I don't wanna play this game anymore.





"I don't wanna play this game anymore"  was it a scream, or a shout?  A mumble or a whisper? Just my plain everyday voice? Was it cracked and broken like I haven't talked in weeks? Like I was in the middle of the desert in desperate need of water? I don't know, I don't remember how I said it, but I remember saying it.

"I don't wanna play this game anymore" It's what little kids say when the game isn't going their way, when they aren't winning, when they're losing. They say "I don't wanna play this game anymore" and they storm off in a huff. My friends and I use this phrase in adulthood when things aren't going our way. When something large and expensive breaks or we're having a really crappy day. The other friend counters with something like "ya screw this game lets go to hawaii." Nobody countered me this time.  I don't think they wanted to play this game anymore either.

"I don't want to play this game anymore"  I was in a very small room. much too small for all the people in it. I was surrounded by my family, My dad, my husbands parents, my brother in law, my best friend since I was 13, and some guy I had meet only minutes ago. My husband Dan, was in the building but not in the room, I'm not sure exactly where, I guess it would be more accurate to say his body was in the building, his soul had left approx 15 hours before. Approximately 15 and a half hours before we were both drifting off to sleep, perfectly healthy, perfectly fine, both of us perfectly alive.

 Now I was sitting in a tiny office at a funeral home surrounded by people who loved me (except that one guy, he barley knew me, he ran the funeral home). My best friend since I was 13, lets just call her Marrri, was sitting behind me, trying to be out of the way, taking notes on things she thought I would need to remember later.  Uh I never saw those notes, I'm pretty sure she just took care of it all. I was being bombarded with ridiculous question after ridiculous question like, "do you want cremation or a burial" "What day do you want to have the funeral (we charge extra for Saturdays)." "What time do you want the viewing, do you want a viewing"  Wait, what, huh, why are you asking me these questions? I'm not the one in charge here, I'm only 34 what the hell do I know about planning funerals? O wait, I am supposed to be in charge sort of, an 85 year old me (or older) is supposed to be in charge of this. This thing were planning, my husbands funeral, it came more then 50 years sooner then it should have.

So I did the most logical thing I could think of, I turned, tears streaming down my face and into my mouth, they tasted salty. I can remember that, I've lost whole conversations, days even, but I remember what my tears tasted like at that exact moment. I focused on Marrri, she would know what to say. "I don't wanna play this game anymore"  She looked me right in the eye and said "Hey it's not the best date we've ever been on, I mean it's no going through the coffee drive through" This was a reference to the last time we hung out when our plans got messed up and all we ended up doing was going through a drive through coffee shop. That helped, I don't exactly know why it helped, I guess in a way it normalized the bizarre world we had landed in. It's no coffee excursion but at least were together.  You take what you can on days like that.

I only remember snippets from that day. We took Baby Girl to get some food, (she was at the park with auntie while we were in the funeral home) we all ordered milkshakes, I just stared at mine, swirled it around with a straw.  I couldn't swallow.

Two years, four months, and two weeks later, everyday I say I don't want to play this game anymore,

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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