September
2013:
I
have never faced anything as hard as losing Milo, not in my fifty
years of life. My father is a recovering alcoholic. My parents divorced when
I was 9. My formerly stay-at-home mom left us alone and went to
work. We moved from a spacious ranch-y type home to a duplex. My mom
hit the bars and my dad remarried. I (eventually) became best
friends with my step-mother, but in 1986 she and my father divorced.
I got pretty close to being divorced in my 10th
year of marriage. Divorce sucks. I've had peri-menopause since I
was 37. I have been on antidepressants since I was 37. I moved
3,000 miles from family
and friends (including my first grandchild, who was still in the womb)
and yet I unequivocally state, “I have never
gone
through anything
as painful as losing Mighty Milo.”
It's
so funny, not my aforementioned devastation, which isn't funny at
all, but the opinions that we, or maybe I should just say, “I,”
because I don't really
know
what's in someone else's head, do I . . . the opinions that I
have
formed of myself. For instance, I have always thought of myself as
any open person, an open book, really—hahahahahaha! or in Spanish,
jajajajajaja!—but I can't write a journal, because I am afraid
someone
will read it. I can't talk about Milo, because I am afraid
someone will see me cry. I may share my thoughts, after I have
thought about them and formulated exactly how I feel, but on the fly?
Not really. Got to keep that happy face and not let anyone but my
husband see me cry. If I am arguing with my husband and we pull up
to the drive-thru window at McDonald's I immediately smile and
converse with the window person. One would never
know
that I was in the middle of verbally duking it out! Yeah, I'm open
alright. Perhaps, this is why I seem to be dealing with my pain
within my home and within myself and finding it so difficult to
accept the heartfelt condolences of loving friends and kind
acquaintances.
