The Stair Master

I get asked often if I am getting better. Sometimes it’s asked less as a question and more an assumption. So you’re getting better, right? I don’t know what the answer is most of the time, but I can verify that the second year of grief does not magically make things better. Unlike last year there is no shock to soften the blow, no belief that all of this was a mistake and Mark will come back home. Rather, there is the ongoing emptiness where there used to be passion, laughter, and long conversations, an ever-present sinkhole that sucked up a life and a marriage.

If you asked me what my days were like at this time last year I would mostly not know. It is a blur. I’d cry both going and coming home from my job, but could rally while I was there to get my work done. It was a relief to have something else to think about but it took an enormous amount of energy to do that. Nobody tells you that grief feels like you’re carrying a 100# backpack all day long. You feel it the moment you open your eyes every morning and beg the gods to take some of the weight off of you. They hear you and your gift for surviving the first year is a trade-in for a 90# backpack.

During the cold and gray days of last winter, I would come home and lay on the couch with my coat on for hours. The house would get dark, and after awhile and a lot of inner dialogue about how I had to do something, I’d get up, take my coat off, feed the cats, clean up the kitchen, take care of bills, watch the news. Before long I’d be ready to go upstairs but I’d stand at the bottom of that staircase for the longest time. It felt like I was being asked to climb Mt. Everest. I’d put my hand on the banister and rest my head on top and tell myself that I could do it. I could go up those stairs. I’d slowly take each one until I reached the top where I could crawl into bed and cry until I fell asleep. The next night and the next and the next it would be the same thing, the same pep talk. You can do it. Just climb up the stairs and you get to go to bed.

Several months ago my brother and sister-in-law called me. I don’t know what we were talking about but I made some joke about my very effed up life and my brother said, “Kath, I’m so goddamn proud of you. Even after all of this you can find something to laugh about.” It made me want to weep because it was the first time somebody noticed how hard I was trying.

Last Saturday, I was getting ready to leave the house and left my phone upstairs. I went up and got it, came back down and then remembered something else upstairs. When I came back down the second time, it occurred to me that I had run up and down those stairs twice without even thinking about it.

So I’m getting better, right?

Some days, yes, but Mark’s death shocks me every single day and I think it will for the rest of my life. I survived the first year without him but am faced with the daunting challenge of remaking my life with no idea where to begin. Mark could tell me, he’d be the one who would list off all the things he thought I was good at, prop me up, and send me back into the arena. Without him I have lost my confidence, my bearings, and my passion, but on a cold Saturday in the waning days of fall I ran up the stairs twice, and sometimes I am goddamn proud of me too.