The funeral was over. The relatives had gone and the freezer was stuffed with more food than I could ever eat. But mostly, it was time I had too much of … minutes, days, weeks, months of time.
There had been five years of care-giving. Schedules of special medications, pages of special diets, doctor visits, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy—five years of being by his side almost all the time .… now there was nothing … nothing but time!
Widows react in strange ways to a loss of their loved one. I had seen death and now I needed to see life … so I headed to the pet shop.
There I stood in front of the window and for 30 minutes watched four little kittens as they pounced and played. For a brief while, I forgot my grief and my heartache eased.
Have you ever returned home from a holiday in the late evening when the house was dark, unwelcoming? You turn the lights on and suddenly it is your home and it wraps its arms around you and you feel content.
But the light switch in my home had been turned off. My home seemed cold and uninviting.
So, much like the song Downtown, I headed to the mall rather than back to the house. For a long while I just dragged myself from one store window to another, wasting time.
Outside a dress shop was a very high stand filled with beautiful, long evening dresses. I’m a short five feet tall and had to look way up to see the dress tops. Gently, I let my hand slip over the silky material of one when a male voice nearby said, “Lady, you can’t buy that dress …You’d have to chop a foot off the bottom of it!”
For the first time since my husband died, I laughed out loud … then giggled as he walked away.
I have laughed a lot more since that stranger spoke to me two years ago, but it was a beginning, a small step toward recovery.
Sometimes, a comment, an action or just a smile can make such a difference in someone else’s life. It costs you nothing but to the receiver it could be worth a million dollars.
