Regret


                                                                                 Me speaking at Dan's funeral, my Dad is standing behind me.

I was in therapy the other day (I get so much writing material from therapy). Very rarely there are times when neither I nor the therapist have anything to say.  In these times I'm usually staring off into space, letting the corner of the room get blurry. Then she asks a very common question, "what are you thinking about right now."  HAHAHAHAHA. You guys think I'm honest here, you should see me in therapy. Crazy widow stuff of course, stuff that makes no sense, stuff that you can't change and you shouldn't dwell on. But you do because you are consumed with grief.

I didn't like the outfit I wore to my husbands funeral.  I used to love it but I had out grown it without realizing it and it didn't fit right anymore. Of course I didn't realize it didn't fit well until I was in it going to the funeral. It was way to late by than. Really it started out way to late, I wore it because it was in my closet, none of us were in a mind to go buy new outfits. I didn't have funeral garb just stored away for when I would need it like in the old days.  I didn't even have any proper shoes, I borrowed a pair and I didn't like them either.  My outfit was maroon in color, thinking back I wish I would have worn something black. Not because black is a funeral color but because Dan's favorite color was black and it would have amused him. One of our favorite lines to quote each other was from Johnny Cash and his wife, he always wore black and she would say "you look like your going to a funeral" he would reply "well maybe I am"  Dan wore black a lot and we said these lines a lot and then he would smirk at me.  I wish I had worn something black, ironically I have the perfect black dress right now in my closet, I often tell myself O if only I had owned that when Dan died I could have worn it to the funeral, that would have been perfect. However, seeing as my husband just died and all I wasn't really thinking about clothes, I probably could have shown up naked and not have noticed. I was just thinking about that.

"and what are you thinking about now?" she asked at the next loll in conversation. This ones a doozy. I read somewhere the other day in  someone else's grief blog, or post, or article (I read a lot of those so I get confused about where I saw it) That their loved one died and they just sat there and continued to hold their hand, they laid their head on their chest one last time, they kissed them good bye.  I didn't do that. I didn't do anything like that. I screamed, I cried, I was so terrified that I was frozen to the floor just feet away from him. I couldn't move, I couldn't touch him.  "do you wish that you had done all those things? Do you regret that you didn't?" My therapist asks. I honestly don't know.  I know that I don't remember the last time I held his hand, I didn't know I would need to remember it, I didn't know it would be the last time. The same is true for our last kiss, I'm sure he kissed me goodnight, just because he always did not because I remember him doing so. We didn't get a last goodbye kiss, I wasn't expecting to say goodbye.  I do remember the last time I put my head on his chest. I used to love putting my head on his chest, he was always so warm. He would have his hand around me and he'd be fiddling with my long hair. I could hear his heart beat, it was so loud, I often thought that it was so loud anyone in the room would be able to hear it. The last time I laid on Dan's chest, I was screaming, I was crying. I had one ear pressed to his chest as hard as I could, my phone was on the other ear, I could here the 911 dispatcher say, "does he have a heart beat, can you hear his heart beating?" "I don't know, I can't tell, I can't tell if I can hear his heart beating"  I couldn't tell, his heart beat was always so loud and now I had my ear pressed against it and I couldn't tell. I thought I heard it and then I thought I didn't and then I thought I did. Why didn't I know my own husbands heart beat. why couldn't I hear it? Why wasn't it loud?

Then my therapist did something fun. She gave me a look like o there is the crazy widow shes been telling me about. she exclaimed, "are you serious! You were in complete and utter shock. You were first hand witnessing the most traumatic thing in your life, It's amazing you could talk on the phone at all. Or even move at all." O ok I guess. Well you asked me what I was thinking.

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

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