The grief is ongoing and doesn’t promise an end. I feel its hard presence underneath the soft pillows of daily life, breakfast with my husband, dinner with friends, babysitting the grandchildren. I walk through my day focusing on the positive; making a mental list of things I am thankful for – being reunited with my husband, a job that gives me enough challenge but not too much, my loyal friends who show up when I need them.

Christmas a year ago, we weren’t together. I was alone in a rented townhouse and Arthur was in rehab, recovering from the motorcycle accident that left him a paraplegic on the eve of our fifth wedding anniversary. Today I enjoy waking up next to him and falling asleep in his arms on our new adjustable mattress.

We’re learning to live our new normal. On my way home from work, I stop at a local grocery store to purchase bananas for him and his favorite Twelve Grain Wheat Bread. He sets the table and we take turns preparing dinner for each other. And sometimes the coffee he prepares the night before awaits me in the morning. He’s alive and we are together. But still, but still….

Nothing seems to be missing and yet something is missing. My former life. The life I wanted, hoped for, dreamed about. The trips we wanted to take but now won’t be able to. The motorcycle accident  changed everything.

Tonight I decorate our white Christmas tree; some of its branches have yellowed while being stored away. The last time I saw it was two years ago. We lived in my five-level house on Crispin Way. The color theme for the tree that year was black, red and silver. The tree topper was a large bow layered in those colors, cascading black and red ribbons down the tree. It was dramatically beautiful.

After thirty-plus years of theme trees, I had collected silver, pink, red and purple balls. And teal blue, brown, gold and white ornaments. Santas and angels and trains. Each year a new collection. During last year’s sudden, frantic move out of my home on Crispin Way (the house too big, impossible for him to manage,) I gave away most of my decorations. They had taken up one quarter of the attic. With no place to store excess, I kept red, white and silver ornaments.  Just enough for the one-level condo we moved into with its doorways wide enough for a wheelchair.

In our living room, Bing Crosby croons Christmas melodies from the stereo. I pull out boxes of red ornaments, small, medium. I search for the hooks I saw in the box. I pick up a wrapped ornament, peeling the tissue paper back to find a glass snowflake my youngest daughter painted for me a few years ago. And then. I can’t help it. My mind wanders, pulled back into the past. I try to stay in the present, rooted in this new space, my new reality. I try not to look back, to have regrets. There is nothing I can do about the past.

But still, while hanging a bright red ornament on the white tree standing in the corner, my throat clogs. Tears prick my eyes. I don’t see the white Christmas tree in front of me. Instead, I see another tree, a big, fat, real Christmas tree in front of a large picture window. I see long tables graced with gold chargers, antique Lenox plates and gold bamboo flatware. Friends and family fill the living room, dining room, spilling out into the kitchen and breakfast room. I turn to Arthur and say, “I am just so sad remembering my first Christmas in my house on Crispin Way. I was so happy to finally have a big living room. I bought the biggest, fattest tree I could find.”

That was 2000. We weren’t together in 2000. Now, it’s 2016. Gone. Sixteen years and my house. And his legs. There are times the reality hits me brutally in the face.

I want him to help decorate the tree. I want to include him and share the experience with him. His job in the house on Crispin Way was putting up the lights, both on the tree and on the porch, hedges, eaves. No porch, no hedge, no eaves this year. A balcony. We have a balcony that I will string with garland and colored lights.

“White or multi-colored this year?” I ask him. Undecided, I light up a set of white lights near the tree, then the multi-colored. White, we decide together.

I pull out the remaining strands of white lights from the boxes stacked with Christmas decorations. What can he do from his wheelchair?

“Would you check the lights?” I ask. He unravels them, plugs them into the outlet. Most of the lights don’t work or only half a strand works. It’s clear we need more and I’m the one who will need to get them. Sighing, resigned, I make do with what I have, stringing the twinkling white lights around the tree hiding the broken parts in the corner, at the back of the tree.

Then I lay out all the rest of the ornaments on the sofa, the way my mother did when I was little. I had forgotten that. Another memory from the past. Wishing mom was here; remembering the year she moved in with us, how I just drank in her presence. How I tried to include her in everything we did – decorating, taking a walk, visiting friends and family. Now she too, along with the house, is gone, moved into an assisted living facility two hours away.

He looks up at me from his wheelchair, glass ornaments on his lap. His sad blue-grey eyes pierce my heart. He looks small, fragile, in contrast to his hearty robust presence before the accident. He hands a silver ornament to me, then a small red one that I’ll put near the top of the tree, each one with a hook affixed. As I take the glass ball from his hand, it hits me. My mind has been playing tricks on me. He isn’t sick. I am not waiting for him to get better. This is permanent.

I am waiting for him to engage in life. To find out how much he CAN do. But I am not waiting for him to walk, to stand up and to put the Angel on the top of our Christmas tree for me. 

