Nightly Gathering

Open Thread One

I guess I will put up a Nightly Gathering post for we, who are up in the middle of the night, after trying to sleep, and doing so perhaps restlessly for a couple hours, can chat/comment to each other whatever we want. Sometimes I'm sure I'll participate, others mercifully I'll be sleeping and others who find their way here can chat/post/comment. Or it'll be unused/blank.

Stay on the topic of your loved one, or dealing with your grief.

I subscribe to several other substack blogs, which I don't have listed on my page, but the writers and the regular commenters feel like friends I've never met. Perhaps that will happen here.

I tried to sleep first with a full benedryl and that worked from 8-845 pm. Then I ate a decent amount of rice crackers, and slept probably 930-1130. Had to brush my teeth again.

Here I am still awake around 1230 and thought of this idea of the Nightly Gathering and perhaps airing my thoughts will help.

We went back to Bham early on Sunday because we forgot to get her mail when we were there Thursday and worried that after three weeks her mailbox was getting too full. And there was more to clear out of her apartment. I'll talk about that more in another “official” post, because God did show up there in His usual timely fashion, but what has me awake is that it was ROUGH.

This load involved clearing out her bathroom - such personal items. I have a feeling I'll be saving her last toothbrush and her last razor. She had a funny habit of not pulling the hair out of her brush very often, even when an inch thick had accumulated. Whenever she had her brush here, or I was visiting her over the years and used her bathroom, I'd pull this massive amount of hair out of her brush. I did that very thing when she was in the hospital the night before she died, and I was at her apartment feeding her cats, never fathoming she’d be gone the next day. Somehow that trash got emptied between then and yesterday, so that final entangled clump of her blonde hair was gone. I would have saved it.

My husband had packed her can goods etc. there, but I unpacked them here and it also took a lot out of me. She and I had many Aldi shopping trips over the years, although she had moved at least 50% of her shopping to Trader Joes. She really loved Trader Joes.

Most people would dump all these dried or canned goods, but I was not raised like that. I don't waste good food. So unpacking the Aldi spaghetti and a few other Aldi and Trader Joes “brands” made me miss her ferociously.

I'm supposed to start back on my job full time tomorrow, but I'm not sure I can, especially if I don't sleep much more. I know my boss and closest co-workers will be understanding if I take one more day.

I have heard of other people's losses or of their friend's losses a lot in the last three weeks. So many people who lost their child. There's nothing like it. You can't imagine.