Words in a cemetery

I went to the cemetery yesterday morning. I go there every Saturday, usually in the morning. Jane and I went there most Saturday mornings when she was alive. We went to her mother’s grave. Her mother always liked to hear people talking, so we would talk there. It was always quiet.

They are words–and nothing more.

We would water the flowers we took there. We would water the flowers on other nearby graves if they looked dry, pick up the vases and pots that had fallen over in the wind. We did not stay long on any given day–and less on days when it was cold or rainy. Her mother, Jane would say, would understand.

Engraved words

Some day this week, the engraver came through. He incised the date of Jane’s father’s death on the stone and added the date of Jane’s death at the same time. It’s been nearly five years since Jane died–and I kept forgetting to have the date of her death put on the stone. Her sister suggested we do it when her father died.

We did not stay long…

I admit that I’ve avoided doing that–not so much consciously as subconsciously. Nearly five years of weekly visits, nearly five years of visits on the tenth of each month, nearly five years of visits on her birthday, on our anniversary, on Valentine’s Day–on all the small dates of remembrance that make up the memories of a marriage–and I have not yet really come to terms with her death.

Impact of words

I saw those words on her grave yesterday and I cried. Once again, I was back on the day she died, on the day we buried her, on the day she was diagnosed, in the waiting room of the hospital on the day she was operated on, in her room during the onset of each of the carcinoid attacks and comas, and holding her hand through that long last day when there was no longer any hope.

…I’ve avoided doing that…

I visited my sister-in-law afterward. She said she thought this would finally give me closure–finally let me accept Jane’s death and move on with my life. Part of me hopes she is right. I’d love to stop crying out of nowhere; I’d love to stop having days where I wander aimlessly from room to room thinking I need to do the laundry, vacuum the floors, write this letter, draft that article. Then I look up and the day is gone and nothing is done.

Speaking of words

But I also know she is wrong. I know too many people who have suffered this kind of loss. One of my neighbors lost her husband more than 15 years ago. The tears still hit her. The aimless days still come. It still hurts. Nothing cures this. There are only things that mask the symptoms for a time. There are only coping mechanisms we get better at employing over time.

…the day is gone and nothing is done.

Sometimes, Jane and I would look at the words on the other stones in our little section of the cemetery. We would note the spouses who were still alive and those who weren’t, how long they had gone on without their other half. Some were gone in a year or two. Others lived for decades. We wondered how they endured that much time. Neither of us could imagine losing the other.

The meanings of words

And then, I had not just to imagine it, but live it. I keep looking for words–and there are none. One moment, you are sitting in a room holding her limp but living hand. The next, there is a catch in her breathing and you are holding a hand that has no soul attached to it. You are alone in a way that cannot be described–only experienced. And it is an experience you would not wish on anyone.

Others lived for decades.

A wife or a husband is the family member you choose to give absolute and unconditional love to. When you are hurt, they nurture you; when they are hurt, you nurture them; and there are no questions asked in those hours of need. There is no birth connection there–only a conscious decision that you will share your lives with each other, no matter what comes.

The death of words

And then death comes for one or the other of you–and no words can console the survivor; no physical or emotional gesture changes any of that vast emptiness. It is a pain so great and so deep that often, at the moment it happens, you feel nothing at all. Only months later, when everyone else has gone back to their lives, does the real pain begin. You face that, as you faced the moment of death, alone–alone in ways that cannot be described, only experienced.

…the family member you choose…

The words on the headstone that describe the date of Jane’s death may signal closure for her sister. If they do, I am glad for her. For me, they are only another reminder–like the emptiness in the soul of this house–of all that I have lost. They are words–and nothing more.