Just Melanie

Yesterday, I was talking with someone I know, who recently lost a loved one. She said she’s “just so mad, and so lost. How do we get through this?”
I thought back to the days immediately following my mother’s death. I had moved back home from college, because there were the kids and the farm and the courts and the nightmare. There was so much loss — my sister, Nancy, had died only nine months before and my Dad passed on only a few years prior.
As I searched for words of wisdom, regarding the anger and “lost feeling” we all experience after tragedy . . . I remembered one of the turning points, a specific morning, as if it were yesterday . . .
I think it was around 8 a.m., on a Thursday, as I closed the door and took off my coat. So tired . . . my brother, Terry, and I, had just gotten done milking the cows after a long morning. I stunk like manure and was wet from having water run to my arm pits while washing those “bags of gold” (as we jokingly called udders).
The kids were on the bus, heading for school. The house was quiet, only an occasional creak and the whirring sound from the refrigerator. Dirty dishes were in the sink and there was a pile of envelopes from the attorney’s office that needed to be opened, even though I didn’t want to see the contents.
I realized I’d forgotten to sign a permission slip for the girls’ field trip, it was still stuck on the refrigerator. And I knew Jerry was in class, in Lincoln — I couldn’t hear his voice until that evening.
So I just sat at the table and looked out the window. So much to do, but to what end? The reality was that life was supposed to go on, but I couldn’t get past the fact that we had to do it without our mother.
That light in our lives was gone — and this house she and my father dreamed about was here. But they weren’t. Upstairs was a giant closet filled to the brim, full of their clothes and Nancy’s things. The museum of broken hearts was behind closed doors because no one could bear to open it. For five years, the stuff accumulated. And today wasn’t going to be that day, to finally clean it out.
“Now what?” I thought. “So they’re gone. What are we supposed to do now?”
We’ve all had to let go of someone we loved. Death robs us of familiarity — a life we thought would always be suddenly comes to an end, and we’re left with that unimaginable day when we’re supposed to pick up the pieces. It’s actually like jumping off a cliff — you don’t really know how far you have to fall and you really don’t know how much it’s going to hurt.
That was the day I realized I was going to explode — and I didn’t know how to do it. I couldn’t continue to dump all the pain on Jerry. I didn’t feel like I should really share all my anger and grief with my siblings, because they had their own without having to worry about me.
I drank another cup of coffee, as if to drive my adrenaline level in order to accomplish what I was going to do next. What that was going to be, I had no idea. But I needed to yell at someone, maybe God. I needed to get all this off my chest, without scaring the common man into having me committed.
The next thing I knew, I was still in my smelly, dirty clothes and in my mom’s van, heading down the road. I knew exactly where I was going, but I didn’t know why. I guess reasoning didn’t matter, because nothing seemed to make much sense.
I headed west, on the gravel road, past the creek where we played as kids in the summer. Past the building that was once our country school and was now an outbuilding for a local farmer. Past the farm where we took Dad water while he was putting up hay, and the house where we used to take Grandma Onie so her sister could do her hair.
When I reached the St. John’s corner, I turned. This beautiful little church had long been a haven for my family — and the extension of that parish, the cemetery, was just a mile away. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I knew I had to.
When I got to the little hill, I sat on the road for a bit. I could see the evergreens on the north side, where the word “Mueller” was written on several stones. I could see a pickup coming from the south and didn’t want to talk to whomever might stop. So I went in.
And there it was — the place I’d sworn I’d never come back to, never again. I knew they weren’t there — but I was still compelled to go.
Reality quickly sets in when you actually see it. Their names. The dates. The volleyball trophy the Pope John team left at Nancy’s grave. The rocks from the Tetons my parents had hauled home after vacation. Giant pine cones from some wilderness adventure. And my name, listed among the kids left behind.
Gut-wrenching grief is a pain that cannot be described. It’s a gnawing growl that turns into a groan, a whimpering cry that turns into a scream. If you’ve felt it, you know — your heart wants to explode, your legs want to give out. Your mind almost goes completely blank because it can’t handle knowing this is real, not a nightmare. Tears squirt from your eyes until the glands in your face swell up — yet the liquid keeps coming as if it were surging up from your feet.
So I screamed at God, and I screamed at them, and I screamed at myself. I begged for answers to one simple question, “Why?” And when no one responded . . . just a breeze through the rustling branches . . . I got quiet. And I listened.
My ear drums strained to hear the answer. Nothing. All I could hear was my own gasping breath, the shuddering remnants of my emotional break-down.
And then, I felt exhausted. I couldn’t be mad anymore. I couldn’t cry anymore. And there was nothing left to say, but I heard myself whisper, “Now what?”
It wasn’t audible, but it was real. A wash of warmth came over me and I realized there was a lot yet to come. And there was a lot left for me.
I sat in the van for awhile and then turned the key. It was time to go back and get on with it. It was time to go back to the land of the living.
I drove through the gates and didn’t look back. There was nothing to see there — life was in front of me, to the east where the dishes were waiting, the cows were being fed and there was the pending phone call from a man I loved.
When I got back to the house, I decided to take a shower and start the day over. It was time to figure out the answer to the question of “now what?” And it became clear it would only happen minute by minute, until enough time would pass toward feeling good again.
We had enchiladas for supper — this weird version my mom had devised. We watched re-runs of “The Dukes of Hazard,” for the hundredth time (because the satellite dish wasn’t working, like usual). Then the phone finally rang.
“It’s me,” said that deep voice on the other end. “How was your day?” Jerry asked, probably scared to hear the real truth.
“It was good,” I said, and I knew that even though I didn’t know what was next, it probably would be good.
And it was. It has been. And I’m not nearly as scared to ask, “Now what?”