WIDOW WONDERINGS 

Sunday mornings and oh, it’s also Father’s Day. When I think of Sunday mornings I think of coffee and newspapers and waffles and being a bit lazy. And I think of my husband draped across the couch with all of the above. Truth is we probably had way less of those mornings than I think. Kids, his work travel, home projects, errands – they probably filled many Sundays. But there was always the possibility of lingering a bit longer over the start of a day. We would plan or not plan – but we were together. Sundays during the first year after he died are already a blur. Well, they were probably blurry when they were happening. I remember learning in cognitive science that if the information goes in muddled – it is remembered muddled. And last year was muddled. I didn’t sleep a lot and if you are new to grief, it may help to know that you will sleep again. It comes in waves, but there will be sleeping late again in your life. It took months and months and being so damn tired that my body gave up and slept. So today, 1.5 years later, I slept late. But nothing else looks the same. The Sunday paper sits in the mailbox for a week until I pull it out and recycle it. I think I have read the paper twice since he died. I still make the waffles because that is what I grew up with, what I always did, what the kids should still experience. I will set the foundation for them to have lovely Sunday mornings even if they feel so different for me. On those brutal first Sundays (and Mondays – Saturday), it was the coffee that got me out of bed, the ritual of a warm mug in my hands. It’s mostly decaf because I wake with the jitters anyway, but the taste and the warmth tells me that it is a new day and I wonder what is possible? How will this day unfold? I have discovered pour over coffee and although it takes a little longer, it is a small ritual just for me. Hello self – let me offer you a kindness. That is what Sunday mornings used to be before. I tried going to church for a while last year but then I wasn’t home to make the waffles…. So, the chance to lie in bed a little longer, pour over coffee, staying in PJs through the morning, and lingering with the kids who are home – that is what today looked like. And Father’s Day – another Hallmark Holiday that seems to poke at us now – I don’t have much to say. We went to the grocery store yesterday and bought food he loved, food he would buy when he had a chance to run to the grocery store – sardines, chick peas, apricot jam, angel hair pasta – things I would shove in the pantry. We bought those and donated them. I kept a can of sardines though. It makes me happy to see them on the shelf.

Pour over coffee