A Series of Firsts

To be so close to death is actually mesmerizing.  To lie next to another creature with your head on his heart as it beats its last beat is an honor.  To hear those words, “He’s gone, Sunshine” and to pull yourself up off the floor only to leave your loved one behind in the hands of others is an experience never to be forgotten. I can’t get the visual out of my head and I’m afraid it’s something that will haunt me forever.  At the same time, it was a privilege that I wouldn’t have let pass by.  I made a special promise and I honored it.

 Oboe is dead now.  I had to use the “D” word because I’ve been avoiding it like the plague for a year now, resorting to myriad other synonyms.  I needed to write it, I needed to say it.  The floors are scrubbed, the ugly throw rugs that covered the linoleum kitchen floor because he couldn’t walk on it without falling, are in the trash.  His toys and singing treat jar are packaged up for safekeeping and our hearts ache.

I suppose I thought the pain would subside as the hours of the day passed, but instead the ache is growing stronger.  We’ve decided that we’ll need to go through a series of “firsts” before the healing begins.  The first time I reach out to give him food from my plate and he’s not here, the first time his collar jingles because someone bumped it (we didn’t pack it away), the first time the hubby calls his name to give him the skin from the leftover turkey, the first time I shout at the hubby not to shut the bathroom door so Oboe can come in to lick the bubbles from my tub, the first bedtime, the first sunrise, the first walk to get the newspaper – alone, the first time we hear the ‘Italian Wedding Song’ (likely at Christmas) and he’s not here to howl the tune, the first glimpse of a remaining dog hair on the sofa, the first view of another black Lab walking by on the street, the first time I smell Fritos (he often smelled like them), the first time I have to wrap up his Christmas ornaments when taking down the tree, the first walk through the door at the end of the workday,  the first time someone who doesn’t know he’s gone asks about him, the first time we see a commercial with a puppy in it, the first time we find a puppy toy while cleaning or hopefully packing up the house for the move, the first lonely Wednesday night when the hubby is bowling and I’m home all alone – all firsts soon to befall us.  We’ve gone through many of these firsts today and more will come tomorrow and throughout the next week.  I hope with each that the pain begins to subside, if not from my heart, than from my stomach where the sadness seems to have settled (or perhaps that tummy ache is from the fourteen bars of different chocolates that the hubby and Kerri Elizabeth picked up on their raid of the local convenience store.  Chocolate apparently heals all sorrow).

These “firsts” so remind me of my first year with M.S. – and all the firsts I’ve had to experience on my way to acceptance that I have a disease that likely won’t see a cure in my lifetime.  The first time I told another person, “I have M.S.”; my first attempt at driving with only one good eye;  the first injection; the first infusion;  the first series of steroids; the first negative reaction to treatment;  the first view of a Person with M.S. in a wheelchair, the first medical bill and the first non-repeatable series of curses that followed; the first MRI; the first relapse; the first tumble and fall in public; the first cognitive faux pas at an inopportune moment; the first feeling of numbness and the first feeling of neuralgic pain in my legs; the first odd look or stare from someone; the first all night online research session; the first of many, many new experiences in this life of the new normal.  The first anniversary of my diagnosis. 

It’s all part of the process and all part of the journey.  Funny, I remember a feisty gal, not too long ago, who announced to the world that she was honestly living in reality.  Remember her?  I had to visit her again personally today to remind myself of the stages of grief.

At one time my heart ached and mourned for my old life – certainly nowhere nearly as bad as it aches tonight.  But it ached.  I was saddened and walked through the various stages of grief.  And life continued and life got better, little by little.  And this, too, shall pass.