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
