When I was 15 years old, I got mono. I missed school for a
month and lay on the floral sofa in my parents’ sunken den for more than a
month. My dad said my tonsils were the largest he’d ever seen and I had the
second worst case of mono he’d ever seen. His pharmacist best friend made me a gargling
solution called magic mouthwash and I took my grandfather’s extra pain
medication. The pain was awful. The tiredness, unbelievable. I took a shower
one day and fell back asleep before I could dry my hair.
I thought the tiredness would never go away. Even when the
mono was over my body felt swollen, weak and like I had actually become a
different person. I feel like that today. My body is tired, my eyes are swollen
and my heart is broken. Grief is the new mono. It hit like a powerful wave that
propels your feet from under you. Your hands have nothing to grasp and air
escapes you. I am different. I will be different, everyone says so. The
tiredness will subside; the tears will be less often. I see the picture of my
puffy face at my 16th birthday party. The mono had changed me. Vulnerable,
weak, slow, tired. My eyes showed it. Grief shows it now too. There is a heaviness that is almost palatable.
That feeling reminds of a book I once read where the main
character has autism. He is a teenager and while he can be high functioning, he
has moments when his emotions overtake his actions into a full-blown fit. His
mother has made him a weighted quilt that I imagine feels like a larger version
of those vest you wear when getting and x-ray. The boy would run into his bed
and cover himself with the blanket. Later he would emerge, calm and back to
normal.
Grief feels like that blanket; like a thick, heavy, dark
quilt that is permanently fixed upon me. People can’t see the blanket but they
can see the effects. It is there adding weight to the life I was already
medicating through. It makes me move slowly through the grocery store
overwhelmed by the noise and unable to buy anything but cheese pizza and diet Pepsi.
It makes me short, snippy with my children. Can’t they see my blanket, my extra
sorry sorrow and stop whining, stop waking early from their nap. It makes me
wish I could escape even temporarily in my bed for I don’t have the energy for
any other escape.
But the pizza, the children, the rest are all reminders of
the man I lost. The dad that would comfort me, remind me of what a good mom I
am and put his hand in mine and stay its going to be OK. I made it through the mono thanks to the
wonderful care of my parents and their friends. And, I will make it through
this as well. I will be changed but that change seems necessary. His love and
care was so great, so full, that the loss must be that overwhelming as well. My
eyes may be puffy, my heart may be broken, but I am not without hope. In the vulnerable,
weak, slow moments, I am reminded of my dad’s comfort, His faith in a great
Savior, and the covering of Christ’s grace that I know.
