Widowish: A Memoir by Melissa Gould

Widowish: A Memoir by Melissa Gould

Author:Melissa Gould [Gould, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542018784
Publisher: Little A
Published: 2021-01-31T22:00:00+00:00


TWELVE

I’m a Widow

Sissy?” I said into the phone, unable to catch my breath. “I miss Joel!”

“Oh, sissy,” Holly said patiently. “I know you do.”

It was our wedding anniversary, my first without him. We would have been married seventeen years. I was sobbing uncontrollably in my hotel room and had been for hours. I was in Chicago visiting my friend Jennie. Sophie was on a school field trip to San Francisco that weekend, so the timing worked out for me to get out of town. I did not want to be home without Joel on our anniversary. I thought being away with one of my best friends, in one of my favorite cities, at a fancy hotel I decided to treat myself to, would help. But grief doesn’t care about any of those things. Just like MS, it travels with you no matter where you go, no matter how far, no matter for how long.

Jennie and her husband had planned to take me to dinner. They were downstairs in the hotel bar waiting for me.

“I’m not sure if I can make it,” I had cried into the phone an hour earlier to Jennie. “I’m a mess. I can’t stop crying.”

“OK, I totally get it. We’ll wait in the bar, and if you feel like you can pull it together, great. If not, no pressure. Just keep me posted.”

I thought I would spend my anniversary walking down Michigan Avenue, stopping at a cute café for lunch, buying something nice for myself, and reflecting on my seventeen years with Joel—more if I counted our time together before we got married. Instead, I had left the hotel without an umbrella, got stuck in the rain, got lost trying to find a nice day spa where I could get a massage, and ended up back at the hotel early, soaking wet and sobbing.

“Of course you’re feeling sad,” Holly said. “Joel’s not there to celebrate with. It’s terrible. It’s hard to believe.”

“I miss him!” I wailed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever stop crying!”

My sister stayed on the phone with me. I was afraid to hang up. I thought my tears would envelop me, that I might drown.

I kept twisting my wedding ring around my finger, hoping that my memories of Joel—younger, healthy, alive—would come back to me. I tried so hard to remember my wedding. Our life together. The way he smelled. But five months later, I could still only remember Joel in the hospital. Barely alive, waiting for me to give the OK so he could die. The only smells I could conjure were the hospital smells. The only memory of us being close was holding Joel’s limp hand in mine, trying to avoid the tubes in his veins. I could not get out of the hospital, as hard as I tried. I could talk about Joel and recall certain events spent with him, but they were dulled. I kept waiting for my memories to become vibrant and real again.

Holly and I eventually hung up.



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