cancer – day 543
Who knew there were still so many tears to be cried?
Seven years ago today, and here I am at the Garden of Reflection with Artie and bawling my eyes out like the motorcycle accident was last night.
I’ve been here most of the morning, but I think I’ll call Paul and JoJo to see if they want to get some lunch soon, then I can come back for a while before driving back to the cats. I give myself this one day each year to truly grieve, and the rest of the year I try to keep it under control. Mostly when I feel bad I try to remind myself how he always wanted to protect me, and maybe that feeling that he’s always with me, my guardian angel, is a part of my strength. I know I’m strong, I’ve survived a lot, but that doesn’t make it easy. Nothing is easy, it’s just . . . life.
I drove down Friday night with the camper and the cats. Artie’s dad called me on Thursday and invited me to meet the family for dinner Saturday night for Genevieve’s birthday, and for the baptism of Charles Domingo Grant’s (Paul and JoJo’s six-month old baby, the first grandchild of the family). I actually had a very, very nice weekend with them, but there’s just always this sadness because we’ll know what Artie would have said, or we’ll be sad that he isn’t physically here to be a part of the new life in the Grant family that he would have loved so much and been so proud of.
This year I got sixteen roses for the gravesite, I’m not quite sure why. My regular weekly roses were already here and there’s a bouquet of white roses from his parents, so it looks and smells beautiful. Makes me remember the first time Artie brought me roses for my birthday, gosh, 12 years ago? How is that possible?
Philip wanted to stop by here between the baptism and the dinner at his parents’ house. Philip and I have the strongest bond around Artie, he’s the one I’ve spent the most time at the cemetery with. Paul has just always stayed close like a brother, while Genevieve is gracious and loving without as deep of a shared grief, she’s better at remembering the positive than any of the rest of us, I think. I finally met her fiancé, Adam, who is just a gem and one of the few beings I’ve met who is worthy of the vivacious, beautiful, and loving Genevieve. There is so much that Artie would have loved in this phase of life, much as he was struggling ten years ago to transition to it.
His parents have always treated me like the daughter-in-law that I almost was, except that we have a wonderful in-law relationship, as opposed to the kind that people make sarcastic jokes about. Like, Margaret saw this cool tea-making thing and she bought it on whim because she knew I like tea much better than coffee. She picked it up a few months ago, and then when they knew I was coming down here, she wrapped it all up to give to me. Such a kind and thoughtful thing to do, you know?
The whole cancer thing was really upsetting to have to tell Artie’s family because they’ve suffered so much already, but they were great support, checking in on me once in a while with a voicemail or text or facebook message. One thing I like about all the new social technologies, there are a lot of ways to be uninvasively supportive, which is what works best on me.