When you are a widow with kids, the weekdays are the easiest to get through. You are so busy with feeding your kids, bathing your kids, dressing your kids, taking them to school, helping with homework, driving them to sports, and your actual job if you work outside the home, that the hours just fly by.
The nights are a different story. The nights are like a slow motion movie. Watching the minutes tick by is like watching a snail move across a sidewalk. The irony is that you are so physically exhausted from being a solo parent that your body is crying out for sleep. But the minute you lie down in your bed and close your eyes, your mind goes crazy. It’s impossible to shut it off. Sleep is not even a remote possibility.
For weeks after Gordie died, I would put the boys to bed at eight o’clock and then spend several hours catching up on my work for Clorox and working on closing out Gordie’s life. I would work for hours, often until the wee hours of the morning, just to avoid the failure of trying to sleep.
That’s not all I did at night though. I developed a late night obsession of trying to find some sort of connection to Gordie. I would listen to his voicemails still left on my phone. I would read all the texts from him that were still on my phone. I would call his phone over and over to hear his voice on his voicemail greeting. I would read the texts on his phone over and over. I would read and re-read all the emails I still had from him. I would go through his email accounts reading emails sent to him and emails he had sent to others. I was always hoping I would find a draft of an email that he had saved but not yet sent to me. I would go through photos and videos on my computer. The videos were my favorite: sight, sound, and motion of my husband. I would smell some of his clothes that I had brought from the Estate to my parents’ house. I would go through his files that my friends had brought from the Estate to my parents’ house. When I found documents with his handwriting, I would trace over it with my index finger. I would go through his wallet over and over. I would stare at the picture on his license. I would lovingly hold the picture he had of Nathan in his wallet which was so worn that it was obvious Gordie looked it at often.
I did this stuff night after night, month after month. It was an obsession. I was desperately searching for a connection to my husband who was now gone. There were times where I wondered if what I was doing was unhealthy. After months, I confessed my nightly obsession to my Therapist and asked if she thought it was weird. She smiled and shook her head. I was relieved.
My obsessive quest for a connection to Gordie was not just confined to my nightly ritual. I also visited the Estate multiple times each week to try to be close to Gordie. Fortunately, his family was letting me keep our furnishings and other stuff there as long as we needed and they also let me keep my key. Nobody lived there and everyone who worked there was gone by 4pm so the place was completely open to me and my crazy behavior.
I would wander through all the rooms in that big house, almost looking for Gordie. I would sit on the steps outside the door to the kitchen and try to will him to come through the door. I would sit in his favorite chair with the ottoman. I would touch things I know he had touched. I would sit at his desk and go through the drawers. I would read anything and everything in his handwriting. I would go up to our closet and smell his clothes. I would lie on his side of our bed and inhale the smell of him that was still on the sheets. I would reach out and touch the book that was still on his nightstand. He was reading John Grisham’s The Firm before he died. He had never read it and was really enjoying it. I am sad he never got to find out what happened to Mitch.
Often, especially on my rest days from running, I would put on some workout clothes that were at the Estate and do a workout on my spin bike while watching one of our favorite shows that were still recording on our DVR. I would try to pretend that he was sitting on his chair, watching with me.
I would go out to the side yard where he worked on his projects. I would slowly draw my hand across his tools sitting on his workbench. He had so many tools. I would smell the wood that he had chopped and carefully stacked. I would check the peas and beans that he was so lovingly growing in his temporary garden. Gordie loved to grow vegetables. I would go through all his stuff that was stored under the carport. Sometimes I would sit on his workout bench and just listen to the birds.
And I would always go down to that pool, especially after the rains stopped and spring was under way. I would start out by sitting next to the spot where the Sheriff believed Gordie fell into the pool. I would just stare at the spot in the pool where I thought he had been found. After a while, I would lie down on my side, feeling the warmth of the concrete on my cheek. I would then roll over, look up past the enormous trees and stare at the sky. I would look at the clouds or the blue sky and start talking to Gordie. Out loud. I would tell him how much I missed him. I would ask how the hell he fell into the pool. I would tell him how much his sons missed him. I would tell him that I was so afraid of how I would raise our kids on our own. I would tell him how tired I was. I would tell him how lonely I felt. I would beg him to please come back. There were days where I would be next to that pool for hours.
The sad thing is, I never found what I was looking for, because I was not looking for a connection, I was looking for him. I have had a reoccurring dream for the five years since Gordie died. It’s never the same exact dream but it’s the same context. In my dream, Gordie has been missing and I am looking for him. In some of my dreams, I get a call from him but he can’t tell me where he is. In some of my dreams, someone tells me they saw Gordie but when I go to where they said they saw him, he’s not there. I’ve had this dream many times since Gordie died and the ending is always the same. I look wildly and desperately for him but I can’t find him.
Outside of my dreams, my obsessive search for Gordie has mostly gone away. I still look at photos. I still read cards he gave me during the sixteen years we were together. I still watch videos and love hearing his voice. But I only do that stuff now and then. And I have not been back to that pool in years. I now know that one day I will find Gordie but that day will not be until I see him in Heaven and I hope that’s not for a long time. Until then I focus on the connection to him that is the most important…our sons.