Wednesday, I Did A Thing

Wednesday was hard for me. Now before I go further, let me preface, this ain’t a pity party and  sympathy isn’t desired. Here’s the skinny: within a span of 40 months, I lost my entire immediate family. Well, let me rephrase. I believe to know where there are; they just no longer exist where we knew them to certainly be. They have passed on into that great mysterious realm that we are all destined to discover when the weightiness of life on earth presses so much that we either plead with our Creator for eternal mercy, or maybe, in Divineness, it is granted willingly. I don’t know, but I do know that on Wednesday, I did a thing. 

Within the midst of busyness, as the world was doing what it does, I prepared for an ordinary day. I logged onto work, virtually,  just as I’d been doing for well over a year since the pandemic stopped the country in its tracks. And when Dad’s death did the same to me. I mentioned to my boss needing to briefly step away to handle business pertaining to my most recently departed brother, who, just two short months before, had been cracking me up through his usual jokes. I handled what needed to be addressed, prepped a few documents for mailing, then hopped in the car for the quick two block trip to the post office. Once parked, I reached into the middle console for my mask, then searched the passenger seat for the envelope I’d just addressed and sealed in the house a few minutes prior. It wasn’t there. Frantically, I looked between the seat and door, between the seat and console, on the passenger floor mat, then lowered the sun visors on both the passenger’s and driver’s side. I looked everywhere. It wasn’t there. I checked to see if it mysteriously landed on the backseat floor. Nothing. I checked all the places once more. 

And then it happened. A thunderstorm of tears from nowhere made their way furiously down  my face, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do to discourage their journey. They bolted from my eyes without warning and watered whatever was in their path. My shirt and sweats their  recipients after leaving my face, and then the console and car seat. Through my glassy eyes, I sat in my car noticing how routine and normal this day appeared to the world around me. Outside of my window, folks scurried themselves in and out of the post office with relative ease. A construction crew was diligently renovating a house. Cars and trucks aligned in rhythm, traveling to and fro on the adjacent semi-busy street. The view to my right offered an elderly gentleman sauntering peacefully about from his disabled parking spot. Upon looking down, I noticed even the clock on the car’s dashboard was moving on. I’d been there for nearly five minutes. Crying. And taking in a parade of sameness. Everything around me was moving, just like normal. 

Normal. A word we’ve come to grapple with and reevaluate within the confines of a plaguing  year and a half. As a collective, there wasn’t anything normal about it. At the onset of the pandemic, we hunkered at home, only venturing out for necessities. Many of us learned in unison to navigate a virtual space we’d only thought existed on The Jetsons. The phrase “social distance” became synonymous with six feet apart. The economy, well, that was just about as normal as our new state of being. The only thing remotely reminiscent of normalcy in this country was its climate toward racial injustice toward Black people. Yet we even witnessed the world pause from its callous consciousness toward the tinted hue after watching the senseless murder of George Floyd. Indeed, it’s been quiet the year and a half.  The world literally stopped.  And we all witnessed the break while watching in anticipation of the next move.

But on Wednesday, when I did a thing, the connectedness and sense of togetherness that I had  felt while navigating the global pandemic were gone. My world felt as isolating as my solo position in my parked car.  Everyone and everything around me was moving about. I sat there motionless, salty, seasoned tears making their way to my lips, offering a gentle reminder that even my tears were moving on. I felt the weightiness of my heart’s longing for a peppering of the past, when I too was a participant in normalcy. When any particular Wednesday would find me at the office fully engaged, and looking toward the customary call I’d make to Momma while leaving the building. My ears eager to hear her daily rundown: which of Dad’s jokes did she hear;  was Kenny attending some local high school’s sporting event, and what had Sasha (my fur baby) done that tickled her while in Grandma’s care. But it wasn’t to be. And it will never be again. 

There is something sobering about life when one’s reality is exchanged for another; when  matters beyond your control dictate so. You realize how precious and fragile life is. Just how  instantaneously it changes. So on this particular Wednesday, I opted to do a thing out of the  norm. Reaching for my phone, I texted my boss, “I won’t be logging back on today. I’m having a moment and I need a moment.” 

I’ve come to learn since the passing of my parents and brothers that the world gives you a couple of weeks, at best, before it ceases to ponder your pain. The shelf life of sympathy expires quicker than a carton of refrigerated milk. Your halted world remains while life goes on about you. No matter the attempts rendered at forward progression, there are moments when you simply want and dare, I declare, need time to just sit down in a corner someplace and be still. But the world refuses. It just wants you back as you were. But it’s not possible, because nothing is the same. 

So, on Wednesday, I did a thing. I let the world go on without me as I sat in the stillness that memories offer. I tended to every moment of familiarity that entered my mind in search of  normalcy, to take the edge off the longing in my heart. I tarried there, in tranquility, where I met Momma, Daddy, Stan and Kenny. It was beautiful and debilitating. It was heavenly, and it hurt. My contradiction of emotions I willfully embraced. Just as The Lord gives and takes, on Wednesday, I sat fully and completely in contradiction, wholly grateful for it all. With my eyes wide shut, it was where I needed to be until I heard the gentle voice of my Mother echoing within my soul the very words she had spoken to me at her ailing bedside, three weeks before her passing: “You’ve got to keep moving forward.” 

I inhaled deeply. Then exhaled just as intently, now uttering aloud what Momma had just whispered. Opening my eyes, I shifted the car’s gear from park to reverse and backed out of my parking spot. As I placed the gear in drive, I pulled off and repeated the mantra once more, driving slowly forward.