We met John at Hurts Donut to pull ourselves out of a travel-fog with coffee and glazed, sprinkled goodness. Our hugs were amplified and laughter light until the gravity of the day ahead weighed in. It wasn't until the end of the weekend that the real truth to the name settled on my heart... Hurts, Donut?
Seeing Dot was a shock to the system and my heart broke instantly. Sitting at her bedside, I sat willing her eyes to open and to hear her voice if not for my sake, but for the boys'. As the pain rolled in like waves, I was also washed with the gratitude of making it on time to be by her side, knowing there was no where else in the world we needed to be other than right here in this moment. We stayed throughout the day, leaving only to grab dinner and return so Jay could stay with her through the night. John and I returned to our hotel rooms for some much needed sleep but the phone rang at 1:15, pulling me from slumber with the sound of Jay crying on the other end of the phone, telling me she had passed on.
I woke John and we returned to Dot's room to say our final goodbyes and comfort Jay in the dark room. It was all quiet and still... it was grief and sadness, slow moving time that seemed as if the seconds barely ticked by at all as we waited for someone from Hospice to arrive. Waves of sadness crashed against us while moments of fond memories hit us in the face like mist against the rocks.
It was somewhere in the silence of the morning that gratitude overcame me again.. this time for my own sobriety. It was in these moments I was so grateful to be sober, that my 'need to drink' didn't come before Jay and John's pain, their grief, or take away their focus on Dot. It allowed me to be pulled from sleep in the middle of the night and be there for my husband, to be 100% present in the here and now.
In the first couple weeks of sobriety I had wondered how I would deal with loss, feared that it would be an instant path back to a bottle of wine, but it didn't. It was like a passage out of the poem "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
So I sat with my pain and thought of Dot...
She welcomed me the first time I met her. I never felt like I needed a filter with her, but learned quickly how to think fast and respond openly when her Catholic and my Agnostic worlds didn't align. I will forever giggle about when she dug out her 1980's 'etiquette' book when Jay and I were planning our wedding, filled with outdated societal norms my feminist self couldn't stomach. She taught me the joy of shopping at Von Maur. Dot reminded me of the simple pleasure of a tasty, hardshell taco. She raised an amazing man that I love and cherish, who cherishes and respects me.
And I hold dearly to the sound of her saying "I love you" as we parted during our last visit. It's warming to think that Dot and Bob are reunited for Valentine's this year.
Grateful I got to say "I love you" one last time..
Kristy Kreme