Angela DiCicco

5/18/17

The Italian Grandmama

Author of Better Than Before: One Couple’s Journey After a Tragic Accident

Contact me: theitaliangrandmama@gmail.com

Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/312477319482247/posts/888353735227933

The grief is ongoing and doesn’t promise an end. I feel its hard presence underneath the soft pillows of daily life, breakfast with my husband, dinner with friends, babysitting the grandchildren. I walk through my day focusing on the positive; making a mental list of things I am thankful for – being reunited with my husband, a job that gives me enough challenge but not too much, my loyal friends who show up when I need them.

Christmas a year ago, we weren’t together. I was alone in a rented townhouse and Arthur was in rehab, recovering from the motorcycle accident that left him a paraplegic on the eve of our fifth wedding anniversary. Today I enjoy waking up next to him and falling asleep in his arms on our new adjustable mattress.

We’re learning to live our new normal. On my way home from work, I stop at a local grocery store to purchase bananas for him and his favorite Twelve Grain Wheat Bread. He sets the table and we take turns preparing dinner for each other. And sometimes the coffee he prepares the night before awaits me in the morning. He’s alive and we are together. But still, but still….

Nothing seems to be missing and yet something is missing. My former life. The life I wanted, hoped for, dreamed about. The trips we wanted to take but now won’t be able to. The motorcycle accident  changed everything.

Tonight I decorate our white Christmas tree; some of its branches have yellowed while being stored away. The last time I saw it was two years ago. We lived in my five-level house on Crispin Way. The color theme for the tree that year was black, red and silver. The tree topper was a large bow layered in those colors, cascading black and red ribbons down the tree. It was dramatically beautiful.

After thirty-plus years of theme trees, I had collected silver, pink, red and purple balls. And teal blue, brown, gold and white ornaments. Santas and angels and trains. Each year a new collection. During last year’s sudden, frantic move out of my home on Crispin Way (the house too big, impossible for him to manage,) I gave away most of my decorations. They had taken up one quarter of the attic. With no place to store excess, I kept red, white and silver ornaments.  Just enough for the one-level condo we moved into with its doorways wide enough for a wheelchair.

In our living room, Bing Crosby croons Christmas melodies from the stereo. I pull out boxes of red ornaments, small, medium. I search for the hooks I saw in the box. I pick up a wrapped ornament, peeling the tissue paper back to find a glass snowflake my youngest daughter painted for me a few years ago. And then. I can’t help it. My mind wanders, pulled back into the past. I try to stay in the present, rooted in this new space, my new reality. I try not to look back, to have regrets. There is nothing I can do about the past.

But still, while hanging a bright red ornament on the white tree standing in the corner, my throat clogs. Tears prick my eyes. I don’t see the white Christmas tree in front of me. Instead, I see another tree, a big, fat, real Christmas tree in front of a large picture window. I see long tables graced with gold chargers, antique Lenox plates and gold bamboo flatware. Friends and family fill the living room, dining room, spilling out into the kitchen and breakfast room. I turn to Arthur and say, “I am just so sad remembering my first Christmas in my house on Crispin Way. I was so happy to finally have a big living room. I bought the biggest, fattest tree I could find.”

That was 2000. We weren’t together in 2000. Now, it’s 2016. Gone. Sixteen years and my house. And his legs. There are times the reality hits me brutally in the face.

I want him to help decorate the tree. I want to include him and share the experience with him. His job in the house on Crispin Way was putting up the lights, both on the tree and on the porch, hedges, eaves. No porch, no hedge, no eaves this year. A balcony. We have a balcony that I will string with garland and colored lights.

“White or multi-colored this year?” I ask him. Undecided, I light up a set of white lights near the tree, then the multi-colored. White, we decide together.

I pull out the remaining strands of white lights from the boxes stacked with Christmas decorations. What can he do from his wheelchair?

“Would you check the lights?” I ask. He unravels them, plugs them into the outlet. Most of the lights don’t work or only half a strand works. It’s clear we need more and I’m the one who will need to get them. Sighing, resigned, I make do with what I have, stringing the twinkling white lights around the tree hiding the broken parts in the corner, at the back of the tree.

Then I lay out all the rest of the ornaments on the sofa, the way my mother did when I was little. I had forgotten that. Another memory from the past. Wishing mom was here; remembering the year she moved in with us, how I just drank in her presence. How I tried to include her in everything we did – decorating, taking a walk, visiting friends and family. Now she too, along with the house, is gone, moved into an assisted living facility two hours away.

He looks up at me from his wheelchair, glass ornaments on his lap. His sad blue-grey eyes pierce my heart. He looks small, fragile, in contrast to his hearty robust presence before the accident. He hands a silver ornament to me, then a small red one that I’ll put near the top of the tree, each one with a hook affixed. As I take the glass ball from his hand, it hits me. My mind has been playing tricks on me. He isn’t sick. I am not waiting for him to get better. This is permanent.

I am waiting for him to engage in life. To find out how much he CAN do. But I am not waiting for him to walk, to stand up and to put the Angel on the top of our Christmas tree for me. 

Angela DiCicco

5/18/17

The Italian Grandmama

Author of Better Than Before: One Couple’s Journey After a Tragic Accident

Contact me: theitaliangrandmama@gmail.com

Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/312477319482247/posts/888353735227933