A Ball in a Box
Talk about old habits. On the recent anniversary of my wife’s death, I decided to remove my wedding band. It’s been well over a week, yet I constantly find myself reaching down to absentmindedly fiddle with the ring. The only thing still there, however, is the callus on the palm of my hand. It’s probably something similar to phantom pain when you lose a limb. The ring lived on that left hand for 50 years and now its in a jewelry box labeled so the kids will know it was my ring.
I took it off because it just felt like I should. Sort of the natural progression of things, because whether I like it or not, I’m no longer married. It dovetails with my decision to clean out her closet. I’ve yet to move on that decision, however, partly because it requires a lot more effort than simply taking off a ring. But I’m ready to do it, I only need to block out some time. Her shoes are the big issue; there are lots of them. I want to bag them in pairs and right now I’m shopping for bags.
I think what’s happening is that my grief is shrinking down to a manageable size. The other day my daughter said she’d read that I could imagine the grief trigger was in a box and there was big ball bouncing around inside the box and constantly hitting it. But over time the ball would shrink and hit the trigger less often and that feels right. And I like that image. A box with a ball and a trigger, always ready in perpetual motion to remind me on occasion that once upon a time I married a really nice person. As if I could ever really forget.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale