It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity: A Blog Post About Grief, Loss, and the Big Clean-Up

 I've been searching my brain for the best title for this post... Something that feels clever, something that doesn't feel too whinny, something that has some levity to a dark topic... I landed here: It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity. I like it. Because while some days the grief is awful and I still cannot believe that Neil is gone, other days, it's the clean-up of Neil's life that drags me into the ground. So, perhaps a more fitting title is: It's Not the Grief, It's the Clean-Up. 

The clean-up isn't clean at all. It's very messy. It's messy with my emotions and it's messy in the process. Let's wander down this messy path for a bit. 

We all have things that we don't really want to do and our mind has a way of "helping us forget" to do them. Most of the "cleaning out" of Neil's life has been this way. "Oh, yes, I need to call the funeral home!" But, I'm in the shower. "Oh, yes, I forgot to call the funeral home. Ugh. It's 4:05pm and I know they close at 4:00. Okay, tomorrow." Tomorrow while I am driving in heaving traffic at 3:45pm, "!@$ I didn't call the funeral home again and I can't do it now!" And, so it goes, for every--single--task that needs to be done. Eventually, I wrestle myself, my brain, my organization, and my grief to the ground and I commit to doing each of the things I describe below, all of which happened in a span of about two weeks, minus the piano and car sagas. 

• I need to sell Neil's two oboes that he kept around to loan to students. So, I email the oboe dealer who a close friend recommended. I know she is legitimate. She describes her process. I ask what she needs from me in order to move forward. She needs my contact information and the serial numbers from the oboes. I provide this information and ask what I will need to do next and move onto other "wrap-up" tasks. No response for a week. Then after two weeks, I finally get around to contacting her again. This time I call her. She misunderstands who I am and thinks that I am looking to buy an oboe and describes how the oboe that I wanted already sold. I start at the beginning again. "Oh, dear. No. I'm contacting you because my life partner died and I'm trying to sell his oboes." We are back on path and things are moving forward. 
• I need to order a headstone for the cemetery in Kentucky where Neil's cremains will be buried. I call the funeral home and speak to the same lovely man I have spoken to before. He will email me the information about headstones the next day. The information never arrives. Three days later, I email the funeral home. No response. Two days later, I call. That lovely man is not available. I leave a message. He emails me the information the next day, filled with apologies. I forgive him. A few days later I remember this pending task. Dorothy and I consult on headstones and discuss wording. I email the Kentucky funeral home again: "Hello, I am looking at headstones number X and Y. How many characters can one place on a headstone?" The response that I get: "It depends on which headstone you want to use." I bang my own head on my desk... I finally remember to call them today at 4:05pm, of course. "I'm sorry. The office is closed. I can take a message for you or you can call back in the morning when they are open again." 
• When I was still in Massachusetts, I emailed the Massachusetts funeral home where Neil's cremains are being held, asking if I could stop by in the next few days to talk to someone about an urn for Neil's cremains. No one responds. I email again and explain that I have one day left in the region before I return to New Jersey. Could I stop by to select and pay for an urn for Neil's cremains. They did get back to me. And, when I visited, they showed me containers for sprinkling your loved one's ashes, "A little bit of sugar here, a little bit of cinnamon there." I laughed, but geez, I'm just not sure that is so funny. 
• I needed to turn off Neil's cell phone. I visited Verizon Wireless, where I was ignored for a short time before someone waited on me. They explained the process to me of when someone is deceased, they will forgive the remaining loan on a cell phone, if the phone is returned. Fantastic. I sit with the young man who is so young that his mother probably still picks his clothing for him, while he called Verizon central, and where I listened to them explain over and over, in a very loud voice that everyone in the shop could hear, that the owner of this cell phone has "unfortunately passed away." Each time we say this, I flinch a little, while I smile. We spend an hour on this grueling project. Then after an hour, Verizon central declares that that their system won't process the request. We should try again in 24 hours. Sure, no problem. I'd love to come back here in 24 ours and repeat this process. I explain that I'll be out of town and probably cannot come back for another week. "That's no problem. Come whenever you want." So, I head up to Maine to visit my mom and other family and to play with Acadia Winds. I return to Verizon Wireless one week later and explain the same information all over again. Neil dying. The loud talking. The proclamation over and over about a "deceased customer." Thankfully, this time, Verizon central declares the process a success. "We will charge your bill for the remaining amount of the cell phone and send you a box. You return Neil's cell phone in the box and then we reimburse you." I left. Project complete. Wrong. Not complete. It's been a week and the box from Verizon Wireless has not arrived. I'll get to call them again this week and start all over again. 
• Earlier this summer, I decided to list Neil's two grand pianos with a shop in Connecticut. One piano was at his home in Massachusetts and another was in his office at the University of Southern Maine. I learned all about the intricoes of piano movers: There are not many of them and of those that do exist, there are only a few you can trust and they are the tail wagging the dog of piano sales. They cannot give exact dates of when they will show up and they cannot give times. Add to this, the piano mover that the shop I was working with, responded to text messages in single word responses. As the estimated window grew near, each day I waited to see if I would need to speed drive from New Jersey to New England to meet the piano mover. I was told that there was also a scheduled drop-off of a piano in Hampton, NH, making it even more likely that this pick-up would go through as planned. The day finally came and I learned that the piano mover would start his day in Connecticut. Then he would meet me in Maine to remove Neil's Yamaha piano. Then go to Amesbury, to remove Neil's Mason & Hamlin. But, I needed to start my day in Amesbury and end it in Maine. See the conflict? But, I was communicating with a man who waited 24 hours to respond to text messages, with a single word response. So, I was not to argue. I woke in Amesbury, hustled on up to USM to meet them. They loaded Neil's piano. "So, I'll meet you in Amesbury next? Or, do you need to do that stop in Hampton, NH next before I meet you?"
  "Oh, we went there on the way up."
  "Oh, you don't say... Well, I'll see you in Amesbury shortly..." 
  I drove to Amesbury to meet them and then turned around and drove back to Maine, where I needed to land that night. I was assured two weeks ago that Neil's pianos would be listed on their website. I check every few days. I am patient. I am cleaning up other things. I email them. "The person in charge of doing those listings has been on vacation for two weeks."
  "Oh, you don't say..."
• If you follow me on social media, you have heard about the saga of Neil's car... I had to retitle it and register it. The inspection sticker was 6 months overdue. So, I parked it and got insurance for a "garaged vehicle." I decided to use Carvana to sell the car. They will pick it up. It will be easy! I won't need to inspect it or drive it. But... they don't always pick up cars. Instead, I needed to drive it to Norfolk, MA, about a 90 minute drive from Amesbury. But, first I would need to get the car inspected and change the insurance. Then I discovered that I'd lost the registration, but I couldn't get it inspected without the registration. I ordered another one. Turns out that RMV in Massachusetts won't just email you a PDF of your registration that you can print out. Instead, you get a receipt and a statement that your registration will arrive via the USPS. That worked enough to get the car inspected. But, wait, the car wouldn't start. Turns out that the last time I moved it, I left it running (it's a hybrid--super easy to do) and it ran the utility battery down. The utility battery is in the trunk in hybrid cars, or that's where one gains access to it. But, the trunk won't open when the utility battery is dead. Not on the key fob and not by pushing the button in the car. So, I got into the car, managed to get the back seat down, crawled into the trunk on a 90+ degree day, and pulled the handle to open the trunk door. My neighbor, Richard, charged the battery. Meanwhile, we discovered a hornet's nest in the hinge of the back passenger-side door. Richard took care of that, too. I finally got it inspected. I drove it to Norfolk, turned it over to a young Carvana employee who couldn't stop talking about a heat and who didn't know that the commuter rail was air conditioned, took a Lyft to the commuter rail station, and landed in South Station in Boston. A kind friend picked me up and drove me back to Amesbury.

So, it's not always about the grief. It's about the clean-up and how each one of these steps requires so much energy and strength. I summon the energy to make a phone call, to send an email, to visit a store, to schedule something, and it turns out that it's only the beginning of accomplishing said task. Each time, I have to re-summon that energy to face the truth, to explain again that Neil is dead, and what I need from that person. Exhausting! 

But, then, some days, it really is about grief. I hear a text message come in and my brain thinks, "Oh, maybe that's Neil finally texting me... Oh, Emily... Your brain is doing that thing again. Neil is not texting you." 

Then my brain tries to convince me that Neil might still be alive and how embarrassing would that be because I have held a memorial service and led everyone to believe that he is dead! And, then how distressed Neil would be if he was still alive and he hadn't been able to reach me or anyone else. But, he's not alive and this exercise is just something that my brain needs to do, as I learned about in the fabulous book (which I recommend), The Grieving Brain. 

Last night I had trouble sleeping, restless, and uneasy. This morning I dreamed that I was in a foreign land. I parked my car up high on a parking deck of some sort. It was beautiful, but strange there. In the dream I awoke and everything was under water, a kind of beautiful, clean, but green/blue water, like I saw in Switzerland last summer. I rushed over and yelled to my Amesbury neighbor, Richard, who was also in the foreign land, "I think we need to move our cars!" And, then I woke up. Distressed. Exhausted. I recounted this to my sister and she asked what I thought it was about.

I went to a doctor appointment today. Nothing special. Not worried. Something I can easily check off my list. The receptionist went through her questions: "Is your phone number still XXX? Is your address still the same, XXX? And, is Neil still your emergency contact?" 

Sometimes it really is the heat. Sometimes it's the humidity. Life four-and-a-half-months without Neil. 

Thank you for reading and for being on this journey with me.