Awake at 4:00 AM. Hungover, too, even though I had only two beers; funny how not eating more than a couple of bites every day for eight days - and on a few of those days, nothing at all - can turn one into a lightweight.
No dreams. Again.
Not sure exactly what time I went to sleep. Maybe 11? 12? I can picture people cheering at what great progress that is - four or five hours, yay! - but it doesn't feel like it. I haven't felt rested since I woke up on February 20, and called the SICU, fully expecting I'd hear that he'd done great overnight and that they'd be getting him off the ventilator that morning. Those were the last few moments when I felt human.
And truthfully? When I found out that Doug had coded at 5:30 that morning, I knew. I knew he wasn't coming home. I kept hoping against hope, trying, ever more frantically as the day progressed, to find SOME technology; some sliver of SOMETHING that we could do to get this train back on track. But I knew. I knew as soon as his nurse told me he still wasn't on any pain meds or sedation but hadn't been at all responsive since shortly after I talked to him Wednesday afternoon.
I'm a morning person; have been for years. It's one of the few qualities I really like about myself: I get up, fully awake and ready to face the day. Not anymore.
Doug was NOT a morning person. The only time you'd catch him waking up at 4:00 AM is if he had a flight to catch, and even then the odds of success were at best 50/50.
So I would get up slowly and gingerly each morning: extricate myself from his arms, quietly get out of the bed, use the bathroom, brush my teeth, and then get dressed - in the dark, mind you, so I didn't wake him up.
My new waking ritual is: open my eyes, realize that I'm still alive, realize that I didn't dream about him again, and cry. Then I wander down the hall to use our bathroom, avoiding looking at the empty, perfectly-made bed that SHOULD contain him, with all the covers pulled to his side because I was having a hot flash in my sleep and he got too hot, pulled away, then got too cold, and stole the blanket. This happened at least once or twice each week. Even though I hated it when he did that (because, y'know, hot flashes don't last long, and I'd wake up freezing), I am SO GLAD I never got angry about it - I mean, it's not as though he did it on purpose.
Now I can be as loud as I want. I'm still not in our bed, of course; it hasn't been touched since the house cleaner made it Monday evening. I barely look at it as I walk past to take a shower. But I can turn on all the lights, walk as loudly as I want, even turn on the television if I want.
I don't want. The television annoys me: all the shows on the DVR that we watched together? I can't watch them now. Why would I turn on a light? The dark suits me. It matches my mood, my broken heart, and my empty soul.
And I'm cold. I'm SO COLD, almost all the time. I used to be Doug's personal heat source during the winter most of the time, but on the rare occasions when I got cold, he'd warm me up. Now, only bundles of blankets do the job, and poorly at that.
I would give ANYTHING to have to get out of that bed gingerly. I'd give anything to wake up with my teeth chattering because he stole the blanket and not because the unimaginably terrible reality that I'll never see him again has chilled me to my very soul. I'd give anything to hear him snoring.
Every minute that I'm awake, I miss him. But man, Sinatra got it right: in the wee small hours of the morning, that's the time I miss him most of all.
No comments:
Post a Comment