All That and a Load of Laundry

Tonight I brought home the new futon cover I bought for Chris’ chair, the one he sat in right before he died. I remember him, in his morphine haze, saying, “I wanna sit in the chair,” and getting up from the hospital bed the ambulance drivers had pushed into our bedroom for Chris’ safety during the last four days of his life. There was no way Chris was going down in a hospital bed. Although he was incredibly weak, he got up and, with our help, walked over to the chair so he could sit upright and go out in style. I still remember him in that chair, finding me among his friends and family and locking his eyes on me. I talked him through his departure, because I knew it was best for him to go with as much guilt-free ease, and as little fear as possible. He did a good job.

I have sat in that chair a few times since his death, but the one single time that haunts me still is the night I realized, for the first time, that Chris was really gone forever. I can’t describe the pain, other than remembering how much I needed him. The pain was searing, like my skin being ripped off of my body, a hollowing feeling like screaming into an abyss. Nobody could hear me because I couldn’t make sound. I could just hold onto the futon chair and hope and pray that I could open my eyes and find that it was him I was holding, and not some stupid chair. I almost lost my mind that night. I had never before felt on the brink of snapping…really snapping…and never since.

Thinking about that night puts me back there, and I know I shouldn’t be doing that, but sometimes, that’s really all I want to do with a quiet evening at home.

I remember that even though Chris was dead, I still thought he was coming home. I still remember the piles and piles of unopened sympathy cards I came home to after being away for a time, the length of which I still can’t remember. I hated those cards. They were anything but a comfort to me. I grabbed them up and threw them, as forcefully as I could, into the trash without opening them, threw away all of the food from the days preceding his death, and emptied all of his toiletries out of the bathroom cabinets with one sweep of an arm. I couldn’t get away from his stuff, and that’s all I wanted to do.

Everybody felt sorry for me, and I wanted to die and I wanted everything to stop, and I wondered how long I was going to remain in the state of shock I was in, and I just wanted to be able to breathe again.

I still wonder where he is, and if he’s okay, and if he still knows me.

Last week, I took the old futon cover, the one on which Chris died, folded it up, and placed it into my little Chris-box of his stuff I keep for myself. There are only a few things in the box, but they’re important things that remind me that he was here, and that we met.

Tonight, before I left the futon store, I asked the salesman behind the counter if it would be okay for me to share a story with him. I told him about how Chris died in my chair, and how after five years I was giving my chair a makeover and giving myself hope for a brighter future. I said all that without crying. He smiled, God-blessed me, and wished me luck.

When I got home, I put the new cover on the chair. It’s Chris’ chair, the one I set up for him when he returned home from having surgery, so he could be comfortable while he recovered. Now, it has a new face, a brighter face, a face of the future, my future together with Jonathan, and it has a chance to become my and Jonathan’s chair.

I just don’t know how long that will take.

Shneed