Yesterday I was coming home from walking Polly the Beagle and as I was coming down our block I thought I saw Max in our front yard next to the street. He seemed to be wearing this green sweater I got him for Hanukkah that he likes a lot, and some grey sweatpants. (It’s been a warm winter.) He was hanging out near the curb and I thought he was looking up and down the street for Polly and me. Max is not a morning person and when I saw “him” my first thought was that someone had died and he was trying to find me to tell me so that we could make plans for the funeral.
Of course, there were several problems with this theory. First, we both have cell phones, and while my husband doesn’t function well first thing in the morning, I think he would do better than standing near the trash cans and gazing wistfully down the street. Second, this pseudo-Max had somehow regrown a head of fully black hair while the real Max’s hair has gone silver for many years. Finally, pseudo-Max was holding the leash of a large dog, possibly a Lab or one of those Springadoodle things. Within a few seconds I was able to reassure myself that this was not my husband alerting me of family tragedy, it was a random dogwalker on my lawn.
I guess I should just accept these kind of irrational thought incidents and not hate them so much. I can hear one friend or another telling me “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” While that’s kind of like the “practice self-care” advice I used to get, I guess random green sweater men, or random things, are going to scare me for some time to come. All I can do is try to surf this wave rather than be plowed under by it.
The First Year Without Sarah 