Death part 2

We are in the intermission.

The death has happened. It was not drawn out or painful. I watched and comforted as the waves of emotion passed through us, first in tidal waves, eventually down to crests, and now to undulating swells. We hold here. We wait in the swells.

Tomorrow is the formal closing of life. The expected schedule of events are planned: service, grave, luncheon. Beyond that there is nothing. This is the eve and we sit here as if we are holding out breath. We know what is coming. We know what we are supposed to do. It’s simply not time to do them yet.

We began this intermission with howls and keening. Now, near the end, we fill them with meaningless activities. We watch movies, make crafts to give to no one;  we cook and start random cleaning projects we’ve been meaning to get to forever. Inside our minds we toss and turn the events, both future and past. We briefly contemplate our own mortality and how we would want our send off to be. We make promises to ourselves about the rest of our lives regarding our health, relationships, careers. We get angry at each other and bicker over things we won’t remember six months from now. We will remember the sting, however.

Tomorrow everything starts over again. The clock of our lives start ticking again, but we won’t know exactly what to do with those minutes at first. Life will seem surprisingly normal despite the new vacancy. We will look around and try to figure out how to live and fall back into the habits we had before.

Until it is our turn.