Picking Up Shneed

This morning, I awoke at my Mom’s house in Keene, NH and my first thought was, “I’m okay with this.”

Obviously I’m not okay with any of this, but that really was my first thought and I do believe I have begun the process of letting go and moving on. I’m scared, I’m guilty and I’m sad, but I’m moving on in what seems to be the extreme beginnings of a natural progression.

By “natural” I mean that despite my mind’s determination to hold me back, tell me I’m a horrible wife for doing anything but staying home and crying for the rest of my life, and accusing me of never having loved Chris or else I would never choose to move on, it all seems to be happening quite without my permission. Naturally.

It’s strange, but I miss parts of Chris’ life that happened before I ever met him. I swear to God I feel like I miss his college days, even though I met him eleven years after he earned his undergradate degree.

Anyway, I came to Keene this weekend because Keene has become a grief-gauge of sorts for me. It’s the first place I came after Chris’ memorial service. I ran away to Keene because I couldn’t face going home. I don’t remember how long I stayed here. Time was (still is) very strange back then. I stayed until I needed to be in my own surroundings. I couldn’t exist without retreating to the guest room to cry about every ten or twenty minutes and I reached out and called a friend of Chris’ who lost her fiance’ to a drug overdose years ago. I thought she could help me understand that I would someday feel better. She did.

Back then, I became excited and elated over the strangest things. I really don’t know what or how I was thinking. The “grief fog” is a very psychadelic place to live. I remember feeling Chris’ presence near me and becoming euphoric and filled with love. I told everyone what I had felt and my high lasted for hours. Eventually, I was ambused by the truth that it really didn’t matter what I felt because Chris, as I knew him, existed only in my memories. I could really fool myself during that point in my grief.

Even now, when I talk about him, I laugh so much because he filled me so much. I become very happy telling my Chris-stories, and then once again, though not as harsh as my previous ambushings, I am hit with the truth.

Still, though, the other truth, the better one, is that everything about me, everything wonderful that has ever happened to me and the person that I am today, is a direct result of my having met and loved and been loved by my sweet, sweet husband.

The best thing I can ever do, the most wonderful gift I can ever give and the sweetest gesture I can ever make is to carry on Chris’ Burrage’s legacy. It’s a beautiful one.