Talk through it

Today I went to meet Mark to pick up the taxes. About two miles from his office I thought about how I wasn't grieving today. Yeah - not the right train of thought if you don't *wish* to be grieving.

I noticed the changing colors of leaves in the trees. I thought of last Fall when I scooped up bright red and maroon leaves and I threw them on the dash of the car for the drives to New York City. We couldn't go hiking at the time, so we brought the leaves with us. I thought about the drives to the city and how Robin would be throwing up blood into a bag all the way down. We'd gotten so used to it that it seemed like a way of life. Glad bags with kitty litter were in the house, in the car, in Robin's pockets. I don’t think I described it much on the blog because it didn't seem like the type of information that was very inspiring. It certainly wasn't what we focused on.

Then I recalled our meeting with Mark a year ago when he said he was "surprised to hear that Robin had cancer" - to which she immediately replied "Me too!" What a sense of humor…

So there I go from having it all together to ending up in Mark's office with tears streaming down my face. So I did what I do best. Through a hoarse, broken voice I tell him about the leaves we had in the car, I remind him about the conversation in which Robin said "Me too".

I notice that I don't look directly at him when I talk, I seem to look everywhere else in the room. Then soon the tears are clearing up. We continue on with conversation about life and what's been going on with each of us.

When I consider the grieving response I don't wonder anymore when it's going to go away. It doesn’t bother me to have it. At some point (long ago) I'd resolved that it wasn’t going to control me - maybe that's why I always manage to talk through it. In a strange way it's starting to feel like a connection to that period of my life. Maybe that's why it continues on so strong in some people - because they keep yearning for that connection.