Ordinary

When our kids were younger and would complain about being bored, I would tell them to be grateful for an ordinary day. “It can all change in the blink of an eye,” I would say like some wise, old sage. I even said it when they became adults, but of course I always meant for someone else, not us, not on a Tuesday afternoon, not with such awful news.

This drastic, new change in my life affects me every waking minute of the day. There is nobody to share the coffee, nobody to bitch with about current events, nobody to cook for, no flipping off the light switches that Mark always left on, nobody to chat with on long walks around the neighborhood, no extra clothes to wash, no LaCroix to buy, no jockeying schedules when Mark needed the car, no hearing about how things are going in the lab, the department, or the med center, nobody to pick up from the airport, no flying out the door in the morning and yelling “have a good day” behind me. Except for the constant banging of my thoughts about him and that day, my life got instantly quiet.

Mark and I didn’t talk on the phone very much during our regular work days. Besides having plenty to do at our jobs, we just weren’t good at it. For most things, we texted or emailed each other. Mark had far more responsibilities than I did, and so I always tried to put something attention getting in the subject line to make him laugh and to get him to respond. When things were in flux in his department because of the egos that some in academia have, I put Boom Goes The Dynamite as the subject. He thought that was hilarious and we emailed back and forth about who was losing their shit and why. On that Tuesday, when hours went by and he hadn’t answered my email I knew something was very wrong.

Now I don’t know what an ordinary day is, I’m still trying to figure that out. So far it’s going to work, solving ongoing insurance problems, and thinking of somewhere to go after work so I don’t have to come home too early. And crying, more crying than I thought possible.

A few weeks ago my friend who lost her husband right after Mark died, texted me that she was sitting in the Costco parking lot listening to old voicemails from her husband. Is that crazy? Despite our preferred manner of communicating I have many voicemails from Mark that I have listened to over and over, so if it is then I am also an active, dues paying member in the Crazy Club. It’s not just the sound of Mark’s voice that does me in but the sound of an ordinary day – him calling to say he had to work late, leaving a message with his flight info, asking if I could swing by and pick him up, calling to tell me he wanted to take me out to eat, calling with great news in the lab.

Despite the gut wrenching loss of Mark, I think every day about the wonderful run I had with that guy. There were the usual marriage ups and downs, the making of a life in Illinois, Maryland, and finally Kansas City, three great kids (each one born in a different state), the trip we took together to Spain many years ago and Portugal last year, the week we spent in Montana. The highlights will always stand out as they should, but looking in the rearview mirror it will always be those ordinary days I miss the most.