Endings are Usually Sad...

One of my favorite movies is 'Hope Floats,' and my all-time favorite movie quote is from that movie: "Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it's what is in the middle that counts. So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up, and it will."

Now, I know I'm not supposed to start here, but I need to: endings are usually sad. The ending of one thing leads to the beginning of another. And that sort of compounds your problem, because you have the sadness of one thing ending and the scariness of whatever your next thing is going to be staring right down your throat. And wow, do I ever feel that way right now.

But mostly, I'm just teetering on the edge of despondence that my husband is gone. I get up, and I go to work, and I do all the things that I'm supposed to do like pay bills and take the kids to the places they need to go, but my heart is not in it. My heart is broken, barren, and empty. I try to keep reminding myself that I need to start making changes, decisions, do something to recover financially from the loss of my husband, but I waver and wonder and get scared; then I get determined, and I think I'm tough until a fearful thought hits me...and then I waver again. Not exactly leading the charge these days.

I'm also thinking about some of the people in my husband's life. People who meant the world to him, people who meant more to him than his own brothers. I have not heard from these people. They do not call me. They do not have contact with me. I am nothing, I presume, to them. And yet I can't help myself at these moments, when I find myself coming to the only conclusion I can bring myself to based on their actions, that if the situation were reversed, if it was one of them who passed away, Chris would be there for their wives. Their wives would not be alone. Their wives would have someone to ask about the light switch in the bathroom that is acting funny, or someone to get the Wolf Spiders out of the window well in Grace's room. That someone would be my husband, because he took care of people; it's what he did. Is it too much to have expected that I would not have to be alone without even a phone call to see if I am alright? No, that's not too much to ask, and for the gentlemen who claimed my husband as a friend but have no time to check in on his wife, I say this: you don't deserve the faithful friendship my husband gave you all these years. And I don't say that for me, I say it because it offends me on behalf of my husband who would have asked each one of his friends, please, if anything happens to me, please check on Laura and the girls. They know this, and yet I hear nothing, I see nothing of them. C'est ca - it's on them. But it does hurt my feelings.

So, I am stuck in the ending part, haven't been able to get over these humps to look at my scary beginning. For me the scary beginning, by the way, has entirely to do with the financial aspect of losing my husband and making decisions about how my family and I are going to survive financially. But as for everyone else...I am working very hard at getting over your lack of fidelity to your friendship to Chris and working on how to adjust to life alone. And those two things have my hands pretty damn full, I must say.