Day After Guy

I should have figured out by now that I'm a "Day After Guy."

Four "day afters" have come and gone in the span of two weeks.  The day after Easter...the day after Luke's 7th Birthday...the day after Luke's Family Party and the day after Mother's Day.

Each "day after" is difficult and brutal in it's own way.

It starts on the evening of "the big day."  After the kids are in bed...after I'm alone to think about her absence...after I cry silently thinking of her laugh, her smile, her touch...  But I give myself permission to drink some of that away...because after all...it was "a big day." Not smart...not a regular habit, but an easy trap to fall into on "the big day."

I can move most mornings for my boys, but "the day after" smacks of reality more quickly...it's not the same.

The morning of "the day after" finds me awake early, but unable to rise.  I can't tell which is more stubborn...my mind or my body.  But it is an inevitable...unavoidable state of being...as I try to stop time...held under the blankets by the reality of meeting another day without Susan.

I'm not sleepy "the day after" or tired...quite the opposite.  I'm anxious and thinking and reeling...my mind swirling with the what ifs?  and whys? and if onlys?

When I wake up "the day after"...my first thought is about what she missed yesterday...what they missed without their Mom...what I've lost for the rest of my life.

These stacks of loss, pile up in my head.  I go over the possibilities many times, but eventually my mind calls a timeout...I start to drift...thinking of something else because my psyche is trying to save me.  Without warning I'm pulled back in and the cycle begins again. It's an exhausting fight against this wave of grief.  After an hour or so...or enough guilt about my boys being awake without me...I make my way downstairs.

This is where the chore of grieving "the day after" begins.  I have to function now for my boys...I made the commitment to the day...to them...by leaving my bed.

However, my dilemma comes from wanting to be the Dad they remember...the one I was three months ago...but that Dad had never been slammed by death without warning.  That Dad never had to walk past the sink yearning to see her still there...he never had to fix their favorite breakfast knowing she did it better...he never had to start his day without her kiss...

If I can make it through "the day after" breakfast without snapping or folding...the day has a chance...a manic chance of highs and lows, but a chance.

If not...it spirals quickly.  Sometimes into a obscure place where nothing is easy...a place where I am overwhelmed from beginning to end...

The one thing I can count on "the day after"...is the breakdown, the disintegration, the feelings of failure...

I never know when or why, but they always arrive "the day after."  When they come I have no choice, but to surrender.  This submission comes in different forms...it might be devastating silence or guttural screams...I can't explain which is worse, but they are certainly poles apart...although equally destructive...not knowing which will arrive is frightening...

Following this collapse...I'm in a state of shock...disbelief over my new life. Then a moment of rapid rebuilding...where I try to get it together for the boys...but it's a facade...a show.

The day moves on.  I move through "the day after" looking over my shoulder as though I can see the next wave of sorrow approaching...as if I could out run it...or hide from it...this is not possible...when it hits...it washes over my whole being...

As night falls, I just want the kids asleep...for themselves and for me...they don't need to be exposed to "the day after" me anymore.  They become mother hens...having to take on a maturity that makes me feel shameful...kissing and hugging me...apologizing for being kids. They sense it the night of "the day after"...they make bedtime easy...or perhaps they need "the day after" to end too...

After the kids are in bed...after I'm alone to think once again about her absence...after I continue my silent cry from the night before...thinking of her laugh, her smile, her touch...  I give myself permission to drink some of it away again...because after all...it was "the day after."  Not smart...not a regular habit, but it's what happens "the day after."