Riptide

[Brenda Hoskins]

I cried on an airplane today. It was humiliating. Why? Why was I crying or why was it humiliating? WTF WTF WTF. I am on a plane to Costa Rica, a place I’ve wanted to visit for many years, and I am alone. I am projecting this secure, accomplished woman sitting in first class sipping wine but, the reality is that I am a very sad, lonely woman who can think about nothing more than the sheer delight of the plane crashing so I can be with him again. Stupid, I know, but I can’t help it. Would I miss my children, my grandchildren, my family, and my friends? I’m sure that I would. Does it compare to the depth of my missing him? Not even close. I can’t move on because I don’t want to. The left brains say, “this is not healthy.” The right brain says, “fuck off.”

So, here it is the morning of the second day and I am sitting on the beach crying. It is early in the morning, so fortunately, there is no one else here and this time I am sipping coffee. The sky is overcast and the air a bit cool so I am wearing a light cotton sweater that doubles as a tissue. What an entirely strange place to be-caught in this world where I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. How is one man so powerful that his death can reduce me to a ghost myself? Me! The fiercely independent, I-don’t-need-anyone-but-I-chose-to-be-with-you woman. I feel as though I am in this world but not of it. Like I am an observer of life as it is happening all around me. How foolish was I to think that a change in location equalled a change in . . . what? Situation? Attitude? Knowing? It’s odd that here, thousands of miles away, I feel his loss more acutely than in the beautiful home we shared above our river.

I think about how he would be freaking out about the possibility of encountering snakes and scorpions. How goofy he looked in his bucket hat that he often wore in the sun. It reminds me of when we went to Hawaii the first time on our honeymoon and he refused to get into the ocean because he was worried about piranha. I reminded him that piranha were fresh water fish. He said, “what’s this?” Too funny. Not worried about sharks or sea urchins or riptides, but piranha. But he was so brave. Despite his naïveté and his fears, he took my hand and walked into the surf with me. I thought I was the strong one. I was wrong.

He was strong in that gentle, quiet way that made everyone around him feel safe and cared for. He appeared to know the answer even though I knew he didn’t have the first clue. I often accused him of trying to fix people. He would always try to see all sides of a situation, which was really annoying. I mean, when I want to rage about something or someone, I don’t want to calm down! I don’t want too see it from someone else’s perspective, dammit! I just want to fire bomb something. I’m sure there’s pathology there somewhere but I never actually firebombed anyone, so pathology is more about acting on your lizard brain impulses, right?

How do people get through this life without their other half? The reality is, that sooner or later fully half of us will be the one left behind. This is not a unique human experience, so why does it feel like it is? I look at my grandmother, who will soon be 102 years old. She lost her husband when she was about my age. Maybe even a couple of years younger. How the hell did she get through the next half century? I should ask her. How have I gotten through the last ten months? Really, I have no clue. As shitty as it sounds, I think that was the easy part (refer to recent post Comfortably Numb). It’s the rest of what’s left to me that sucks. Big time. I am not a selfless, altruistic person who can live for and through others. I want my own life, dammit! The one I had planned has been yanked out from underneath of me and I AM ANGRY! I don’t want to be the mother who just lives for her children, the do-gooder nurse who volunteers at a homeless shelter, the odd place setting at dinner. In spite of what Pastor Joel says, I fear my best days are behind me. And that is the worst of it.

Wow I made it an entire day without crying. A minor victory but not insignificant in itself. I’m sitting here, having just finished an interesting lunch of “tropical” salad and, of course, a couple of rum drinks, and the gentle breeze is refreshing. But, I picture him sitting across from me, silly bucket hat on his head, awful plaid shorts and the requisite t-shirt. He is getting silly on rum drinks and swaying slightly to the music. Of course, that is all my imagination but it is so tangible that it seems real. And it brings tears to my eyes. Again. Damn him for missing this. Damn him for leaving me. Double damn him for dying.

I spend most days here up with the birds (who start chirping a little after four) on the beach. It’s pretty well deserted until well into the morning. The coastline is wild and the sand is black, which incidentally, turns into molten lava at some point mid-morning. It’s amusing to watch the poor unsuspecting touristas begin walking leisurely to the water only to quick step their way to a full on sprint by the time the information from the nerves in their burning feet makes it’s way to their brains. I love the water-it’s mildly cool and you can walk out 50-75 yards in waist deep water. I stand there, fighting to keep my balance as the waves roll in. They tend to come in sets so as I’m assuming the float position I can sometimes predict when the bigger ones are coming and prepare to stand up so that I don’t get overwhelmed. If only grief were the same. There are times when I can remain afloat with very little effort, but I am always, always in danger of being overwhelmed with a tsunami. That’s when I tumble, ass-end-over-appetite, in the tumult, sure that I will drown.

But I don’t, and I go on.