Brzycki family: Doing "Stuff"

I dreamt about Ed last night and I remembered the dream when I awoke. It was not some movie-type dream where we were running through wheat fields or on the beach hand-in-hand. But instead we were together in a hospital laying together in each other arms. Ed was awake and talking to me and not in pain or struggling as he was in his last weeks. And our talk was not about romantic things...I remember talking about Foley bags! (Yes, I have bizarre dreams!)

My sleep pattern continues and it puzzles me. Within the first hour of going to bed, I awake. It feels as though I have been sleeping for a while, but no matter what time I go to bed, it is always within that first hour that I wake up. I guess the good thing is that I am falling asleep shortly after my head hits the pillow. And then I always wake up in the middle of the night. I adjust my eyes to read the time on the clock and it's always 2:00 am (okay sometimes it's 1:59). I know the call from the hospital to tell me Ed had passed was at 2:00 am. However, this sleep pattern began while Ed was in the hospital before he passed. It was always my greatest fear that I would get a call it the middle of the night so I always kept my cell phone on the night stand. And until 4/22, that call never came. But I always awoke around this same time every night. Not that I could tell you any deep significance of this, but rather, it is just an observation.

Yesterday I was motivated to do some things. There was a recycling fundraiser at Hopkins and a bottle drive for the 6th graders. So we loaded into my car two bags of cans/bottles and then some old computer components and brought them over. It felt good to get rid of some "stuff". We also stopped and dropped Dan's suit off at the dry cleaners on the way. Doing things is a good distraction and I'm proud of myself when people are nice and say "have a good day" and I don't bite their head off or "how are you today?" and I smile and lie and say "good".

Dan and I decided that we would plant the bush that was given to us by Missy, Dennis, Billy, and Courtney. It took us a bit to decide where we wanted to plant it. Ed was always good at this--he just had an eye for it. But we agreed on a spot near the driveway where Ed, just last year, created a small gardening area and had planted some flowers. As we planted the bush (thank God Dan is smart...he knew instinctively what to do) I recalled when Ed created this area--digging and planting and creating a beautiful space.

The day was beautiful so I putzed around in the yard pulling my little wagon that Ed bought me for Mother's Day a few years back (how I wanted my own fancy little garden wagon) and I picked up small branches and pine cones in the yard.

I raked the side yard and several times I thought how odd it was that only a day ago we laid him to rest and now here I am working in the yard as if nothing happened. That felt so wrong to me. How could we be doing "normal" things as if nothing happened and it made me sad and angry all at once.

Thankfully Dan was here to talk me back to being reasonable. That is what Ed did too. Whenever I put too much pressure on myself or I was being unreasonable, he always said the right things to make me feel better. And I knew that. I could voice my crazy thoughts that I knew didn't really make sense, but I also knew he would tell me what I needed to hear to make me feel better. And what will I do when Dan is not here to pick me up at these moments? When Ed told Dan that I was strong but that this would be hard on me and so he needed to be there to take care of me, I was a bit annoyed--how could he think I needed someone to take care of me? But now I know Ed knew this best. For it wasn't in big, loud ways that he picked me back up. But in small, quiet supporting ways that he helped me when I needed it. To keep my chin up, to put his arm around me, to say the right things at the right time. I could always count on that. And poor Dan will now carry that burden. But I guess it's not really considered a burden when you do it for someone you love.