The Wind and the Couch

Another in our Writing It Real series' of subscriber writings from grief

Sue Pace, Author Photo

THE WIND

I look out my bedroom window and see that my neighbor’s fruit forest was obeying the wind. Usually, only the treetops dance, but today the branches are bowing and bending due to something larger than a simple breeze. A hazy fog still shows that spring and summer are dueling for supremacy, and the wind is their weapon.

The wind sometimes whistles and sometimes whispers as the sun rises and slips beams of light through barren apple and pear trees. I leave for the kitchen to make my coffee and to turn on the morning news on the television. I always mute it and simply read the sentences that slide along the bottom of the screen.

Since my husband’s death, I often feel like a moth stuck inside the pocket of the frayed jacket he wore to go camping. The same one he wore for the daily scooping of dog poop out of the back yard. Now there is no longer dog poop because our son adopted him two days after his father died.

“Thanks for letting me have Princess. I’d feel guilty taking from you, but you already have something of Dad’s,” our son said in a quivering voice. I knew he wasn’t talking about the car or the house and everything in it. I smiled and hugged him and whispered, “I know. And your father would be so happy that you understand when and how and why.”

He nodded and hugged me back and drove away. Since my husband passed, we only get together at Christmas and during summer break. I have two grandchildren who never really knew the grandfather who disappeared before they went to school. I hold them close and try not to cry.

“It’s going to be that kind of day.” I say that sentence aloud, even though for three years I have been the only person lying in my bed or sitting at the kitchen table. Just me. I stroke my side where his love surrounds the left kidney he donated to me on our tenth anniversary, when my diabetes took charge and destroyed mine.

That warmth and constant memory tell me not to forget that he was always there for me. “I love you,” I whispered. I sip my morning coffee while watching the results of the invisible but talented wind blow kisses at the trees. The trees reply by dancing with gay abandon, and the fog fades, allowing the sun to join in.

I pat my torso and once again whisper, “I will always love you, knowing like the wind, your love is just around the corner.

THE COUCH

Pressed against the wall
it is where you napped
watched TV
read stories
to our grandchildren.

It still embraces the crumbs
where you ate snacks
did the crossword puzzle
read the news
drank a glass of milk
before coming to bed.

I remember how you
plumped the sagging pillows
cuddled the cats
chatted about work
snored and snuffled
napping before dinner

.

The fabric is frayed
with dark stains of your blood
and still damp with my tears.

I will never move it
or toss it out.

I stroke the ragged fabric
sigh and snuggle
into the broken cushions
where you died.

***
Over the years, Sue Pace has had over 250 poems, stories, and personal essays published in a variety of journals. She is a mother, grandmother, and volunteer in several capacities. Retired from paid work almost ten years ago, she often says, "Writing is the most selfish thing I do."