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jedibuttercupOne of the most wrenching things about grief, I think, is this feeling of not being able to breathe.
I don't think about it most of the time at work, and I was able to laugh at the Simon & Ryan Show as usual last night (they're ever-so-much-funnier if you picture them as that category of best-friend fourth-grade boys who regularly get into arguments along the lines of: "You're stupid!" / "No you're stupider!" / "Well, you're a poo-head!" / "You're a caca-doodoo!", etc.).
And yet. I keep catching myself feeling a little dizzy, like there's a heavy weight on my chest, and my eyes keep stinging, even when I'm not really thinking about it.
It's not like he was, you know, one of my blood-family, and I'd only seen him intermittently for the last few years, but that shared history of the same church and the same school system and joint dual-family events (including regular Christmas Eve gift exchanges) over seventeen or eighteen years-- he was part of the background foundation of my world. When we threw the open house for him and his wife after he came back from Korea, one of the first things I did was corner him and tell him all about my brother's latest romantic adventures-- partly to give him new teasing material, and partly because I expected my brother's probably-girlfriend would end up being a pseudo-sibling of his in the long run, too.
I'm going to drop by his parents' house tonight on my way over to Mom's for Thursday dinner, just to offer hugs and flowers (the potted kind, so they don't wilt along with the rest of the condolence gifts in a week's time). I don't expect to have much to say. In fact, I pretty much expect to lose it after a few minutes and bawl on his mother's shoulder and make incoherent awkward excuses to leave and drive up the street to Mom's. The Memorial Service on Saturday is going to be even worse.
At least the Army chaplain's come through: Mom jumped through all the military hoops on behalf of D--'s parents on Monday to make sure the Reserves office wasn't going to report him AWOL, and to make sure there'd be a flag offered to his wife at the Memorial Service. The Army's going to give her some money to take care of immediate bills since (with no body) the life insurance payments will be delayed, and expedite the visa issues so she won't have to worry about getting ejected from the country. Thank God.
Sometime after the service-- and probably after my brother returns-- I'm going to borrow the probably-girlfriend (the question should be decided by then, once they've finally met in person) and take D--'s wife out to lunch, or tea, or something. She's terribly cut off here, since all her personal friends are in Korea and all her family in the Philippines, and Mom thinks it would be a big help for her, emotionally, if she had connections outside of D--'s family. I don't think I could handle doing it alone-- I'm naturally reserved with people I don't know well, and it'll be worse with this tragedy hanging in the air-- but with my possibly-future-sister along, we should be able to keep things from getting counter-productively awkward. I hope.
Would it be too much, do you think, if I dug around in my photo albums for pix of D-- to take along with the potted flowers when I drop by his parents' house tonight?
~
I don't think about it most of the time at work, and I was able to laugh at the Simon & Ryan Show as usual last night (they're ever-so-much-funnier if you picture them as that category of best-friend fourth-grade boys who regularly get into arguments along the lines of: "You're stupid!" / "No you're stupider!" / "Well, you're a poo-head!" / "You're a caca-doodoo!", etc.).
And yet. I keep catching myself feeling a little dizzy, like there's a heavy weight on my chest, and my eyes keep stinging, even when I'm not really thinking about it.
It's not like he was, you know, one of my blood-family, and I'd only seen him intermittently for the last few years, but that shared history of the same church and the same school system and joint dual-family events (including regular Christmas Eve gift exchanges) over seventeen or eighteen years-- he was part of the background foundation of my world. When we threw the open house for him and his wife after he came back from Korea, one of the first things I did was corner him and tell him all about my brother's latest romantic adventures-- partly to give him new teasing material, and partly because I expected my brother's probably-girlfriend would end up being a pseudo-sibling of his in the long run, too.
I'm going to drop by his parents' house tonight on my way over to Mom's for Thursday dinner, just to offer hugs and flowers (the potted kind, so they don't wilt along with the rest of the condolence gifts in a week's time). I don't expect to have much to say. In fact, I pretty much expect to lose it after a few minutes and bawl on his mother's shoulder and make incoherent awkward excuses to leave and drive up the street to Mom's. The Memorial Service on Saturday is going to be even worse.
At least the Army chaplain's come through: Mom jumped through all the military hoops on behalf of D--'s parents on Monday to make sure the Reserves office wasn't going to report him AWOL, and to make sure there'd be a flag offered to his wife at the Memorial Service. The Army's going to give her some money to take care of immediate bills since (with no body) the life insurance payments will be delayed, and expedite the visa issues so she won't have to worry about getting ejected from the country. Thank God.
Sometime after the service-- and probably after my brother returns-- I'm going to borrow the probably-girlfriend (the question should be decided by then, once they've finally met in person) and take D--'s wife out to lunch, or tea, or something. She's terribly cut off here, since all her personal friends are in Korea and all her family in the Philippines, and Mom thinks it would be a big help for her, emotionally, if she had connections outside of D--'s family. I don't think I could handle doing it alone-- I'm naturally reserved with people I don't know well, and it'll be worse with this tragedy hanging in the air-- but with my possibly-future-sister along, we should be able to keep things from getting counter-productively awkward. I hope.
Would it be too much, do you think, if I dug around in my photo albums for pix of D-- to take along with the potted flowers when I drop by his parents' house tonight?
~
no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 02:25 am (UTC)to make sure the Reserves office wasn't going to report him AWOL
(!!!)
and expedite the visa issues so she won't have to worry about getting ejected from the country.
Oh good, I was concerned for her.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 07:57 am (UTC)> (!!!)
Yeah. Because-- according to the rude military casualty officer she talked to before the much nicer chaplain-- no matter what the civilian authorities said, D-- wasn't dead until the military said he was. *shudder*
> and expedite the visa issues so she won't have to worry about getting ejected from the country.
> Oh good, I was concerned for her.
Me, too. Not that D--'s parents weren't going to fight for her anyway, but... I can't imagine, being widowed in a foreign country at that age with no connections but the husband's family and a very shaky legal status.