Those Gorgeous Baby Blues Come Home

Dear ones,
The night my beloved darlin' went Home to the Creator, I delayed going home as long as I could. Intellectually & rhetorically, I knew that it was going to be "hard" to walk into Wolf Lodge alone for the first time. In a life stuffed with hyperbole, that statement may rank as the most ridiculous understatement of all my 53 years. I was woefully unprepared, completely naive, totally not in that particular loop.

As I stepped through the door, I began to cry. 2 more trips to the car helped soften the inevitable avalanche of raw, soul-rending emotion which I knew was overtaking me. After I had brought everything in, I lay on our bed & let it overtake me. Every fiber of my being screamed, wailed in an overarching despair which took me, storming into terror, threatening my very sanity (or what is left of it). "Come back to me, come back my beloved!" I cried, "I cannot do this by myself!" Everywhere I looked, I saw my beloved. Everything I touched, I felt her hand upon. When I finally could, I phoned my son & leaned on him. Then I leaned the weight of my loss on Blond Bombshell Daughter (BBD) #3, & we cried together for a long while.
My friends, take it from what veracity I have: never, ever do this alone. Never.

My beloved darlin' has come home to Wolf Lodge. She was cremated in Kerrville, where we were married so long ago. Another circle closed, another moment of joy, another gift from the Creator.
I can tell you all that I have discovered a remarkable lack of emotional control in me through these past weeks. Things that I feel I cannot bear come easily (or relatively so); things I feel prepared for devastate me. This is, I now realize, the Creator letting me know in no uncertain terms that He is in control, not me. As our friend Bud said last night, "Those times when you got through without a problem, the Father was carrying you." Footprints in the sand, walking the path of my soul...
I could not wait to bring her home, to have at least this most basic of physical manifestations with me in that now massive-seeming home. Yet, when the funeral director let me know that she was ready, I fell apart like a snowman in a hurricane. I leaned hard on BBD #3, & on dear friends to varying degrees. Mother Ruth & sister Becca went with me the next day & brought her home. I was fine all day, until I called BBD #4 to update her. As soon as that phone began to ring, I fell apart again, leaving a barely intelligible spluttering message. She texted me a response, to which I fumble-fingered an answer. After enduring my pitiful attempts at this mode of communication, she laughingly called to to put me out of my texting misery.
She was kinder & more empathetic than I had any right to expect, given the long estrangement. I told her we were stepping out onto ice we knew to be cracked, & I would take things very gently, very slowly, very tenderly so as to not hurt her again. I realized that I was being cruel to her in expressing my loneliness, as hers has been much longer a burden. She showed me grace, compassion, & great kindness. A strong woman, with a good & loving heart; I hope I can get to know it again.
I carry my darlin's ashes around the house with me, & lay the box on her pillow at night. I know she is not there, but it the last physical manifestation that I will ever have of the body I loved for most of my life, the body that bore such beautiful daughters, such a handsome son, that held so many babies, that worked & created & loved so deeply.
I have begun the process of attending bereavement counseling thru Hospice, as I try to find out who I am, now that the one who was my world is now not in this one with me. Becoming a One when I have always been a Two will be the tallest mountain I will ever climb: I pray that my journey earns me the right to meet my shining girl at the summit, to rejoin her for eternity in the Arms of our Creator.