The Pocket

This weekend I wore a jacket I hadn't had on since November 18, 2005.  I know this because there was a movie ticket stub in the pocket for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  In the other pocket were about 12 Gin Gin candies, hard ginger candy to help control morning sickness.

And an entire flood of memories smacked me in the face.  That night, of 2005 as we stood in the freezing cold outside the Uptown Theater waiting to see Harry Potter, Jeff told his closest friends that he was about to become a father.

Jeff was not good at keeping secrets in his personal life.  I always found it odd that he was able to keep his work-life secrets.  Maybe it was the fact no one would understand what he was up to anyway.  But when it came to presents, impending babies, and wedding rings.  Jeff couldn't keep a secret.  It had pretty much killed him to wait one month to tell his friends but there were other reasons it wasn't a good time to spread the news.

I wonder how many other little time capsule bombs there are in my house.  A random pocket here or there, or a drawer that contains some nugget that facilitates memories of my life with Jeff.  And it isn't a frightening thought.

I was proud of my reaction to this find.  Four to six months ago I would have cried and the rest of my evening would have been ruined.  But this night, after my discovery, I put the items back into my pocket.  Smiled through the memories and kept on going with my family. 

Don't get me wrong, it is always sad to make a find.  To think about the life I had with Jeff and the life I don't have now.  But I have found that after the initial shock of the discovery my level of sad is sometimes not as great as it once was.  And I'm OK with that.  In the course of a conversation with my grief therapist I said "I don't have to wallow in my grief to prove that I loved Jeff."   And I truly believe it.  I grieve, I'm sad, but I am finding that I can eek out some level of happiness even when confronted with something tangible to my loss.

It's progress, it's just time, it's an accumulation of everything I have done to accept my loss and therefore I have to embrace it.  I may not be ready to go turning out the pockets of other jackets but I'm OK with what I found in this one.

Sincerely,

Jeff's Wife