We followed my husband’s dream of buying a “fixer-upper” in the country. Our lives were full of additions, half-finished projects, resentments and forgiveness. What I didn’t count on was my husband’s sudden death in 2012 leaving me with unfinished home projects and no instruction manual. This is the story of my concurrent journey through grief and learning how to do home repair.
I have come a long way since the day after the funeral when the toilet broke.
“Flush. Nothing. Flush again. Nothing again.
The toilet was broken.
I sat on the bathroom floor and sobbed. All my pent-up grief from the last days came out, triggered by the fact that the toilet wouldn’t flush. Until this moment, I never had to think about broken toilets or broken anything.” (WGBH, Chapter 15).
Sometimes I still want to cry, like when I was desperate to finish the current bathroom project and put up the toilet paper holder without using the proper tools – notice holes. If there was a connecting line between those holes it would slope up to the right. “Shouldn’t you find a level?” Sonja asked as I was giving the screw the final turn. “No I eyeballed it; it’s fine.”
For a few days, I pretended like the crooked bar wouldn’t bug me, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Four holes in my fresh paint job and I had just put the spackle and paint away.
I still hate to admit when Klaus was right about a home repair project and this time he was. “Alvaaays use da right tool for the job, Susanne.”
When Klaus first died I was anxious to find the right tools to “fix” my life.
Nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming experience my grief would be. There was nothing linear or tidy about it. It was as if the grief had a life force all its own, and I was subservient to it. It breathes, provokes, and teaches; it aggravates; it wants attention. Some days it kept me on my toes, and some days it knocked me off my feet. I could never anticipate or predict when that would happen. Like so many other things in my life, my emotions didn’t come with an owner’s manual, and finding the right tool for the moment was, and continues to be an ongoing journey. The blessing in that journey is that is has connected me to so many who are on the same journey, so if you feel alone out there, please reach out because you really aren’t.
And look what happened when I found the level?
Blessings,
Susan
It is summer, which means I have a bit of time to tackle some home improvement projects. This can either result in feelings of connection with Klaus and connection with my creative, do-it-yourself spirit (on a good day), or a litany of profanity and multiple trips to the hardware store (most days). For the past week, I have been trying to get this screw out of the wall. How can one small screw hold on so tight? I am used to fibers holding the screw tightly in place being stripped bare and no longer holding on tightly (see Widow’s Guide to Becoming a Handyman, Chapter 21). But this time, no matter what tool I try the screw won’t give way. On really dark days I think it is Klaus preventing me from finishing a project (see entire book!).
Thankfully those days are rare, and I can move forward in looking for a solution to the “Screw Holding Fast” problem. And meditate on the screw that is holding fast to the structure of my house – what am I holding on to that I no longer need?
Stay tuned and blessings,
Susan
Thank you to everyone who attended my live event at Content in Northfield. I was humbled and grateful to see you there, and I am even more humbled by the number of views the Facebook Live has had!
After a book event, many ask me, “Did you have fun?” My usual answer is, “Fun is not really what I would call it. I feel like I am walking around without any clothes on.” Grief does that to us, it makes us feel raw and vulnerable. Early in my grief journey, I hated how vulnerable grief made me feel. “My head was on my knees, and my arms were wrapped around me in self-defense and pain. Would grief always be embarrassingly raw this way?” (WGBH, p. 143).
Grief robs us of the life we had planned: growing old with our loved one. For me it was being in the garden with grandchildren and Klaus; growing beans, corn, and flowers for picking and raising chickens again for the opportunity it provided for children to chase them out of the garden and gather their eggs.
Fear and worry are left in grief’s wake. “Life had hurled its ammunition at me, and I was exhausted with worry and fear” (WGBH, p. 143). But thankfully, friends, we aren’t on this journey alone and we can recraft our experience with the help of those who walk with us on our journey. Being vulnerable allows for the opportunity to connect in new and different ways; ways we did not anticipate.
In gratitude for all of my sojourners.
Blessings,
Susan
