What I Left Out | A Reflection in Bereavement

What I Left Out

I left out that he loved New York. He loved Broadway musicals and bright lights. He loved 24-hour restaurants and bodegas and buying lottery tickets from the newsstand at the corner. He loved my parents. He loved walking in the park. We have a flowering cherry tree that he grew from a seed he’d collected in Riverside Park. It took a few years but now it has the most amazing white blossoms in the spring. The grouse like to eat its fruit in the fall.

What I Left Out

Two people separately told me that I lit up when I talked about Brad.

What I Left Out

Being his caregiver was brutally difficult. I got strange physical problems that I think were stress induced. Mindfulness saved my life but wasn’t a cure-all for the loneliness, the fear and the sadness. He could be very mean to me; I was the basket in which he seemed to put all of his anger.

Friends said, without words, that I shouldn’t take care of him at home. They said it was too much. But it wasn’t much of a question for me. He sunk into depression just going into rehab after surgery—it would have killed him not to be home, not looking at the land and the birds. I couldn’t do that.

But our time together near the end was sharp in its sweetness.  He’d hold my hand and lock into my eyes.  

What I Left Out

I held his hand while he died. I knew and I didn’t know it was the end. Just a few minutes before I wondered if I should make him a different shake; that maybe I could make something he would prefer and so eat something. 

His last breath he looked afraid.  

I knew before the paid caregivers and the hospice nurses that he would die sooner rather than later. He’d told me he didn’t know how much longer he could keep doing this. I knew he was the man who could will his hiccups away and I knew he wouldn’t wait for his son, Mike, to arrive; that once he’d made up his mind, he wouldn’t wait for anyone. 

But I wonder if he waited for me to be by his side, to hold his hand in the early morning.  

What I Left Out

I don’t think he ever made peace with his childhood trauma. I don’t think he fully believed I wouldn’t abandon him. I don’t think the little boy ever got healed.

What I Left Out

I wonder how he’d feel to know I’m going to sell our house; how I will disburse his tools and say goodbye to where the cats and Tuckerman III are buried in the garden.

I hope he knows of the day I put his and the dogs’ ashes together at his favorite spot in the mountains. He kept reminding me, as though I could forget.

What I Left Out

I hope in a year, in 5 years, in 10 years, in 20 years, if I’m still on earth, I’ll be able to see him in clouds. I hope I will still be able to picture his face and see his shockingly blue eyes.

Written by Rebecca Oreskes