Grief Showers

It's been 21 months since Joe died.  Life has gone on.  In fact, life has been pretty darn good.  I still miss Joe.  I miss his company.  I miss his wit.  I miss his love.  I miss many things that I no longer have since he died.  But, life is good and I feel that all in all I've adjusted pretty well.

Last week was a rough week.  I've been doing some major organizing in my house in the last few weeks.  There have been occasions when I've opened up drawers or have looked on shelves and found things that used to belong to Joe.  Most times I've just shut the drawer or walked away from the shelf.  Not time yet to take some of those memory trips.  However, I did find a large, unopened bottle of expensive medication that Joe used in conjunction with his dialysis treatments.  It had not expired and I did not want to throw away medication that might be able to be used by someone else.  So, I decided to give it away to a lady who I knew could use it.

I drove into the parking lot and started getting a really strange feeling.  After I parked, I had to talk myself into going into the building.  After all, I had not been there since the week before Joe died.  I did go inside and  walked into the waiting room and up to the reception desk.  Then the social worker saw me and came walking out.  I started crying as a tidal wave of emotions hit me.  I explained to Marilyn why I was there in between the crying.  She told me what I was experiencing was a "grief shower".  I feel I handle my emotions pretty well these days, but it's those little unexpected things that jump out unexpectedly that knock me for a loop.

Two days later, our entire office at work went through CPR and first aid re-certification.  All went well until we got to the last portion which involved the training on an automated external defibrillator (AED).  This is a portable electronic device that is used to try and start the heart once it's stopped.  When it gets turned on, it makes a certain distinct sound and when it happened at the office, the most awful feelings came rushing back.  I remembered seeing the AED used on Joe to start his heart, how his entire body flopped uncontrollably and I had to leave the room. 

My immediate coping mechanism for both of these instances...emotional eating when I got home.