburst, she hung her head, stepped back, and whispered, “Good-bye.” And then, because she felt guilty at the rage that had spewed from her lips, she added, “Rest in peace.” That said, with a heavy sigh, she returned to the parking lot.
* * *
—
Twenty-four hours later, Joan was in Dr. O’Brien’s office. The counselor sat in her chair with her legs crossed in front of the sofa where Joan was seated with her hands pressed between her knees. The counselor wore high heels and one shoe had slipped from her heel and was balanced on her toes. Funny how such a little thing as a shoe could be so distracting.
“I’m anxious to hear what you thought of the group now that you’ve attended a couple times,” Lannie O’Brien asked.
Joan would be forever grateful that Dr. O’Brien had suggested she attend at least one meeting before she made her decision. “It’s really helped.”
“I understand you and Mary Lou have become fast friends.”
Joan nodded. “She’s great. Sally, too.”
“Every person in the group has been where you are, Joan. They know exactly what you’re feeling because at one time or another, they’ve been in the same place themselves.”
“I’ve been going through the workbook.”
“Wonderful. Is it helping?”
Joan told the counselor about visiting the cemetery and yelling at Jared and then feeling both guilty and foolish.
“That is understandable and necessary. Not to mention a giant step in the right direction.”
Joan agreed. When she’d returned home, it seemed like a giant weight had been lifted from her heart. The anger had been cleansing. Joan realized this was only the first step and there were many more issues around Jared’s death that she had yet to address. She would, though, in time, and that encouraged her.
“Now that you are coming to terms with the loss, Joan, you can start to look forward to the life ahead of you. There are two ways to consider this.”
“How do you mean?” Joan leaned forward, anxious to understand.
“You can continue to cope as you have been,” Dr. O’Brien said, “but I can see that you’ve already done that to the best of your ability, and it appears it’s no longer working.”
Joan realized Dr. O’Brien was right. Her coping skills, sequestering herself in the house, working jigsaw puzzles, and ignoring anything outside her front door, no longer offered solace.
“The other way may prove to be one of the most difficult aspects of grieving for you to reconcile.”
Joan wasn’t sure she understood.
“From what you’ve said, it feels like you’re ready to move forward and make the best of what you have.”
“Yes. Definitely.”
“And yet there’s the desire to remain connected to Jared.”
That was also true. She couldn’t simply erase the years or forget all that they’d once shared.
“The two go hand in hand, Joan. Back and forth, side by side. Moving forward yet staying connected. Does that make sense?”
Joan still wasn’t entirely sure it did. “Can you give me an example?”
“Of course. Moving forward is attending the group and staying connected is visiting the gravesite. You removed Jared’s clothes from the closet; that was moving forward. Looking through the photo albums was remaining connected. It’s a delicate balance.”
“It is,” Joan agreed. She hadn’t removed Jared’s golf clubs or any of his woodworking equipment, thinking it would be a waste to give it up when one of her sons might want those items later.