A Caregiver's Grief

It's been hot and steamy here in the subtropics, and I mean steamy -- think steambath steamy, think sauna. And this is the time of year for Southern cabin fever, i.e. staying inside in the A/C and not venturing out unless necessary. So yesterday, when a brisk, strong storm pounced on our neighorhood then quickly departed, leaving a breezy, almost cool atmosphere behind, I decided to venture outside and begin to tackle the task of cleaning out The Green Machine.

Besides, Bob was asleep. And I was bored.

So I grabbed the trunk key to The Green Machine, and decided to start there.

Now the trunk has always been a sort of portable auto repair shop for Bob, and it contains his toolbox among other sorted and sundry things. I began with the toolbox, which I latched and lugged into the garage. Then I began pulling out Bob's used car parts. Bob had this habit of saving used car parts, because, you know, you never know when you might need them. So out went old cable wires, old greasy gears, rusted pipes and other things I couldn't identify. As I was reaching through this jumble of car parts, I found a dirty crumpled plastic grocery bag with something stashed inside of it.  I opened it and caught my breath. Inside was an old vintage license plate holder and a chrome footprint gas pedal cover:

I was, quite suddenly and stupidly, overwhelmed. Without warning, tears were streaming down my cheeks, my nose running, my whole body shaking, trembling I fell to my knees, right there on the street, gasping great gasping sobs, like my whole insides were wanting to come out of my mouth, like my soul was caught and squeezing somewhere inside my chest and ready to burst and all these memories of Bob rushing at me, Bob, the way he was before, my Bob buying that silly gas pedal cover because it was "cool" and how he was going to put it in The Green Machine, as well as that license plate holder, and how he never got to do those things, all these memories flooding my heart. My wonderful beautiful husband, lover, friend, soulmate.....

And I had to go back to the house, sit on the porch, collect myself, breathing deeply, trying to calm down. But even now, I have tears streaming down my face...

You know, I thought I was over this, it's been nearly 4 years. I thought I gone through those stages of grief and had learned "acceptance". And I really thought I was stronger than this....