A Long and Lonely Drive

How do I deal with the grief of losing my dear belated wife?

For a start, not a day could pass without me thinking about her.  The spells vary according to the demands of work and humdrum of day-to-day routine. But she is often on my mind.

It is impossible for me to ignore the loss. In the house I am surrounded by a myriad of things to remind me of her. Her footprints are everywhere. I have not got the heart to de-clutter and remove her belongings.  What do I do with them?  Throw or give them away? I haven’t yet got a clue. 

Outside, within the neighbourhood centres where she normally does her shopping, I could still “see” her walking in and out of the stores. So many habits borne from 30 years that now need to be weaned off, to undo and unlearn.

In my office, the empty space on the walls are adorned with her pictures, enlarged so as not to be overshadowed by the other art pieces that I had acquired from my student’s art-shows.

Morning time is usually the toughest part of the day.

That is because a peaceful night’s sleep is usually a rarity.  On some nights, subdued by sheer tiredness, I might sleep an uninterrupted stretch of 3-4 hours, most times waking up in the middle of the night with the familiar sunken feeling and I try to get back to sleep with varying success.  I still confine myself only to my side of the bed, keeping her pillow neatly arranged on her side.

The bed looks too large now. I could picture her lying there on her side of the bed, snugly bundled under her comforter blanket to keep warm from the blast of the air-conditioner.  Waking up first each morning, I would try to stay quiet as I worked through my toilet routine while she continued with her snoozing.

But now the silence within the room is deafening. And the emptiness on her side of the bed mirrors the emptiness within me. I drag myself up each morning, bleary-eyed and worn out from a night of disjointed sleep. It is the dawning of another brand new day. But it will be another day without my wife. Another day to miss her by.

Jenny would normally leave the house with me each morning to get to work. I would fetch her to the company bus pick-up point, about 10 minutes drive from our house. Now there is no need to make this extra allowance in my travel time anymore.

Most days I still have to leave early allowing for at least 45 minutes of driving time on a route, which during non-peak travel might take less than half that time to commute.  Traffic in Singapore comes to a constipated snarl along most thoroughfares in the morning, especially along Clementi road towards Dover, a 4km stretch that I have to drive thru to reach my office. My car would slow to a crawling speed that takes up 20-30mins of the drive time. 

It is hard for me to avoid thinking about her during my drive but what can I say?

You see, I have her picture vividly displayed on my car dashboard, so she is always within my field of view, even as my eyes are peeled on the road as they should be. The Citroen Grand Picasso is one of those rare car models with a dashboard background that can be customised digitally and I have a collection of Jenny’s best pictures loaded on a stick, to be brandished at a touch. 

My favourite picture is the one taken by my son during a holiday to Sydney a few years ago.  We were at the Blue Mountains, on a vista point overlooking the Three Sisters rock formation. The late afternoon sun was gleaming down from a sharp angle.  With her eyes gazing intently into the sky and the sunlight glimmering off the back of her hair she appeared relaxed and happy. Her lips were pursed into a half smile that dimpled her cheeks.  I find it hard to resist a second look. Because she looks angelic and more attractive than ever, a picture perfect, at least through my eyes as the beholder.  I would not ever tire of looking at this particular portrayal of my angel wife.  I had thanked my son more times than he felt he deserved for having taken this shot.  Of course he would not have realised at that time, how important this picture would be for us to remember Mum by. And the eye candy treat that he had served up for Daddy.

Jenny's pretty face adorns my car dashboard

So alone in my car as the traffic grinds to a crawling pace along Clementi Road each morning, my mind unavoidably gravitates back to her. My eyes might moisten with tears and I will need to keep them dry. The slow stop-and-start traffic allows me to release my emotions without compromising too much on road safety but I should not take chances.

Friends had often asked how I am dealing with my grief. Well, I have learnt to deal with it by not evading but confronting and accepting it. It will be a long lonely journey. And it will be some distance before I can say that I have turned a corner. But with time I will slowly come to terms with her loss. 

My sleep is certainly less erratic than it was weeks ago, during the early days after the funeral. Then, I suffered panic attacks in the middle of the night, heart racing and stifled breathing.  I am more productive with my time also and could stay focussed a lot better.

I recalled going to the cinema a few weeks after Jenny’s passing. My two daughters had insisted that I joined them to catch the latest Avengers offering. But half-way through the movie the plot went hazy. In the gloomy darkness of the cinema, I sank into another miserable spell and became oblivious of all the action flashing on the wide screen before me. There was one too many super-hero in pointless battle with too many villains and I could not wait for the confusing tedium to end. Jenny and I were long-time movie buffs and we had visited the cinemas many hundred times over our years together, so sitting inside the cinema without her was an experience quite new to me.

These days, I am in better control of my emotional state of mind. I even mildly enjoyed the last movie outing with my daughters. I was at first cynical about “Ant-man”. "Ant-man? What is that? Just use Baygon", I quipped. But the movie turned out to be surprisingly refreshing and entertaining.

I still harbour a lingering fear that turning the corner in my journey of grief may mean that I would stop missing her.  I suppose if it happens, it happens.  But now I want her so much to remain alive in my mind and in my heart. So I put up her best pictures within sight every which way I look.

I recently chanced upon this song by Mary Chapin Carpenter called “Learning the World”. It carries a sombre tune and lyrically, I can relate with this song because losing a loved one whom you have been so accustomed to means having to re-learn on how to live all over again. I have to learn the world all over again and it will be a long, long drive to get there.

Mary Chapin Carpenter “Learning the World”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yqHoB16gzU

Grief rides quietly on the passenger side
Unwanted company on a long, long drive
It turns down the quiet songs and turns up the din
It goes where you go, it’s been where you’ve been

And pushing your empty cart mile after mile
Leaves you weeping in the wilderness
Of the supermarket aisle
And in the late night kitchen light it sits in a chair
Watching you pretend that it’s not really there

But it is, so it is and you ask
Are you predator or friend
The future or the past?

It hands you your overcoat and opens the door
You are learning the world again just as before
But the first time was childhood
And now you are grown
Broken wide open, cut to the bone

And all that you used to know is of no use at all
The same eyes you’ve always had have you walking into walls
And the same heart can’t understand
Why it’s so hard to feel
What used to be true
What’s now so unreal

But it is, so it is and you say
I wish I were the wind so that I could blow away

Grief sits silently on the edge of your bed
It’s closing your eyes, it’s stroking your head
The dear old companion is taking up air
Watching you pretend that it’s not really there