The Spot

This week was harder than many of the previous weeks and I think my friend Jill, after reading one of the Nightly Gathering Posts, commenting, and then being responsive when I texted her, framed it well when she described the way her grief had shown up later than others, at the passing of her father unexpectedly nearly 30 years ago.  She’d been the one to take care of the “logistics” when it happened, being strong for her mother and other people.  She had a lot going on so did not dive into her own grief at the beginning.

I did get to grieve Morgan a lot for the first few days, but it was still so shocking that in a way it didn’t feel completely real.  I had so much love pouring in from all the people that God used to reach me, that I was feeling a lot of the love, being incredulous that I could recognize that He was using so many people to let me know how much He loved me through all of them.  That was what I was feeling at the time.  I thought about Morgan constantly (24/7) but I didn’t really “miss” Morgan in those early days, and it wasn’t until a few weeks later when the real, what I call “homesick” feeling hit.  I first identified it as anxiety, but then I realized it was the exact “homesick” feeling.  I’ve lived with that feeling these past several weeks while taking care of the “logistics” of getting things from her apartment, sold, or moved to our house and stored, setting up many aspects of the Celebration of Life, finding somebody to create the quilt(s) I want from her clothes and then finding the 30 or so pieces of clothes to be used, and getting them to the quilter(s).  I’d feel sad and tear up on and off, but usually I remained outwardly pretty strong.

Even when I had lunch with my aunt, dinner with two different friends, phone conversations with my sister-in-law, I could tell the events of Morgan’s last hours without crying. I’m sure each of them must have wondered, “How can she NOT be crying as she is telling me this?”  I was still in logistics mode I think.

This past week, I let myself cry anytime I wanted, which was often.  I didn’t have things to take care of for Morgan at all!  Not a thing.

I think I might have mentioned previously, but I’m not sure, that even though most of her ashes are going to one place, and some are being reserved for my hubby and me and a little more for our son (in the ceramic candle holder urns my pottery friend is working on), that I am planning to bury some in a certain location on one of the walks I take my dog on regularly.  I’ve scoped out exactly where I want them, and it isn’t any resident’s private property.  For the past four or five times, maybe more, I’ve used a big stick and starting digging a hole. Just a little at a time.  Just a little deeper.  I probably stop and dig for a minute at the most.

On Tuesday, which I now look back and realize was Valentine’s Day, instead of listening to a podcast of Jordan Peterson, a sermon, NDE videos, or Pandora Lauren Daigle radio station, I was listening to the Bread station on Pandora instead.  When I was digging at the spot, the song “Goodbye Girl” was on with the exact part of the song at the 49 second part.  I could not believe the coincidence of those exact words being in my ear as I was digging.  Those same words and more repeat from 1:55 to 2:35 with the ending being almost surreal to me.  I was crying quite hard at this point but there was nobody around to see me.

The exact next song after “Goodbye Girl” was “Everything I Own” by Bread.  Give this one a listen from the 45 second mark to the end.   I was practically bawling, but again, nobody around, but I don’t think I would have cared anyway.

I’ve been contemplating for a couple weeks exactly what I was going to place her ashes in to put in this hole I’ve been digging, and it finally hit me.  In my office sit three little antique ceramic items (about 2” tall each) that my mom had sitting on a shelf in her bathroom until she passed away in 2016.  At some point years ago when we were both in her bathroom for some reason (I think because I had bought her a bath mat set she had wanted for Christmas), and she looked at those little ceramic items and said, “I want Morgan to have these someday.”  Now knowing my daughter, I thought, “Yeah, she may not appreciate it until she’s like forty.” (I would not have at her age myself).  I’ve had them since on a little bookcase here in my office since we moved here in 2019.

Take a look at this!  It is the perfect thing (In actuality it’s a hair net box) but it is going to instead be what I place her ashes in, put in the hole, and bury.  I will pass by her a few times a week when I’m not walking or hiking somewhere else.  Pretty perfect. Kind of contemplating placing a bulb there as well, but it might look too conspicuous.

My sadness continued until today.  Last night, actually around 4 am this morning after having trouble staying asleep last night, I had my very first dream of Morgan since she passed, and it was a GOOD dream.  It wasn’t a nightmare or a bad dream.  It was a little weird as dreams go, but I felt very relieved and calm by the dream. The only part I’ll tell here is that after she and I entered a restaurant, and the hostess was beginning to lead us away from the hostess stand, Morgan took an envelope out of her purse and laid it on a small card table sitting close by that had been set up and had several other envelopes on it. She said, “Here’s for the cards you’re collecting for the Veterans.”   We were then following the hostess and I was thinking in my dream, “How cool is it that God uses dead people to give cheer to the living?”  But that thought, along with my cat meowing to get out of the room (pretty rare occurrence), woke me up completely.  I grabbed my phone and typed out the whole dream before I forgot it.  After I fell asleep again, she appeared in one more dream, but I can’t remember any of it, other than it too seemed good.

Today my hubby and I went on a very long hike at a place called Walls of Jericho that took almost all day.  It’s a total of 7 miles, with the first half all downhill and the second half all uphill.  I never felt sad today at all.  It was beautiful weather, my dreams had been good, and I enjoyed myself.  I may be on to some new stage. I don’t know.  I read and hear that the waves of grief will come (forever?), but I’ll take the “normal” days when I can get them and be thankful.