Grief, an unpredictable beast. Just when I think it has gone back to the cave, it crushes me sideways. I’m cleaning houses right now. It is a job. I’m in the bathroom of a comfortable home lived in by two mellow artists. The painter wife has a fabulous collection of large and unusual shells she has displayed on the bathroom counter. I look at them and burst into tears. My mom had a good collection of shells that she treasured. Some of them came from the Shell Shop that she worked at in Lahaina, Maui. She would laugh as she told people she sold “seashells at the seashore”. It was 1980 and we were young, happy and living “da kind”.
After Grace died I thought I was going to move right back to the Big Island so I had a garage sale. I sold Graces’ collection of shells. The shells she had for all those years and loved. I loved them too. I was thinking I was being practical by getting rid of them as it is expensive to ship “stuff” to the islands. “Stuff.” Stuff is a bitch for me, I don’t know when to let go.
The hardest part of grief right now is the loneliness. I have never felt so alone. I have lived by myself for 15 years and have loved it but since my mom died I have never felt so by myself. It is a horrible feeling. I don’t want to feel this way. I hear a voice “well change your attitude then.” I would if it was that easy.
I know it’s not the shells that I’m crying about. It’s the discomfort of life changing, of getting old, of losing the family I once had. Eventually this feeling will change. Not soon enough for this big baby.
The Buzzy Donahue Show 