Page 54 of Must Love Flowers
Joan had done her best to ignore the holiday weekend, with minimal success. She phoned Steve in Arizona, but the conversation was brief. He was on his way into work. On a holiday, no less. Memorial Day. OnJeopardy!the night before, the question—or rather the answer—had been the original name for the holiday.
Decoration Day.
Joan had missed the question. She seemed to be missing a lot these days. The workbook Dr. O’Brien had given her had brought to the surface a lot of memories she’d struggled hard to forget. She’d dreaded holidays, choosing to ignore them rather than face them alone. All of what had been happy times became painful reminders that she was by herself. The workbook’s pointed questions had forced her to face the distracting measures she’d taken rather than dealing with her grief and anger. Several times while going through the exercises, she found herself growingirritated to the point she could barely hold in the rush of negative emotion.
Mary Lou had mentioned how much journaling had helped her. Joan had taken her newfound friend’s words to heart. After their talk and following the prompts, Joan wrote down her thoughts. She realized that, for at least the first six months after Jared’s passing, she’d been numb, forgetful, and confused. She’d bottled up and ignored any emotion she felt as best she could rather than face reality, because when she did, the pain was so sharp she found it difficult to breathe. In the process, she’d unintentionally lost sight of the most important relationships in her life, those with her sons. And somewhat with Emmie, too, although her sister hadn’t made herself easy to ignore.
Her concentration skills had faltered, which was one reason she’d taken up putting together jigsaw puzzles and working through books and books of Sudoku. They’d been a wonderful distraction. Lately she’d lost interest in both, and she knew why. For the first time in four years she was looking grief in the face and not backing down.
The flood of emotions was overwhelming, but she refused to go back. From now on, with determination, she was looking ahead instead of falling into the trap of memories.
Once again, she felt the sting of anger, felt it grow to monstrous proportions. Joan was furious with Jared for his lackadaisical attitude toward his own health. For a time, she’d blamed herself, thinking she should have insisted he get his annual checkup. She’d reminded him, wanted to make the appointment, but he’d continually made excuses. Twice that she remembered he’d mentioned having headaches, a sign that he’d chosen toignore, claiming he was too busy to take time away from his practice.
The anger brewed inside her until it felt like a volcano about to explode. For four long years Joan had left everything that had belonged to her husband exactly where it was. His clothes remained in the closet. His personal items, golf clubs, tools…Everything was exactly where he’d left it. In retrospect, she accepted this was her way of holding on to him, as if her need for him was strong enough to bring him back to life. How sad, how ridiculous. How wrong. She’d cheated herself out of four years. Four years in which she could have broken ground to a new life for herself.
Joan wasn’t holding on to Jared any longer. Joan wanted every bit of him gone.
Tossing her pen down on the table beside the journal, she raced into their room with a vengeance. Sensing her urgency, Edison followed behind, barking loudly. Stepping into their shared walk-in closet, she wrapped her arms around Jared’s dress shirts, lifting ten at a time and then tossing them down on the floor. Unable to satisfy her anger, she stomped on them. She continued until every piece of his clothing that had hung in the closet was discarded in a giant pile.
Her shoulders heaved with the exertion. Exhausted, she moved to the king-size bed they’d once shared and sank onto the side of the mattress until her breathing slowed and her heart rate returned to normal. Tears filled her eyes, and she furiously swept them away, angry that she was so weak as to give in to the emotion. Edison sat at her feet, and she lifted him up, holding him beneath her chin, needing his warmth and his comfort. Thepuppy licked the moisture from her face as if he understood what she needed.
“I have shed my last tear for you, Jared Sample.” There, she’d said it aloud, and she meant it.
Once her anger cooled, Joan’s shoulders sagged, and she felt the need to weep all over again. She’d created a huge mess, one she’d need to deal with sooner or later.
She decided on later.
—
With Maggie at work, the house felt empty. It had rained for two days straight without a break, and now the sun was out. She’d basically ignored the holiday. Because she was dealing with the raw emotions with the grief group, journaling, and reading through the workbook, she’d done nothing to decorate Jared’s gravesite. With the fury of her anger spent after clearing out his belongings, she felt she needed to visit her husband and get her frustration out. Vent if she needed to, release him once and for all.
Filled with purpose now, she cut a few purple rhododendrons from the bush in the backyard. While there, she tenderly looked over the two azalea bushes she’d recently planted. She’d loved working in her yard again, planting and weeding. Such simple tasks that had brought her back to herself, nurturing her soul.
Once inside the house, she arranged the rhododendrons in a vase and headed to the cemetery.
It’d been a while since her last visit, more than a year. Needless to say, she hadn’t forgotten him. It was hard to equate that the man buried in the ground had been her husband, andvisiting the cemetery only confirmed a reality she hadn’t been ready to face.
It took a few minutes for her to locate his gravesite. She noticed a ragged-looking bouquet had been placed at his headstone. Steve. He hadn’t forgotten his father when he’d been in Seattle for the conference.
“Jared,” she whispered. It always felt awkward to be talking to a stone marker. Not that she was expecting a reply. “I am so upset with you. I want to blame you even though I know dying wasn’t your fault. I’m alone now, and I don’t like it. I’d hoped to grow old with you, to travel, spoil our grandchildren, all the things we’d once talked about. We had such wonderful dreams for the future. Now all those plans are as dead as you. I thought we would always be together, but then you had to go and ruinit.”
The sprinklers had run their course, and the sun shone down and glistened off the freshly watered lawn. Joan would rather have had it rain. The bright sunlight was ruining her sour mood.
“You’ve upset everything. Did you even once consider how your death would affect our family? The boys need their father, and where are you?”
Joan lifted her face to the heavens and closed her eyes. She thought about Steve, living in Arizona. Something had happened with Zoe, and he refused to talk about it. And Nick, he was so skeptical and distrusting. That, too, could easily be attributed to her reaction to losing Jared.
She set the vase down at the top of the headstone next to the one Steve had left and stepped back. “This is it, Jared. I’ve come to my senses and I’m letting you go. I can’t hang on to you anylonger because it’s killing me. Killing me,” she shouted, her anger echoing through the cemetery.
She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. Shocked at her outburst, she hung her head, stepped back, and whispered, “Good-bye.” And then, because she felt guilty at the rage that had spewed from her lips, she added, “Rest in peace.” That said, with a heavy sigh, she returned to the parking lot.
—
Twenty-four hours later, Joan was in Dr. O’Brien’s office. The counselor sat in her chair with her legs crossed in front of the sofa where Joan was seated with her hands pressed between her knees. The counselor wore high heels and one shoe had slipped from her heel and was balanced on her toes. Funny how such a little thing as a shoe could be so distracting.
“I’m anxious to hear what you thought of the group now that you’ve attended a couple times,” Lannie O’Brien asked.
Joan would be forever grateful that Dr. O’Brien had suggested she attend at least one meeting before she made her decision. “It’s really helped.”
